What counts as plagiarism? Plagiarism is,

  the "wrongful appropriation" and "stealing and
  publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or
  expressions" and the representation of them as one's own original
  work.

as defined here,

and

  According to U.S. law, the answer is yes. The expression of original
  ideas is considered intellectual property and is protected by
  copyright laws, just like original inventions.

as mentioned here.

However, what is the definition for expressing ideas? What is the limit for person B(ob) to be have plagiarized person A(lice)'s work?

Clearly, Alice has to prove that she expressed it before Bob. But what counts as a proof?
Please consider the following scenarios:

Alice asks a question in StackExchange (or any other site), defining her problem in detail, and Bob somehow figures out what the answer is. Instead of writing the answer, he publishes the paper himself.
Alice writes a technical report (not a full paper) and publishes it in her website. Bob downloads the technical report, shares it with his teammates and soon, they publish a paper based on Alice's technical report.
Similar to (2), Alice has published a technical report in her website, defining a problem, with a first-attempt solution, which clearly can be improved. Bob, on the other hand, sees the technical report and finds a better solution. Then, publishes it. Now, Alice cannot publish her results because Bob's solution is better.
Alice spoke about the problem (or experiment) she is working on in an informal public place (e.g. cafeteria).  Bob heard it, and found a way to solve the problem (or carried out the experiment she intended to). He published it in a journal.

Important note: I am pretty sure, in all cases Bob has plagiarized Alice's work. What I am asking is, can Alice actually prove that her work is plagiarized? Especially, in case 4, can she show witnesses about her talking about the project first?

What if Bob was working on the same problem longer than Alice? Does just expressing the idea make it Alice's?

Probably the question cannot really be about plagiarism, literally, because most traditional senses of "plagiarism" refer to specific choices of language, rather than "ideas".

In the first three cases, Bob's behavior would be completely within the range of standard operating procedure. Public information is public. Yet, also, at the same time, many people would consider such behavior rude and mercenary. That's not the same as illegal or unethical, whether or not it is immoral.

(The fourth case is harder for me to simulate in my head, and I have no comment on it.)

Yes, one could imagine that mentioning a problem or idea publicly gives one some sort of right to it. However, in practice, this cannot possibly work, because it is extremely difficult to gauge what more is required to make an idea into something substantial. The only viable default is to imagine that whatever one says publicly is then truly available for all. One cannot control it, or guarantee "getting credit". Yes, the most virtuous people will give credit to the origins of their ideas, etc. ("Duh!")

If the real question is how to stake a claim on ideas in a fashion that prohibits others from doing anything with them ... as opposed to taking the idea, doing something, and giving credit for origins... I have no suggestion except keeping secrets.

EDIT: and, no, merely expressing an idea does not create "possession"... Not at all. But, among decent people, credit would be given. Can't rely on this, etc.


Secretly switching research topics and funding oddities When I joined my current PhD program I talked to my advisor about wanting to work on a different research topic than the one I was to work on initially and he said yes. I made clear I wasn't interested in working on the initial topic long term.
A year has past and I talked to him about switching over to the topics I am interested in - he says "OK" but wants to continue funding from the initial project which is a large multi-university research project with frequent meetings. He wants me to continue to go to meetings associated with the first project and basically told me that we can jerry rig the funding into supporting what ever we want. This sounds good except the rest of the people on the initial project continue to think I am working on the initial topic full time and are expecting results. I'm not really sure how to handle this.
The outcomes I can see are.

The advisor starts complaining to me about not working on the "funded" research topic when the rest of the team starts complaining. If this is an issue, I will find a different advisor or exit with MS and enter into industry since I have no interest in working on the initial topic long term and I made that clear upon entering.

The rest of the team starts complaining to me about not making enough progress on the topic under the idea that I am working on it, when the reality is I have no intention to work on it and the advisor knows this.

Basically, I feel I am put into a difficult situation where my advisor wants to keep funding under the guise of working on this project while not working on it and I feel I will take the brunt of the inevitable blowup that will come eventually.
This wouldn't be a problem if the topic was broad in the funding documentation but the writing for my advisors role in the grant is very specific.

This might be field-specific, but nonetheless: in my field (cond-mat), it is very, VERY common that people (phd students and postdocs) officially employed withing certain funding schemes bound to specific projects spend most of their time working on other stuff. In the end, what counts is that your supervisor is happy with your performance and your results, and lack of progress on the "funded" research topic is going to be his problem, not yours. It is very unlikely to hear a supervisor complaining about their students not progressing well on one topic while doing really well on the other. Of course, a certain level of mutual trust between you and your supervisor is necessary, but that is good to have in any case.


Informing your advisor that you are changing disciplines As a sort of follow up to a previous question, what is advice you would give for telling my MSci advisor I am switching disciplines (pure maths to statistics) for doctoral work? I will presumably ask him for a letter of recommendation. I do not want to come across as ungrateful for his work with me, but the direction of my current research with him has come to bore me. How do I tell him that is a major reason I am switching disciplines? Do I even need to disclose such? I am closing in on completing my work with him, so anything dealing with changing advisors right now is not an option.

Directly.

"I've decided to pursue a PhD in statistics."

Then after the inevitable discussion:

"Can you write me a strong letter of recommendation?"


How to make sure that my lecture notes do not infringe on copyrights? I'm trying to change the numbers in problems I write for examples I use in my class as well as assignments. However the problems are still inspired by the textbook. Are the problems sufficiently different from the textbook problems to not have copyright issues? There is also an issue of theorems and definitions. Authors of the calculus textbook certainly did not come up with these things. Is it OK to just copy them down in my lecture notes?

By the way I do share my lecture notes on Piazza and the course I'm teaching is multivariable calculus.

In the case of using problems from a text book, you would not need to worry about copyrights as long as you cite it (whether you change the numbers or not). It would be good to include a references section with the bibliography information of the book included in it.

Edit:

Academic textbooks are generally meant to be reusable for educational purposes. Having stated the above, depending on the country and the copyrights explicitly mentioned in the textbook, you might have to obtain prior permission from the publisher or author. (Please refer the discussion in the comments for details)


Is it ok as a junior PhD student to review ranked conference papers? I am a Ph.D. student in computer science and still in my first year. My professor just assigned a review task of a A-ranked conference to me in order to review research papers submitted by original authors (almost 8 papers).

So far, he wants me to take over the coordination with my fellow Ph.D. colleagues in my department to finish this task asap. So I have to distribute the papers with the right colleague according to his/her research interest and experience.

But, since I am still in the first year (even I am doing well 'as my colleagues say' and published two research paper in peer-reviewed conferences), I want to ask if is it common and normal thing in academia to let junior researchers review high-quality A-ranked conferences research papers, and whether the conference editorial chairs know about this conduct from assigned committee members as external reviewers.

Yes, this is pretty normal. Many conferences even have a "sub-reviewer" field in the submission form where the professor can note which of their students actually did the review.

The professor should conduct some quality assurance however. In my previous group we had a meeting to talk over our reviews, in my current group the professor takes our comments and checks them over before submitting them himself.


Filling "Educational Status" in GRE subject test application form I am going to apply for a GRE subject test (Mathematics). The application process is going to start in this July.

I want a suggestion regarding online filling of the application form.

One item in the form is "Educational status at the time you take the GRE test" and the options are :

Sophomore(second year),Junior(third year),Senior(fourth/final year),First-year Graduate student,Second-year Graduate student,Unenrolled(College Graduate),Unenrolled(Masters Degree),Other.

(Screenshot is given below)

Now I have completed 3 years Bachelor Degree and currently pursuing Masters(2 years). I am (and will remain at the time of taking the GRE test) in the final year of my Masters course.

So what option should I choose for the above item of the application form?

Please somebody help me. Thnx in advance.

If you've already completes a full year of study toward a master's degree, I'd lean towards "second-year graduate student." However, frankly I don't think schools pay a whole lot of attention to what label you use. They're much more interested in the recency and the results of the test.


Can I ask a reference letter from my Operating Systems professor while applying to Machine Learning programme? I am going to apply for a Computer Science master's programme in the field of Machine Learning or data science, but I asked a professor who taught me a different subject (Operating Systems) for a reference letter. Does it matter since these are two different subjects?

A good recommendation is one that highlights your potential as a researcher and your related technical and interpersonal skills. If the mentioned professor knows you and can vouch for your potential in these areas, the recommendation will be beneficial. Recommendations are not focused on what courses the professor teaches. A good recommendation can even come from a non-CS professor (but preferably in a related field like EE) whom you have worked with and knows you personally.


Experiences with Gradescope? I'm teaching my first class this semester, and was quite happy with Gradescope when I used it as a TA last semester. Does anyone have experience using Gradescope with large (100+ student) classes for evaluating exams?

Is it worth having a teaching assistant help me scan the quizzes?
Is there anyway to structure my quiz to streamline the scanning process?

I have taught several large classes (100-400 students) with long-form hand-written exams, all of which we graded using Gradescope.  I cannot recommend Gradescope highly enough.

  Is it worth having a teaching assistant help me scan the quizzes?

If you have a proper high-speed, high-capacity scanner, the actual scanning is tedious but relatively painless.  Scanning 300 14-page (7 double-sided sheets) final exams---a bit more than 4000 pages total---took my TAs about four hours, plus another 15 minutes to associate scanned exams with students.

  Is there anyway to structure my quiz to streamline the scanning process?

Have students write answers on the exam handout itself.  Scanning printer paper is infinitely easier than scanning notebook paper or blue books.
If possible, print the exam handouts with a visible border 1/4" from the edge of the paper, and warn students that anything written outside this margin won't be scanned, and therefore won't be graded.  You may also want to indicate a region near the staple; the easiest way to remove staples is to cut off a corner of several exams at once using a paper cutter.
Print and scan everything double-sided.
Gradescope automatically splits large PDF scan into separate exams if every exam has exactly the same number of pages.  For long-form exams, include a small number of pages of scratch/overflow paper in the exam handout, and scan them all, even if they're blank.
Have a clearly delineated box on the first page of the exam where students should print their names.  This will allow Gradescope to automatically associate most of the exams with the correct students using OCR.  This also helps Gradescope streamline the manual matching of the few exams it can't match automatically.
Ask students to write their answers to each question in a designated box in the exam handout.  Then if you can tell Gradescope where each question's box is, it will display only that box by default when you are grading that question.  (The entire exam scan is still available, however.)
In particular, for true-false, multiple-choice, or short-answer questions, Gradescope can cluster similar answers together, again using OCR, so that (to first approximation) you only have to grade each distinct answer once.  (I believe this feature requires a more expensive license.)
Include a fake student in your roster, and use it to upload reference solutions in advance, so that you can set up rubrics in advance.  (Gradescope doesn't let you establish rubrics for an assignment until it has at least one submission for that assignment.)


What kind of audience can I expect for a scientific talk at University? I have been invited as a Guest speaker to a scientific workshop at a University. I know there will be faculty members but will there be students present as well? This is my first time as a Guest speaker, so any information of what happens in such events would be helpful.

The answer to this question will vary from school to school. Typically speaking, you could expect faculty, staff scientists, post-docs, and graduate students at a generic guest speaker's presentation. As such, you might aim your talk for an audience of educated scientists with familiarity to your field (but not experts of the field).

If you want more certainty, you could ask the organizer who invited you what audience you can expect.

If you are comfortable adapting to your audience on the spot, and you are comfortable being somewhat informal, you could ask for a show-of-hands at the beginning of your talk. E.g.: "Show of hands, how many post-docs are there in the audience? ... Graduate students? ... any undergraduates?"


When changing fields, should I focus more on describing past research or connecting it to the new area in my statement of purpose? I want to change my field from molecular biophysics to theoretical ecology. While they are basically required some same basic background (physics, math, programming), the rest is quite irrelevant. In my current draft of this part, about a half is about this the problem and the result of the work, another half is for my contribution and what I've learnt. Having said that, should I focus less on describing the work and leave space for the thing that will be useful for the next research?

Below is copy from Choosing research ideas to include in a statement of purpose.

  What have you already done? What problems have you solved, or at least worked on? What independent projects have you been part of? What were your key contributions? What did you learn? What did you teach the world? How do your results compare to what was already known? What original ideas are you most proud of? Be specific, technical, credible, and confident (but not arrogant). Refer the reader to your web page for more details. Have a web page with more details: preprints, project reports, source code, videos, etc.

I am going to focus my answer on your original question statement (but without getting involved in editing the official title of your Question):

When changing fields, should my past research be written in a way that brings out the maximum relevance to the new area?
In my current draft of this part, about a half is about this the problem and the result of the work, another half is for my contribution and what I've learnt.

Good.  This is exactly what they're looking for, in that section of your essay.

Having said that, should I focus less on describing the work and leave space for the thing that will be useful for the next research?

No, you can let the "previous work" section stand alone.  That's the section where you show the committee that you have done good science, and that you can speak about it in an understandable way.
Just to make sure we're on the same page -- your essay is going to have another major section, where you get to be imaginative about what you would like to do in the new field, right?


Transition from Finance to Applied mathematics Currently studying a Bsc in Accounting & Finance. During my studies if found an increased interest on subject such as Stochastic calculus, measure theory and mathematical analysis. I want to pursue a Msc in Applied Mathematics but wondering whether the transition is possible.

I would be pleased if someone could provide me certain similar cases/experiences or some advice with reference to study material.

As with any application, you need to make your case. But if you have studied those three math subjects and have a good understanding of them, I think you have a basis. It might be especially possible if your future studies apply math to the financial realm, of course.

It would be harder to get into a program with admissions systems that mostly check boxes of requirements rather than looking at individuals. If the admissions process gives you access to professors and potential advisors it would be easier, provided that you can convince someone that you can manage the early courses that might be required.


What is the proper way to cite a mathematical theorem in a paper? I have questions on how to properly cite a mathematical theorem in order to use it in a paper.
For example, assume that I need to apply an existing theorem from a published book 1.
Theorem 1 [book 1]. statements...
Proof: Refer to [book 1]
My supervisor suggested that if I put the citation remark after Theorem 1, then all my writing and wordings have to be identical to the original one in [book 1]. However, if I state this theorem by my own words, with possible changes of notations or similar things, then I cannot put the citation remark after Theorem 1. In that case,  I should refer it at the beginning of the proof of this theorem as I have shown above.
So what is the proper way to cite a theorem in a situation like this? I personally prefer to state an exiting theorem in my own words. This is because formulations of theorems are not always optimal, and also the notations generally have to be changed in accordance with my writings.
Note that I need to apply the equations in Theorem 1 in my subsequent writings, so simply quoting this theorem and applying its conclusions may not be a good choice.
Thanks a lot!

On the one hand, you sort of don't need to worry about it, but it's best to make your advisor happy (especially if they are a co-author).  Here are my thoughts.

Your advisor ought to have experience with this sort of thing in general.  So as a rule, it's good to take their opinion into consideration.
The journal you ultimately submit to will have people whose job is to make sure you use any nuanced writing rules like this correctly.  And the formatting and such that you choose will probably be changed by the journal any way.
I've never heard of any rule like you mention, and I don't think there's any expectation in the community about this.  Citations in math papers are always weird.  They have no standard format (the journal will do the format they like for you), and you don't have to worry so much about exactly quoting somebody per se.
My rule of thumb is that when I cite something, I always try to credit previous literature for everything I can.  I ask myself "is what I'm writing obviously equivalent to or implied by the theorem they wrote?"  If so, I would simply phrase the result in my own words and credit them for the theorem.  You can do this easily, and you don't have to mention a proof at all unless it's unclear how their result implies your statement.

For example, I would write something like:

  We recall the following theorem due to Smith [4].

  Theorem 3: All objects have property.

And the theorem number is just whatever number would be next in your paper.  Or you could do

  The problem was originally asked by Smith [4], who addressed the situation when things are nice.  In particular, she proved.

  Theorem 3 (Smith [4]): All objects have property.

Or if it's very hard to find where in [4] Smith wrote that theorem, you could say

  Smith proved the following, which appears as theorem 13.b of [4]

  Theorem 3: All objects have property.

Or if you want to emphasize that what you're stating is easily implied by Smith, I might say something like

  We now use a special case of a theorem of Smith [4] recalling here only what we need.

  Theorem 3: The objects I like have property.

Note that in all of the above cases, it wouldn't be appropriate to cite a proof or anything after the theorem statement.  The result should either be very obviously the same as the paper you cite, or it should be very obviously implied by it.  If you want to use something similar to Smith's theorem, but it's not obviously the same or implied, then I suggest something like the following.

  We now appeal to a general theorem of Smith [4], which states

  Theorem 3: All objects have property.

  By regarding her (thing) in (our setting), we obtain (by this hint of a proof sketch)

  Corollary 4: The things we care about do the thing we care about.

If needed, then say more about why this follows from Smith's result.  If this connection (and stating Smith's result in the first place) is too much, then you might want to consider putting that part in an appendix and just saying something like "the following is obtained from a theorem of Smith [4], but for ease of reading this connection is discussed in appendix A."

One final piece of advice would be to simply read a lot of well-written papers and see what they do.  Look in places that have good exposition even if it's not in your area.  It's not important to understand the math in those articles so much as how they write and how they handle these nuances.

You have a lot of freedom, and any choice you make is likely going to be fine as long as you thoroughly credit previous authors and you make your paper easy to read.


How to find the Endnote template for CJPH submission? I have been searching and trying out to find the Endnote citation style to match the one required for the Canadian Journal of Public Health submission for hours, with no success.

It demonstrated that the CJPH style here. It also mentioned that "The style for references is based on the ICMJE Recommendations." I have looked up and searched for the endnote citation template for keywords related to CJPH and ICMJE, but I couldn't find the the one that matches.

From the wikipedia page of the ICMJE Recommendations, it looks like the citation style you need is some implementation of the well-known Vancouver system. You should already have a few different versions of it, as I think they are part of the standard EndNote installation. If not, you can easily find and download them from the Internet.

I would then choose the one that looks the most similar to what your journal asks for, and do the (hopefully) minor modifications necessary to make it exactly as the journal requires. You can find plenty of online resources about  citation-style editing in EndNote. This one, for example, seems to be a nice introductory video that might be useful, if you don't have any previous experience.


What are the pros and cons of dealing with a very large dataset in qualitative research? What are the pros and cons of dealing with a very large amount of qualitative data as a sole researcher?

Obviously, required time and resources come to mind, but what else?

There are no pros or cons just as there are no pros or cons to having $1,000,000 versus $1,000 to work with.  You are less constrained.  That is just a fact. The range of things you can do goes way up.  If you don't like things being larger, you can voluntarily choose for them to be smaller by sampling.  If you have a more specific question regarding methods, you should ask it on Cross Validated.


Do I mention that I was an adjunct on my CV I am currently an adjunct professor.

I'm wondering how to best label this on my CV.

Specifically, should I use "Adjunct Professor", "instructor", "instructor of record", etc. as my job title?

I think adjunct (unfortunately) has a negative connotation associated with it, so I'm worried that my experience will be devalued if I include adjunct in my job title/description.
Does using just "Professor" imply that I am a full -time tenured professor?

So what is the best way to go about titling my adjunct position at this institution on my CV?

Use the job title assigned to you by your institution.  You don't really have any choice about this.

If the nature or duties of your job were significantly different from what is usually understood by that title (in the culture of the university where you are applying), you can add a note of clarification.

Adjunct Professor is usually understood (in the US at least) to mean a non-tenure-track part-time teaching position in which you are instructor of record for your courses, and have minimal research or service requirements.  If that accurately describes your job, then you don't need to list anything more than the title.

The job title Professor, without any other adjectives, is understood to mean "full professor," a senior tenured position whose duties may include research and service as well as teaching.  Listing this as your position would be severely misleading and might be considered fraudulent.

It's true that the generic noun professor can be used to describe anyone who teaches at a university.  But a CV is expected to contain your specific job title, not a generic term describing your job.


Moral dilemma in unwittingly being paid to complete a student's work I am a computer science freelancer who takes on medium-sized projects I can complete in a month or less. I was approached by someone who wanted a set of 12 tutorials at least 500 words each about certain programming topics with code examples and workouts. We talked payment and I accepted this project and got to work. I have been using GitHub to write the pieces and publish them privately on my account.

Here's where things get tricky. After I had completed the tutorials, but before I sent them to him, he disclosed to me his full name and the institution that he attends. It turns out that this was his honors project for an undergraduate major in Computer Science. He has already paid me.

My dilemma is this: I would like to return his money and not send him the tutorials and have him fail his school project. However, I have worked on this for 3 weeks, and I obviously need the money.

In our original conversation, he made no such mentions of secrecy, so at the very least I could make the GitHub repository public and still accept his payment.

My question is this: What is my best course of action? I don't want him to submit that work as his own. However, I still would like to get paid as he did not confine to me he was planning on plagiarism until the very end.

I think you should take the money, try to retain as much of my copyrights as possible (the law may help you do this implicitly rather than explicitly, which may be helpful), and refrain from doing anything else until after the student misuses your work.
Why? Consider that:

Plagiarism is not a crime.
Copyright violation is a crime.
Neither has occurred yet.
You have done the work in good faith.
You are not responsible for preventing others from plagiarizing your work.

Refunding him and keeping the work would be unfair to you because you have already done the work. You have every right to keep the money for the work you have done.
Refunding him and keeping the work would be unfair to him too, since he has every right to obtain the work from you that he has paid you for and waited for. Even if you refund his money, you can't refund the time that he has spent waiting for you to do the work, so you would arguably be liable for damages too.
If your work is actually plagiarized, then you will have a basis for complaining academically and/or legally, and it will be more difficult for your client to view you as a "snitch", etc. if he violates your copyright.
If you let his institution know before the deed occurs, then I'd argue you're doing something morally wrong: you're getting him into trouble for an act that he has not even committed yet. (This might be fine for dangerous actions, but this isn't one.)

Clarification:
I should clarify that my answer is only intended for a "generic" freelancer, not someone who has something else at stake too.  For example, if you yourself were e.g. a professor/graduate student/public figure/etc., then you could earn yourself a bad reputation among your colleagues by giving him the work even if most other people would consider what you do to be entirely ethical/moral/righteous. In that case, the wisest career move for you may not be the same thing as what a typical freelancer might or should do, so keep in mind I'm not addressing such situations.


Authoring unverified common-knowledge statements in papers about quality software-engineering? Writing a software-engineering paper where I'm saying things like:

  Quality software-engineering/software-design means developing modularised, tested, documented, maintainable, extensible and understandable source-code.

But that sounds a little grandiose especially without multiple references. I can find many textbooks & articles which say similar, but I can't find the first reference (have gone through Google Scholar as far back as the 1940s).

Is there some special way of referencing, e.g.: do I just take the most popular relevant textbook and quote that?

This doesn't sound like the sort of thing for which it is meaningful to have a "first guy that said this" reference for, unless you are writing specifically about the history and development of modern coding standards.  And even then it's difficult or impossible to find a single, definitive source.  More than likely the ideas emerged dynamically from a whole host of forces and in multiple people/locations, rather than any one person who "said it first" and everyone else followed the lead of.  What is "good" and "quality" is largely a matter of convention and opinion, after all.

Having hundreds of textbooks and thousands of research articles that support it is more than sufficient to establish it as a common mantra, or whatever you want to call it.  If you can find a respectable book that is specifically about modern coding practice and its (historical) development, you could reference that as your support for the claim.  Otherwise referencing a few major, influential texts that make the same claims would be good, though you may want to be careful with your phrasing.  Citing them as proof this is the one "right" or "universal" way to do coding is arguably misleading and circular; saying that you take the same approach as those authors, however, makes no claims to objective truth and simply makes clear an assumption to the reader.


How should I handle an abusive research mentor as an undergrad? The professor I do research with often puts me down for making mistakes and frequently calls me an idiot. I don't know the appropriate way to respond. I cannot just leave, since I still want to go to grad school. But this is severely affecting my mental health, and I have been suicidal recently as a result. I put a lot of effort into trying to be positive and friendly around him, but I'm not sure this has been particularly effective.

The research I do with him is good in a technical sense; we have some solid results and have published at very good conferences together. He has agreed to write me a good letter of recommendation (but actually hasn't written it yet) and I believe him if only because he seems to care strongly about his reputation among his peers and writing me a poor letter would reflect badly on him. I do not know what to do.

How close are you to graduation? You have basically three paths here:

Stop working with your advisor. Depending on how bad it has gotten, escalating levels of this solution could be trying to get another member of your advisor's group to take over working with you so you have to see him less, to find a new advisor to continue your current work, to take a semester of mental health leave and start over on a new project afterwards, or even to drop out.
Try to make your advisor behave better. You know your advisor best and can better judge what he would be likely to respond to. Maybe if you just told him "Please don't call me an idiot," he would stop. Maybe if you could get the ear of a sympathetic member of your faculty, they could take your advisor aside and tell them to be more gentle. If your university offers counseling, maybe a counselor could help you raise the subject with him and negotiate some rules for how to work together. Maybe you can raise a formal complaint somewhere (dean, ombudsman?). (The last one will probably torpedo your chances of good recommendation letters, but might let you graduate without having to take more abuse.)
Tough it out. If it's only a few more weeks, maybe deciding that you choose to take it just a little bit longer because you think that the rewards (graduation, recommendation letters) are worth it helps you get through it. This also needs a good support network. Talking things through with a therapist or counselor can help distance yourself emotionally from your advisor's comments. Let your friends console you. Seek affirmation from other places: are there any other activities where you are doing well? Classes that you are excelling at? A hobby that produces things you can be proud of?

No matter which option you ultimately choose, I encourage you to at least informally talk to a university counselor and whoever handles complaints to be aware of all your options. For each of the options, what process exists? What are the upsides/downsides? Make a list, and then make a deliberate decision. Sometimes, even just knowing that you could leave and do something else but are actively choosing to stay in your current situation for now because you feel the recommendation letters are worth it makes all the difference.


Best way to respond to a request for CV A couple of weeks ago I met this person who had come to our institute for an invited talk. Her domain of work was same as my area of research. Later I discussed with her some of the topics and asked her if there are any openings in her company (she is in the industry as an R&D head). She responded: "Send me your CV, I will look into it."

Now I want to write to her. How do I begin with that? Should I send my CV in the first mail itself? If so should I also include a cover letter? What's the best way to introduce myself?

Well... there are lot of important variables not mentioned, but this is how I will generally draft it:

Dear Madam Give-me-a-job,
It was great talking to you after your talk on Jan 17th, 2014 at
My-Little-Institute. I found your experience and nature of your job
fascinating. In our conversation about pursuing a career in
Whatever-you-are-working-in, you were so kind to offer giving comments
to my CV. And if you don't mind, I would love to take up your
generous offer.
Attached please find my CV. I would love to follow up with you in two
weeks and set up a phone conversation to discuss how I can strengthen
my profile so that I can be a more competitive candidate in this job
market. Thank you very much for your time, and I look forward to your invaluable critiques and suggestions.
Sincerely yours,
Penguin Knight

My approach:

Don't treat it like a lead to a job. She might just say that to be nice. If I come off too pushy, I may not even get a chance listening to her comments. For that reason, I will not attach a cover letter that details my experience, research interest, and why I am suitable for the position. There isn't even a job, a catch-all cover letter is difficult to write and hard to be made impressive.
Ask for follow up and act on it. A lot of the "send me your CV" didn't get follow up because the candidate really just "sent the CV" and that's the end of it. I specifically tweaked it as wanting advices from her, making it easier for both parties to engage in another conversation.
No need to worry about "what if she really just gives me comments?" She probably knows and remembers. If my CV is really good, she will mention the availability of openings. If there isn't or I am not good enough, then I can use this chance to flush out weaknesses and improve them.


Should I include my MSc admission in my CV? I've been admitted to an MSc programme, however I will probably have to postpone it for a year. Now I'm applying for a job and I'm trying to update my CV a little bit. Should I mention my MSc admittance, or it has no value at all?

Thank you in advance for your time and answers.

I think it depends on where you are applying.  If you are applying to career-type positions, potential employers may be hesitant to hire someone they know will be leaving in a year, or less.  In that case, I would leave it off.

On the other hand, if you are looking for an internship, or a research assistant position, adding it may help build bridges between organizations.  For example, if you have the opportunity to work with someone who has a connection to the MSc program, this is a great way to start building a network.  This was the case when I worked in a lab between undergrad and grad school.


Can I enroll to graduate school (PhD) in Germany? I'm finishing Masters degree in Computer Engineering at university of Russia in this year. GPA of my Master diploma is 4.9-4.0 from 5. I have 3 publications in russian scientific journals. However, my bachelor's GPA is 3.5 from 5 and I think it is main problem for enrolling to PhD. My past low level of Bachelor's degree correlated with the lack of interest in Science. At the moment my interest in Science growing more and more, than more I understand in the research. I'm studying some courses on educational platforms such as Coursera and edX for to correct my past mistakes and for increase my scientific outlook.

Do I have any chances for enrolling to PhD in Germany? I don't pretend to top universities.

The formal requirement for enrolling as a PhD student at a German university will typically be to have a Master's degree, potentially with some (modest) grade requirements (on the Master's, the Bachelor wouldn't matter); and to obtain the agreement of a Professor to act as your PhD supervisor. The latter of course is a very individual decision.


Is it okay to talk to the editor about the topic of paper or whether if our manuscript is suitable for the journal before submitting? So this is my first research paper, I just wanted to know whether these things are considered unethical or idk creepy way to lure your paper in or its totally okay and people do that.

To give you some context, out of my 13 journal papers I asked the editor twice. Once it was a regular issue, once it was a special issue. Once the paper in question was accepted afterwards, once it was rejected and landed elsewhere.
I wrote typically something along the lines of:

Dear %editor_name%,
I am considering to submit my paper "On the sepulation in the context of the Mars phase" for possible publication in your "International Journal of Highly Reputable Research". In this manuscript I exploit the stigma of sepulation in the context of the planetary movement. Specially, the Mars phases were never before regarded in this context.
The abstract of my paper is: %abstract in full%
My article contains 4123 words (including footnotes, references and figure captions). It contains 5 color figures and 23 references. I have never published this article before nor have I submitted it to any other journal or conference.
Would such an article be of interest for your journal? Please let me know if you feel that my focus on Mars phases would pose a problem for acceptance in your journal.
Thank you very much. I am looking forward to hearing from you.

Hope this helps.
I have never perceived such queries as bad or damaging. But in most cases they are not needed, as you can tell the relation of your paper to the journal well enough from the aims and scope.
It's the intersection of the actual journal topic with something else, when you might want to ask the editor beforehand.


Why do some professors not recommend any text books for a course? I took a semester where a professor was teaching Statistics. He gave out no lecture materials nor the name of any text books.

When I asked him for a text book name, he gave me a name of a 900+ pages' book.
I could not find anything relevant in the text book which matches his lectures.
Finally, I quit the course.

The same thing happened whilst undertaking my Numerical Analysis course.

See this YouTube video named Introduction to Computer Graphics at 16:31. This is okay may be for 3D computer graphics. But, I guess, not good for math.

Why don't some professors recommend a text book for a course?

Reasons why I do not use textbooks:

Most textbooks in my experience are bad.
Most students do not read them (probably because they are bad).
They are expensive.
They do not align with how I want to teach the course.
I can provide the relevant subset of content myself.

I can't see a reason to use a textbook in my courses other than for supplemental material (even then, I would much rather point them to some free PDFs/slides from various faculty that are online).


Semester units versus credit hours This graduate policy handbook states

  "A master’s student may transfer up to 4 semester units or 6 quarter
  units of course work completed as a graduate student at another
  institution."

In this context, does "4 semester units" refer to 4 credit hours or 4 graduate courses?

"Semester units" are up to the definition of the school. Some people call a "unit" one course; some people call a "unit" a fraction of a course.
For example, just among the US schools that I have been affiliated with (or visited for an extended period of time):

Yale: 1 semester course = 1 unit
Harvard: 1 semester course = 1/2 unit
Princeton: 1 semester course = 1 unit
MIT: 1 semester course = 9 or 12 units
UConn: 1 semester course = 3 or 4 "credit hours"

So you definitely need to consult the individual school catalog to see what system they're using.


Career options for an astronomer outside of academia? I know there are similar questions addressed on this site, but the answers are geared to a different skill set to what (I suspect) most astronomers/astrophysicist will have.

I'm currently halfway through a PhD in radio astrophysics (in India) and I'm not too sure that I want to stay in academics, so I'd like to explore what options I have outside of academics.

So my PhD is geared more toward data analysis, so I have a fair knowledge of C & Python for numerical processing but not for more general purpose computing (but I am trying to teach myself some of that).

I'm aware that this is a vague question, but what options do I have if I choose to leave? I understand that data analysis skills are quite valuable, and it would be nice to continue in a research-like climate because I really do enjoy research.

I moved from a PhD in Astrophysics to an industry job some years ago, so I can share my experience, as well as the experience that a number of my fellow grad students had.  This was in the United States, so things may be different in other countries.

The basic idea is that as far as most industry is concerned, a PhD in astronomy/astrophysics is the same as physics, so any job looking for a physics background will do.  Jobs looking for a mathematics/statistics background are probably close enough as well, and worth applying to.

Your most marketable skills are your ability to code and do math/statistics while working with data.  This is EXTREMELY valuable in industry.  Your knowledge of astronomy and physics is likely not very valuable except in some very specific jobs.

Some specific fields that aggressively hire people with PhDs in astronomy in large amounts:

1) Quantitative Finance - The financial world hires a lot of people with PhDs in math/physics/stats to be quants.  There are a lot of pros/cons to this field, but it pays well at least.

2) Defense Contractors - This is very much a research type environment.  However, this almost always requires that the applicant have US citizenship in the United States in order to obtain security clearance.

3) Software Engineering - A background in coding, data analysis, and mathematics is very desirable. You will likely want to brush up on your programming since scientific programming is not usually software engineering, as well as your statistics.

You can try for more specialized fields like medical imaging, but it is often difficult to compete with the physicists with specialized backgrounds in that specific niche in my experience.


What research shows how assessment design can minimize plagiarism? This past semester has seen an unusually high number of students plagiarizing in one of the subjects I teach. To be specific, it was five times the previous maximum I had seen. This has lead me down the path of digging into ways to reduce plagiarism from my students.

I read this question which was great and had several good answers but it was broadly focused. I would like to dig a bit deeper into one specific area: How can assessment design be used to minimize plagiarism?

I realize that exams are less likely to have plagiarism but I want to avoid those because they are timed and I don't want my students to be assessed in non-real-world situations like that. So, I want the assessments to be take-home but I don't want to put more constraints on this question.

I really want to know what research has been done showing the effect of different assessment design and how it has impacted student-plagiarism (with a focus on what minimizes plagiarism)?

According to your profile, you teach management. So we are looking at writing, rather than equations?

This review article discusses steps taken at a university in Australia, and provides some lit review. It is open-source. In regards to research on assessment design, it recommends:

Regularly change the questions/prompts
Projects should require original analysis rather than be summaries or definitions.
More marks should be associated with the process of project creation, rather than the final draft. Examples of intermediate assignments are research journals, annotated bibliographies, and first drafts.
Change product from text-only to something else - a poster, an oral presentation.

Above is the "answer" to your question. You may also want to consider why your plagiarism is suddenly increasing. The linked article points out that many students plagiarize because of lack of training in how to effectively write without copying a source. If you have a cohort of students from a background of poorer preparation, I would recommend a module on how to write without plagiarism.

Best of luck.


What could be the possible consequence if a professor knows about a student's review? Suppose, a student left a negative comment about a professor in the university's confidential review page. Somehow the professor guesses who the student was.

What can the student do if the professor intentionally gives the student bad grades?

Can the student file a request for a exam paper review to the dean?

How would the whole situation work out for the student?

This totally depends on country, culture etc. (unfortunately, no country tag is given).

A student can of course always file a request. However, this situation sounds so unlikely (how should the student know that the professor guessed and takes revenge) that, without any more evidence, this request will always certainly be dimissed. (And there are also places where no stuff members cares at all about any requests, even if there was proof given.)


What is a "forward-looking word"? My PI AT A UNIVERSITY has decided that words like "confirmation" are "incremental". Thus, they are banished from all our NIH proposals, which we write and submit 100% WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF RESEARCH DONE IN A UNIVERSITY. Instead, he wants "forward-looking words".

What is a "forward-looking word" IN A UNIVERSITY and what "forward-looking word" means "confirmation"?

I think he means that "confirmation" is something you affirm about a thing that already exists. He wants wording that suggests you are looking at things that don't yet exist. Or rather, things that are not yet known. Something you intend to do with the grant that is new and novel, not something that sounds like it is just same-old-same-old, even if it isn't Discover is a good word. Search is another. Research is a search for unknown truths.

If you have an hypothesis that will be stated in the grant you don't want to (say you will) "confirm" it. You want to discover the underlying truth.

But bounce this idea off the PI first.


Is it appropriate to mention lack of expertise in certain area as limitation for master's thesis? I'm currently finalizing my master's thesis and am working on the discussion and limitations part.

I did some relatively standard statistical tests on my data, which gave promising results. My supervisor suggested trying some machine learning to create a predictive model. While I did take a basic machine learning course during my master's, I am by no means an expert in this area.

Now, my machine learning model performed pretty okay. But, since I only know some basic machine learning, I'm sure better results might be achieved with other machine learning methods I have not tried due to lack of expertise. Is it appropriate to mention this lack of expertise as a reason why I did not try to further improve these models?

Note: I tried 2 different ML methods/algorithms, which were suggested by another member of staff.

Rather than describing this as a limitation, I would present this as an area for future research. For example,

  Machine learning methods X and Y produced promising results for predictive modeling. An area for future research would be to optimize these as well as explore methods, a, b, and c.

and then build upon this with details to be an appropriate length (probably a paragraph or two).


Is it permissible to ask the advisor if she has funding to support me as a postdoc for a year? I am about to defend my thesis and I have not yet secured a postdoc position elsewhere. I want to ask my PhD advisor if she can support me as a postdoc till I secure a position elsewhere. Usually in other groups, it is the advisor who offers a position to their performing students. In my group, graduates have always secured position and have moved away so no one had to have this conversation with the advisor. She has not offered me any position till date.

I have a good rapport with my advisor, but I don't know how to phrase the request so that it doesn't sound awkward and desperate? I am feeling very hesitant in approaching her with this request but I don't see any other options.

I constantly fear that, probably she didn't like me as a student and wants to get rid of me asap. So, that's the reason she has not offered me a position yet.

Regarding the main question, I refer to xLeitix' excellent answer to a similar question.

Addressing the specific parts of your situation, I see two likely reasons why your advisor hasn't offered you anything yet:

publication record - in most fields, securing a post-doc position requires a reasonably good track record in publications. If your publication output during your PhD was not on par, she may be worried if an academic career is for you.
lack of funding - to offer you a position, your advisor would need to have funding for you readily available. This would be most likely if she recently won a grant. You should ask her about that. If she has no funding for you now, you can ask if she knows any other PIs who are looking for post-docs, which might be more likely.

You can also consider writing your own grant proposal for a post-doc position; some countries have dedicated funding options for that. (However, the decision process may take half a year or more.)


How to present a degree that was earned abroad on a business card? I live in Australia and hold a M.A. degree from the University of Hamburg.

That degree doesn't exist in Australia, so I can't get it acknowledged through the accrediting bodies.

What is the etiquette to present such a degree on a business card?

[Update] I refer to a particular degree in the area of child education and not to the term 'Master of Arts', which of course does exist in Australia.

I suggest that you present it as it was awarded, and perhaps list the university as well. Most people will accept it at face value, though you may get the occasional question about what it means.

Australia isn't so isolated that it can't accept international terminology.

This would be different if you are in a field that requires certain certification, but that is a question to be directed at those providing the cert.


How can I get paid for a PhD in Europe? I'm confused: someone said that a PhD in Europe is free, someone said that you get paid. What's true? And how hard is to get a PhD salary in Physics in North Europe?

You go to their website, find a job posting, and apply. Example of a PhD Research Fellowship at the University of Oslo.

Not all positions are free, and not every PhD student is paid. You'll have to look.


Does being a lab tech count as research? I'm currently a sophomore studying chemical engineering. I completed a summer internship as a chemist and subsequently took a job with the same people as a lab tech. While there, a civil engineering professor asked me to assist in running a research project in the same lab. I now keep the reactors running, perform maintenance as needed, and collect some data from different points in the reactors. I keep the project alive but I don't do much with analysis.

My question is: does this count as research? Can I say "yes" to yes/no "do you have research experience" questions (and then explain in my resume)? Or?

Does being a lab tech count as research? Probably not. Research means making contributions that go beyond the state-of-the-art. Keeping the machines turned on isn't really research.

But!! Don't sell yourself short. You say that you collect data and "don't do much" with analysis. Do you do anything with analysis? Do you understand the aims of the project? Do you write up the data? Do you discuss the results with anyone? Also, your internship seems like it should have had some research associated with it.

Can you answer "yes" to a yes/no question about having done research? I would say yes -- let the reader decide whether your research "counts" or not. So long as you are clear elsewhere in the application about what you did, you should be fine.


arxiv put my first paper submission on hold , does this mean it will be rejected ? Before few days I've submitted my first paper , it is a review article about Dirac monopole. After 2 days the arxiv moderation put it in hold and then after few hours they send me this mail.

  arXiv is intended as a forum for professional members of the
  scientific community to communicate their formal research results.
  Please provide the following information:

  Do you have a conventional publication record? In what field? Please provide us with a current list of publications.
  What is the precise nature of your institutional affiliation?

I'm an undergraduate student , I have complete my thesis this month and I've not published anything before so I tell them this and tell them also about my university which is well-established and many of my professors and postgraduate students have a publications and many of them used to put almost all of their papers on arxiv. They did not response and I don't know why all of this happened. So can anyone had a similar problem like this tell me what is the problem with my submission and if it is suitable for arxiv ?

ArXiv is clear in its mission statement: it wants to be an archive and distribution system for research articles. They only accept submissions from registered authors, and have an entire machinery in place to safeguard the scientific quality of the papers they distribute. For example, they require first time submitters to be endorsed (see the information about endorsment here).

If you are an established researcher in the field, the endorsment happens automatically. But since you're an undergraduate student, they will require that you either prove your expertise in the field, or that you send an endorsment letter by someone who is known as an expert in that field. On the webpage about endorsment they give you the information on how to obtain an endorsment, but they also state:

  A good choice for graduate students would be your thesis advisor or
  another professor in your department/institution working in your
  field.

As you're an undergraduate student, I doubt anyone will endorse you as being an expert in that field, especially since we're talking about a review. At our faculty, you don't start writing reviews before the end of your PhD.

So in all honesty, I'm afraid you're aiming too high for the time being. The mail itself doesn't necessarily mean they reject your paper, but without proper endorsment they won't accept you as an expert in the field.


Quitting PhD 2 years into a 3-year program I'm currently in a 3-year (European) PhD program in Computer Science/Machine Learning, but I feel like I'm very far behind schedule. I started on a very open-ended project proposal and grant, which I spent my first year reading up on, including taking other courses, TA'ing etc. After the first year, I realized it was a very difficult topic to get anywhere on, and my advisor is also by no means an expert.

For this reason I pivoted to a related subfield of ML that is more mainstream and that I am more comfortable with, and basically started over. Over the past year I've been reading papers, discussing them with people, and trying to get concrete ideas for research. However ideas have been sparse and the ones where I spent time on coding and experiments, they didn't pan out. Now, 2 years into my PhD, I have nothing to show for it. I have no research, no publications, and only some vague ideas on what to work on next. Do I quit? Is it even possible to finish by this point? I'm going to bring this up with my advisor soon, but I would like advice before I do so.

You most probably got into a PhD program with a bad supervisor. This is not your fault. The first option is to talk with your supervisor and see if he thinks there is a chance that you can finish your PhD. Most of the time a PhD is more a social concept than a scientific one: science is hard - if people think that you did things to the best of your ability there is a high chance that they let you graduate with minor results. But be aware that this can set you into a situation of dependence and pressure that can be exploited and might cause mental harm to you. This does depend on your personal relationship to your supervisor. If you think you can go through this period and he is still positive about your projected progress, then stick with it. If not, then start looking for alternatives. There is no shame in starting a second PhD or finding a job in industry. If you openly explain your situation, people will understand. Additionally, doing a PhD is a highly idealistic approach and most people show signs of depression during a situation of hardship. You might want to seek out for additional help if you show signs of depression.


How to ask for an academic agreement with a foreign faculty? In my current place of work we would like to offer our students the possibility to follow courses and do research in foreign universities, but I am a little bit dubious how our faculty would manage to do that. I mean, what is the procedure to follow to make this kind of academic agreements? Should one write directly to the Dean of the objective faculty of which we want to make the academic agreement? What would be catchy for them to agree to have an academic cooperation with us (related to exchange of students and lecturers for short periods of time)?

Setting up a formal relationship between departments can be a lot of work, and requires strong motivation on both sides.

A possible lighter-weight option to consider would be a more unidirectional program like exists at the department of one of my colleagues in Europe.  In his institution's Ph.D. program, each student is required to do two terms abroad at another institution.  The university supports this by continuing to support the students financially while they are abroad, but it is up to each student and faculty member to arrange where they go and who they work with independently.

As I have observed it in practice (i.e., being on the other end hosting a visiting student), this it much easier for others to agree to than a formal arrangement between faculties, because it requires fairly little investment and are likely to be covered by normal "visiting scholar / visiting student" arrangements.  It's also a great way to bootstrap collaboration with a foreign colleague.


How to know if I have done and am doing good research? My research field is a "hot" one. It is in modeling of additive manufacturing process. Majority of the research being carried out is experimental and some research is theoretical/computational. My research is entirely computational. Publications in my research topic don't go to top journals like nature or science but to applied journals like journal of thermal spray and technology, surface and coatings technology, additive manufacturing or computational materials science.
I read computational papers published by other groups from good universities (in the US and other places) and I often find them quite straightforward (that is, not much novelty in their work). In my research work, I always try to implement something extra (be it a different modeling technique, a different analysis method) to develop a distinctive new knowledge rather than a small incremental knowledge. Nevertheless, my work ultimately gets published in these journals only.
In such scenario, how do I know if I am doing a good work? My experimental collaborators are happy with my work and so is my postdoc advisor. But, how do I know that I am not generating noise? My past entirely computational papers have got just 3 unique citations each in 1-1.5 years. But my collaborative work (with experimentalists) has over 15 citations in same amount of time.

I think your question has no answer since "good research" is too broad and ill-defined a term. What do you mean by "good research"? Research that gets cited a lot? Research that gets you your next job? Research to be proud of? Research that moves your field ahead?
The answer to your question will depend on YOUR definition of "good research". And since this is really hard to do, I would suggest to reframe the question to something like: Is my research helping me to accomplish my goals xyz?


What do I do when my TA workload is more than expected? Last year I was offered full funding for my PhD program to TA two courses a semester for the duration of my program (education psychology). Key words, Teaching Assistant. I expected this to mean I would be working with a professor each semester and teaching a recitation section twice a week (one for each course). This was all fine and great in the fall.

Then this semester, I was told I would be instructor of record for two courses (aka, I would be teaching these two courses entirely on my own and responsible for everything).

I feel extremely overwhelmed by this workload. My research has been suffering as I've had no time to work on anything outside of TAing and coursework. Next fall I was also told I would be instructor of record for two courses again (these two courses I have never taught).

I e-mailed the person in charge and asked if it would be possible to actually TA a course as the workload was a lot to manage and was hit with

  As TAs progress we expect them to take on full classes

From speaking with other TAs in the department, this is very common at the school. I was not aware off this before taking the TAship, as at the time I thought TA meant teaching assistant and not being expected to take on a whole class. Very few are only TAing (most of my colleagues are responsible for their own classes), so from my perspective it feels like an exploitation because they don't have enough professors.

Is this a common practice? Nowhere in my offer letter does it say instructor of record. It distinctly says TA. Any advice from anyone in a similar position?

You should consult with your department, asking explicitly:

  How do you want to proceed, I feel like these conditions are excessive and were not part of the deal as far as I know.

Come to the meeting with your signed contract / TA paperwork.

I assume, your department cares about quality of the education they provide. Don't let them pin this on you, you are a student first of all. If they employ you, they are responsible for your performance as a teacher.

Other answers didn't pause here:

  I feel extremely overwhelmed by this workload and my depression has made this worse I've cancelled class at least 5 times this semester because I couldn't get out of bed

I suggest you immediately seek professional help. Your university must have services available for students (and be paid-for by university's health insurance), especially given recent attention to mental health crisis in academia. That is your responsibility to take care of yourself. You are also a real person, not just a robot TA, don't let mental health issues fester.


How to decide contribution percentages for authors of a paper which is based on a patent? Suppose four authors namely, A, B, C and D (in decreasing order of contribution) are inventors of a patent. The inventors agree to write and publish a research paper, however, authors B and C do most of the paper writing and experimental work. Author A provides them help while not directly indulging in the ground work.

My question is, does author A still deserves to be primary author of the paper? Or, the contribution of authors for paper has to be evaluated separately from patent? Please guide.

It sounds like the project resulting in the paper began with the patent, but has since then required a large amount of additional technical work (the writing itself may count as well, but is generally much less important).

As such, it would be scientifically dishonest to pretend that the other work did not exist, and that authorship should be derived only from the patent, since the patent is clearly only part of the work being presented.  Authorship should thus be re-evaluated on the basis of the total contributions, both in the patent (since it does not count as a peer-reviewed publication) and in the subsequent work.

Without knowing exact details, however, it is impossible to know what order the authors should be in.  It may be that the patent work is so much more significant than the subsequent work it still makes sense to keep the same author order; just as easily, it may just as easily be that the subsequent work weighs more heavily, and that the order changes when the full work is taken into account.


How Well is a US College Degree Accepted in Québec? Though originally a Québecker, I am soon to graduate in the United States with a bachelor's in Computer Information Systems, and a bachelor's in Graphic Design, from a college accredited by TRACS. I intend to pursue a master's related to informatics (not possible at my current college). I want to study in my home province because of the additional language and lower tuition fees.
Québec tends to be very specific with college requirements; I cannot apply until December, when I graduate, but was wondering whether I would be accepted easily, or whether this will be a nightmare. I checked l'UQÀM, for example, and their requirements state specific Québec degrees, or two years of applicable work experience with a trained background. Université Laval requires having completed equivalent training [to an undergraduate degree] according to the acceptance committee. These requirements are a little nebulous, as they could go either way.
I have contacted Université Laval previously, but they cannot be more specific before I apply. Was wondering whether anyone else has experience transferring in this way, or otherwise general advice for avoiding catch-up coursework.

A US Bachelors degree generally would be accepted, but in your case, since your degree is from a TRACS accredited college, you may have a difficult time.
For my US university (and most US universities), the policy for domestic applicants for graduate studies states:

Students must have a bachelor’s degree from a college or university
accredited by a regional accrediting association. If the degree is
from a recognized but not regionally accredited institution, the
application will be reviewed by the department and by the College of
Graduate Studies.

TRACS is NOT a regional accrediting association.  Without more details, it's not clear whether your college would qualify under the second sentence, but note that it already states further special review is necessary.
Given that your degree would not be recognized by most universities in the US (or at least not automatically), you will likely have a difficult time having your degree recognized in other countries.


How to structure the Introduction of my Master's thesis? My question is not about the structure of an entire thesis, but just about the Introduction chapter. At the moment, it consists of the following sections:

Objective [where I briefly introduce the aim of my thesis]
Area of Research [where my thesis collocates in a more general pipeline]
Conclusion [where I very briefly summarize the content of each chapter].

It's very short (I'm trying to keep the complete thesis below ~50 pages), but there is more or less everything I wanted to say.

My supervisor suggested me to:

Expand it by adding more details, which is fine I can do it
Remove the sections in order to have just one big chunk of text and remove eventual images because the introduction should not contain any.

I disagree on the second point. Since I'm introducing different stuff, it's nice to be able to quickly understand what I'm talking about. Second, I never read that you should not put images or tables in the Introduction. So my questions are: (1) should I remove the Sections? and (2) should I remove the only image I have in the Introduction (it's more of a diagram that I describe in the main text)?

P.S. My supervisor does not work in academia and I'm not sure how many theses he has supervised. Moreover, my Department does not have any sort of guidelines for writing a thesis.

2W1H

The introduction needs to answer three questions. WHY, WHAT & HOW.

Declare why the problem needs solving, what the problem is and what a solution will look like, and how you have intended to go about the business of getting from the former to the latter. In addition to this, it can be relevant to quote specific earlier research that you will be building your thesis upon. Maybe a reaction path, a lemma, whatever depending on which field it of course is.


MLA: in-text citations from one work - do I need to restate the author every paragraph? MLA formatting question:
I'm writing a paper on Ernest J. Gaine's A Gathering of Old Men. This is the only work I am citing. When using in-text citations, do I need to restate the author in every paragraph, or is a page number sufficient? For example:

Tucker said, "Hey, Mapes" (Gaines 1). This is my interpretation of this quote.
Later in the novel, Tucker said, "Howdy, Mapes" ((Gaines) 2). Here is my interpretation of this quote.

Is the second "Gaines" necessary?

You do not need to include the author's name in every citation, as long as you make it clear that you're only using one source.  I say this based on the MLA guidelines found here.
Specifically, you should look under the section "In-text citations: Author-page style", which states that the author's name doesn't need to be cited in the parentheses as long as he/she is mentioned in the text.


How do I quickly describe the timeframe a topic became relevant? In a single sentence in a homework for a historical overview I mention that:

  Video games [in academia] became relevant only after the new milennium. Before that, topics concerning video games mentioned them mostly as an application of computer graphics, but did not as a major part of research, maybe with a few minor exceptions.

I don’t want to linger on this topic at all but I am making myself crazy about how I can prove the correctness of the broad scope of that assumption without performing a whole study on when what paper handled what topic in what timeframe. How do I do that?

Ah, finding citations to back up generalizations. I know that annoyance, and I'm glad you're alert to it. When I'm editing my writing and find something like this, here's my thought process:

Do I really need to establish this time frame in the first place? If I can delete this part without negatively affecting my argument, all the better.
What would a really picky person respond and how do I deal with that? ("Actually, video games have been relevant since Pong!" "OK, I should narrow my claim substantially...")
Who would have written about this authoritatively in a way I can reference or quote? (For instance, look for a review article on video games in academia: someone reviewing the field systematically or a long-term contributor to the field could say the same thing with more gravitas.)
Is there systematic evidence I could use, such as the founding dates of academic journals that are specifically about video games? (Perhaps the first issue editor's note would say something relevant.)
What examples am I thinking of? How can I reference them without claiming to be comprehensive?  E.g. "Video games were used in academic studies on computer graphics (see Mario 1987 and Luigi 1993), but it was a major breakthrough when articles began dealing with video games as an art form (e.g. SuperMeatBoy 2013)."

More generally, timeline statements should usually be deleted out in the editing process.

It bugs me when my students make historical-ish claims without having a true historical perspective. ("Nowadays, computers are more and more important!") These usually happen in introductions, where people are getting warmed up writing about the topic.

"History" is rarely an interesting hook for a paper introduction, unless the whole thing is a nuanced historical analysis or there are interesting anecdotes that highlight a contrast. ("When Don Knuth began working with computers, it was standard practice to X (Knuth p. XYZ). Even though today computer scientists often do Y, implementing X in an object-oriented programming language can help us understand [topic].")


Can too many submitted manuscript hamper your candidacy for getting a position? I've been working in a lab for more than 3 years and during this time I have worked on several projects. I have collaboration works too. Most of my projects have been submitted recently. For example, I have finished a project a year ago but it got so many corrections from the supervisor that it took a year to be submitted. Side by side I finished another project. Now, while upgrading my CV, I see so many 'submitted' projects.
Will it make a negative impact on the Ph.D. admission committee thinking that my work might be substandard?
Or is it ok to include all the projects that I have worked on and still working? (almost 6/7)

P.S. All my published works have been published in good journals till now.

It's pretty hard to imagine that it would be a problem. More is generally better. And the time to publication for a submission can be long. It seems better that you keep working and submitting rather than waiting for one to complete the process.

It shows you are active. Always a good thing.


My prospective supervisors are not emailing back, should I just submit a PhD application anyway? Context: I want to do my PhD in Hong Kong. Only one University there (University of Hong Kong) explicitly states you need to contact a supervisor and discuss a research proposal before you apply. The others, at least in my field, do not even require a research proposal for your application.

Regardless, I obviously am trying to get faculty members to agree to supervise me and discuss PhD topics to strengthen my application and ensure that a suitable supervisor is available.

The trouble I am facing is that only a few of those I have emailed have replied, and the ones that did reply said they already had too many PhD students or weren't taking students on at the moment. Looking at current PhD students, >95% of them are Chinese so I suspect part of this might be unwillingness to take on a foreign student (or just preference for Chinese students) despite Hong Kong being a very multicultural city.

I would like to live and work in Hong Kong after my studies, which is why I am set on doing my PhD there.

My question is this: How much does it hurt your chances of admission to not have a supervisor pre-arranged before you apply? I feel that my grades, references, experience are very competitive, but I am worried about this roadblock.

I know your feeling, I was in your situation once.

Thing with Asians universities (far east and south east)
They will not reply to your email unless they know you, or even if they are corresponding authors and you ask them something, they will never reply. That is my experience and in general, I think you should meet them through conference attendance and research work.
The University of HK is regarded top tier in the world, I don't know much what is your field, but I assume they get tons of emails.
Generally, for China, if you are self-funded student, they will allow you to apply without supervisor consent, but if you need scholarship, Acceptance letter is MUST have, this is same with MC, Taiwan, Japan, Singapour and others


A social experiment. What is the worst that can happen? I am a postdoc and I have been applying for jobs in both industry and academia. My h-index is good enough for junior faculty (~7).

Along my academic CV I have an industry-oriented CV and send both of them out accordingly. I have had a handful of final stage interviews (faculty/scientist) for academia but none in the industry so far.

I suspect I am being interviewed as the "token diverse female" (I'm asian) as my area of science is white male dominated. The whole experience, along with prior job hunts, has led me to suspect that my gender and race may be hindering my earning potential. I believe I have the required qualifications and skills.

I am thinking of reapplying as a white male to these same industry jobs I got rejected  for (especially the rejections without interview) just to see if how far along I would get. Only for industry jobs because those CVs don't make it to the chief scientist's table. Maybe make a documentary or blog about this if there are significant findings. Now put your imagination to the test: what is the worst that can happen?

I like to think I have a pretty vivid imagination, so the worst thing I can reasonably imagine happening is that you would be seen as trying to perform an experiment with human participants without proper controls, questionable experimental design, possibly a lack of appropriately rigorous analysis (if this isn't your specialty), and lack of ethical review and oversight. From an ethics perspective, you propose to use deception on uninformed participants while possibly obtaining personally identifiable information on them which could lead to them facing serious social consequences if they were identified. With the mob mentality of the viral internet as it is, the consequences could be pretty darn severe - up to loss of job, death threats, actual violence, and more. Sensitive topics require sensitive handling, which is what any functioning IRB and responsible researcher would insist on.

In reporting on the results, even if informally on a blog, you could be seen as offering a pseudo-scientific view (or worse) on a controversial and important topic. If your experiment was performed poorly or your analysis done improperly, you could lend weight to an incorrect view - either providing what could be cited as evidence that discrimination does not exist where it does (thus making it harder for people discriminated against to make changes or be taken seriously), or supporting the view that discrimination does exist where it doesn't (leading to negative consequences for people who are doing nothing wrong and deflecting attention away from more pressing, extant issues). Bad science, even done with good intention, can easily make the world worse.

If some random blogger or journalist did this, most of us can gratingly dismiss it as "they don't know any better", or just the world of click-bait, etc. But if you were a qualified scientist who should know better, people might not be so willing to dismiss such activity just because it wasn't intended to be scientific and it wasn't intended for publication. Most people won't even know the difference in what is and isn't intended to be scientific when done by a scientist, and many that do know the difference might not consider it an excuse.

As Dawn pointed out in a comment, one version of this is called an audit study, and there is a pretty large body of literature that tries to do basically what you are suggesting in a systematic way. I cannot even try to count how many studies of this sort are published, but I'd be surprised if it wasn't already in the thousands, looking at everything from gender to race to the impact of varying lengths of time gaps on a resume.

Finally, the nature of this sort of field study is that even with everything going your way they are hard to do correctly. No simple analysis method works even if you did everything right and collected all the data appropriately. There is too much randomness, too much heterogeneity, too much structure, to allow any simple bit of statistics to give the correct interpretation. In short, unless this is your specialty, it would be trivially easy to get everything else right and still come to exactly the wrong conclusion.

For those who are not familiar with this kind of statistics, a classic example of how a simple analysis can go wrong is Sex Bias in Graduate Admissions: Data from Berkeley. In a simple aggregate analysis, it looked quite clearly that women were being admitted at lower rates than men, and thus bias was quite obvious to the point that the deans of the school were concerned this could be the basis for a lawsuit. It turned out it was a nice example of Simpson's Paradox, as it turned out the cause for the difference was that women were more likely to apply to departments that were crowded and competitive and thus harder to get into for everyone, while men were more likely to apply to departments that were less competitive.

If a similar condition existed in the employment sector, where you were applying to jobs in industry that turned out to vary in their selectivity in a way that you were not considering, this would mess up your analysis, and you cannot easily collect more information that would allow you to fix it. After all, I'm sure you weren't inclined to use random selection in your own employment search!

So, in summation, the worst that I could imagine happening is: you end up doing bad science that would reflect badly on you and would not be easily excused just because it wasn't intended for publication; you come to the wrong conclusions and in a way which could hurt innocent people; you casually report information that could be used in dangerous and damaging way; you end up being identified as the person responsible and it goes viral, so now the most famous thing you'll ever be known for was this thing you didn't intend as a serious study (and which could have gone horribly wrong); and, as a bonus, you could just end up wasting your time and the time of others for no benefit.

And since its the worst thing that can happen, I suppose you could also end up with a headache. Things can always be worse by adding a headache.


FAFSA and a recent permanent resident I came to the US on 4th of August, 2013 from India on F1 visa as a Master's student. I was 1 day shy of being 24 and eligible for a late registration for Selective Service. But I had no idea that was even a thing back then.

Things happened and I was out of status for a while and my education was incomplete. On February 16th, 2017, I got my green card through marriage. I was 27 years and 6 months then, and not eligible for late registration for Selective Service.

Now, I have gotten admitted back to the college I was originally attending and applied for FAFSA. Today, I am 29 years old today and am ineligible for Selective Service.

My situation:

I have been approved for FAFSA by the federal government.
My college has a pending requirement with regards to my FAFSA: Verify Selective Service registration.

My question:

When I originally came to the US, I was eligible (and required, if I were to seek federal financial assistance) to register for Selective Service. I did not. Now my college requires proof that I've registered for selective service. So I tried registering, but the Selective Service registration website does not let me go past the first screen because my age indicates that I am ineligible for Selective Service.

Could I somehow apply for Selective Service?
Could I email my university and explain to them that I did not know of Selective Service to know I would need it in the future?
Should I just give up trying for FAFSA?

Thank you.

For the following, I will assume that you were on a F1 visa from arriving in the US until after your 26th birthday. In that case, you should have been exempt from selective service. If you had any kind of change in immigration status from a non-immigrant visa (such as having the F1 visa expire) during this time, well, that could complicate things and you really should talk to your university about it.

The Selective Service System's page for Men - 26 and older suggests that you can get a status information letter to prove that you're exempt. You could ask your university's financial aid office if it's required in your case or not.

Reading more on the Status Information Letter page, I found the following (which suggests it isn't required):

  Financial aid officers:
  If the man falls within one of the following categories, a status information letter from Selective Service is NOT required if he can provide a copy of supporting documentation proving his case to your satisfaction. <...>

  Non-U.S. male on a valid non-immigrant visa

  For example, if the man entered the United States as an F-1 student visa and remained in that status until his 26th birthday, he would need to provide documentation indicating that he was admitted on an F-1 visa and attended school full-time as required.


Can I use these letters of reference later? I was working with some startups as their tech advisory and with some others as tech lead. But now I want to concentrate on my main goal, that is research. That requires me to work with researchers and study. So I asked people I was working with, for a recommendation letter. As I am aiming towards Waterloo for my masters for research. The real problem is I was not so much focused on my academics as I was busy here. Though I still have last two years to cover up at Waterloo, usually checks last two year scores. I just want to know will these LORs will help me, when I will apply, in Waterloo, after my engineering and giving my GRE.

I suggest that if you want letters that won't become relevant for a few years, that you tell the writers that so that they might be able to update their recommendations at the appropriate time, without forgetting you. Keeping in touch is also useful for that.
I don't know the procedures at Waterloo, but some universities require direct transmission from the writer, not the candidate.
Whether they help or not depends on too many things, including the unknown future, to comment directly. But having the "on the shelf" is probably useful.


How to make this attribution without offending anyone or looking unscholarly? In my field, Linguistics, we often use sentences from published works, or attested examples of sentences we have read or heard, as evidence of what kinds of things are possible or grammatical in a language. These are often felt to be more convincing than examples of sentences derived from our own introspection.
Suppose one wishes to re-use and refer to examples from a paper (paper A), which were themselves cited from a previous paper (paper B). If the examples were used to illustrate related points and discussions in the two papers, the scholarly thing to do would be to go and investigate the original paper and look at the examples in context there. One would then likely cite the original paper.
What should one do, however, if some of the examples in paper A do not actually appear in the published version of paper B? Let's say, for example, that paper B was a conference paper and that one might assume that the examples appeared in the original presentation but did not make it to the published paper in the conference proceedings?
In my case, the article I am writing is a response to paper A. If I merely cite the examples as from B cited in paper A, I might look as if I couldn't be bothered to go and look at paper B myself. This, I suppose, might reflect badly on the perceived scholarliness of the work. I cannot honestly cite the examples as being from paper B, as they do not appear in the published version. If I say the examples are cited from B by the authors of A, but that they don't appear in the published version of B, I might look as if I'm publicly criticising A, and also as if I'm a pedant.
What is the best thing to do in terms of attribution here?

In case it counts for anything, I'm a lowly PhD student.

My inclination would be to say exactly (but succinctly) what's going on, perhaps a citation like "[A] (cited from [B] but not found in the published version of [B])".


Why are some highly-cited papers shown by Google Scholar arXiv preprints? I found some papers somewhat related to my work, and, on Google Scholar, the citations are for the arXiv preprint, not a journal version of the paper.  Why is this? The citations are in the thousands, and the professors are pretty well-known.

I may throw some insights in the fields related to computer science and machine learning. Nowadays those fields witness an explosion of advancement: numerous international conferences and workshops are hold every month. With such a rapid speed of development, it is a common practice that the authors upload their preprints to arXiv even before their work is accepted, just to establish their progress.


If my B.Sc.project contains source code, should I include it in an appendix? I do a B.Sc. degree project in computer science at KTH Institute of Technology. The work included a fair amount of source code written in C and NuSMV and the report is somewhat technical even for a CS report. We had a peer review this week where I got to know

put the problem statement up front and clearly
adjust the language for a non-technical audience
put definitions and acronyms in a glossary
use the shared latex template
remove some duplicated text
update the illustrations with text and numbering
scale down the images so that they look better
maybe put in an appendix (with the code)

Do you agree that the source code should be in an appendix or is it better to put it inline or even maybe not include the code at all?

If you want to you read the draft from this link.

Putting it into an appendix (maybe not in full but the core parts of it) seems the best solution. This is not only some sort of "proof of work" but gives examiners also an opportunity to assess whether the results generated by the code are indeed correct, so it helps with verifiability. This will be particularly important with code that generates numeric information, which you use to draw conclusions.

There are only very few cases where code should be put inline in the main body of the thesis, e.g. when you invented a new language or a new library and want to show how much easier / more readable / more concise / .. something can be formulated in your language / library and when this was indeed the main purpose of it.


Does a letter of recommendation from a postdoc who's been my instructor carry much weight? In large universities, undergraduate students tend to receive instruction mostly from recent PhD graduates or post-doctoral fellows. This is especially true during the first two years, when students may also have PhD students as instructors for their classes.

During the application review process, how much weight would you put for letters written from post-doctoral fellows? Is the job title something that people care a lot about?

The issue with getting a letter from a post-doc is not their job title; it's the degree of experience they have with different students, and the authority with which they can judge their preparedness for a graduate program.  So, it's not that a letter from a postdoc is unacceptable and as soon as they have an assistant professorship everything is great.  There's a subtle continuum where the more experience someone has, the more weight their letter has, because they have known so many more students.

Also, this is a bit more cynical, but humans are social creatures.  It's well-nigh unavoidable that they give more weight to a letter from someone they know personally.  A postdoc is much less likely to be well-connected and thus able to leverage this for you.


Tips for being a good jury member for Master's defense I am a 2nd year PhD student. My supervisor ask me to be a jury member in a Master's thesis defense presentation. This is a first for me, so I have some questions.

Any tips and guidelines I can follow?
What are the things I need to consider while reading the report?
What are the criteria I can use to evaluate their presentation?
I know I am the most junior person there, is it a good thing if I starte analyzing everything in detail?

I know sometimes it is frustrating when the student's work gets "judged" by how it is presented and not by the core of their contribution. I've experienced this feeling a lot every time I present, I don't want to make the same mistake. For example, I've seen presentations where each jury member talks only about the grammatical mistakes and doesn't ask a single question about the whole contribution.

I suggest that your first presumption about the student and his/her work is that it is well done. After all, it was taken under the direction of the advisor. However, depending on your field, it may not be possible for you to understand everything in the thesis. That is natural in Mathematics, for example, as people with different specialties use somewhat different thought processes. But, for a Master's level thesis you should understand most of it, at least in general.

Read the thesis and do a mark-up as you go. Work from a paper copy if possible. Be sure to mark things that you don't understand unless that amounts to nearly everything. Marking grammar etc is also helpful. Write your name on this document and at the end of the presentation session give it to the candidate. They will find it very helpful.

During the presentation, see if the questions you marked in the thesis are answered or not. It is easy to check them off as you go.

As to the questions you ask, since you are new at this, stick to asking for clarification on things you didn't understand in the work or in the presentation. Ask for simple, not complex, explanations. Some candidates won't be very good at this and will be overly pedantic since they, too, are new to this.

An experienced person (senior professor) might want to ask a more complex question of the candidate to explore either deeper knowledge of the topic or even general knowledge of the field, but I'd stay away from that sort of thing as a newcomer to this process.

You probably work on different problems than the candidate did so you have a somewhat different perspective. One thing you might suggest is future directions for the candidate. I would prefer to to this by annotating the markup rather than bringing it up in the presentation, however. You can be helpful.

Assume it is fine. Ask for clarifications. Be as helpful as you can. As a beginner, keep negative comments "offline" unless something is essentially wrong. But if you think something is seriously wrong, you can, perhaps, communicate that before the presentation. Perhaps to the candidate's professor through your own, rather than directly.