MSc Programme without a Postgraduate Certificate or Diploma I'm currently applying to an MSc programme at Imperial College London but at the bottom of the page for each of the programmes I am considering, it states the following:

"A Postgraduate Certificate and Postgraduate Diploma are not available on this programme."

Is this usual for MSc programmes? What exactly does it mean?

What are postgraduate diplomas and certificates?

  Postgraduate diplomas (PGDip, PgDip, PG Dip, PGD or PgD) and certificates (PGCert, PgCert, PG Cert, PGC or PgC) usually follow Bachelors study in a similar subject. They are both at level 7 on the National Qualifications Framework (NQF) and generally vocational in nature, which makes them a popular choice for professionals looking to boost their CV.

  The key difference between the two is that a postgraduate diploma is more extensive. Postgraduate diplomas require that you gain 120 credits, the equivalent of 30 weeks' full-time study. Meanwhile, a postgraduate certificate usually requires just 60 credits, the equivalent of 15 weeks' full-time study. Diplomas take around 6-12 months to complete when taken on a full-time basis, but part-time study can take up to a few years. Both diplomas and certificates are usually classified into distinction, merit and pass.

The exact structure of each PGDip/PGCert usually depends on the university itself, but as @kitty said, in most of the cases a thesis is not required. On the contrary, this is usually in what your PGDip differs from the equivalent Master's Degree.

However, many universities now offer the option to their students to go on after they have completed their PGDip commitments and write up a thesis, in order to reach the 180 credits a Master requires.

It is worth noting all these qualifications are of the same level (NQF level 7). For more, see:

  How does it differ from a Masters degree?

  The postgraduate diploma is often vocational, or at least allows the student to pursue a new study direction. It is, however, on the same level of the NQF as a Masters, and students often complete a dissertation to reach 180 study credits and turn their diploma into a Masters.


Should I reject a specific historic fact and not include it in my work? Advice needed on reliability of source I'm working on a chemistry paper about the Belousov-Zhabotinsky-reaction (a chemical oscillator).

I included some information about the history of that oscillation reaction, in particular about Boris Pavlovich Belousov and Anatol Markovich Zhabotinskii.

Boris Belousov was the first to discover the Belousov-Zhabotinsky-reaction (BZ-reaction), whilst Zhabotinsky later continued Belousovs research. See also this question.

In the paper 'An Analysis of the Belousov-Zhabotinskii Reaction' I read the following:

  Boris Pavlovich Belousov was born in Russia during the 19th century
  and was one of five children. His older brother first interested
  Belousov in science while constructing an explosive to assasinate the
  Czar. (It should be noted that they were unsuccessful in this
  attempt.)

I'm trying to check the fact if it is true that Belousov become interested in science because of constructing an explosive with his brother. I searched on the internet, but can't find an other source that confirms or denies this. Neither does the paper where I read this give sources for the claim.

On Google I can only sporadic find a link to a website that (presumably) says it, but I've (till now) always encountered 404-pages, so I've not been able to thoroughly check it.

Should I reject this and not include it in my work?

Or is it acceptable to use it, if I include the source correctly?

Something like:

  According to ...., Belousov became interested in science when
  constructing an explosive with his brother to assassinate the czar.

It’s useful to consider the potential harm in making a wrong decision of either kind here. If you don’t mention the historical anecdote in your paper but it’s actually true, readers won’t miss out on much, and in any case won’t be actively misled — after all, you’re not claiming the anecdote never happened, you’re just not mentioning it at all. Those readers who want to learn about Boris Belousov’s life can still go and look for additional credible information about him. Presumably they will run into this anecdote. And your paper is in any case a science paper and not a history paper, so no one can accuse you of depriving anyone of critical information.

By contrast, if you mention the anecdote but it’s not historically substantiated, you do a great harm to your readers and to Belousov himself by helping to perpetuate a fallacious myth about him. The harm caused by this type of mistake is much greater in my opinion.

Another thing to consider is the credibility of the source and the level of scholarship that backs up the paper’s contents. The author of the paper you linked appears to be a high school student, and the journal it’s published in is a journal with low standards whose specific mission is to publish the work of budding researchers who don’t yet have a bachelor’s degree. The author doesn’t give a specific reference for the source of this anecdote, making it unverifiable. That’s not good practice, and it may reflect poorly on you to cite such a source without warning your readers about its potential lack of credibility if you rely on it for any information you were not able to verify from other sources.


Should I include a synonym in parenthesis in abstract of a PhD thesis? Should I include in parentheses a synonym I will use in the main text already in the abstract?
Example:

The atomistic scale (micro-scale) shall be considered ...
The atomistic scale shall be considered ... (Then introduce the synonym in the main text?)

You can always edit an abstract slightly to your benefit using square brackets:

The atomistic [micro-]scale shall be considered.

It's a widely accepted way of editing abstracts to help with context.
For example it's used when written news wants to add clarity to direct quotes.


Does a sponsored invited talk count for my cv? I was invited to give a presentation in a lunch symposium of an important national medical conference. The symposium was sponsored by a pharmaceutical company (my talk was unrelated to their product).
Would this constitute an invited talk in my cv (or keep it a secret)?

Normally the sponsorship would be irrelevant to your CV, but in the unlikely case that you were invited by the company instead of the conference, you should specify that in your CV.
My expectation is that the organization of the conference presentations and the sponsorships are completely disconnected.  The sponsorship is simply an opportunity for a company to place their advertisement during the symposium.


How to tactfully request removal of my name from co-authorship? I wrote a mathematics manuscript (see Extremely mild punishments for academic misconduct), and sent it to a professor, who then attempted to have it published after adding coauthors to the paper. His misconduct is not my concern. My concern is that the manuscript is not of publication quality, and I would prefer that my name not be attached to it. Virtually all of the manuscript is written by me, and all the work was done by me, so I can't claim that it is not my product.

My question is: What excuse do I use to have him take my name off the manuscript?

I would prefer to remain on good terms with this professor. I would also prefer not to mention in any way that the manuscript is worthless, because it solves a problem that he had been attempting unsuccessfully for quite a while, and such a statement would be deeply challenging to his pride.

You have a third choice:

Do not forget that all the authors should sign a contract before publishing a paper.
I am not telling you not to sign it.
However, it would be a good approach if you told your professor

  I am sure that huge improvements can still be made on this paper.
  Could you please delay the submission and let me work on the paper for
  another period of time?

This way, you told that paper is not of publication quality and implicated that you're not comfortable with your name on it.
If the professor still insists on publishing, only then you may say

  It's not like I'm not trusting your judgmental skills but when I know
  that I can do better, I cannot do with less. So please do not
  misunderstand me but I don't want to be a coauthor of a work that is
  less than my potential.

If your professor is professional enough, he will hear what you say.

Maybe not the best solution, but I would go with this one.


Self-plagiarism and supplementary information I am curious if it is acceptable to produce an identical (or at least only slightly edited) account of a particular, known methodology in the supplementary information of two submitted journal articles, or if this would count as self-plagiarism?

Methods sections (supplementary or otherwise) are one of the few places where self-plagiarism may not apply.  This is because the typical format for a methods section is not narrative (for which creativity is expected) but a highly compressed sort of recipe (e.g. "DHT5a cells in LB, grown in 96-well plates, 150 mL per well, at 37C for 18 hours while shaking at 300 rpm.").  In this form, method sections are essentially a computer program to be executed by a human, and as such the question of self-plagiarism is irrelevant, just like it is if you attach a computer program to your supplementary information.

If you have a "long-form" method section, however, where you give a narrative explanation of an approach, its reasoning and justification, how it relates to the experiments, etc., then the narrative aspects are expected to show originality and self-plagiarism does apply.  This is because you have explanatory text that should be contextually adapted to the rest of the paper, an using it in a new paper changes the context and should thus change the text.

For an example illustrating this distinction, here is the supplementary section from on of my own recent papers.  Section 9, "Additional Methods" is a "recipe section" for which I would not be concerned with the question of self-plagiarism.  All of the other sections are "narrative sections" where one does need to be concerned about self-plagiarism.


Suffering boredom in proofreading own paper For two years I've been working on drafts of a paper. I'm happy to keep incorporating new sources and improving the paper, because the topic is fascinating, and I'm confident that my work is worth publishing. However, when I print the current draft out to look over after making edits, I can barely read a paragraph before my eyes glaze over and I lose interest. Earlier in the project, when my paper was worse but the subject was fresher in my mind, I was able to calmly read my own writing. Now I find it very difficult.

I wouldn't expect anyone else to read something that I can't, which makes me reluctant to seek feedback -- I don't want to waste people's time. Still, I'm pretty sure the writing itself isn't a total catastrophe, and that I am just "sick" of working on this paper. That's hardly a useful diagnosis. What should I do?

Just a few conceptual points:

  For two years I've been working on drafts of a paper. I'm happy to
  keep incorporating new sources and improving the paper, because the
  topic is fascinating

This is a debatable action because it can delays your publication rhythm. For every paper, lay out the hypotheses, research questions, or objectives clearly and then work on the piece. Once the conclusion answers the questions, either seek feedback or submit it. New findings are going to emerge constantly and if one "keeps incorporating" new sources the paper will never leave.

In very rare occasions, one may want to add some new thing. For instance, by chance a very relevant paper was published during the composition of the final draft. To improve the relevance of the paper it'd be good to include that new work in the right section. Otherwise, there needs to be an end date in sight.

  However, when I print the current draft out to look over after making
  edits, I can barely read a paragraph before my eyes glaze over and I
  lose interest

This is not abnormal because you have read this multiple times and no new stimulation is coming out. Here are some ways to work through it:

Circulate it among peers for a round of proof reading. Pay them with something: pizza, chocolate, a favor, etc. Consider forming a writing club, in which everyone can circulate works in different stages of development.
Hire an editor, preferably knowledgeable in your area, to proof read it.
Put this project down and work on some others, return to it again when you're ready.
Read it out loud. It's actually very helpful because reading out loud lets you hear the rhythm of the words and this helps isolating clunky parts in the paper.
Read it from the back. Start from the paragraph, and can also consider start from the last sentence and working its way up. This technique breaks the contextual flow and allows you pay more attention to missing words or typos, etc.

  I wouldn't expect anyone else to read something that I can't, which
  makes me reluctant to seek feedback

Why not? This is one of the mind blocks that scares a lot of writers. You don't need to share only perfect works. When you circulate the piece, just be sure to:

State what this article is for and what stage it is in: is this a draft, a revised and resubmit version, a grant proposal, etc.
Be very specific on what kind of advice you seek: for more drafty work you can ask for comments on overall big picture and structure. For more developed work you can ask for comments on prose clarity and wording. For final draft you can ask for proof reading level comments.

Overall, as a comment has pointed out there are some conflicting thoughts within your question and I'd just humbly advise you to let the security issue go and be open to criticism and comments. Your writing is not the entire you; no need to shy away from people's criticism. After all, writing is about communicating ideas and it's better to get early and frank inputs from peers and friends now than from the reviewers with the rejection letter.


How do recruiters consider parental leave in one's career path? It used to be that mostly women would take maternity leave, and in the field where I work it would be accounted for by a hiring committee. Most likely, someone would say “yeah, there is a dip in X’s scientific production during years XX-XX, but that's around the time she got 2 kids, so it's not worrying”. It might not always be put very delicately (I heard of a committee member once saying “so, let's decide in advance: how many papers is one kid worth?”), but there existed some sort of positive bias.

Nowadays, more and more fathers take parental leave (around me, it seems to be usually 6 to 12 months when the kid is young). Thus, the situation is getting more complex. How do hiring committees in academia handle these cases? Should one consider a parental leave as “lost time”, professionally speaking? Or are recruiters in academia more understanding than that?

Edit: more specifically, I'm talking about the US system. I know that standards of parental leave are more generous in Europe than in a typical “welfare is communism” country :)  So, I am worried about how academic employers might react to a woman having a 2 years parental leave in her curriculum, or a father having taken a 6-month leave in the recent past.

Of course, the situation in others countries is also interesting… So please don't hesitate to leave comments!

The US hiring committees I've been on generally don't handle this issue, because it's mostly orthogonal to the hiring decision.  We can't legally discriminate on the basis of gender, age, martial status, sexual orientation, parental status, or fertility.  We can and do discriminate on the strength of the applicant's cumulative research record (including recent productivity) and their reputation in the research community.  Short gaps in an applicant's research record are inconsequential; everybody has off years.  Longer gaps, even if they last multiple years, can be ignored if their post-gap work is sufficiently stellar.  (And if their work isn't stellar, even without the gaps, why would we want to hire them?)

However, this is an issue that promotions and tenure committees have to address.  At my university, parental and other leaves extend the tenure clock, and tenure/promotion decisions are based on the candidate's cumulative record since their last promotion, not their cumulative record in the last n years for any fixed value of n.  The committee usually knows that the candidate's clock was extended, because we can figure that out from their CV, but we are usually not told why, because it's none of our business.

There are many reasons why a researcher might take a leave of absence / stop their tenure clock / have a gap in their publication record.  I've seen all of the following:

Parental: having or adopting a new child (either or both parents)
Medical: serious injury or illness, of either the researcher themselves or a close family member
Bereavement: death of a researcher's spouse, child, or other close family member
Entrepreneurial: building a startup company
Administrative: holding a service position, either at the university or elsewhere (for example, at a funding agency)


Is it important to publish my article in a journal indexed on Thomson ISI? If a journal is not indexed this way, is it an academically honorable one?

If we momentarily disregard from discussions regarding the cons of ISI and Thomson-Reuters who run the service etc. and focus on the usefulness of ISI indexed journals for ones career, the answer is yes, it is important at least to some extent. The importance is in part depending on your discipline since ISI indexing is not evenly distributed over disciplines. But generally speaking the ISI listing means the journal publishes papers that are referenced, which is an indication that it is research of some quality and importance.

This does not mean non-ISI-listed journals are not "honourable". But, when choosing a journal in which to publish, you need to make sure it is read by other in your field so that your research is seen and your ideas known by others. You should make a survey of journals that are of reference and if you find ISI-listed journals there is a reason to consider them if your papers fulfill their quality criteria because they will be  seen as prestigeous references when you are evaluated for a position etc.


Should I discourage using messaging apps for research group communication? I've seen a growing trend in later years: graduate students discussing research questions through Facebook or Whatsapp like it was the standard channel to solve all kind of issues (Could you send me script x? Where are the data y? How did you perform analysis z?)

These questions are at center of research reproducibility and I'm worried  using tools as ephemeral as Facebook messenger may cause me headaches in the future. What if the conversations are deleted and later I can't track a important exchange? (or worst case scenario, dig a case of scientific misconduct, like purposefully obscuring the origin of data?). Emails and other utilities like Google forums provide, in my opinion, a better platform to report issues, get them rolling until they are solved, and finally keep a record of the exchange. On the other hand, Facebook Messenger seems linear and messy, unsuited for this kind of purpose.

Maybe I'm getting old too quick, but should I discourage this practice? For instance, by promoting other tools like Google forums. Has anyone had a bad research experience because someone used Facebook or WhatsApp for scientific communication? How did you address the issue?

No. If you are worried about your colleagues being able to delete the messages from Facebook / Whatsapp, how do you cope with them calling each other? Or worse: actually talking, walking to their office and just copying files?

I'm all in favor of making communication easier, as insufficient communication between researchers is wasting millions of hours every year. But it should be with the goal of facilitating communication, you'll never get an environment that's completely traceable. That a wiki will have some kind of versioning or history will be an additional benefit, not a reason to use a wiki.

And besides, who's going to check all that communication? Scientific literature is full of fraud and misconduct that's in plain sight and not corrected. Errors in literature are there because people do not care and have no time, not because they lack the forensic tools.


Can it hurt me to accept a brief "Visiting Lecturer" position? I must make a difficult decision, so am having to turn to the wider community to gain some perspective.

My situation is the following: I am currently outside USA and am trying to enter academia here. I have been invited as a visiting lecturer at a top US university. However, I am worried that though certainly valuable, a purely teaching position might be a huge negative against me in terms of prospects for a more research oriented position (Asst or Assoc Prof). Or is my trepidation unjustified?

The title of lecturer does not necessarily imply that you would teach full time. Sure, it usually implies more teaching than research, but that does not mean it's strictly teaching only. Especially for a visiting lecturer position, one could imagine there be arrangements possible.

So: have you checked the exact term under which you would be employed?

Also: how long would be this “brief” position? And what is your current seniority in your local research system? Those factors will play heavily into the decision.

Overall, I expect it's a net positive for you if you manage to keep some research activity going on, especially if you can travel relatively often to visit your non-US lab. Otherwise, if it's purely teaching with no opportunity to maintain some research activity, and you are not far from getting a job where you are, accepting might be risky.

“Long absent, soon forgotten”


Awaiting AE recommendation - Can be rejected? I already referred to this post, post, post
I recently submitted my paper to a journal 40-45 days back.
For the first 10 days, it was reviewed by the managing editor and sent to us for some format issues, etc.
Later, it has been under "Awaiting review scores" for the past 25 days.
And from the past few days, I see it as "Awaiting AE recommendation". I know the next stage is to Editor In chief. But my question is as below
a) Is it possible to be rejected at this point? Because we didn't receive any email till now on clarifications, request to revise something, etc. Could it mean direct rejection? Like reviewers gave low scores and it is bound for rejection?
b) For ex: Let's say the paper requires some revision based on reviewers. In that case, will it be communicated directly to us (by the managing editor) or even request for revisions/clarifications will also happen through "AE" and "EIC"
c) Am I right to understand that based on the info that I shared, there are only two possible outcomes. Either outright reject or acceptance notification is the next possible step? No revisions because it is already "Awaiting AE recommendation"

In journals that use Manuscript central, there are a few possibilities. Since there is no way to know specifics, in general, and AE can do one of the following depending on how the recommendation task is set up:

Make a recommendation. (Accept, reject, more reviews needed).
Make a decision. (some journals allow this at this point in the workflow)
Add more reviewers, and continue the peer review process.

Hope this helps.
Note: I am a ScholarOne employee, but my opinions/answers are my own.


How do you write a letter of recommendation for someone who got an A in your class, but who you've never talked to outside of class? I taught a large class last summer, and one of my students asked me to write a letter of recommendation.  I said yes, and at this point I think it is too late in the application process to change my mind.

The student got an A in the class, but never came to my office hours or talked to me at all before she asked me for a letter of recommendation.  She also hasn't done anything specific to distinguish herself.  At this point I'm really not sure what to write about her, although she did give me a "brag sheet" with information about her interests and previous projects.

How should I go about writing the letter?

Here's my understanding of the issue: A student, who you do not know very well outside of the classroom, asked you for a recommendation letter, and you said "yes."

So, assuming you thought highly of the student's performance in your course, you write the strongest letter you can under these circumstances.

This means you focus on the student's performance in your course, and compare the student's performance to the performance of others who have taken the course. If your course is particularly challenging in some way, you may also extrapolate on how the student's performance is indicative of some key strengths which are relevant to the student's target grad programs.

There is no need to overthink this, and if the student is not successful in getting into a good grad program, and they think it is because you weren't able to vouch for them the way that they would prefer, then, if they're a fast learner, they'll ask someone else next time.


Pros and cons of having a Ph.D. advisor who is (possibly) younger than me I applied for a Ph.D. position.

A new assistant professor who would join that university next year reached me and asked whether I wanted to work with him. I have been working for two years since my Master graduation. I think his direction suits my interest.

He began his Ph.D. right after undergraduate study so I guess he is probably at my age, 27 or 28, even younger. If we are both 40s, I might be ok with that.

As you get older, it is basically dead certain that you will at some point be reporting to someone who is much younger than you are.  Think about why that has to be true.  If you're still stuck, ask yourself how old you think your supervisor will be when you're in your 60s.  You need to get over it.


Gaining research experience after undergrad I have a 7.7CGPA (uncurved) from undergrad, 2 internships and therefore my chances of getting into a good CS Phd program are pretty slim. I can get a recommendation letter from the CTO of the startup - he is an academic from a top-institution(Duke PHD, Harvard Medical School researcher, MIT research scientist) but I don't think that would help much.
I am wondering what would be a viable way to get research experience after undergrad. I am also wondering if I'd be credited if I only help around with the code on some research project?
Additionally, if yes, how do I go about doing that? Is it just emailing some professors and asking them if they need help on some programming related to some research?
Thanks in advance.
Addendum: I am currently based in Europe.

Cold emails are almost certainly going to be ineffective. The recipient doesn't know you or know anything about you other than what you say.
If you really want to do something, then get into a graduate program.
Failing that option, talk to one or more of your undergraduate professors about your needs. Perhaps they have something that you could work on with them.
But your previous professors hopefully also have contacts in academia elsewhere and they can recommend you to a colleague and it will be more likely to be acknowledged. If I get an email from you, I will probably ignore it. If I get an email from a previous contact/colleague who is recommending you to me then I will certainly follow up on it, even possibly by setting up a chain of recommenders.
As far as "credit" goes, I think that depends mostly on what impression you give in any project you attach to and what the PI of the project is willing to say about you. A line in the CV is fine, but a recommendation from an academic may carry much more weight.
You don't say what your long term goals are in the question. I suggest that you think about that. Where would you like to see yourself in five years? Ten?


How often do publications get translated into other languages? How often do publications get translated into other languages?

Is there any process by which this happens?

In my field, articles are rarely translated. At best, an articles abstract might be in 2 or even 3 languages depending on the journal. For whatever reason, English is the de facto language of the majority of research.

For books it's a little different. If the book was highly influential it will be translated into other languages. However, it takes often several decades for a book to reach the level of prominence that it is translated into other languages. Again this is because a lot of highly influential books are originally written in English.

The process of translation (for books as articles are rarely translated in my field) depends. Sometimes one person who is fluent in both languages will translate the book for scholarly output. At other times a team will work together to develop the translated edition.


How to find out which math departments have a research group in mathematical logic? I'm thinking to apply to PhD programs in math. I want to study mathematical logic. So I need programs that have mathematicians who do research in this area. I've searched the internet, the results were not satisfactory. The only list I've found find is this one

But this list contains only 9 schools (which are very difficult to get into!). I was wondering if anybody can guide me to some longer lists of schools and PhD programs that have expert(s) in mathematical logic?

I guess some logician is me. I don't know of any list of schools that have programs in logic, and it would be hard to keep such a list anywhere close to comprehensive---very few schools have more than one or two people in mathematical logic, so the list would change frequently based on whose hired/moved/retired recently.

Steffen Lempp keeps a list of logicians which, while not comprehensive, is pretty large, so the institutions those people are at is a good place to start.  Another idea is looking at whose spoke at recent logic conferences (for instance, the program for this year's ASL annual meeting, or the European equivalent, the Logic Colloquium).

Always, of course, if you know any faculty who are familiar with your interests (not necessarily logicians themselves), they may be able to point you towards some schools.

Also, note that there's no school with anything like a "generic" logic program---anywhere you go, your specialization within the field will be limited by whose present there. You likely have some narrower idea than generic logic that you're most interested in, so looking for people working in that area (or who've done work you think is interesting) is a good way to find schools. (You shouldn't obsess about this, though; you don't have to work in exactly the same area as your advisor anyway, and your interests are likely to shift at least a little over time.)


Transfer applicants. Who are they? Who are transfer applicants?
I was applying for undergraduate program in a university and there I saw a transfer applicants category. I want to know what does that mean?

Applicants who have already begun their undergraduate education at another institution and wish to transfer into this one.


Can the process of review be so fast? I submitted a paper in a springer journal. After just two days of submission status was under review. After another two days status changed to required reviews completed and your days have passed status is still required reviews completed. Why the process is so quick? How can the reviews be completed in just two days? What would happen next?

With a ton of context I'd be guessing; without any it's worse than that. Some subjects are no doubt much easier to set up reviews for. Some are much less competitive, needn't have the anonymity as protected, aren't technical. In many subjects your contribution to the field can be quite meaningful without necessarily being disprovable--so the burden on the peer reviewers is more like that on any critic, and less like that of a judge.

When I worked as an editor at a journal considered prestigious in American Studies and Western American Culture/history/writing and that sort of thing--before it went under the next year--my handling-time on unsolicited submissions fell along a bimodal distribution. I was as likely to hammer it out and handle it in the hour as I was to file it away for ... next ... lifetime? Least likely was that I'd get it done in some reasonable amount of time, like two weeks.

All in all I'd guess your piece was "easy" for them. That means one thing or the opposite. To put it kindly (and probably true): not a fit for that journal. OR, definitely a fit, and easy to find reviewers for because of that.


Rationale for Passing Students "by Compensation" Certainly in Ireland at least, there is a mechanism whereby students, with otherwise  good grades, are allowed to "pass by compensation" a module(s) that they have failed.

For example, a student presenting with 12x5 credit modules has an average of 55% in 11 modules (with marks above a passing grade of 40%) but one module is failed with a grade of 36%. Such a student is usually allowed to pass the module "by compensation". Usually the threshold is 35% but sometimes 30% and there is a condition on the quality of the other results presented.

I am doing a quick study of the compensation rules in Irish third level institutions (as far as I understand all but one offer this mechanism), but am trying to understand the rationale for the mechanism's existence. I list two below:

Perhaps even early in a programme of study, a student specialises, excelling in one subject while struggling with another. The student should be rewarded for excelling and allow excellent performance in one area to 'compensate' for poorer performance in another.
A student who performs badly in an assessment task may, for whatever reason, have achieved the learning outcomes but not demonstrated them in the assessment. In particular, a module(s) with poor grades at odds with the rest of the student's module results might signal that such an event has occurred. Rather than requiring the student to repeat the module, the student is given the benefit of the doubt, and is allowed pass by compensation.

I am interested in hearing what other good reasons there are for having such a mechanism.

Thank you.

Compensation is used in (at least) some universities in the UK, too. The rationale is usually that although module learning objectives are not fully met, the program learning objectives are not sufficiently compromised, when only one module is failed with a near-pass mark. The meta-rationale is that we effectively choose between two "bad" things:

progressing or graduating a student who did not fully met the LOs
delaying progression / graduation for a year and asking student to repeat the module and/or resit the assessment

The first option feels like a lesser "worse" all things considered: student has a chance of picking the necessary knowledge later in other modules / programs, but they never have a chance to get a year of life back.


École Normale Supérieure's students' class rankings and ranking on the national concours exam for agregation? Are the École Normale Supérieure's academic records publicly available anywhere?

Specifically, I would like to know what class rankings were historically there, as well as its students' rankings on the national concours exam for agrégation.

thanks

I found half the answer:

Here's the link to records for rankings in the concours exams for aggrégation:

Les agrégés de l'enseignement secondaire
Répertoire 1809-1950


Is it possible to work on independent research project with a professor from previous university? My Undergraduate education will be ending soon, and I want to work on an independent project with one of the professor even after my graduation before joining another university for my masters. Is there any possible way this can be made possible, if so, will I be able to publish the particular work in a top academic journal.

You can work with anyone you like who will also work with you, so yes. Whether the paper can be published depends on the journal editor and reviewers, which depends, in turn, on the quality and novelty of the paper.

There are no real barriers to doing research. There are no real barriers (maybe a bit of money is needed) for submitting a paper. In particular, affiliation with an academic institution is not a prerequisite for publishing papers.

Nike said it best. Just Do It.

Additionally, some research experience now will enhance your application later and will keep you mentally engaged. A productive gap is much better than the alternative.


Different CV/Resume for US Universities I want to submit my CV/Resume to universities for MS in CS. I have learnt web designing and development along with other programming languages learnt in undergraduation.

I used to prepare 2 resumes, one for web development companies and other for software companies and I would submit suitable one.

Now can I do something creative and submit a CV that looks something like this? http://www.smashingmagazine.com/images/design-cv-resume/sarah_parmenter.pdf

Will the universities not consider if I do something like this? or do I need to submit normal 2 page resume?

Unless you're specifically applying for a MS in graphic design, your CV should, first and foremost, show off your academic and research accomplishments, not your graphic design skills.

Keep it simple.   Creativity is fine; good typography is great; but emphasize the content.  The fourth image on that page (with the blue dot) is much more suitable.

Good design is invisible.  A bright yellow background is not invisible.  Therefore....


Conditional acceptance then rejection – worthy of appeal? We submited a manuscript to an Elsevier journal eight months ago – we basically got a clear straight-forward rejection:

  Although the reviewers commented favourably on your manuscript, there were significant criticisms that preclude publications. These comments indicated that your manuscript has some serious weakness. We would be willing to reconsider the manuscript after it has undergone a major revision that takes into account the criticisms of the reviewers, with no assurance of acceptance

We spent about seven months, performing more experiments and answering all concerns raised and we resubmitted. We thought we received a conditional acceptance. Two reviewers replied that we addressed all their concerns, third reviewer however commented that the work cannot be possible (simply based on his/her belief) and went on to ask a few things that is not really relevant and suggested that we discuss a big bunch of stuff unrelated to our study in the discussion (i.e., add a lot of speculations).

  The reviewers commented favorably on your manuscript, but had some worthwhile suggestions. I am pleased to accept your manuscript, based on your revising it according to the recommendations of the reviewers"

So we followed the third reviewer’s suggestions and amended accordingly. We did a couple more experiments, all supporting that our initital conclusions were correct. Then 2.5 weeks later, we got a rejection:

  I regret to relate that your manuscript cannot be accepted for publications. In addition to the comments of the outside reviewer’s, the editors have considered whether merely editorial or technical corrections would result in a priority score sufficient for acceptance, by comparison to other manuscripts we currently receive.

No new reviewer comments were included. Prior to sending us the decision, the editor did contact us about declaring whether a western blot was cropped.

We were expecting that the journal would accept it, as it stated: “I am pleased to accept your MS”. I felt like that we received a conditional acceptance but now a rejection. So did I get a rejection because our western blot is cropped? If they really don’t like that, we can always re-run the gel and present non-cropped images (these images are not presented in the manuscript, but on the response to reviewers only). Is this the reason why our manuscript was rejected?

It is worthwhile to appeal? Or would I be wasting time? If we didn’t receive a high priority score, why did they indicated conditional acceptance in the second decision letter?

I would really like to hear some honest opinions, cause my own ones are likely to be biased influenced by my frustration and disappointment.

I believe you have misunderstood what the first "acceptance" meant (which could have been worded better to prevent this).

A journal generally has many editors and an editorial board.

The typical journal review structure has your paper go to a single editor, who decides if the paper passes first muster and assigns reviewers if so.  Once the review process is complete, that editor then decides if the paper is to be rejected, revised, or advanced to the full editorial board. Your "conditional acceptance" seems to be the first editor advancing the paper to the full editorial board.  The board then made the final decision to reject the paper.  Note that some journals (in some fields) can have a high rejection rate from the editorial board. So while that initial "acceptance" can feel like a victory you're not actually out of the woods yet.

I expect your chances for a successful appeal to be small.  The decision seems only slightly based on your paper and mostly on the technical details of how the journal selects publications.  They're unlikely to bend those to your benefit.


What niche is PRResearch supposed to fill that the other APS journals don’t already cover? I read the description of the new journal PRResearch on the APS website, but I am still confused.
APS publishes specialized journals, including PRA/B/C/D/E, for each major branch of physics, and journals with a broader scope and large impact, such as PRL and PRX.
My main question is:
How is PRResearch standing in comparison with the specialized and lower impact PRA/B/C/D/E and the broader and higher impact PRL and PRX?
What niche is it supposed to fill?
On one hand, PRResearch is multidisciplinary as PRL/PRX, and both PRResearch and PRX are full open access with publication charges, whereas the other APS journals are not full open access but only have open access options.
On the other hand, as it is written on their website:

The acceptance criteria for PRResearch are aligned with those of other long-established journals in the family, such as Physical Review A, B, C, D, and E.

APS clearly intends for Physical Review Research to be less selective than PRL/PRX, as they elucidated in two volume 1 editorials:
M. Thoennessen: "Editorial: Introducing Physical Review Research"

We are launching Physical Review Research to achieve three main objectives: (1) to cover the entire range of topics in physics and related fields, including interdisciplinary and newly emerging areas of research, (2) to offer an attractive option for all authors who prefer or are required to publish in fully open access journals, and (3) to align its quality standards and selection criteria with those of the other long-established topical journals in the family, such as Physical Review A–E, Physical Review Applied, Physical Review Fluids, and Physical Review Materials.

R. D'Souza, J.-W. Pan, N. Spaldin, and J. J. Liétor-Santos: "Editorial: Our vision for Physical Review Research" in volume 1:

Within the Physical Review family, Physical Review X provides an open access journal showcasing the most selective papers in pure, applied and interdisciplinary physics. Now, Physical Review Research will complement this title by providing a fully open access title with rigorous peer-review standards and with the same acceptance criteria as Physical Review A through E, Physical Review Applied, Physical Review Fluids, and Physical Review Materials. Our goal is to establish a publication that offers the same experience and quality that we value and trust, while increasing authors’ choice within the Physical Review portfolio. As such, we welcome authors of quality manuscripts not accepted by Physical Review X or Physical Review Letters to seamlessly transfer their work to be considered for publication in Physical Review Research.

Hence I would expect its initial impact factor (expected to arrive in June 2021) to be more aligned with the specialized journals, than with the flagships. But as you've already heard it is hard to tell exactly where it will end up.


Waiting for one more reviewer due to being unresponsive - what to expect? I have submitted a paper to an Economics journal in September 2019. It was assigned to reviewers in October of the same year. When being assigned, I was told by the journal office, that the review process might take between three to four months. I have sent an email to the journal office to which they have replied to me today saying that, one of the reviewers has already given his/her reviews, but the journal is still waiting for the second reviewer to submit his/her reviews? They told me that the concerned reviewer has become unresponsice
and they will help to expediate the process.
Furthermore, journal office mentioned that they will keep monitoring the situation nd the editor will proceed to a decision as quickly as possible once sufficient reviews have been received.
Does the fact that one of the reviewers who has already provided his/her reviews bears any significance in terms of revision, acceptance or rejection?
And what is the significance that one of the reviewers have been unresponsive?
Thanks.

Closely related: What happens if a reviewer withdraws himself from peer review process?

If the reviewer is unresponsive, they effectively withdraw. Again the same basic options are available to the editor: they can find another reviewer, or they can make a decision based on the single review they've received. When you get the decision you'll be able to tell which option they took.

Does the fact that one of the reviewers who has already provided his/her reviews bears any significance in terms of revision, acceptance or rejection?

I suppose the fact the reviewer went unresponsive indicates that your manuscript is not so groundbreaking that people are actively excited to review your manuscript. But even drawing this conclusion is dangerous - the reviewer could simply have fallen ill, for example - so the brief answer is "no". It's simply something too circumstantial to draw conclusions about.
On the bright side, having one review completed is progress, so you should expect to receive a decision in a shorter time than if you withdraw and submit the manuscript at another journal.


Is my paper under review (or similar) for too long and if yes, how should I react? I submitted a paper to a journal, and I suspect that it is handled too slowly.

How can I decide whether my suspicion is correct? What handling times should I expect?
Given some expected handling times, when should I act? How much leeway should I give?
How should I act? Whom should I contact and what should I (roughly) write?

Note that I am interested on how I should approach this situation in general, and do not seek specific numbers for my specific situation.
I am therefore looking for general answers that are independent of such factors as the field or individual journal (but mention them if they are relevant factors).

This is a canonical question on this topic as per this meta post. Due to its nature, it is rather broad and not exemplary for a regular question on this site. Please feel free to improve this question.

How can I decide whether my suspicion is correct? What handling times should I expect?

First note that there is no general answer to this as average reviewing times vary widely between fields and even within a field.
Therefore, you need to resort to the following:

Read the documentation about approximate times on the journal’s website.
Look at some sample articles – at the dates of submission/revision/resubmission/acceptance that are on the articles – this gives you a bit of a guide. It is potentially more useful to to look at these details on an article similar to the one you submitted or are intending to submit.
Ask colleagues who are experienced with publishing in that journal or at least your particular subfield.
Familiarise yourself with the general workflow of academic journals.

  Given some expected handling times, when should I act? How much leeway should I give?

Check if there have been any holidays etc. since the submission.
Send an inquiry about a fortnight to a month after the timeframe determined in the first step.  But this time can vary – it is a bit of a judgement call, depending on the timeframe that is stipulated and the amount of time that has passed.
Keep in mind that the main reason why peer reviews take so long is not the time required by the review itself but that the referee has to find time amongst their other duties (see also this question). Therefore review durations are subject to high variability.
Additionally, before you take any action, be sure to check the status of the submission. There is little point in nagging the editor if the status tells you that some progress was made recently, e.g., the reports have just arrived or a new reviewer was appointed.

  How should I act? Whom should I contact and what should I (roughly) write?

Send a polite email to the editor assigned to my manuscript – after the introductory pleasantries, politely get to the point, asking something along the lines of:

  I am inquiring about the status of the manuscript [title], as X months have passed, which is considerably longer than the Y months stated on the journal’s website.

Then sign off, thanking the editor for their time and the usual closing pleasantries.


Is it possible to find out which author got the most citations in a specific scientific discipline? I'm currently trying to find out which authors get the most citations in specific fields, like

Astrophysics

Condensed Matter

High Energy Physics - Experiment

...

(These are all arXiv categories)

Especially great would be to do such a search for specific year. Is any paper search engine capable of this?

"Most cited papers" in a given field/period is fairly easy through something like Web of Knowledge; it's a few clicks to find out that both Scopus and Web of Knowledge list this as the most cited paper in chemistry in 2014, for example. (Tellingly, they only agree on three of the top five...)

Doing this for authors is more challenging, though - the Google Scholar registered authors method suggested above is effectively an opt-in database and so there's no way of telling who's not in it. Scopus has fairly good author-citation indexing but I'm not sure if it's set up to answer this specific question.

A couple of studies with similar questions:

Abramo et al looks at a defined set of researchers (all Italian academics) and shows a way to identify the most highly cited authors within them - basically just WoK citation counts. Robust but tedious, and you probably don't want to start with a list of "all astrophysicists"...

Another approach is to pick the most highly cited articles in your field (assuming that the bulk of citations are in these, not the long tail) and look at the authors of those papers. See, eg, Choi et al, which is "the most cited authors of the 250 top papers in the field", or Uthman et al, which looks at the authors of the top hundred medical reviews.

You could combine these - pull out, say, the fifty most cited papers, look at their authors, and do full citation counts on these using WoK. It seems likely that the most cited authors overall will be an author on one or more of the top papers.


How to find scientists that cited several of my papers? There are several ways to find online scientists that cited one of your papers (Google Scholar, PubMed, Web of Science, etc). Recently, however, I ran into a scenario in which I wanted to find authors that cited a specific subset of my papers. To clarify, I don't mean that these citations have to be in the same paper - they could be in different papers by the same author.

One option would be to export the citation data for each of my papers and write some script that parses and extracts the answer. Does anyone know of a simpler/online method of doing this sort of complex query?

You need to first get a database put together of all those who potentially might have cited your work, and the bibliography of their papers.  This is not trivial, esp. if you are in a field where you don't have pre-existing online citation databases for published works.

Are your works available in such a format?  If so, then just do a query which you think will capture all the related papers to your work.  If you are cited in MEDLINE, you can use the "paper like this" as well as exploded MeSH based searches.  Start with the MeSH terms assigned to your work, and spend a little time going over where those show up in the MeSH hierarchy.

Also, how are you defining a specific subset of your papers?  Is this something you know a priori or are you expecting that subsets fall out based on who cited your work?

If your subset is small, and/or you don't have many citing authors, this would  be quicker to just do by hand.  Just build a bibliography from those who cited you (e.g. export Google Scholar/MEDLINE entries, which will have all the authors), and you can then parse that (download them in an XML format and you can probably use XPath/XQuery to do what you need, or see of one of Zotero's report options will help).


How should I break-up with a second author? My advisors told me he wants to help me publish the theoretical section of my dissertation. He offered it! I have written my part, but he hasn't done his section. It's been a year. I have reminded him a few times, but he doesn't keep his promise. I know I have to move on and publish this piece on my own. I just don't know how to tell him! Is this common? I know he helps others, so I feel ignored.

Has he offered a timeline when he might be able to do his part? Have you had any communication regarding this? If not, you should reach out in advance and offer your timeline, giving him a reasonable timeframe to complete his work.

If you've had such communication before, and he hasn't been able to stick to agreed upon dates, I think you should talk to your advisor and explain the situation. Then, you could write a very polite email to him, including your advisor and any other stakeholders, explaining that you need to submit this work soon. At this point you could ask him if he still has time and would be able to complete his section, say within one month. Mention that you understand he is busy and has multiple priorities to juggle, and that if there isn't time, you'd just like to concentrate on your part and submit it. If, at a later stage, you both have time, you'll be willing to work together if he'd like to submit the theoretical section separately, with him as the first author.

I think this will sound pretty reasonable and you'll be able to publish without antagonizing or destroying working relationships with anyone.


In case of admission of international students, do the US,Canadian universities prefer more on TOEFL than IELTS? TOEFL and IELTS are both standardized test and used as a measurement for English language proficiency.Do the universities have any particular preference in case of admission (MS/Ph.D) of international students?

In most cases, there is no preference. The vast majority of graduate programs in the US accept both IELTS and TOEFL.

A program that does have a preference will say so in its admission instructions. For example, BU engineering prefers TOEFL:

  In addition to the required credentials for applications, international students must demonstrate an understanding of English, including the ability to read and write with ease. International students are required to submit scores from or the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) that meet our minimum requirements. If the TOEFL is not available, we will accept scores from the International English Language Testing System (IELTS).

and MIT Material Science and Engineering only accepts IELTS:

  If your first language is not English, you will need to submit an IELTS test score. Please note: this department does not accept TOEFL scores under any circumstances.

While Stanford only accepts TOEFL:

  Stanford does not accept IELTS scores.

(While through Spring 2016 NYU GSAS acccepted TOEFL only, as of Fall 2016 they appear to have moved to the "no preference" camp.) and NYU Graduate School of Arts and Sciences only accepts TOEFL:--

  Do you accept the IELTS instead of the TOEFL?

  No.

So you can check if the specific programs you are interested in have a preference.


proof of english proficiency I'm from an English speaking country where my education was predominately in English. I'm currently in the process of applying for studies abroad and they have requested me to provide a document of proficiency in English. I have no idea what kind of document this should be. Can someone enlighten me as to what this should be?

Frankly, I would suggest you just ask them. There is usually a contact at universities and similar whose role is student services or enrolment support or similar. They should be able to advise you on exactly what is required. Often there is even a dedicated officer for international students.

Taking an educated guess, it may be they require something like a letter of reference, written by a teacher of yours who can attest to your English proficiency, or perhaps academic results from some sort of English class, or an example of your skills, such as a document you have written.

Keep in mind that this is a general question written with the expectation that many applicants will not speak English as their first language. You don't need to prove you're the next Ernest Hemingway, just that you understand English to a sufficient degree that you will not struggle to understand your teachers.


Finding the total number of papers published in a given journal, for a given year Is there any way that one can find the percentage of papers from a certain journal that meet a given keyword?

The numerator of that fraction (the number of papers that conform to the keyword who were published in a given journal) can be found easily enough with a simple search. But the hardest part really comes down to finding the denominator of the fraction, that is, the total number of papers that were published in a given year, across multiple journals (thus, using the same metrics for all to enable comparison).

Services from Web of Science/Knowledge (InCites JCR etc) don't seem to help here. The only resource I found that gives this total number is https://scirev.org/, but many important multidisciplinary journals or general-psychology journals are not listed there.

If the journal is indexed in Web of Science, this can be easily searched for. You mention it doesn't seem to help, but I don't understand why. In the main search window, search for 1) publication name = [name of journal] and 2) published in whichever year you're interested in.


Using a figure from a PhD thesis, but changed slightly. Copyright? I am using a figure from a PhD thesis in an IEEE conference paper.

I have changed it slightly, mainly by adding text.

Though I will cite the author and publication, do I still need to pay the (what I am quoted as) $100 for rights from Springer? They have published the thesis under SpringerTheses.

How much can I use without paying the fee?

If you were using the figure only for presentation you could likely use it under "fair use". However, I suspect that you are planning on having this published (I assume yours is a field where conference paper=publication...mine is not), and if that is the case you cannot use the figure or any part of it without proper permissions. A modification of a figure does not revoke copyright. Indeed, it might be a violation in itself. You can't use any of it in your publication.

While I am not familiar with the terms of SpringerTheses, you may find that the person who wrote the dissertation actually retains the rights to the figures. It wouldn't be the first time that a publisher tried to charge for something that they don't actually have the rights to. Why not contact the person who wrote the thesis and ask for permission to use (and modify) the figure? If they still retain rights to it, they can grant you the ability to use it for free.


Are graduate school applications processed before the submission deadline? I will be applying for PhD positions starting in fall 2016. Most of the application deadlines are in January. If I send my application now, will it be processed immediately? Or are the recruiters waiting until the deadline has passed? This probably varies somewhat per geographic region (and university, and department) but I would be mostly interested in UK institutions in the STEM fields.

In my experience (in a large public American computer science department), review of applications begins as soon as they are submitted, but no decisions are announced until well after the posted deadline.  Reviewing graduate applications actually takes significant time, and admissions decisions are based at least in part on comparisons with the rest of the applicant pool.

My university actually forbids announcing admissions decisions before the application deadline.  Other universities/countries may have more relaxed policies.


Can I ask to start my postdoc remotely during an interview? (Postdoc is in the UK and I live in another country) So, I was invited for an interview in England, which is currently on a national lockdown at least until January. They send the invitation email when the lockdown was a regional thing, but they confirmed the details during the national lockdown.
Personally, it would be great for me if I start working remotely for a month or two, I need to sort a lot of things in my home country. Since the country is on a lockdown, there's a high chance that they might bring it up. But if they don't, can I mention it? (and how can I do it?) I'm scared that it might play against me.

I wouldn't be concerned. This is a common concern these days, so I'm sure they will understand.  It might be that they tell you that it is not possible for legal reasons.  It might however even be that they are happy to know you are willing/interested to work remotely for a while, since under the current circumstances, there might be significant difficulties/delays in getting you into the country in a timely fashion (depending also on your passport, and where you travel from).
Regarding as to how to bring it up, you should do so as a question - like "Would it be possible to work for a month or two remotely, given that it will be difficult to relocate (and other reasons)", but it is certainly good to present it in a way which will make it also look favorable to them, i.e. "give us more time for the relevant paperwork".
Of course, this all also depends when the position is actually meant to start. I assume it is soon, so chances are high that restrictions are still in place at that point.


Applying for Masters Degree with academic integrity violation on record I am a junior college student that goes to a top 6 CS school. I will be graduating a year early and am starting to think about whether or not I want to get my Master's degree.

However I have an egregious academic integrity violation from my first university from which I was expelled (which was a top 4 CS school, during my first semester). I have since learned from the incident and transferred to my current college, where I have been studying for 3 years.

If I do decide to get a masters degree, I would either plan on pursuing it at my current school (where I believe I will be accepted, due to my academic performance/relationships with professors/ the fact that my department head knows about my past) or at another top-6 cs school.

Would a school of such caliber be willing to look past my academic integrity violation, or should I not even bother applying for a Master's degree?

Although it is perhaps possible that a school has a policy where they will not accept people with past issues involving academic integrity, I feel like this will mostly depend on the person or committee reviewing the applications. If you did well overall, I would think they would overlook something that happened years ago.

However, if it were my decision, I would apply to the school you're currently attending (since you said you know a lot of the faculty and it sounds like you're fairly confident that you would be accepted there; this would be your backup plan) and whatever other school you are thinking about applying to. Is there really any harm in applying to see if you will get in?


What to expect, prepare, bring to a short-noticed meeting solicited by a University Press editor? How to prepare for a meeting/discussion with a major University Press editor when they solicited/sought you out on short notice (4 days)? Because I didn't solicit them, I don't have a full manuscript -- just my conference paper, abstract, and general research ideas. What is expected in these impromptu meetings solicited by University Press editors? What should I bring to the meeting? Do they expect me to become prepared with a pitch and write a book proposal overnight? Or do I simply bring an abstract and a CV?

I would like to make the most of this opportunity, but I was solicited out of the blue during a conference and feel so unprepared. I don't want to blow an opportunity or ruin future prospects, but I have no idea what to expect. Are they meant to be low-key casual?

It is unlikely that any editor is going to make any commitment to you about publishing your work, other than a book idea. You should come to the meeting with the same attitude. Don't make commitments or sounds that seem like commitments. Take a draft of your work (or an abstract) and be prepared to (a) listen and (b) sound interested.

Get and give business cards.


Is it always necessary to write an abstract on top of your research work? Is it always necessary to write an abstract on top of your research work or can I immediately go over to my introduction?

This is usually specified in the guidelines of the journal, conference etc. you want to publish in. For a thesis, there will be university guidelines. I have never seen any guidelines that say that an abstract is only optional.
Ask yourself about the purpose of an abstract. A missing abstract will make it unnecessary difficult to grasp the contents of the work. So I see no proper reason to avoid writing one.


Is some foreign experience necessary to attain a professorship in India? I wish to know even the unwritten rules in this regard. Should one have at least a postdoc from abroad if one has done a PhD in India? I wish to include within the ambit of this question also those who have done either their graduation or post graduation from abroad.

In general, the best way to answer the question "What qualifications do I need for job X?" is to look up people who currently have job X and see what their qualifications are. So I suggest you go to the websites of several professors in India (ideally junior professors who were hired recently) and see what they did beforehand.


Does doing a postdoc mean a commitment to an academic career? I have heard that it would be a bad idea to take up a post-doctoral position, if your ultimate goal is to work in industry. The basis of this maybe that it is harder to be hired for an opening at a company, maybe because you would seem unsure of your direction, or would be over qualified for a junior role.

If there are no ideal jobs available at present, should I take up a post-doctoral position as a safe option, or easy way out, in the meantime?

Well, clearly, it depends on many factors (my answer is probably strongly influenced by the Computer Science field).

If you want to apply for a non-research industry position, then clearly, the postdoc might not appear as a strong point, unless you can travel, attend conferences, manage a budget, develop an application/software/experiment, apply for patents, etc, in general any transversal skill that you can justify. But if the postdoc is just sitting in an office writing theoretical papers for a couple of years, then it's probably not the best choice.
If you want to apply for a research industry position, then a postdoc can be a good point, although of course, the closer you can be connected to industry, the better it will be.
Ideally, you could do a postdoc in industry (in CS, IBM, Microsoft, Intel, HP, and many others offer this possibility).


MLA German translated citations I am writing a paper (in German) for a philosophy seminar using MLA citation style. For my work I use three english sources and I am going to translate all of my quotes for a better textflow. At the frist quote, I would like to mark that all of the following quotes will be translated by me. How do I do that in MLA?

Footnote —per work— is the easiest and flows the best for me.

  Given that “lorem ipsum dolor sit amet” (Lorem 42),3 it is evident that…

  This and all subsequent quotations are my own translations from the original Ipsum language.

But it's not unheard of to do it in the parenthetical reference:

  Given that “lorem ipsum dolor sit amet” (Lorem 42, translation mine), it is evident that…

I can't seem to find an example of someone doing it for multiple ones like you mention, although I definitely recall seeing it once or twice. The parenthetical form is most commonly done for a source you only cite once or twice and each time you just say translation mine (or translations mine if there are two or more quotations that go with a reference), but I guess it wouldn't be horrible if you put this and subsequent translations mine or similar.

So basically, my recommendation is parenthetical if you'll use them a handful of times. Footnote if you'll be quoting extensively from them.


Is it ethical to obtain journal articles from places other than the publisher's official sites? When I am at home and looking for journal articles I often find article PDFs  through google that have been uploaded to various websites (e.g., universities, institutions, arbitrary websites, etc...).

I am worried that using these files may infringe copyright since these articles may be bought by these universities (for example) and (by mistake?) were freely uploaded to their domain name like: www.university.edu.lb/journal_article1.pdf (probably for their own students?).

Is it ethical to use these downloaded PDFs during my research without going back to my own university elibrary to use them?
When, if ever, would I be breaching copyright or breaching professional ethics if I accessed these files?

EDIT: my question also covers books as, sometimes, these are entirely available on some sites (whether they are institutional sites or not).

Yes, it is absolutely ethical to use these files during your research. Many publishers allow academic authors to upload a so-called "preprint" version of a paper to their own institutional websites or put them in repositories, and of course these can be used by others in research.

There's maybe just two minor things to be careful about:

You should try to verify that the preprint version is mostly up to date with the published version, comparing e.g. publication dates.
It is common practice to put the "official" publication source, i.e., the journal version, into your reference list. Nevertheless, if you can't make sure that the versions are equivalent regarding what you're citing them for, it may be necessary to state that you were using a preprint version.

In some cases, authors may put papers online even though it's technically a breach of copyright. But since you don't know the author's agreement with the publisher, you have no way of checking that, and in any case, it would be the author or institution that violates copyright, but not you.


I found some topographical errors in one of my published papers i found some topographical errors mainly missing spellings in one of my published papers. However the errors does not alter the meaning or concept of the paper. I contacted the joirnal editor but told me that it remains topographical error. Am just worried about it when readers find these mistakes. what do i do

As you discovered, journals usually don't correct typographical errors if the paper's meaning is unaffected.  Publishing a correction is a lot of trouble, and they don't want to do it unless there is a compelling reason.

So there is nothing you can do.  You will just have to live with those errors being there.

Perhaps it will motivate you to proofread your next paper more carefully before submitting.


Can an academic paper be published about vulnerabilities found in a bug bounty? Most papers I have read have some theoretical aspect to it, involving some sort of a pseudocode. I'm into vulnerability analysis and penetration testing and I actively indulge in bug bounty programs. Can I publish a paper about the vulnerabilities I found in a bug bounty?

I would say Yes, depending;

Is it an interesting new type of vulnerability?
Did you use an interesting new method to find it?
Do you have interesting new insights about this kind of (already known) vulnerability, perhaps linking it to a different concept?
Can you take the actions you took to find specific vulnerabilities in specific cases,  and generalize them to a broader methodology?
Can you compare the effectiveness of two different methods to detect a particular vulnerability?
Do you have a testbench of vulnerable setups that can be used to evaluate new detection tools?

Or similar things. The key aspect is novelty. What are you telling experts that they don't already know?

Apart from wholly original ideas, there's also the class of papers known as Survey Papers. These collect a range of existing studies and give an overview and analysis of the state of the field of research. In this case, you could do a survey of what the current state is of research into particular types of vulnerabilities.


Does it look bad if I publish an IEEE journal article without "Member, IEEE" next to my name? I am the second author of three, and the only one who does not have an active membership.  I have little need for the other services provided by IEEE, as I already have access to XPLORE through my work.

Nope, and I doubt anyone would notice or care.

Everyone can be a member, all it takes is a bit of money.


Quitting PhD in my third year HI everybody I am a physics PhD student working in the field of theoretical physics. I am currently in my third year. I am currently at a point where I am thinking of quitting my PhD. I have no ambition to continue in academics and the environment I am working in (including relationship with my advisor) is making me unfortunately very unhappy and extremely stressed. I tried a lot to fix this (therapy, talking to advisor, sports, taking a break,….) none of them seemed to help leaving me with the only option left: quitting.

Considering leaving the PhD I am concerned about the consequences. I don’t think I was a bad PhD student (I have 7 publications , teacher several courses and have a government funded PhD grant). So my questions are:

Will it give a bad impression?
Will  it have severe consequences on my further career (for example in industry).

Will it give a bad impression?

Lots of people quit their PhDs.  It's not a big deal.  But I suppose finishing makes a better impression of yourself.

Quitting your PhD creates a negative impression of your university and supervisor.  However, that shouldn't stop you from doing what is best for you.

  Will it have severe consequences on my further career (for example in industry).

Only if you want a job that requires a PhD.  Most industry employers do not care if you did not compete your PhD.

  I have 7 publications

You should consider if you can complete your PhD in a very short period.  Most PhD students do not have seven publications.


How large may included parts from other people's work be in an academic paper? Of course, it is absolutely important to quote all thoughts that did not originate from the author. This makes one think that it would be OK to include works of others when referencing them correctly.

For example, consider that one had that really great list of problems that also apply to your own paper. Is it legal and/or legitimate to write about that list, include the key points in your work and reference the original author?

I am facing that situation where I want to include some key aspects but quoting all of them and describing them individually feels like copying too much, even though I explicitly state that the aspects originate from another paper with referencing to it.

You can include any material that is published as long as you appropriately cite the material (source). If you think any phrasing made by the author(s) is key, then you can do it as a quote where the text is reproduced in verbatim. If you do not use quotes you need to rephrase the text in your own words since it would otherwise be considered as a form of plagiarism. So, just be careful with referencing and quotes if necessary. It is better to have cited one time too many than the opposite.


How am I supposed to go to conferences with a reimbursement system as a poor TA? I don't get paid much as a TA. I wanted to go to conferences but all of them operate on a reimbursement system. Between flights, shuttles, hotels, etc. it can be up to like $1000 not including food. They offer funding but with reimbursement. I don't have $1000 in my bank account to pay with in the first place. Most other TAs I know are in a similar position.

Why do programs use a reimbursement system? I went to one conference where they reimbursed the flight and paid for the hotel. That was a month ago and I think my reimbursement check is still a ways away. Why does it take so long? Why not just buy me a ticket? How am I supposed to go to conferences?

This is an unfortunate reality of life. I think at one point in grad school I had $5,000 in outstanding reimbursements because it took so long to process them. Many grad students don't have the liquidity to handle that.

You can, and should, ask whoever will reimburse you whether (i) they can book for you, (ii) let you use their payment card to book, or (iii) pay you in advance. It's often possible and there's no harm in asking. The situation is common enough that they will be used to such requests. For example, people traveling for academic job interviews will rack up a lot of travel expenses in a short time and will sometimes ask to have costs paid directly.

Unfortunately, some places have rigid bureaucracies that insist on operating through reimbursements or some other arbitrary policy. (I recently had a trip where they insisted that they book the flight for me, that I get the hotel reimbursed, and they gave me a per diem for food. Three different policies from one bureaucracy for one trip!) Ultimately, there is little that can be done about it if that's the case.

In the long term, the best solution is to save up a buffer to cover expenses like this. Alternatively, you could get a credit card or other loan to pay for it. However, that is more of a question for https://money.stackexchange.com/


Is this type of self-plagiarism wrong? There is an article which contains a section describing preliminary materials, that is, results which have already been published elsewhere and on which the current work is based.

This section is not supposed to contain any new result.

It appears that part of this section (one to two pages) is, up to minor modifications, a copy-paste from another published article.

The other article is from a collaboration of the author of the present paper with other authors. It is cited somewhere in the current article but not as the source of the copied part.

The context and methods of the articles are very similar (hence the need for similar tools), but beside the copied part, the contents and results are different.

In particular, there does not seem to be any plagiarism in the actual novel part of the article in question.

Is this a case of acceptable self-plagiarism?

There are a lot of questions in academia.SE about self-plagiarism but I couldn't make my mind about this case from what I've read.

EDIT: Thank you for all this helpful contributions. As referee for this article, I've chosen the option to ask directly the editor's opinion.

Lots of people would object to this. LOTS. I think somewhat differently. If this section doesn't cite the original, I think that's pretty bad. I don't think that it's career-ending, but I also don't think that we should be slavish to not copying ourselves when the material is rote or nearly so. Methodology sections that don't change much from paper to paper are places where I think reproducing text and saying so and citing yourself are particularly acceptable to me, but lots of people disagree vehemently with me. I'm aware of this propensity, so I don't copy text in my own papers as much as possible. I rewrite such sections and cite my old work for alternative descriptions.

In the case you mention, both articles appear to have been published, so unless you have a vendetta with this author and want to try to ruin their career, it's probably not worth saying anything to anyone about it. In other words, what would you do if we all said it was bad self-plagiarism? The only thing you can really do is tell the journal or their department chair and hope for a retraction or firing. If it doesn't change the result, then there's not much point in bringing it up. That being said, it's probably best if you don't follow their example. It's  also probably worth being wary of future articles from this group of authors since there might be other aspects that aren't exactly above board.


Should I finish my current not so good PhD research or start a new PhD in a much better university with a much better PhD adviser? I'm in the third year of my PhD in the US. I defended my PhD proposal successfully at November 2018. My research is related to computational science but the problem is that I did not and I don't have any funding for this PhD research, where you can read about it more comprehensively here.

Honestly, my relationship with my current PhD adviser is not that good (even I could say it's bad...), for no apparent reason... Long story short, I don't think this PhD will go anywhere or at least will end up in a good publication record for me due to: 1. Lack of research funding and very limited resources available to us, 2. My PhD adviser opinion that this research has nothing to do with the objectives of our department as general, 3. Not so good relationship of me and my PhD adviser.

Due to that, I don't have funding for my PhD research, I work as a graduate research assistant in a completely different department. Despite my bad relationship with my PhD adviser, I have a really good relationship with my current boss for my graduate research assistant position. My boss has PhD but here he works as a staff, where basically he doesn't do active research. Recently, he got a faculty position in another university, and really wants me to be his PhD student. I really like him and we have really good relationship. I mean during past 2 years that I worked for him, we were always friendly and understand each other very well.

My question: Here in my current position, I have a really bad feeling... No matter how good or bad I work, my current PhD adviser is never satisfied with me. More importantly, in my current PhD adviser eyes, I'm the one that always is wrong. I mean obviously nobody can be right always, but it's that improbable that somebody is always wrong. I prefer to be judged as a someone that sometimes is right and sometimes is wrong like a normal guy. Long story short: Should I leave my current PhD based on my current experience and start a new one with my current boss in a different university? I'm really close to finish this PhD but everyday my relationship with my current PhD adviser becomes worst and worst...

I see this as a question about whether you should choose to attend a fully funded PhD program with an advisor you like, or to continue on a more expensive, less supportive path. If it's legitimately true that you would be taken on at the new university, that's a great opportunity.


Does APA style require a cover page for short student papers? My students are required to use APA style. I'm familiar with the research paper format, which requires a separate title page (like a cover page). This makes sense for longer papers, but how should students format the first page of a one- or two-page assignment?

My question is: What do students do if the paper is one to two pages? How do they format their name and information w/o a title page?

In the style guides, I can only find information for research papers.

General points: APA style is principally designed for submitting manuscripts to academic journals.

When it is used as a style guide for student assessments at universities, it is common for the requirements to be adapted. So for example, many people completing honours, masters, or PhD theses in the behavioural sciences will use APA style for referencing. But their university may have other requirements for the formatting of title pages, heading formats, line spacing, paragraph indentation and so on. Or these details may be left up to the student.

If you are setting the assignment, you are free to pick and choose which aspects of APA style you want students to follow.

Your specific question: Note that APA style calls it a "Title Page" rather than a "Cover Page". Any manuscript submitted to a journal using APA style requires a title page (i.e., with title, author names, affiliations, author note, etc.). Those who create a university assignment based on APA style are free to adopt or not adopt aspects of APA style when it pertains to APA style. In some respects it doesn't even make sense to fully adopt APA style for Title pages on student assignments. For example, you wouldn't require them to provide a "corresponding author address" (a key requirement of APA style title pages), but you would require them to include their student number.


Job Market in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) The question: Firstly, do I need to have a background in computing to be a research in human-computer interaction (HCI). Secondly, I need help with getting relevant work experiences which seem to be difficult because I live in a developing country (Nigeria) where there is basically no research in this area.

The story: I have a BSc in Mass Communication and MA in Communication and Media. I discovered this field while on my masters program and have since developed an interest in it. I'm more interested in human-technology (mobile) relationship than designing. I have tried to define my research plan to fall within this area. I intend to research on mobile phone and rural development in Sub-Saharan African countries. I would love to be a researcher and also lecture within this area.

Considering I took some  Microsoft professional courses (MCSA & MCSE), I can say that I have some networking/Computing qualification.

I'm wondering if getting a masters (something like a MRES) in HCI will give me added advantage or if what I have is okay because for most job opportunities I see usually request for some one with a computing/HCI background which I don't have. I won't mind interning to get the needed experience because it seems like all the
vacancies are requesting experienced people.

My Career Goal: To be a research/lecturer. I hope to be flexible enough to be able to indulge in other business such as running an NGO that is youth and women development inclined.

My Background I am a 26 years old lady with no experience in this field. My education was split between my country (which is developing by the way) and UK. I really hope to do a PhD in a more advanced country and at the same time get some relevant work experience.

In HCI, you've set your sights on what I think is a very interesting hybrid field.  On the one hand, there is the hard-core technological aspect of creating new approaches to user interfaces, which these days often also involves some extremely sophisticated machine learning and signal processing.  On the other hand, there is the human aspect of it, in finding out how people actually interact with their technology and what are the ways that it can make the most difference in human lives, which has a lot more to do with sociological and psychological studies.

From what you've said about your background and ambitions, it sounds like you are more inclined toward the human aspect, which is great.  In terms of building your career, I would recommend thinking about what you need to do from the perspective of gaining the skills that you need in order to study the human aspects.  A solid grounding in statistics and analysis will definitely important, as well as learning how to design and conduct effective human subject studies.  Even if there's no HCI programs in your area, I'm guessing that it is much more likely that there will be programs where you can study some of these others.

For the programming side and for getting involved in the field, you might want to look into AppInventor and Technovation. AppInventor is a programming toolkit intended to lower the barrier of entry for people to develop apps for phones and other Android devices.  Technovation is a worldwide program/contest for getting young women involved in software engineering by building their own applications.  In fact, I notice that one of this year's finalist teams was from Lagos!  You might look to get involved in some fashion, such as coaching a team.  It's not something that will make you money, but it might be a good way to pick up experience and connections.

There is probably no easy path, but it sounds like you have good ambitions of a sort that a number of international programs are intended to encourage, if you can only build yourself a solid foundation and find the right connections.  Finally, as I am an American who knows a lot more about computer science than developing countries, please take all of my advice with a big grain of salt.  I hope that others will be able to speak to your situation more directly as well.


How to find the most related publications for a batch? On Google Scholar, I can explore the related articles or books individually - clicking on the "related articles" gives you the related articles for that specific publication.

How will I find the most related publications for a batch of articles/books?

What you are asking for might be possible by writing your own program (e.g. in Python) to access the Google Scholar API.  In fact it would make a good assignment for a Python programming / Text processing class. But unless you are a programmer with extra time on your hands, you shouldn't attempt it.

For what it's worth, I almost never use "related articles" feature of Google Scholar.  The few times I did use it, there wasn't always such a close relationship, and it certainly didn't bring up the articles that I saw as most related.

I don't think there's any substitute for reading the papers, at least the important ones, to find the most salient related papers.  I do this both through direct citations and also by finding key terms that I use for new Google Scholar searches.


How should I respond when monetary contribution to potluck will affect grade? I am currently taking an Art History course. Today was the first day of class, and my professor informed us that we are required to bring a monetary contribution for a potluck. I wouldn't be opposed to this. However, I was taken aback when she mentioned that we are not required to participate, but if so we would not be getting points for the event, which will prevent us from getting full point completion in her class. What should I do?

I personally make sure to never require my students to spend money to actually do the course (i.e., if my courses require the students to do something that costs money, I find internal or external sponsors for it rather than having the students pay out of their pocket), but I understand that I am coming from the somewhat privileged position of teaching at a well-funded private research university here. I would guess from your question that this is not the case here.

I think you are not fairly representing what's happening here. The deal quite obviously is not really "exchange money for grade points" (that would indeed be very bad), but "exchange money for participation in a didactic event". This really is not very different than a school forcing students to pay for participating in a school trip.

I don't see how it makes a major difference that participation in the event is graded, but of course practicalities matter here. If the event was very expensive so that some students could not afford it in practice, or if the organizer would turn a significant profit from the event, I would understand why you disagree with this. However, as it sounds, this is literally "chip in a few dollars for food", and in this case I don't really think that there is anything unethical going on.

  What should I do?

If you are not opposed to the monetary contribution for the potluck in the first place, I don't see how getting some grade points for it changes anything. So, I suggest you contribute to the potluck :)


How long does it take a student to conduct undergrad research and then release a publication based off of that research? I'll be attending a accredited/well-recognized university for my undergrad this coming fall, and I'm just curious about research correlating with publications. I have a particular yearning passion in enhancing the field of pediatric robotic surgery, a new field of medicine that just opened up very recently, and I am firmly intrigued in doing undergrad research along with a publication from that department. Now I know for a fact publications take up an exceeding amount of time.

My main question is :

How long does it take a student to conduct undergrad research and then release a publication based off of that research?

I think your question is perhaps ambiguous (does "typical length of time" mean hours you put in, or days/months from the start of the project?), and not really answerable regardless of the interpretation. There are different kinds of undergraduate research. Here are a couple of the usual ways undergrad research is done:

A somewhat intensive short period of time (6-8 weeks, say) where a student works on a topic chosen by an advisor ahead of time. Presumably these topics are carefully chosen so that the student is able to make real progress in such a short period of time. These projects are often in the form of an REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates). If you do some googling, you will likely find REU's in your field of study, and some advisors/organizers nicely list all of the publications that come out of the REU's. You will see that not all REU projects result in publications.
Working over a longer period of time with a specific professor in your department. This can be an actual job, where you are paid to work in a research lab, or it can be an "independent study" course, where you actually get a couple of credits to work with a professor on a research project. If you are being paid to do research as a student job, your hours may be (at least technically) limited by university policy. This type of research can be very substantial. For example, I knew a person who worked in a professor's fluid mechanics lab for all 4 years of his undergraduate education, and I think they produced and published some nice results.

So, for shorter more packaged projects, I think a "typical" time would be 6-8 weeks. For longer, more open-ended projects, you could potentially work with a professor for years (depending on lab space, grant money, etc.). All of this is highly field-dependent I'm sure.

Now, all of this being said, I think the most important point to make is that publications should not be your ultimate goal. Work hard, be passionate about your field of study, learn as much as you can, and keep up on the other things you have to do as an undergrad. If you do this, then you will impress your advisors and have great letters of recommendation, which will help you get into a great graduate school, and then you can spend the rest of your career worrying about publications :)


Taxonomy in a review paper I submitted a Review paper to a journal where the review committee reported

  Author did not make Taxonomy of the his review

I do not understand their need. After searching the questions in this forum, I came across the question regarding ACM 2012 Taxonomy. Are the reviewers asking for this ACM 2012 Taxonomy or something else?

It sounds to me like the reviewers were requesting that you include a set of “Index Terms” or “Keywords” for your paper, e.g., for IEEE, pulled from the list of IEEE Taxonomy or Standardized Keywords.
Excerpts the second link:

Help readers find your article quickly by using the right IEEE standardized keywords.
using the right keywords in your article can make your article more easily and reliably discoverable—which leads to a broader readership for your article.


Will Leaving a tenure track position after one year for a postdoctoral position at a better location hurt my future academic career? I'm leaving a tenure track position after one year, I have a tenure track offer and a postdoctoral offer. The postdoc position is in the very nice city and I like the research projects there. But the school is not that high ranked. Will going down to postdocs hurt my future transition to faculty position?

Not necessarily. BUT, is it worth the risk?
Whether a post doc now will help or hurt depends on many things, such as, even, why you are leaving a TT position now and what your trajectory is. A perfect in every way post doc might help, but I'd think that anything less is leaving you on a treadmill without a sure path to progress. And you don't describe this offer as perfect. And, the "very nice city" aspect doesn't contribute to your career and is temporary in any case.
The goal is to get a permanent faculty position. You have an offer of a TT position which puts you closer to the goal. If it is in a place where you would be happy starting your career then take the TT offer.