Differences between lit review in dissertation and articles I am wondering if there is a difference between the lit review of a dissertation and that of a journal article. I tend to think that a dissertation will contain more extensive background information, meaning that part of the challenge is showing that you know all if the information and can communicate it in a coherent way to support new research.

Are there differences between the literature review of a dissertation and article? What is the purpose of each (in terms of the rhetorical structure and any graduation requirements)?

The review section in an article is much shorter and much more stringent for two reasons.

First, the lit review in an article situates your own work within the existing body of literature. It explains the research puzzle from a theoretical angle, shows why your paper is needed and what exactly your contribution to the existing knowledge consist in. It may also introduce the theoretical concepts that you draw on (to the extent that this is not a separate section).

The review section in a dissertation does all this as well, but it also serves the purpose of demonstrating to your supervisors and committee that you are aware of and understand the relevant science. This includes literature that is more tangential to your actual contribution. By contrast, an article is about your contribution, not about your proficiency.

Second, you have much less space in an article to go off on any tangent. Thus you have to restrict yourself to the narrow literature to which you are directly contributing and on which your work builds.


Where to draw the line between support, plagiarism and academic dishonesty? I received some help during my thesis under the following circumstances:

Took "neutral" classes for coding from a online tutor
The tutor helped me in sharpening my coding skills
I took his help (held discussions) in understanding a solution (how to code, which library to use)
The Tutor helped debugging at times when I got stuck

I wrote everything by my own but this person helped by "tutoring", "discussions", and "debugging".

Am I fine here?

Activities 1-3 are perfectly fine, and fall within the category of teaching and learning.  There is no more issue with these activities than if you undertake approved university courses during your program.  Activity 4 is the only one that could potentially raise issues, depending on your field of study and the extent of the assistance.  If you are undertaking a thesis where the primary activity is coding and debugging, where you are expected to do these activities yourself, then it might not be okay to have assistance on this task.  If you are outside of that field then debugging assistance in your coding is probably analogous to copy-editing services for the textual elements of the thesis, and in that case you should seek guidance from relevant standards applicable to your university (here is an example of applicable standards for copy-editing of theses in Australian universities).

In any case, you should raise this matter with your thesis supervisor, disclose the details of the assistance you got, and make sure you give an appropriate acknowledgement in your thesis, so that the reviewers are aware of the matter.  Your supervisor will be able to point you to relevant policies that apply at your university, and will be in a good position to assess whether the help you have sought raises any issues.  Unless your thesis is specifically about programming/debugging tasks, there is probably reasonably wide scope for basic debugging services (analogous to light copy-editing services) and so it will probably not be an issue.


Can I update my DBLP profile, or connect it to Google Scholar? I find my Google Scholar profile to be more updated and accurate than DBLP. Is there any way I can update DBLP accordingly or connect it to Google Scholar?

DBLP has two FAQ entries that roughly correspond to your question:

Correcting inaccurate entries: you can submit error reports
Updating information (new entries): you can't enter publications directly, but the DBLP team is open to suggestions

The latter also describes how their indexing process works in general, which indirectely explains why it won't be possible to synchronize your Scholar profile with DBLP automatically, In essence, they consider a much more restricted set of sources than Google does.


Is it reasonable to keep rejecting postdoc offers to honor your part of the agreement with a professor for another postdoc? I met Professor X, during an interview at a high-ranking university in which I wasn't selected. Weeks later, the professor invited me for an informal video chat. He gave me a lot of feedback and told me that I wasn't selected after a split decision and want me to join his team at his university. He really liked my profile and said that he can help me in my career basically (in particular in developing the skills that I needed, which contributed to me not getting that job offer).
He invited me to apply for a postdoc that he's going to advertise and gave me articles to read. He didn't say "I'm definitely hiring you," but he sure gave me a lot of info about the project and really wanted me to apply. Also, at the time, I was really lost because I had 0 options and 0 interviews, and that chat gave me the first hope after months and months of looking.
Days after that chat I was invited for two interviews from two universities, A and B. I got a quick offer right after the first interview from university A, I emailed Professor X about my situation and he said you can accept and ask if a collaboration was an option. He also mentioned that his university is a lot better than University A, which is true. After some thinking, I decided to reject A's offer and wait for the X's postdoc to be advertised, which he said should be available in a few days.
Then, University B sent me an offer. Note that University B is a much better university than previous ones: top 5 in the world! I really don't know what to do! I can't keep emailing Professor X after every offer I get.
My gut tells me to honor my part of the agreement and wait for Professor X, especially that we've established that first personal contract and he has a good impression of me. Also, he also put extra effort (invited for chat, feedback, and opening a postdoc that I can apply for)
Another professor said that you don't say "no" to a high rank university, others are just surprised that I rejected an offer after months of stress and looking. Help! it's a moral dilemma. Am being unreasonable here?

Your life is yours, and your primary responsibility is to yourself. If it makes you happier to work for one person, then it's totally reasonable to decline amazing offers to make yourself happy.
Some thoughts:

Also, he also put extra effort (invited for chat, feedback and opening a postdoc that I can apply for)

This not really extra effort to the degree you should consider it affecting your decision. This is pretty standard, even if providing feedback was a nice extra step from him. Certainly not worth deciding the future course of your life over.

My guts tells me to honor your part of the agreement and wait for the professor, especially that we've established that first personal contract and he has a good impression of me.

The agreement is when the papers are signed. Yes, it's a little rude to verbally agree and then renege. But a university would not blink to say "oh sorry, we can't offer that job," and move on with no regard to how this affected your life. Sure, the prof you interviewed with might be sad, but in the end, they are out of an employee, and you are out of income.

After some thinking, I decided to reject the offer and wait for the professor's postdoc to be advertised

I would not have done this. Trust me, a professor asking for a job posting is far from a guarantee it's going to happen. Hold on to all offers, and if it comes down to it and you have two offers in hand, wanting a response, and there's still no job posting, then  you can ask them when it's going to be posted, and ask your other offers for extensions.
Don't turn down any job you'd really take until they have given you a deadline. Then, yes, you can make the decision to take the guaranteed offer, or to gamble on another position. In the end, if the professor couldn't get a position up in time for you, that's their fault.


Translating French Academic Titles to English I am an International student who's planning to continue his graduate studies in Canada, my referee who goes by the title "Enseignant-Chercheur" [1] taught me in a Statistics tutorial class and agreed to write a letter of recommendation on my behalf, the university I'm applying to asks me to enter my referee's title but I do not know what is the most appropriate translation for the above mentioned academic rank, the literal translation is "Teacher-Researcher," but the problem is does such title even exist or make any sense in an North American (and other English speaking countries) context? Should I translate the title? If so, what would be the most appropriate translation? And if not, should I just enter it without translation?

[1] https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enseignant-chercheur

I would just use it as is.

In the US, if I search for the formal title I get sent to the French Wikipedia site. Even with my limited French (long ago and far away) I can understand the meaning. In particular, that it is a "superior" title, implying the doctorate or equivalent has been earned.

Some people and in some places there is sensitivity about titles. In general, I'd suggest being, yourself, sensitive to that.

My conclusion from a perusal of the Wikipedia is that it is similar to what we would here call a "professor", but maybe not a "Professor". The former is a job description, the latter is a title and the title may mean different things in different places. But the job description is likely enough.

And, of course, it isn't primarily a language question at all. There are different academic traditions in different countries and words (simple phrases) aren't always subtle enough for the differences.

And, of course, in some parts of Canada, French is the preferred language.

A funny story just appeared in the news. A woman from France was denied something like "permanent residence" in Quebec because her French wasn't deemed "good enough."


Attitudes towards External/ Political Motivations for Technical PhD How would potential research advisors view someone entering graduate school because of interest in particular "real-world" problems, with the ultimate hope of leaving or changing fields if these particular issues are resolved?
I can come up with a few examples. Perhaps someone is very passionate about a particular disease for personal or family reasons, and 15-20 years later therapies have progressed to the extent that they feel the problem no longer needs their attention. Maybe someone is passionate about climate change, environmental protection or missile defense because of the challenges of their hometown, and 20 years later political circumstances change (e.g., in the last case, the Cold War ends) such that they no longer feel these issues threaten their communities.
This model of thinking about one's career, "If society is successful the problem will be solved and we can all quit our job" contrasts the life-long academic model. At the same time, I feel that's how many people are motivated to enter research, not from the perspective of "I'm interested in X technology" but "I want to help solve Y problem".
My concern is, if I interview with potential future advisors with this kind of story, even if the political problem I'm focused on has a long, 1-2 decades timeline for resolution, a future advisor might find this kind of attitude "disloyal" to a field. When advisors ask about my interests, I feel that they're looking for a response that describes intrinsic academic interest in a topic, "I think X is really interesting", rather than a framing of research as "I'm concerned about Y political problem that you might not necessarily care about or may even disagree with, it's unlikely to go away in a 10 year time-frame, and I think getting a PhD in Z is the best way for me help my community in working through this problem". Especially for a pure-academic, "I'm primarily motivated by recent, specific political circumstances" may not sound very dedicated coming from a student entering a new field for them, even if all signs point to this problem staying around for decades. And for certain issues, like defense/ security, advisors may object to training students with this motivation because of their ethical views.
What concerns would such an advisor have, and how can I respond to them?
I'm in a technical field, for reference, but am interested in answers oriented towards humanities-oriented fields as well.

My concern is, if I interview with potential future advisors with this kind of story, even if the political problem I'm focused on has a long, 1-2 decades timeline for resolution, a future advisor might find this kind of attitude "disloyal" to a field or otherwise unacceptable.

Importantly a PhD in a given field really is just a piece of paper signalling you are capable of independent and novel research. It's sort of a baseline expectation for a researcher and nothing more. Kind of similar to how your BSc simply qualifies you to speak intelligently about broad topics in your field.
I'm not aware, personally, if any situation where switching fields/leaving a field would be seen as a negative. In my field (Computer Science) it's not uncommon at all to see researchers publishing in broadly related fields such as math, engineering, economics, or really any other place Computer Science is used. Though, to be fair many more stick to their specialization.

This model of thinking about one's career, "If I'm successful the problem will be solved and I can quit my job" contrasts the life-long academic model. At the same time, I feel that's how many people are motivated to enter research, not from the perspective of "I'm interested in X technology" but "I want to solve Y problem".

10-20 years is more-or-less a career (using your numbers above). I don't think anyone would look at you negatively for quitting at that point.

"I'm primarily motivated by recent, specific political circumstances" may not sound very dedicated coming from a student entering a new field for them, even if all signs point to this problem staying around for decades. And for certain issues, like defense/ security, advisors may object to training students with this motivation because of their ethical views.

Political motivations really depend on your field. I can only speak for my field but if it wasn't for a need for better computing technology in WW2 the field of Computer Science may not be what it is today!
However, importantly your political motivations must necessarily align with your advisor's. If your advisor does not see your problem as important it will likely be disregarded. Your goal during your PhD is to learn how to do research under the guidance of someone with significant experience. It's approximately equivalent to a journeyman position in labor but for academia. Your advisor is there to help you find topics that will get you out of your PhD on time and hold your interest for 4-6 years. If you get a read from your advisor that what you want to do is ethically/politically contrary to their beliefs you can either accept this and do research with the end goal of contributing how you want after your PhD, or attempt to find a new advisor. Your PhD is not your entire career. If you get your PhD you'll have plenty of time to do work in things you enjoy.
In general your post gives off a small sense of superiority. What will sink you is this sense you seem to have that you will solve a major problem in a field. It's an honorable thing to think about but to use a direct example - if I told my advisor my goal is to solve P =? NP in 20 years I would probably be told to seriously evaluate whether I understand what research actually is.
Keep this in mind when broaching this question. It's good to have aspirations of greatness but remember to keep them in check. Research is incremental. Reframing your thoughts, and the way you broach the question to advisors, into something like "I am extremely passionate about XYZ and I want to advance the body of knowledge in this field during my career" will both make you look humble and intelligent.


What are the best questions to ask a PI upon the first meeting to join some of his projects? I'm planning to see a professor today, in our department, he is the director of one of the labs there and a PI of a couple of projects. I knew that, he's looking for some student to join his project/s. I contacted him, he told that he's a couple of funding projects and make an appointment for me to see him. So, I'm thinking what are the best question that I may ask during this first meeting.

Ask the prof to tell you about his work. Then ask what expertise/skill set is most important to him among his lab team. Listen closely and then look for opportunities to describe how your skill set fits what he needs in his lab.


Does ORCID matter for a person who would like to work in academia? I just noticed the following words from arXiv:

"You are encouraged to associate your ORCID with your arXiv account. ORCID iDs are standard, persistent identifiers for research authors. ORCID iDs will gradually supersede the role of the arXiv author identifier."

I thus wonder if a person's profile in ORCID is really that important, given that the person would like to pursue a career in academia?

While I largely agree with Ian's answer (ORCID might matter in the future, but doesn't right now), I see one place where it may already matter and a reason why it should come to matter more in the future.

Right now, there is a strong implicit presumption of the uniqueness of a scientist's name, and all of the literature searches and citation databases, etc, of the world get rather confused when you have a person who either a) shares the same name as other practicing scientists or b) has a name that changes over time (e.g., marriage, gender identity change) or is represented differently (e.g., transliterated) in different papers.

On this site, we have a number of good, difficult questions dealing with the problems that name change and transliteration cause, which is particularly acute for academics in countries that don't use the Latin alphabet (e.g. this excellent question).  These problems will grow in importance as the number of practicing scientists grows and becomes more diverse, and as the duration of the readily searchable literature grows as well.

In short: there is a rapidly growing need for something like ORCID that makes it easy to distinguish scientists without context-sensitive text mining.  Whether ORCID is that thing, and how long it will take for it to be widely adopted and effective, are both open questions.


What to Do About Inaccurate Dates on Letters of Recommendation? As part of the application for a fellowship at an university, I acquired two letters of recommendation.

Apart from a factual inaccuracy in the body of one letter, which I am going to mention in the motivational letter, both of the letters I've got are stamped to a wrong date. One is dated earlier than the application for the fellowship was released (January instead of February, though the day isn't accurate either, lol). The other one is dated to the day before the application is due, while I received it a couple of days before that.

Should I worry about these inaccuracies and mention them in the motivational letter? I don't think it's particularly important, especially for the latter one, which contains a sensible date (though the 'date created' definitely shows a different date from the one signed), but I want to be sure.

There are a lot of reasons for such inaccuracies. Copy and paste is one. Inattention is another. But none of them that I can think of are your fault, and none seem to be attempts at sabotage.

As such, I would ignore the issue, especially in written documents in which you have more important and positive things to write. If you are asked about them, your reply can be just that the writer likely made a mistake and if it needs correction, you can probably handle it then.

Use your motivation letter for precisely that. Don't use it to apologize for the errors of others.


Online Computer Science Degree I read that Georgia Tech recently created a MOOC for CSCI, and I am interested in this program.

Has anyone done this program?  there is not much information regarding the online degrees.

0bviously these degrees benefit working class professionals.  Are they well regarded to employers or academics?

I can't really address your individual program, but I can address online/part-time degrees in general, especially in the computer science field.
Specifically, when you receive a degree from these places, it does not read:
Online Master's in Computer Science
It reads the same as a normal Master's degree, whether or not you take it online. So if you're after the Master's Degree, there is no stigma just because you got it online, or part-time (which online-degrees are a subset of).
The degree you receive as a full-time graduate student versus as a part-time professional are equivalent, in that you have achieved Mastery in Computer Science.
That being said, what you do to achieve mastery are very different if you go through a full-time or part-time/online program. I don't believe any part-time degree has a requirement for a thesis or research (it may be optional, but I don't believe it is a popular avenue due to the situation of being a full-time professional taking up normal working hours).
For a Future in Industry: Yes
The classes provided at my Master's program covered software life cycles, enterprise development, and database management, which are practical skills used in the industry. Classes that would be more geared towards academia, such as those covering machine learning and quantum computing, were not normally taught. Most of the skills you develop will be industry-standard practices. In fact, about 90% of the technology I used in the Master's program, I am actively using at my current employment.
In most cases, our classes involved us building fully functional applications as if we were a start-up entity. Off the top of my head, I built a game of Clue, a database-driven MVA, and an e-commerce website.
As always, learning new things is a major component of advancing in the CS industry. From my personal experience, my Master's majorly accelerated my job growth.
For a Future in Academia: It Depends
If you're planning a career in academia, a part-time or online degree may not provide you the background in research that I would normally associate with academic work.
That being said, the avenue still allows you to teach as an adjunct professor at the very same institutions, if you so choose. Most of my professors were in industry and worked day jobs, and just taught for fun during nights.
One major caveat of an online degree compared to an in-person degree is that it may be more difficult for you to get a decent letter of recommendation for PhD work, in my opinion, if you take all your courses online, due to the lack of actual interaction with your professor. For this reason, I tried to take all of my courses in-person when possible. It's also been mentioned repeatedly that in-class work provides more focus to students, and students typically learn better in those environments.


What percentage of phds in math actually get a tenure track academic job? I'm interested in knowing what percentage of math phds actually succeed in landing a tenure track academic job?

Also, does a phd from AMS Group 1 guarantees you an academic job in top universities? If not what other factors come in to role to play?

No. No one single factor guarantees you an academic job in a top university.  Whether or not you land such a job is a combination of many things.  These include,

talent
hard work
motivation
quality of research
quality of teaching
ability to network and get along with people
ability to communicate (both orally and in writing)
success in securing external funding
luck.

If you want such a job, here's what I recommend.  Choose an area that you're passionate about, go to the best school (most challenging and "highest rated") that you can get into, and work with an adviser with a strong publication record.  At each step along the way, surround yourself with (and learn as much as you can from) the most successful people possible.

You can find a partial answer to your question about percentage by reading the annual Survey of the Mathematical Sciences (by the American Math Society):

http://www.ams.org/profession/data/annual-survey/annual-survey


Advanced degrees in two subjects? Perhaps it is too early to ask this, but I will go ahead anyway, to satisfy my curiosity. I am currently studying Arts in a University, aiming to get a BA Honours in English and German. If I went ahead to get a Masters, would I have to choose one of them, or could I continue with both? And similarly for a Doctoral, if I get that far, does it have to be one subject at a time?

If you do research based Masters and/or PhD, you could probably find a specific research that combines elements of both - quite often (not always), these types of projects turn out to be the better ones, as they force the researcher to establish, rationalise and justify the links between them.

Even though my research has not been in linguistics, rather in the applied physical sciences field, my research combined a few subjects together - in my case: atmospheric physics, programming and signal processing.

So, it is very possible to do, in your case, relevant elements of both English and German in a single research postgraduate degree.


What exactly is an embargo for a journal? I was trying to access this article and was told this journal is "embargoed" for more than a year. This is the first time I have seen the term embargo used in an academic setting.

This answer talks a bit about the idea of journal embargoes. Wikipedia has more information but I do not find it helpful at all.

As I read (on Wikipedia), it seems embargoes in journals are for future stories (and not for everything ever published). The article that I am seeking is from two years ago.

This question implies that embargoes deal with the relationship between publisher and author, which does not make sense in the context of my request.

This answer implies that embargoes are about limiting access electronically, but, again, it seems I can buy the article for $40 so clearly it is available electronically.

So, what exactly is an embargo (in this context)? Does it really mean that I simply have no access to this through my university account? It looks like it is available to the general public (if you pay) but not to those of us with access through university subscriptions.

So far as I know, your understanding of the typical use of "embargo" for journals is correct: it is when a journal wants to be the "first to press" with its article, and so places a gag order on the authors and their institutions so that they don't go talking to the press first.

There is another place where journals also often want to be "first to press," however, and I suspect that this is what "embargo" refers to in this case. It is often the case that a journal makes its content available through multiple routes: immediately through the publisher for a premium, and with time-lag through larger accumulations, such as PubMed or ScienceDirect.

Thus, I think that what is probably going on here is that your institution does not judge this journal important enough to subscribe to directly, but gets it as part of a time-lagged "package deal."  You should check with your librarian how long the time-lag is, and then decide whether it's worth waiting or if you want to ask a colleague to help you get around the paywall...


How to tell my mentor to be careful when discussing my work in progress around people I do not trust? I had a very bad experience with a colleague and just do not like/trust him. (Eavesdropping, lying, ...) I am working on a project with my mentor, and know they shared information with the colleague I do not trust. How can I politely point that out to them?

If you can trust your mentor, just tell them. Say it as it is. But not in an email. This requires personal communication.

But, if you cannot trust your mentor then you have a bigger problem than you state and need to find better guidance.


Is it OK to have many graphs, tables, and images in a masters thesis? I am writing my master thesis. In my document I have lots of tables. images and graph. Is this have a bad effect on any academic person when want to evaluate my  thesis.

I ask this question because I am afraid that they see my
document say "look at his thesis , he fills all his document just by picture" . But I am really take time and effort to draw them and I absolutely think they are essential. So what is your idea ?

In my opinion, it is perfectly fine if you want to put so many original pictures in your thesis and if you are writing a thesis in natural science, you can even put some pictures from other papers/books in your introduction chapter. Just try to imagine you are a thesis reader (a professor) with so many other things to do. They would like to read less text and see more comprehensive figures. Of course, making a figure comprehensive depends on the quality of your graphics as well as your caption text.

So here's what I suggest: anytime you want to put a figure in your text, ask yourself: how this figure is going to help my readers understand the main point? Is it conveying the main message? And how the captions will help to understand this message?

Remember, other people also have limited time and sometimes limited interest in what you did or even the task of evaluating the thesis, so it is up to you to make your material concisely so that they can understand about your intentions easily.


How to become well-known in the research community while being a PhD student This question is mainly about building useful contacts during the course of the doctorate. How does one keep the relevant community in other universities informed about his/her research work? One way is obviously to publish the work in reputable journals, but the volume of work that people do these days means there is every chance that others miss out on your work.

So consider giving talks in other university departments about your work. What is the best way to approach this task? Who will take care of the travel and other expenses? This especially applies to departments which focus mainly on journal publications and do not spend time on conferences.

What are the other ways to popularise or create recognition for oneself in the relevant academic community (read prospective employers)?

The best way is to be highly active in your field. (Note: this will take work.) Here are my suggestions for accomplishing this, and I hope others will post more in the comments or other answers:

Do awesome work. It all starts here. As a PhD student, this typically requires being in an awesome lab under an awesome professor, but it is possible to achieve awesome work without that.
Publish in respected journals in your field.
Network within your field. This includes attending field-specific conferences, talking to other PhD students and professors in other labs, and forming collaborations.


Is it plagiarism (or bad practice) to cite reviews instead of source material directly? My first source of information when preparing a manuscript are reviews. If up-to-date and comprehensive, I feel I can create most of my introduction by rephrasing and citing them. Nevertheless, reviews are based on citing other papers and, with the deluge of literature published these days, finding the source material for a single claim sometimes becomes a never-ending and time consuming play with a Matryoshka doll.

For example, in this review by Misteli (2007), the following claim is made and supported citing three papers.

  The recent development of methods to probe the physical association of
  genome regions in a unbiased and genome-wide scale should lead to
  rapid progress in our still-rudimentary understanding of the
  functional significance of chromatin loops (Simonis et al., 2006;
  Wurtele and Chartrand, 2006;Zhao et al., 2006).

I consider relevant to a point in my article that there are new roads being opened to study “the functional significance of chromatin loops”, To do so, I have three options:

Rephrase the sentence and cite Misteli, 2007, acknowledging that I extracted the citation from the review and depriving the authors of the source material of a citation;
Rephrase the sentence and cite Simonis et al., 2006; Wurtele and Chartrand, 2006;Zhao et al., 2006  without reading the three source papers, which is kind of deceiving but at least acknowledges the authors of the research and not the author of the review; or
Read the original articles, rephrase and cite Simonis et al., 2006; Wurtele and Chartrand, 2006;Zhao et al., 2006, which is the most “honest” option but incredibly time consuming.

Sometimes, if I decide to do 3, I may find myself spending a lot of time reading, only to write something that was already said in the review.

Which option you would abide for? Am I somehow plagiarising the reviewers or primary authors if using any of my strategies? In terms of ethics and good scientific conduct, which is the best option? How deep and when should I look for source material?

I am not asking about which version of an article to cite, like here. I assume that versions cited in reviews are the most up to date. I am asking when it is correct to cite the review or the primary source found in such review.

Note: My strategy up to this days is a mix of 1 and 3: search and cite the source material only if the paper is relevant for the core of my article and cite the review when filling the generals.

Yes and No.

A review is not (or at least should not be) just a list of papers in the field, it is a research paper in its own right. A review should provide some form of new structure or idea that come from reviewing the scientific output the field in question. Thus a review can be useful when either pointing at the results emerging from the review or when you wish to provide an example of where a throrough description of a field is provided. So citing a review should primaruily be for general purposes.

If you need to cite a specific detail provided by one or several references in the review you should turn to the cited articles and check them. There is, first of all, no guarantee that the citations are correct and citing something that is not correct propagates errors in publications. In addition, the cited work may not be all the relevant work supporting a point from your perspective so your sources may become biased. After all your point for writing is most likely not the same as for the one writing the review.

A review therefore has a function on its own for providing overview and synthesis which can be cited but if you need to cite details you must go to the original work and also not limit yourself to the reference list of the review.

EDIT: Just to answer the question in full: plagiarism is only if you copy the text with out quotes. If you copy the references you are not necessarily plagiarizing but you will then give the false impression that you have actually read, in part of fully, the articles concerned and that is in the realm of unethical behaviour. In the best case, it is unwise for the resons given above.


Mentioning a published paper from a current team member in a PhD letter application I am writing a motivation letter for a PhD position related to antibody analytics. While I was researching the current research group I read a paper published by current team member "A" which I found pretty interesting, and honestly, also quite motivating.

I would like to include this in my motivation letter, but the problem is that "A" published this paper when she was working at another research institute. NOT the one I would be currently applying to.

Would it be a faux pas to mention this paper in my motivation letter?. On the one side it would show that I have actually researched them, and that I am actually motivated (which I explain why). On the other side, it could give the impression that I thought it was published by them, and I was not careful.

I think the content of the publication is more important than the author of the publication.  I would mention the paper as well as other similar papers that you have read that are by other authors.  Most likely, your  person "A" will know of the other authors in your field so it is not necessary to soley focus on mentioning person "A."  I think it is more important to show your interest in the specific research area rather than knowing where person "A" worked.


my article has been evaluated since 17 months. what do you think about this situation? I submitted my article to a journal on 12.01.2016. I asked many times about status of my paper. I have not received a reply from the editor even though my article has been evaluated since 17 months. what do you think about unethical situation?

If they're not answering emails, that is a very worrying sign. I would suggest sending an email to the editor (cc'ing the editor-in-chief and any other relevant people at the journal) saying that you are very concerned that they are not answering your emails, and that if they don't answer this email, you intend to withdraw the paper.

Then, if they don't answer the email within a reasonable time, send them another email withdrawing the paper.


Can a *reviewer* ask for the status of the paper that is reviewing? So, I was asked to referee a paper for a reputed TCS journal which I did. I wrote my report within 3 months from invitation but I was waiting almost 6 more months till I get Editor's notification for the decision (sent to authors but also to myself as a referee).

The authors of that paper prepared a major revision and submitted within 3 weeks this new version, and I was asked by the editor to re-evaluate this newer version. I did, again within 3 months.

Now, more than 6 months have passed since I uploaded my report and still no news from the editor. When I login as a reviewer into the system I see: Status under review and Status Date to be the date I uploaded my recommendation.  From this I conclude that no new referee was asked and simply the 2nd referee is, again, very late with her/his report (6+3 = 9 months at least since we were asked to re-evaluate the new version).

Now, this is a very interesting, difficult and somewhat controversial, paper and I would realy like the authors to see and answer my comments/suggestions/questions as soon as possible . The more time passes, the more I forget about the paper and I would have to read it again and again in a possible 3rd round.

  Question: Does it make sense me, as a reviewer, to contact the editor about the status of the paper stating my reasons about that? What would be, most likely, the reaction of the editor? Did this ever happened? Or simply to stay silent since this is not my paper?

Note that I do not plan to have time after September, due to many commitements, to dedicate myself on re-evaluating such a difficult paper so it is a matter of time (besides the obvious interest) for me and this is an issue that would affect my plan next semester when the other referee decides to send the report to go into the 3rd round.

In my opinion, it is ok to ask politely about anything to the editors, as long as you can (and do) explain sensibly why you ask, and as long as you don't demand it. Such requests shall be at worst considered odd or unusual.

In this case, I think it is in the best interest of everyone involved for you to let know the editor about your timing issue (and the sooner the better). The most probable outcome is that the editor will still wait for the second reviewer, because otherwise the authors could think answering your demands should be enough to get their paper accepted, and they could get pissed off if other demands arrive later from the second referee. Even if there is no such misunderstanding, they could prefer to dive in their paper to correct it once rather than twice.

However, letting the editor know might prompt her or him to push a bit the second reviewer, possibly speeding up the process a bit. He or she might also decide to go with your sole report. In any case, once the editor have all relevant info on her or his hand, he or she can choose the most appropriate course of action.


What is the impact of software development experience in a research lab on graduate admissions? A little background

I graduated with a bachelor's degree in computer science not too long ago. Unfortunately, I didn't understand the importance of formal research for grad admissions as an undergrad. I got a software development job in industry, but it has little relevance to my career path (not just my academic career path either).

As I looked around for opportunities to remedy this situation, I found a few jobs in academia as a software developer working in a lab. These seem to fall in some gray area in terms of research vs. software development. While these jobs aren't "research" jobs (in that you aren't the one making breakthroughs or responsible for writing papers, for example), they involve developing/integrating code relevant to research (e.g., creating programs for the researchers and/or assemble their code into a larger program). Obviously, the ship has sailed for me to do formal research as an undergrad.

Also

Before someone links to this, I read this post already and many other relevant posts on this site: Usefulness of prior industry experience before entering grad school?

My question is more specific. I can possibly be more specific as well, but I'm not sure how general I should/can make this question. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Formal Question

What impact could a software development job in a research lab have on grad school admissions (research masters and PhD in computer science) compared to a software development job in industry?

I believe that a graduate school would look very favorably on a candidate who worked as a research lab technician and implemented the research challenges by writing code. To me this seems like a great path for you to strengthen your resume to apply to graduate schools.


Talking about the topics I have independently studied in my statement of purpose I'm applying to PhD programs in physics. However, there are no good research opportunities at my school. I have produced no original results that I can talk about so far, and I'm worried that I will be competing with candidates who have several publications, original results, and so forth. However, I independently studied some subjects in depth. For instance, condensed matter theory topics, such as topological order, the quantum hall effect, the renormalization group technique which, I think, are normally studied at graduate not undergraduate level. Is it appropriate to elaborate in my statement of purpose at length about the topics that I have studied and the calculations that I have done even if these are not original results of mine? Otherwise, I will not have much to say about my academic experience.

What you want to do above all is to make your SoP about the future, not the past. Find a way to include your self study in your CV, say in a special section. Especially if you can say something brief but credible about it: online courses, work of authors x, y, z, correspondence with ....

Then, if you have some backup from the CV, and I don't think it needs to be a lot, then you can say in the SoP how that prior study supports your future plans.

Your admission to the program won't be entirely about your past. A large part of the considerations will be about people's predictions about your future and how successful you are likely to be. So try, as much as possible in the SoP to make that case, not your past accomplishments.

Try to balance it a bit between CV and SoP so that each covers what it is intended to cover and makes your strongest case overall.


My research work is published before me My project work which i was planning to publish somebody else published just 1 month before. what should i do? Is my total research work of 8 months going to be a waste?
I was working for a novel phytochemical and planned to publish my paper. When i submitted the journal manuscript in December, the editor replied in the month of January that some other Chinese group published paper for the same product in January. Is my whole research of 8 months going to be a wastage. What other options do i have? Please suggests.

This is a common problem that researchers face. The fear of being scooped partially explains the publish or perish culture in academia. This is definitely a setback for you, but there are a few options which you can consider to make at least some use of all those months of research:

You can try to build on the published paper. If required, conduct a few more experiments and move over to the next logical step in the idea.
Using your original idea as a base, try to come up with a related but new research question that allows you to use some of the old data.
Go through your paper again and see if there is any secondary finding that you might not have focused on at that point of time, but which could be developed into a new research idea.

Now that you have been scooped once, you should try to get your results out before anybody else does. Since the publication process of journals can take up a lot of time, one thing you can do to avoid getting scooped is post a pre-print or present at a conference as soon as you finish your research. Also, make sure that you do not take too long to write your manuscript. You should actually start writing certain sections, such as the methods and results section as and when you perform the experiments. That way, you will be able to save up on the writing time.

Most importantly, do not lose motivation. The fear of being scooped is part of a researcher's life and there is no foolproof system in place to avoid it. So just keep your spirits up and move on.


Academic home page with low maintenance burden It's been mentioned before on this site how important it is to have a webpage.

Most academics don't have a lot of experience with web development, and do not realistically have time to learn it and keep the knowledge up to date.

What are some good ways/tools to create and maintain a professional website when the priority is minimizing long term maintenance burden?

My experience is that it's not uncommon that people will put in the effort to build a very nice website once, but they simply won't be able to maintain it long term.  Either it's too much effort to add new content (too busy to do it), or they change institutions and it's too much effort to migrate the site (because e.g. the new institution's hosting doesn't support some of the necessary tools, such as PHP, etc.)  Even if I put in the effort to learn a bit about web development today, I won't be using this knowledge contiually, so I'll forget how to do it.  At that point it might become too much of a burden to keep a website up to date, so eventually I'll neglect it.

This question is about how to avoid this situation, and what tools or hosting methods to use to minimize maintenance burden so a home page can realistically be kept up to date.

The simplest solution seems to be to only use basic (static) hand-written HTML and maybe a simple CSS stylesheet.  Many (most) academics are doing this.  The result will probably not be very beautiful and will look like webpages 15 years ago, but it can serve the purpose.  Are there any better ways?  (Typing all that <p> and <em> and <pre> and <ul> is in fact still rather tedious and error prone compared e.g. to writing MarkDown here.)

tl;dr: Wordpress (installing a Markdown plugin), if you are a techie, Jekyll.

(My website is in Wikidot, I created for my group with Wordpress.

EDIT: Now I use Jekyll; here's why)

See Software for Scientists: Website tools:

For personal homepages, lab notebooks and conference websites.

  WordPress - code  and WordPress - hosting

  Examples:

  https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/
  https://gowers.wordpress.com/
  http://netsci2013.net/wordpress/

  Jekyll

  For writing blogs in Markdown and easily putting them on GitHub
  Tutorial for using LaTeX in it: http://cwoebker.com/posts/latex-math-magic
  Examples:

  Open Lab Notebook in Jekyll
  A homepage

  Wikidot

  e.g http://offtopicarium.wikidot.com/

  Wikispaces

  Simple wikis, very easy to create and manage
  Used as open science notebooks, for instance http://usefulchem.wikispaces.com/

  Site44

  Showing small site by putting files into a Dropbox folder

  GitHub Pages

  Static websites with Git

  Instiki

  Wiki especially for mathematical collaboration
  Examples:

  http://www.azimuthproject.org/
  http://ncatlab.org/

  WorkingWiki

  Wiki especially for mathematical collaboration

  Sphinx

  Great for writing documentation
  Example (in Polish): http://django.carrots.pl/

  Jekade

  Jekyll-like static pages with built-in LaTe support, in Node.JS


Is it okay to restructure a literature review to fit a broad topic? I'm aware that most literature reviews follow a similar structure, which is:

Introduce a topic
Discuss and cross reference papers that cover this topic

The literature review that I am covering is a very broad topic (medical applications for machine learning) and is interested in all the research covering this topic. Is it okay to write a literature review with the following structure?:

Introduce paper
Discuss paper
Move onto next paper and repeat.

This could be discussed in the methodology of the lit review.

The answer to your title question, “is it okay to restructure a literature review...” is yes. There is no one uniform way that literature reviews must be written. What is important is to make sure that your literature review does its job, which is to do a comprehensive review of the publications on a particular topic.

The only worry with the structure that you propose is the ability to do a completely comprehensive review (which is a difficulty in writing any given literature review, but is especially troublesome in your topic). By simply discussing papers and not cross referencing them within topical discussions, your literature review turns into a data-dump instead of a review. It is not necessarily bad to have a broad topic, nor is it bad to discuss and “rinse and repeat” through several papers, but it is essential that your review is well-structured and does not arbitrarily choose the pieces it is reviewing.

Restructuring is fine, but do not compromise the quality of the review because the topic is broad.


academic job offers during Coronavirus I signed a contract for an academic faculty position in the US in February. Now with the pandemic affecting universities, do you think it is possible that they rescind the offer? Is it appropriate to reach out to the dean or someone else and ask how the situation is developing in light of hiring freezes at some universities in the US?

Yes, it is appropriate to explore the situation. I doubt that the offer would be rescinded, but who can say except them. They will need the personnel now as much or more than ever.

You have a signed contract so they are bound as well in all but the most extreme situations.

But timing and such might be disrupted. And if you aren't already in the US, note that border crossing is very difficult if even possible.

But ask, and ask to be kept informed.


Same recommendation letter for different semesters? I applied to a NASA internship for the spring semester, and I want to reapply for the internship for summer. Is it okay and good to ask the same professor who sent a recommendation letter for my spring application to resend the same letter for my new summer application? Does it weaken my application in any way?

Yes, that's perfectly acceptable.  I've submitted duplicate letters myself in support of reappointments for some of my students and they've all been successful.  (But like most instructors, I only agree to write an LOR if I can write a good one that I think will be helpful.)  The only reason for concern would be if you were turned down on your previous application and you worry it might have been because he/she gave you a weak reference.


When does NSF update the status date? I have submitted a proposal to NSF about 9 months ago, and the status of the proposal in Fastlane is "pending" with the last update being the day after it was submitted. Does it mean that it has not been reviewed yet? I have heard that when a proposal is reviewed by a panel, the status date gets updated even though the status might remain the same.

It has been reviewed but a decision has not been made. So it is "pending".


Is it plagiarism if I don't mention where I found a quotation originally? Say author A writes on Topic B and in this context uses quotation C which is not from the same field and appears highly original in Topic B. I then read this article, and I am myself writing on Topic B. I find the quote so useful or relevant, that I quote it myself.

Am I obliged to mention where I found the quote (namely in author A)? Or can I just use the quote? Where are the boundaries here, what do you think is acceptable, what is not? Also, if it is not ethical, that's one thing - but is it also plagiarism?

PS: If anyone has a good title for this sort of question, please feel free to edit. Not sure how to name this.

Yes, this might be very close to plagiarism, but without knowing the details this is hard to tell. The litmus test is this: consider you are author A and somebody else does that: what would you feel?

To be on the save side, just give credit to author A for introducing the quotation C in the context of topic B (but not more). There is no harm done in this way.


Citation for a processor instruction set? I am writing a paper where I am talking about the SSE and AVX instruction sets.  For a hardware feature like an instruction set, I am wondering how to figure out what is an appropriate citation to use, or if it should be cited at all?

Cite their manual

The links to the manuals seem to appear at the reference sections of the respective Wikipedia pages.


Meeting PhD advisor during first year (coursework year) I'm starting my Ph.D. this year. My first 2 years will only be coursework. So, I won't be able to do any serious independent research. My research will only be in the context of what's required for the specific courses, so nothing too serious.
I am aware that I should meet with my advisor regularly, but what should I talk about? Usually, graduate students will talk about their results, advancement of their thesis, etc. Should I be talking about my courses and such?
Thanks!

Your first meeting(s) with your advisor should be...directed at answering this very question.
How should your meetings going forward be structured? What topics should you plan to discuss? What's your schedule for making progress toward degree requirements/prelim requirements? When can you start considering research directions? etc.
You might be used to interacting with professors as people who stand above you in some way, people who you only approach with deference and who are judging you at every step. A PhD advisor shouldn't be that person. They are training you to be their peer and colleague. It is expected that you will need some help along the way, and they should be there to help you, so you should feel free to have open conversations about what that advising relationship will look like between you. The earlier the better: often conflicts arise when there are mismatches of expectations. Set shared expectations to avoid conflict (including internal conflict: stress, anxiety, etc).


Editing in an Academic Journal TLDR: Can a researcher include an entire paragraph from another article for which they were a co-author on a new, single-author article?
Copy-editor for an academic journal here with an issue I've never come across before. We work with Chicago-style footnotes.
I have a solo-authored article by someone (let's call them Alex) that includes an entire paragraph from another article in which Alex was a co-author. I only found out that the entire paragraph was lifted from another article through my own background research. Giving Alex the benefit of the doubt, I asked how they would like to address this paragraph: Would they like to rewrite it? Cite the paragraph in a footnote? They would like to cite it in a footnote; however, I am now unsure of whether this is an appropriate fix given that it's an entire paragraph from another article in which Alex was listed as one of many authors, and for which Alex was not mentioned as one of the writers. I'm not sure what to do given that an entire paragraph seems like it's enough to warrant including all the other authors from the other article.
Here are the questions I'm wondering about that will help me determine what path to take with this article:

Do I go ahead and cite the entire paragraph as a quotation? If so, do I need to tell Alex that they need permission from all other authors in the previous article?
Do I tell Alex that they need to include all the other authors as co-authors on this paper if they want to include this paragraph?
Should I just change my mind and say that, after reviewing best practices or consulting with others, Alex needs to rewrite the paragraph?

They need to give a citation, but, if it is permitted to quote the entire paragraph, then they don't need permission from the other authors.
Whether it is permitted or not is a question of copyright and fair-use exemptions. If they still hold copyright jointly, then each of them needs to give permission. If your journal holds it then I see little problem as the journal can grant a license. Otherwise permission should be sought from the copyright holder for a long quotation.
Even if the old paragraph is paraphrased rather than quoted, a citation is required. Otherwise it is self-plagiarism. In that case, the copyright issue would disappear as there is no "copying".
But I don't see any reason that the other authors on the old paper need to become co-authors on this one. Certainly an individual can extend old joint work as a single author.


Should I tell hiring committee about my interview opportunity at another institution? My situation might be slightly different from the question Should I tell other interviewers where else I've interviewed?.

I have received an offer from my home institution (institution A), and the deadline for a response is fast approaching. I also received an interview request for a similar position from institution B, whose hiring decision may not be available before the deadline of the offer from A. Personally, I am more attracted to the position at institution B. Should I tell the hiring committee at my home institution about this interview at institution B to get an extended deadline for the offer from A?

One potential complication is that one of the committee members at my home institution provided a recommendation letter for me. My inclination would be to be upfront and honest, but my family have different opinions.

Consider asking for an extension without giving a specific reason. People should expect that you are exploring options and that they have different expiration dates. Ask if it would be a problem if you can't make a decision prior to -date-. If they ask for more, say that you are exploring your options and expect to be ready by that date. But the details can remain private. Don't give the impression, however, that an offer would be unlikely to be accepted if another comes in.

I can't predict, of course, whether you will get an extension. If you don't, then you need to deal with it as presented.

But assume that if they want to make you an offer then they actually want to hire you and not just fill a slot by some date. They have some incentive to deal with you, though they have other considerations as well.


Is web-presence important for researchers? How important is web-presence to researchers? How does its importance vary by fields? (My interest is STEM, theory in particular)

I noticed that there is a pretty large variation in amount of web-presence even within a single field (I will use theoretical computer science/related math as an example). There seems to be 3 different levels of web-presence:

[High] Very active member of various internet tools (MathOverflow, cstheory, blogs, G+, etc) usually accompanied by a clear homepage with all the [Medium] info.
[Medium] A clear up-to date website that provides a clean bibliography/CV (usually with links to self-hosted pdfs), a repository of course-notes and teaching information, and list of students.
[Low] No personal website (or extremely outdated website).

Increasing your web-presence usually requires effort. Should you invest this effort? Or are you just wasting research time?

If you enjoy being active on the internet (so it is not a cost for you, but maybe a time-sync) is there any danger to having a high web presence?

The short answer, at least in theoretical computer science, is yes.  Especially pre-tenure.
The Coin of the Realm in academia is fame.  Hiring and promotion decisions are based primarily on the perceptions of your impact by leaders in the research community.  Those intellectual leaders must know who you are, they must know what you do, and they must think that what you do is excellent.  This is precisely why it's so important to network, network, network — go to conferences, visit other departments, talk to visitors, ask questions, answer questions, go to lunch, drink beer, play pool/golf/frisbee/Settlers of Catan, race go-karts, exchange business cards, all that stuff.  Having a visible online presence is just another form of networking.
Similarly, if you want to attract good students, they have to know who you are, they have to know what you do, and they have to think what you do is interesting.
Similarly, if your work is not freely and easily accessible on the web, it is much less likely to be cited than freely accessible work of comparable quality.
To give some personal examples, I have good reason to believe that these web pages were a significant factor in my academic job search and even my tenure case, and this stuff definitely helped me get promoted.  I expect that these pages similarly helped Suresh, and these pages similarly helped David.


Formal letter to an academic person holding Master's degree Usually it is simple: "Dear Prof. Berret...", Dear Dr. Jones...". But this time I have to write a formal letter to a person with a Masters Degree (MSc). I never met the person, can not be sure about their gender (Tracy Smith could be both man/woman). The person is active in academia, publishing frequently and their job title is "Director". What are my options?
Dear Director of... (with no name)?
Dear Principal Investigator ...?
Dear Mr Smith?
Dear Mrs Smith?
Anyone?

Don't overthink it. Try to find out the gender and then use "Mr." or "Mrs."
Even many professors don't insist on titles most the time and a person with a master degree is usually just a (former) student, who is one step further than other students. In a second E-Mail you can then use how they call themself in their signature.
"Dear Director" may be appropriate, when the job position is relevant to your E-Mail.
(It may depend on the country how much people want to be addressed using their academic full title)


What problems are caused by pedagogical blogging about a class? I am a course TA and I instruct a class of about 20 undergrads. I'm planning to make a public pedagogy blog. I think there could be some potential problems with this. For example, if the students in my class find it, and read "a student is struggling with Y topic", or "I think this student is having problems".

Potentially risky content:

Class plans and preparation
Reflections on each class, including comments on the students
Discussions of course content, and suggested improvements to prescribed classwork

Are there any potential problems I would encounter, given the material I am blogging about?

Possible solutions:

Anonymising my own name
Anonymising all the students' names
Restricting access to course staff (lecturer, TAs)

Do I require any of these solutions?

First, you need to decide the purpose of your blog / your targeted audience.

If you are writing something so your class can be more interactive, you would clearly write it one way (being very careful not to embarrass anyone) - simply removing names might not actually hide identities in a class of 20 students. In this scenario, I don't see a reason to hide your own identity.

If you are writing something for other teachers, to discuss pedagogical issues, then you would write in a very different way. In this case, anonymizing your student names is very important (for different reasons) and you might want to hide your own identity as a way to stop your students or anyone else connecting your writings to a particular group of students.


Protecting yourself when leaving PhD which involves misrepresentation of results and potentially unsafe bio-containment procedures? I am in the process of leaving a PhD program after less than one year. I have spoken with my advisers and am slated to leave by the end of the summer.

I have various reasons for leaving, including general disinterest in lab work and that is the official story that my advisers are giving.

During the course of my PhD, I have had to write some reports and an abstract for a talk that involve seriously stretching the truth. In short, I am misrepresenting the promise of the molecule that I am studying. I am misrepresenting this to the grant people. I am also omitting data that doesn't support the conclusions my advisers want, but not producing any false data.

The other thing that I have been doing is growing transgenic plants that express a drug for oral delivery in a food crop. Our lab does not have the proper approval from the university to do this, and we are growing it in a greenhouse without proper containment. I am not a plant scientist so I do not know the potential danger, but I do know the species I am studying has the potential to cross pollinate and produces many tinny seeds that get everywhere. I am concerned about the safety and another lab member has voiced his concerns to my advisers but no action has been taken. We are in the process of trying to get a permit to grow it, but it hasn't been issued yet.

By leaving my PhD, I have already lost all potential to enter my field of study so I am currently switching to statistics and happy about it. My concern is that I might be implicated in something if all this sloppiness catches up to my advisers.

What steps can I do to protect myself so that my work here doesn't come back to haunt me?

I would strongly consider whistle-blowing (internal, within your organization) in this particular situation.

There are many reasons (good, bad, and hybrid) that lead people to the decision of becoming whistle-blowers: plain vanilla ethics, the desire for power & attention, willingness to protect others, legal requirements, etc. However, protecting yourself by whistle-blowing is a totally legitimate reason.

Whistle-blowing comes with some potential consequences, but here are the reasons why you might incline towards doing it:

you already made a decision to quit your program: thus, the situation influenced you (and other group members) heavily;
you already decided to switch the field of study;
this story can have direct consequences as bio-material is involved. There are very good reasons why special regulations exist for working with such materials;
the fact that the wrong-doing is happening has documental evidence: lack of the permit that is required.

If you decide to proceed, be careful in terms of the facts you present. Try to be as objective as possible without adding unnecessary emotions. Make sure that you present the facts with as little interpretation of your own as possible. Let the knife do the work facts speak for themselves.


How to equitably divide the economic benefits of a licensed patent among academic inventors? I am PI of a research group and in different projects regarding sample analyses, it looks like we will be able to license 4 patents to 4 different companies. I can tell you this success was not neither expected nor planned. And now the problems come; the money we receive from each patent, how to distribute it among the different participants. In order to avoid problems, I decided to distribute it equally between the number of people involved on each patent, which varies from 5 to 7, including me.

But some people are disappointed because they consider that other people did much less and should receive less percentage. In addition, I do not like this completely since I got all the funding for the projects, infrastructures and negotiate it hard with the companies, so I think I should deserve it a bit more, but I know that with this I will have problems in the group. Of course, I should have written everything down, the regulations, before starting the projects, but now it is too late. In order to solve this I thought about preparing a document, in which everybody writes down what they think they did, and how that part contributed to the invention. Then I think we could start a reasonable discussion, so people that did less, could not say the opposite, and finally we would reach an agreement. Another solution I thought would be to leave my University to decide on this.

My questions here is, how would you solve this problem, and if you think (and why) that a PI should get more part of the contribution.

(Expanding a bit on Buffy's answer)
Short answer: Use some math to make everyone happy.
This is actually a well-explained problem in economics for which there is a solution.
It is possible to mutually assess everyone's contribution, without anyone unfairly boosting their own contribution, so that the proceeds are distributed in a way that everyone is likely to be satisfied with. This is, as Buffy said, a type of cake-cutting algorithm.
A Tool
If you'd like to skip the theory and go straight to a solution, check out spliddit.org/apps/credit. They provide a web app for everyone to subjectively assess everyone else's contribution and computes the fair proportions. The theory behind it is pretty clever, and you will likely find that everyone finds the splitting to be satisfactory.
A Theory
If you're looking for a more principled answer (other than "try this tool"), here's the paper that describes the theory and method used by Spliddit in rigorous depth: Impartial Division of a Dollar - Clippel, Moulin, Tideman
The method satisfies two formalized criteria:
Impartiality - no one assesses or covertly influences the assessment of their own contribution
Consensus - the ultimate division is compatible with every individual's assessment of others' contributions
Good luck!


Developed technique but was not added as co-author I developed a novel technique (from 2016 until my graduation in August 2019) in my area of study as a PhD student. I transferred the technique to another PhD student, which took all of Fall 2018. Today I found that the second student and my (ex)advisor submitted a paper in July (before my graduation), and neither included me as co-author (even though I helped the second student adapt my technique to his problem with significant hand-holding), nor cited my papers documenting the technique.

Today my (ex)advisor sent an email asking me to help transfer my technique to a third student. The third student informed me that the second student (who left the research group for another) is not cooperating, and stalling with excuses of other commitments. Of late, my (ex)advisor has become very toxic to work with, and has lost numerous good grants. What do you advise I do in such a situation?

The proper advice, I think, is to ask for co-authorship on any future papers that use your technique. Point out that you are actually due this for having developed the technique and even more for adapting it to the other students' work. Not for "helping them" adapt it. For adapting it. Nor would I be shy about saying that they made an error in not including you on the recent paper.

They might just offer an acknowledgement and you can decide if that is enough for you. I don't have a recommendation about that, but think that co-authorship is probably more appropriate.

And, if they say no, then your decision about helping is also pretty clear, I think.

I wouldn't make the suggestion quite so strong except that you say the relationship with your advisor is already toxic. You have your own career to think about and your own research goals and needs. You don't need to also do someone else's work without proper attribution.


What algorithm does Google Scholar use to order papers in a search? When you perform a search on Google Scholar, is there any detailed explanation of how Google orders the results?

I believe it uses this

  "Google Scholar aims to rank documents the way researchers do,
  weighing the full text of each document, where it was published, who
  it was written by, as well as how often and how recently it has been
  cited in other scholarly literature." About google scholar

For more detailed answer,

  "Google Scholar also strengthens the Matthew Effect: articles with
  many citations will be more likely to be displayed in a top position,
  get more readers and receive more citations, which then consolidate
  their lead over articles that are cited less often." Google Scholar‘s
  Ranking Algorithm: An Introductory Overview


Can I have a PhD in one field, and be an avid academic contributor in another? Disclaimer: I'm an undergrad with very limited knowledge of how academia really works and what the atmosphere and culture is like.

I'm very interested in pure mathematics, and I think I'm pretty good at it. I'm currently an undergraduate in my university's Pure Math program. However, I'm also incredibly interested in mechanical engineering and entrepreneurship, and want the skills to be able to build things, to be involved in and lead engineering projects and design systems and products that will one day (hopefully) make the world a better place.

So I was thinking, maybe I should finish my pure math degree, then enter mechanical engineering and possibly work towards a PhD in that field. However, I would still love to be an avid contributor and active member of the pure mathematics research community.

In a hypothetical situation where I get a PhD in mechanical engineering, what would be the best way to get involved in the pure math academic community, to the extent of:

writing and publishing papers
contributing to the works of other established pure math researchers
potentially being a part of research groups or committees
etc.

Basically, I want to have a PhD in one field, and somehow be able to participate in the lifestyle of a PhD in another field sometime later in life. How might I accomplish this? Is there a generally accepted path academics take to achieve this, or is it frowned upon by academics to attempt to be an active member of two, divergent academic fields?

Edit: I wanted to clarify that I wouldn't get the PhD in mechanical engineering, only to then be an active member in a different academic community. Ideally, I would participate for a large portion of my life in mechanical engineering, and another large portion of my life in pure math.

I also wanted to point out that I recognize that getting two PhDs isn't a valid option, nor is it one I necessarily want to pursue. I also don't want to do a bachelor's degree and a PhD at the same time.

Finally, I would like to add that I am not in any form attempting to prognosticate my life; maybe in two years I won't be interested in mechanical engineering and entrepreneurship anymore. I'm just curious about the nuances of such a path.

In principle there's no problem with that. Many researchers change their fields over the course of their career -- sometimes slightly, sometimes drastically. No one cares what your PhD says on it, just the quality of your work.

There are a couple of caveats. If you need funding for the new field, you may have trouble convincing funding agencies that you're competent to perform the work.  And of course it can be hard enough to do good work even when you devote all your time to one field, let alone two (though on the flip side, using insights from Field A may give you a new view on Field B).

But the field your PhD is in, by itself, doesn't limit your activities.


In what kind of research should I analyse its possibility, necessity and feasibility? I'm an educational/instructional technology major in China. My supervisor asked me to analyse my thesis' possibility, necessity and feasibility which seldom have I seen in papers written by Western researchers. What's more, I have articulated the literature review ahead. I'm just wondering if masters in your university need to write such things.

the background

It may sound strange to you, but I'm truly confused on this issue. I'm pursuing a master degree under a very reputed and elderly tenured professor. Although he has a PHD background in Dutch in the earlier 1980s, I thought he is kind of too non-international.

The introduction of articles usually explain why are you doing what you are doing, i.e., the necessity. You don't see feasibility analysis because they are, obviously, possible, since they have been done. On the other hand, grant proposals do it: they have to convince the committee that the research they propose is possible, useful, and can be done on time. You could ask your supervisor for some of his grant proposals as an example. This is not always done because this is in general a difficult analysis to do.

Furthermore, MSc thesis are often used as feasibility analysis on their own: the professor gets someone to work for a few months on a topic, and can (hopefully) discover most of the problems in advance. If the results are promising, it will be offered as a PhD or postdoc project.

By making you do the literature review in advance he is making you get up to date with the field, something that everybody has to do when starting a new research topic. Bear in mind that this section will have to be expanded and rewritten as you advance your research and discover that you need other tools.


Online tool for receiving student files I'm a TA in several modules and one thing I couldn't find yet is a system to help me manage student lab submissions. Most online collaborative tools I've seen do not allow me to, or make it quite complex to receive files from students and download all of them at once.

Note that in my university, there is not such a strict discipline, in the sense that late submissions are often tolerated; if students forget to send their files, I'd like to gently remind them to do so; etc.

So far, I use e-mail for managing student submissions, but there are several limitations:

Students forget to send the e-mail, or send it to an incorrect address, or simply quit the course, but since I do not know in which case they are, I have to manually e-mail students from which no submission has been received;
Students have no guarantee I actually received the email, so I have to ACK them;
Students sometimes send an e-mail but forget the attachment, so I have to check each of them and notify the student;
Students sometimes send multiple versions, and if there is a deadline between them, it might change the grading criteria;

So far, I have to manually open each email, download the files to a separate folder, and ACK the student. This is quite boring.
Something that would help me save some time and automate things (like sending reminders, one-click download of all files, etc) would be of great help.

So far I've seen Moodle and Piazza, but none of them seem to actually help much with student file management, or I missed something. Any indications of tools for the job?

One thing to consider is do you really need student assignments to be downloaded. I say this because I used to but I recently started using TurnItIn. However, I only use this for plagiarism detection, I do not use it for marking (university policy is that I MUST mark the paper copy...yes I know the dangers there, but that's for another day).

Since you didn't mention the larger issue you are trying to solve, I'll continue just with your direct question about how to download many student assignments without a million clicks.

What I did is simply setup an email account for students to email to (not my main email account). I instruct the students to use specific filenames (StudentID_StudentName_AssignmentName.docx) and they email me. I use a standalone email client (not webmail) so it all downloads to my computer. My client has a preview pane so I simply drag-drop to my assignment folder, move to the next message, drag-drop, repeat. I do this for 200-500 students per assignment per semester and find it does not lend itself to much more automation than this.

In all, it takes me 2 clicks per student (literally) and I end up with all student assignments in one folder. It handles ACK'ing the student on the server (auto-responder) but I could also use read-receipts but those don't usually work with webmail.

If you want to email students who did not submit, that's more complicated. I handle it during the marking process (let's see the file...ooops, they forgot...time to email them...or fail them for not submitting properly). TurnItIn will tell you which students did not submit.

As for students submitting multiple versions, as long as they submit with the proper naming convention, you will overwrite the older with the newer. I'm not sure if that is what you want or not but I would assume so.


Why is there a 14-year difference between the submission date of this arXiv paper and the date in the paper text? I am so confused. This paper is listed as having been submitted in 1999, but the date below the author's names inside the PDF is 2013.

What is the meaning of each date?

The LaTex source code contains the \date{\today} command, which inserts the current date at the time of compilation. That is, the PDF is probably last regenerated in 2013. The arXiv submission history gives a more reliable date.


Journal got blacklisted recently – how to withdraw the paper from the journal and database? Recently, the journal where my paper was published got blacklisted in a so-called blacklist. I was very surprised since the journal existed more than ten years.

My questions:

How to drop the paper from the indexing databases, such as Scopus. What will be the consequences and what are the procedures?
If I will keep the paper in this journal, how it will affect my academic career?

I don't think you can or should "drop" the paper.  To paraphrase the jewelry slogan, a publication is forever.  You can't take it back just because you don't like the direction the journal has gone, or how people's  opinions of the journal have shifted.  Also, from a legal perspective, it's likely you signed a contract giving the journal the perpetual (and possibly exclusive) right to distribute your paper, and you might also have transferred copyright; so you can't legally prevent them from keeping your paper.

And indexing services are telling the truth when they list your paper as published there; you can't prevent them from sharing that fact.

One could argue a moral exception for a "predatory" journal which actively misled you about its standards and practices, in which case one could say your consent to publish was fraudulently obtained.  Even in that case, though, I don't see what you can practically do, since the journal is unlikely to agree to drop your paper.

How it will affect your career is unknowable - it depends on how important this paper is to your career, the opinions of the people evaluating you, why the journal was blacklisted, etc.

I think all you can do is resolve to be more careful when choosing publication venues in the future.


Supervising same work again and again I found few professors having supervised more than 200 masters theses 'each' in the past 14-15 years. When looked at these theses, I found that out of 200 theses supervised by a professor, more than 100 works were based on the same idea:

theory is same
method of analysis is same
results and discussion are alike (similar)
proposed future works are same

Only the data sets are different, that is in thesis 'x', he used data in the range 1-2, in thesis 'y', he used data in the range 2-3 and so on. In some cases, I found that even the data set in a particular range, say, 1-2, collected by different filters/methods were distributed to 5-6 students and asked to do the same same work. Even after 14-15 years, the future works to be done have not changed. The proposed future works are appearing same from one thesis to another. I noticed the same behavior in the remaining theses also. The whole bunch of theses were just based on 2-3 ideas.
So, the question is: if such type of works repeatedly supervised is good or bad. My personal feeling is that it is a bad practice. Even in masters thesis there should be newness.

This is a poor supervisory practice. Unfortunately, it becomes increasingly common in Universities, particularly in countries with strong marketalization of Higher Education (e.g. US, UK). Students are treated as customers, and academics are assessed and promoted based on their "efficiency" in terms of the number of students they supervise, not the quality of education they provide. The pressure on academics to supervise more students is constantly increasing, and they rarely have enough time to meaningfully prepare to supervisory meetings. It is not surprising that many academics find it convenient to reuse the same projects over and over again.
UPD: Answering comments, I want to clarify why this practice is detrimental to students' learning. Project-based learning attempts to recreate an authentic experience of doing something, then encourages students to reflect on this experience and learn from it. The authenticity of experience is the key for success. However, after some repetitions the supervisor knows all good and bad ways around the project, and unconsciously projects them to the student. Students don't have the same feeling of terra incognita in their research. Of course, realistically, we can't expect each master project to be completely new, but it's still important that the supervisor has not rehearsed it by heart yet.
A closely related, but not exactly the same reason is potential plagiarism. All theses are published and could be dug out by students. I have seen some supervisors who passed good theses from past years to new students to "get the style", effectively encouraging plagiarism. But they had way to many students to supervise and no time to do it properly. Surely, copying from someone else's paper is a poorer learning experience for students compared to doing research themselves.


How should I refer to my master's thesis in its text? A paper? Occasionally I need to refer to my master's thesis itself in its text, e.g. in the sentence "These rules are sufficient to compute any differential in this ____".

I was wondering which of the following terms are appropriate to fill the gap: paper, thesis, text, work.

It's not a paper because this term usually denotes journal articles.

You can use the term thesis or the more generic work, instead.


Am I responsible for a Wikipedia article if I wrote it? Some time ago I wrote a few Wikipedia articles covering a rather obscure event I was interested in. I did it more or less completely out of interest and was not paid in any way. Although Wikipedia is fundamentally collaborative, most of the text is mine - the other editors have largely only added results tables, logos, and such.
The organizers of the event noticed the articles and have since been forwarding me requests by a professor saying things like:

You should cite this article. It's good for publicity!
You should write about X, Y and Z. Right now the article doesn't cover them.

However from my point of view, because Wikipedia is fundamentally collaborative, I don't actually own the articles, and if anyone (either the professor or the organizers) want to add those things they are free to do so themselves. That's not to say that the addition will be welcomed - any Wikipedia editor can dispute the addition - but it is something they are free to do. Certainly asking me to do something they can do themselves feels rather improper.
I am wondering if my point of view is reasonable, and if so, how I should communicate with the organizers & professor. I certainly don't want to offend them, since they can make it harder for me to watch the event.

If you think the additions are useful, consider adding them. You thought your time well spent building the pages in the first place, so I would think you probably have some interest in improving them.
If the changes seem to you marginal, or time consuming, write a polite letter to the proposer reminding them that you don't own the page so they are free to improve it. If you're polite and appreciative you probably won't cause offense.


Do IEEE transactions allow for any "co-first authors"? I, personally, have never see any authors in IEEE transactions listed as "co-first" authors, as such

John Smith†, Bill Lee†, and Boss James
...
† These two authors contribute equally to the work.

Is this allowed in IEEE transactions?

Yes, it is allowed. Google scholar is your friend in such cases.

I employed this query, which looks for publications with "IEEE Transactions" in them, the text "contributed equally to", and one in (text | paper | work | article).

The results show several papers published in IEEE Transactions, which specify multiple equal co-authorship. The way this is specified seems to be non standardized.

For example, http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TNB.2006.875054 specifies that "The ﬁrst two authors contributed equally to this work." in the space reserved for details such as when the manuscript was received and revised.

In http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TED.2009.2034804, the equal contribution is specified in the ACKNOWLEDGEMENT section of the paper.

Both ways look good to me. The first case is likely achieved by communicating the authors' contribution in the cover letter / space for staff communication. The second case is achieved by simply writing the contribution in the text body.


Citing personal communication for preliminary results I am writing a paper with a group of people, and we would like to cite preliminary results from another work, which one of the coauthors is involved along with yet other people. The preliminary results have not been published or even written up. Should we cite this as "Personal communication" and put the names of all members of the other group (which overlaps with the current group), or are there better ways to do it?

I hate to disappoint you, but you would be referencing the material which is impossible to get. The reviewers do see it similary and complain, and they are right in doing so. Personally, if there is any way whatsoever to convince the other group to write up the preliminary results and put them on a web page in time, do it. See point 7 in most harmful heristic. Probably, the best you could do now is saying "to be published in [SB]" where the reference is a half-hearted entry along the following lines:

[SB] John Smith and Joe Blotz, The Importance of Being Published, 2017, in preparation.

Adapt the title, of course.


Are there professional grant writers? I've personally witnessed a talented scientist spend a lot of time writing more than one grant for pretty specific geochronology work. On the question that spawned this one, a discussion broke out on my second-hand answer, and I wonder if there is a career in designing and writing grants for focused specialties.

Like a wedding planner for the physical sciences.

For H2020 submissions in Europe, there are many companies specialized in improving a grant proposal, and managing administratively the project if it gets funded. Such projects have to have several partners (both academic and from industry) from several European countries in their consortium.

In particular, because H2020 requires (see this template) a chapter like Impact (on the European economy or society) on which academics are probably not the best to write about. Sometimes that chapter is written by industrial partners of the H2020 consortium.


Selecting Journals or Conferences to publish research work I am working on a multidisciplinary subject which involves mechanical engineering, chemical engineering and chemistry. I have a decent amount of research completed and now I need to select a journal to publish my work. How do I select a good journal to publish my papers?
Also for the same topic I need to select conference to present. How do I select that too?

In general if you are looking for a journal where to publish a specific type of manuscript do a survey of the material you have referenced. Where are those articles published? You should pay special attention to articles that are multidisciplinary such as yours. The next step if you are uncertain about the appropriateness is to e-mail the journal editors of journals and ask if they consider multidisciplinary articles. I do not think you should send the manuscript to them because they usually do not have time to read anything substantial just to answer a question but do paste in your title, author list and abstract.

As of conferences, I cannot see a patented answer. If a conference is a recurring event you can always go back to collections of abstracts to see if other multidisciplinary papers have been presented. Another option is to see if you cannot organize your own session at a larger conference that permits sessions.


citing from a review I'm writing my first proposal for M.Sc. , meanwhile, I keep reviewing many papers and tracking sources of citation, I noticed that some authors cite from review introduction while others cite from review conclusion. Does it mean that I can cite from any part in review paper as long as the cited information is by the sound of the review author (when he/she doesn't talk about a certain research nor cite from any) wherever it can be found in the review sections ??
thanks

some authors cite from review introduction while others cite from review conclusion. Does it mean that I can cite from any part in review paper...?

Yes: You can cite any aspect of a paper. Albeit, you should avoid citing a secondary source (i.e., when a paper cites another, cite the original source,* rather than that paper). It is sometimes useful to cite a particular aspect of a paper, e.g., [Section 3, 1] or [Theorem 7, 2], so that readers can find specific aspects of papers to which you are referring.

*Do not cite the original source without sufficient consultation.


How important are teaching portfolios in obtaining an academic position? I have been recently introduced to the idea of teaching portfolios, that is a collection of teaching experiences and references made by peer educators. Their supposed purpose is to go along a researcher CV when applying for a position in academia, i.e. assistant/associate professor.

Any first hand experience?

This may be useful for someone considering a career at a teaching-first school, but I've never seen such portfolios asked for or even considered at research universities in the US and the larger European countries.


How to quickly assess the legitimacy of a conference? Academics commonly get invitations to conferences. Some of these are legitimate, but many are simply scams or bogus. How can you tell at a glance which is which?

The fastest way possible is to use a policy of "don't call me, I'll call you" with venues (conferences, journals, etc.). If you don't already know them, discard correspondence from them. In most cases there are already too many options to chose from on where to go and where to submit, so there is little to lose from discarding unsolicited contact from people you don't already work with.

The next, more open, version is to ask a few sensible people you already know. "Hey, have you heard of XYZ conference?" Assuming the people you know and respect are not carbon copies of you, this should net you a very high percentage of recognition if the conference is worth bothering with. Asking people you know and respect, and who are not exactly like you, is a great way to broaden your horizons if you are not yet familiar with what the useful venues are already.

Note that I take a somewhat snobby view of venues here, in that I don't actually care about mere legitimacy, in the same way I don't care to eat at a restaurant because I won't immediately be robbed for going in. I want a way to spend my time, effort, and money that is much better than my existing options. Some conference I've only heard of because of some unrequested 'invitation' is vanishingly unlikely to provide an option better than the ones I'm already aware of.

If for some reason something new appears that really piques my interest, I would look to see who supposedly is on the organizing/editorial committee, and see if there are people I know and respect and would like to work with (and if so I might also contact them directly to ensure they actually are affiliated and approve). I would also read previous papers/proceedings/abstracts and see what they have to offer. If I am not impressed with the quality - really, genuinely impressed by how useful and applicable the papers are to my work - easy slam-dunk into the trash bin.


Do universities keep records/a database of student assignments from the past? Or is only Masters/PhD work kept to publish in journals? Do universities keep work done by students for later research and/or plagiarism detection by future students (eg. self-plagiarism)?

The rules of different institutions vary, so there's no one-size-fits-all answer here. However, plagiarism detection software like Turnitin does store copies of papers indefinitely:

  Our database contains 58 billion web pages, 570 million student papers and 150 million articles from academic books and publications.

They also store archived web pages no longer available on the Internet. Other plagiarism software likely works in a similar fashion.