What is the meaning of "Manuscript submitted"? I submitted a manuscript to a journal about two months ago, its status was remains "manuscript submitted" until yesterday. In fact I saw no changes from the beginning to now and every process just happened in one day. I mean in yesterday it became "with editor" and soon after that "Decision in Process". It seems to me it will be rejected. But the strange thing for me that why it was not "with editor" from the beginning?

Analogy: I went to the grocery store yesterday.  I was "in line" for 10 minutes, while two customers got checked out.  Why was I not "with cashier" immediately?  ;-)  Capisce?

They also may run some sorting process ahead of time (e.g. which editor gets it).  Or maybe it's a poor paper and they let it sit for that reason (even though the status doesn't say that).  Very hard for us to guess.  Every journal is different, and even different experiences may occur at same journal.

By the way, some journals do emphasize a more caught up workflow.  At least getting it out to first review ASAP as this is next bottleneck (or desk rejection if not meriting review).  But you will have to learn from experience how different journals in your field behave.

P.s. The answer to your title question is "manuscript submitted" just means "manuscript received".  It's just acknowledgement they got what you sent.


Dealing with aggressive student suspected to be cheating In a previous test one of my TAs discovered a fraudulent pattern in six of the exams. The answers were uncomfortably similar, actually identical in many places. I called the students to my office and brought two colleagues to help me "interview" them individually (ask them questions about the test, gauge their level of knowledge about the subject, ...)

One of the students reacted very explosively at my one and only question: "Could you please tell me how you solved 'problem 2'? He told me he felt threatened by the question and that I had no right to ask him questions after the exam. To what I reply: "do you or do you not know?"

At that point things spiraled very fast out of control, he reacted violently, stepping out of the office while muttering some insults. On the way out he hit the door. I tried to calm him down but he got only angrier and the color of his words became redder. After seeing this, the other students refused to continue the interviews with my colleagues and left.

I definitely don't know if I should have approached the situation in a different way. Should I make them repeat the exam? Start a disciplinary process?

EDIT (Jan/09/18):

In case of suspected misconduct I should bring the case, along with evidence, to the Dean. He then reviews it and decides whether to bring it to the Academic Council or stop it there. They ultimately have the power to decide what to do. However, almost a year ago a colleague also faced a situation that involved fraud during a test, and the Dean decided to not do anything because the potential punishment for the student would be too harsh (he might be expelled)

EDIT (Jan/10/18):

Just to add some details into the situation: At the moment of the incident I was talking with one student, and each of my colleagues was doing the same with a student. The six of us were in the same (big) room. And the other three students were waiting outside.

Report the student and his problem behavior to your honor council or academic conduct officer, as appropriate at your institution and let it be their problem.  At most schools, your responsibility as an instructor is to report suspected cases of misconduct, not to form a final judgement.


In the US, is it culturally acceptable for a graduate student to give a small gift to a professor? I am an overseas student who was recently admitted to a PhD program in the US, and I will soon travel to the US to meet my future PhD advisor and my fellow grad students. My future PhD advisor has also kindly accepted to be my host for the duration of the several days I will spend in the US. I really appreciate his help, as I know hosting a student in addition to all the other responsibilities that come with being a professor may be a hassle, and also he has saved me from paying for a B&B by offering to host me.

Anyway, I think I would like to give a small gift to my professor just as a token of appreciation for his consideration, but I have doubts as to whether this would be appropriate, since I come from a different culture, and I cannot easily assess how people would react to such a thing in the US. In my culture, too, it would be inappropriate to buy an expensive gift for a professor. In the best case, the professor would sternly refuse to accept the gift, and in the worst case, the professor could have negative ideas about you, e.g., s/he could think you were trying to ingratiate yourself with him/her, that you intended to give the gift as a form of bribe, etc. BUT a small gift with little to no monetary value wouldn't be turned down, and it would most probably be accepted as a token of heartfelt thankfulness. The question for me is, of course, where this boundary is in the US.

And in case you're wondering what I consider buying for him...well, my country happens to have nice tea sets and/or plates made of porcelain, they are popular souvenirs that tourists like to buy here, and one can easily buy a nice, small decorative plate for under 10 dollars, for instance. So I suppose I could buy something like that.

Would that be acceptable? Or would I be judged negatively?

Thank you very much in advance for your answers.

As your Ph.D. advisor is also going to be your host and provide you with lodging during your stay, a small gift would be very acceptable.  It is accepted etiquette in the U.S. to leave your host a small gift as a token of your appreciation for their hospitality to you.  You may want to give your host a gift card to a restaurant in their area placed inside a thank you card.  This can also be done online and sent to your host via email.  Both ways would be done after your stay is complete.  Another idea would be to send flowers after your visit.  Small tokens such as these that would be enjoyed by the whole household are wonderful ways to say "thank you".


Choosing title for a section in the curriculum vitae I am now applying for lecturer jobs after my masters. And so have made a decent CV. Now I have a confusion on giving the research interests in my CV. I wanted to make 2 sections in CV indicating my basic subject areas and future research interests. What are the suitable titles for these sections in the CV?

A possible heading for your subject areas could be Areas of Specialization or Areas of Expertise. You could use Research Interests for the other part. However, the two are usually combined under one heading. Unless you have the necessary expertise to carry out research in the areas listed under your Research interests, there is no point of listing those.

Normally you would use a separate document called Research Statement to outline your proposal for your upcoming research.


How can I maximize my chances of a professor of another university accepting to be my undergraduate research advisor? Next year I'm going to college and would like to do undergraduate research in the second semester under the supervision of a certain professor, who I'll call Prof. M.

There are three points against me and three in my favor. They are the following

Prof. M. works at another university, which is about 100 miles away from the one I'm going to. If he does accept to advise me, my plan is to travel to his university every week or every other week.
I am worse than terrible when it comes to social aspects: I talk too fast, lack common sense, and I feel horribly nervous when talking to other people (specially people I don't know), often leading to awkward behavior for not knowing how to act.
Prof. M. is a (local) bigshot. (I'm assuming he might be more selective because of this)
I have self-studied math and physics more or less to have approximately the technical understanding a second year graduate student would have. Of course, while I know about e.g. locally ringed spaces or bosonic string theory (or insert buzzword here), I lack most of the skills and experience a real graduate student would have, such as being able to critically read research papers or having research experience. Also, this is a self-assessment, thus possibly a faulty one;
The professor is welcoming and has a nice personality (I got this information from a friend that has a friend who was a phd student in the same university as Prof. M. and who talked to him personally);
He has supervised* undergraduate students in the past (about five years ago);

So,

should I talk to Prof. M. personally or by email?
should I mention a paper he wrote that I find particularly
interesting and ask if he would accept advising me to do similar
research?

In short, what is the best path to be taken here?

*Though all undergraduate students are from his university. See Professor Eldredge's comment below.

For reasons completely unrelated to your own skills and background, I think your chances  here are slim. The professor has little external incentive to take you on and doing so will complicate his/her already too busy academic life. There might even be rules forbidding it, though the chance of that is small.

But, you ask how you can maximize your chances, so I'll give some hints.

This is the sort of thing you want to do in person, not by mail/email. You certainly won't get a positive answer via an email exchange. You might get an invitation to visit, but that puts you face-to-face in any case.

This is the sort of thing you want to do in conjunction with an advocate/intermediary. If you were already established in "your" college, one of your professors would be good for doing that. Especially since the prof once studied there. But if you have a current teacher who knows this person (or is known) they might be willing to intervene on your behalf, perhaps even accompanying you on a visit to the other university.

I'm not sure that waiting until you are established at university is a good thing or not. You won't have a lot of time to become recognized before you need to make the contact. But it would give you the potential for finding an intermediary.

You will need to convince the prof that you have unique skills and that it would be a missed opportunity not to work with you. That is a pretty steep climb. It would help if some of your research interests align. So you need to demonstrate that you know something of the research of the prof and how you might fit in.

But I also have a small wonder about why you chose the university you did, rather than the other one. You would maximize your chance by going there instead.

Don't worry about being/seeming awkward. Lots of people in academia are likewise.


Can I submit my paper without author list (double-blind) to a conference with a single-blind review process? I am submitting a paper to a computer science conference, can I submit it without author list? The submission guideline says: "submissions are reviewed following a single blind review process, meaning, you do not need to hide authors’ names and affiliations"

The names, affiliations and conflicts of interests will be mentioned when I am submitting the paper. But can I remove name and affiliations from the paper (pdf)? Does it mean that the reviewer will not see it?

Secondly, is there any point in hiding these information, or they will find it out anyway?

In a single blind review process, the author names are not hidden for the reviewers, but the reviewer names are hidden for the authors.

In a double blind review process, the author names are hidden for the reviewers, and the reviewer names are hidden for the authors.

In both cases you will have to submit the author names during the submission process (e.g., in a web form), and the organizing committee will be able to see your names. Typically, for a conference or journal with a double blind review process, you are asked to provide a manuscript without any author names and affiliations.

You cannot submit an anonymous manuscript to a conference/journal with a single blind review process, as it probably will be rejected straight away.


Footnotes: is there any 'rule' on how to use them? I am writing my Msc thesis and I would like to know if it is ok to use footnotes and if there are rules about using them (maybe related to the text format or other issues about the style, for example, should I use numbers or letters?)  And are there guidelines about what should not be put as footnote?

Sorry if this might sound as a silly question, but since it is a thesis and not a book (therefore the aim is presenting results and not teaching people) I do not what it to look presumptuous

The rules will depend on:

1) Your chosen citation style

Your citation style will determine how you use footnotes. Some citation styles use footnotes as citations, where you'll find instances of Ibid and so forth. Others that utilise in-text citation state that footnotes are to only be used to add additional information not relevant to the main discussion (no citations). Your citation style will also indicate the formatting preferences.

Regarding how many footnotes, I'm not sure what is the norm for a science-based paper, but generally for a social science stream you don't want to have that many footnotes.


Can articles published on academia.edu be regarded as scholarly publications? I am curious to know if articles posted on academia.edu can be regarded as scholarly publications? In other words, can someone list them in his/her publication list or resume? This question may be expanded to foster a discussion of what constitutes a scholarly publication in the online literature era.

It does not matter where it is published, it matters (as someone already commented) whether it went through the peer review process.

There are number of outlets to "publish" your work without peer review, the one I am most familiar with is arXiv. The distinction matters, because:

The research that has not been peer-reviewed may be of poor quality, biased, not up to scientific standards, or simply fake. Note "may be". Scientific conferences and especially scientific journals are assumed to do peer review before accepting the paper.
The review process is time consuming for the reviewers, so scientific community tries to prevent "double submissions" or even double publication. The "publications" with no peer review are not considered scientific publications in strict sense, therefore they are not counted towards "double submission" criteria (at least for the conferences I know).

So the answer is, yes, you can put it in your CV, but the reader may view it differently than you, e.g. the impression may be that you are unable to publish peer-reviewed paper, and resorting to this instead.

Now, specifically to Academia.edu, due to their model as "review along the publication, not before it" makes the point moot. But nevertheless, since you CAN publish stuff on Academia.edu without prior review, no one can be sure whether the work is of high quality or junk just by the fact that you managed to publish it. Granted, sometimes junk research gets through the peer review process as well, but there is reasonable assumption that the research is good, if peer-reviewed at a decent conference or published in a decent journal, while with Academia.edu it is fair to say it is probably exactly the reverse situation: one has to assume it is junk, unless proven otherwise by going to the site and reading the comments (if any).


writing grad school reference letters I know there are many posts out there geared towards requesting reference letters; I have a question (as a newly established PI) about writing them. I am based in Europe, and want to support one of my former student's grad school applications in the US.

US-based profs & PI's (specifically in cognitive science/neurosciences), what kind of information do you look for in rec letters for prospective grad students? I am relatively unfamiliar with the US grad school system (it's radically different here), but I know superlative praise is called for. Just, praise in what specifically? What are qualities you look for, or other things that make a reference letter informative to you? The student has a bit of a non-traditional cv and I want to make sure I highlight things that might be relevant.

Thanks!

For graduate school admissions, the goal of the reference letter is to recommend a candidate who you think will make an excellent future researcher. So you need to explain what the candidate has done for you, and why you think that gives the candidate the preparation she needs to succeed as a graduate student.

That means you should talk about:

The skill set the student has developed under your supervision.
Any noteworthy accomplishments (papers, awards, etc.)
Anything else you believe highlights the candidate's independence as a researcher, leadership skills, potential as a teacher and researcher, and so on.

Since your audience is fellow researchers in your field, effusive praise for someone who doesn't merit it is not helpful. I've known professional working relationships that soured because one PI tried to "sneak" a less-than-meritorious candidate through into a colleague's group as a postdoc.


Relative pronoun 'who' or 'which' when referring to article by authors' names In an academic paper, when I refer to an article by author's name and publication year, then use a relative pronoun, should I use 'who' or 'which?'

For example,

  We referred to the method proposed by Smith and  Johnson (2004) who suggested blah-blah.

This depends entirely on the subject of your subordinate (relative) clause.

If the authors are the subjects of the subordinate clause, use who. E.g.

  Many postmodernists reacted angrily to the stunt pulled by Sokal (1996), who they felt had acted unethically in an effort to discredit their field.

If the paper or text is the subject of the subordinate clause, use which. E.g.

  If you want to improve your mathematical writing, I recommend carefully examining Halmos (1974) which as a text manages the difficult feat of combining  scrupulous rigorous with broad accessibility.


Should I write an email to the professor I want to work with regarding my performance in the exam? I am a masters student in one of the Swiss federal institutes. There is a professor I wish to work under as a PhD student after my masters. In fact, this was the entire reason I decided to join the masters program in this institute. After coming here, I did a semester-long project with this professor and took a course under the professor.

I think I did well in the project. Although I did not do anything original, I read a lot of difficult things and made a nice report. I asked the professor if there is a research position that I can apply to and continue working for the coming semester (it is very rare to get research positions in pure mathematics as a student) and I was told that it may be possible and more will be informed in a week.

However, this week the final exam of the course that I had taken under this professor was scheduled and I am not too hopeful about the performance in the exam (I think it was mostly because I spent too much time in the project and spent less time in my coursework). This professor is famous and can easily get students more capable than me.

Do you think I should write an email to the professor apologizing and explaining about this? What should I say?

From your explanation I assume that you are very keen to work with him/her in future as a PhD student. So you were trying to your best to do very good in his/her paper. How about your project work? I assume that it was appreciated by your professor, but doesn't matter.

To answer your question, you can always write emails to him/her mentioning about the project work and future advice. So if you write emails, then forget about the exam results and no need to mention about the performance of this exam in your email.

I would prefer to take an appointment after the exam and meet him to discuss about my interest to work with him as a PhD student.


Do professors have to cite references in their Powerpoints? And what if data is manipulated to make PPT more "current"? When I was taking my gen-ed classes for nursing school (anatomy, microbiology, etc), I could go to the end of the professor's Powerpoint and click on any of the references if I wanted to find out more information about a subject.

When I got to nursing school, I discovered that their Powerpoints were a disaster. When I click on "file" in the Powerpoint, I see that the Powerpoints were originally created by another faculty member as far back as 1998. No one has updated the textbook pages referenced within the PPT to reflect the current textbook (very frustrating when you're trying to study for a test). No new drugs or conditions have been added. We're getting 1998 information.

I also  noticed that some of the "facts" listed in the Powerpoint were changed to 2016 or 2017 (example: "According to a 2016 study, 1 in 10 nurses will be subject to violence from a patient."- a completely fabricated "fact").  Bored in class, I ran a search on the "facts" and discovered that most of them were either made up, or if they were true, the date had been changed so that the Powerpoint appears to be current.  There are no sources listed at the end of any of the Powerpoints.

I complained about the textbook pages in the Powerpoint not matching the current text, and received a "disciplinary memo" in my file because my email was considered "incendiary", even though it was factually written and non-accusative.

When we write papers, we as students can be expelled for plagiarism or lose the grade if we invent facts or fail to cite sources correctly.  Shouldn't instructors be held to the same standard?

The situation you are describing is not very pleasant. I try to cover most aspects in order of appearance.

First of all, everyone citing work must reference it (including images). It is not just helpful for you as a learner to find the original material, but also a legal liability.
A ppt creation date or author is not a helpful information source. The date of the most recent change and most recent author might be helpful, but maybe the ppt style (corporate design) was created long time ago by the named autho. I just checked one of my very recent ppts which was created 2011 by a person I don't know - and I created every slide in it by myself and it was updated very recently.
If the slides do not reflect the current textbook you are recommended to use it might be on purpose (which would allow you to ask why this is the case) or just lazyness of your teacher - which is just frustrating since you can not force them to update their slides. It the later is the case, try to compare the content of slides and textbook and try to figure out which information is true (or more relevant) - sometimes slides are only an excerpt of a textbook to reduce complexity. This allows you to make the best out of a bad situation.
If there are really made-up facts in the slides, this would be a matter of academic misconduct. You should be very sure about it and if you are, report it to a person responsible for academic misconduct. Every insttution should have one.
The fact that you recieved a "disciplinary memo" is disturbing. At my institution we are glad if students bring up issues with lecture materials and we try to improve constantly. If this is a generally accepted behaviour a your institution, I would consider finding a better place to study. If it's only one teacher, I would recommend to swallow it and move forward, you did your best to improve the situation and if they don't want to improve, you can not force them to do so.


Is there any paper submission deadline timezone convention? Conference papers and special issues of Journals usually have deadlines for submission. However, it is sometimes not clearly stated what timezone the deadline is in. Is there any convention for this? Is it the location localtime, UTC or others?

Primarily, you should really try to find out what time zone a conference uses rather than assume a specific one. As ff524 says, even if it is not on the web site, the submission site will often tell you.

That being said, at least in my discipline, there are two conventions that are common:

Local time at the conference location
AOE (anywhere on earth), more formally known as Howland Island time.

The latter is probably the more common one.

(Howland Island time is called "Anywhere on Earth" because it is the last time zone. That is, if you say that a deadline is friday, 24:00 AOE, the real deadline will nowhere be earlier than friday, 24:00, reducing the possibility of feel-bad moments when paper writers forgot about time zones and assumed their own time zone.)


What is considered a new submission and a resubmission? I submitted a manuscript to a journal and it was completed reject after 5 months, but they said they have found contributions. The reviewers presented many issues to be resolved, one of the most challenging is refered to the number of participant excluded from the experiment. If I include more participants explaining the reasons, this will generate different results, maybe. Would it be considered a new submission after solving this and other issues? or it is completed reject?

If your experimental paper is rejected, and you submit a paper describing the same experiment, that is a resubmission.  It is not a new submission.  Changes to the analysis such as selecting different participants are not sufficient to make your old paper a new paper.
Exceptions may apply for particle physics, other research based on huge databases, and observational research that does not have experiments.


Is it advisable in my case to take a second bachelor's degree? I graduated from an unprestigious school that most people consider a diploma mill.  I finished a social science degree in the College of Arts and Sciences of the school, but I’m ashamed to tell other people about it because of the school’s bad reputation.

There are only few professors in the College of Arts and Sciences, since the school, based on what I’ve heard, is facing financial difficulties, forcing it to make cutbacks on the number of employees. The problem is, these few professors only hold a master’s degree, and sometimes they have to teach minor subjects that are far from their field of specialization. In one instance, a psychology professor had to handle a minor subject in philosophy.  More so, major subjects in, say, psychology are taught almost exclusively by only one professor. In fact, I only had two professors for all the major subjects required in my undergraduate degree. But this isn't the worst, because other departments sometimes accept fresh graduates to teach minor subjects.  The school also has a high acceptance rate and lenient retention policies. Hence, a student can enroll for the next semester even when he failed most of his subjects in previous semesters.

The only reason I stayed in this school is because I was given a full scholarship. Now, I’m desperate to finish a new bachelor’s degree. Should I pursue graduate studies? Any advice?

In almost every circumstance, one bachelor degree is enough. Even if it's from a less-than-ideal program, as long as you can show that you performed well, it will at least count for that.

If you are really that concerned about how your school appears on your academic record, I suggest trying to enroll in a Masters program at a more reputable school. Performing well at this level will allow you to improve your understanding in your field (and potentially fill gaps that were overlooked in your evidently underwhelming bachelors program) and demonstrate your abilities.

If for some reason you are unable to obtain admission to a Masters program, there are always non-credit or non-degree-track courses out there that you can take to bolster your breadth and depth of understanding as well as your credentials. Then, if you're still not satisfied, you can always reapply to those graduate programs.

But moral of the story, a second bachelors is not worth the time and money. Even once you have it, it doesn't say half as much about you as a graduate degree would in the same area. Top performance at the graduate level will allay any concerns about your undergraduate academic experience.


Should academics allow student to submit a possibly flawed paper? I let a student associated with me (but who is not really my PhD student) submit a paper to a fairly-local meeting (some people do come from abroad). Because I'd been tasked with supporting the student, I let him put my name on the paper and also helped with the presentation, but I found the content unconvincing.  However, he was exploring an area that I knew little about and had little interest in, so I'd hoped he'd get reviews & (if accepted) discussion that would give him more guidance than I have been able to.

In fact, no one seemed as sceptical as I was of the work, and it got into the meeting and was presented both in our department and at the meeting with if anything positive comments.

However, yesterday I got an email from a postdoc who was cited in the paper (the student compared himself to the postdoc's work, the meeting's papers are on a website, Google Scholar alerted the postdoc) and was incensed at the paper's low quality and inaccuracies.  I think the postdoc is being a bit paranoid, but is broadly right on the technical issues. I have also previously noticed that one of my more-successful colleagues I've been collaborating with recently had a less tolerant attitude towards student publication than I do.

I'm wondering if I should put more effort on quality control.  The cost would be possibly stifling a student unnecessarily if I'm wrong, and allowing fewer students to have fewer presentation experiences since I'm already working flat out keeping up with giving feedback on their journal articles & dissertations.

In my opinion, since you aren't the supervisor, it's not your role to stop the student from publishing.  If you are an expert in the subject of the publication and you don't think it's strong, you should advise them not to publish and explain why, but that's as far as you should go.

However, you "let him put [your] name on the paper" -- a paper which, by your own admission, you don't know much about!  Regardless of whether the co-author is a student, and regardless of the quality of the paper, the behavior you're describing is wrong.  In my field, it's actually forbidden by at least one of our professional societies:

  All the authors listed for a paper . . . must have made a significant contribution to its content.

This is generally construed as meaning you should have done a significant part of the research and a significant part of the writing.

Now, violating this rule for a paper that you don't even have a high opinion of seems not only unethical but foolish.

I realize this is a harsh-sounding answer, but you have posted the question anonymously so I hope you don't mind me being frank.


What is the exact meaning of a deadline for conference paper submission? If I see on an IEEE conference webpage that the deadline is set to the 30th of March (for example) what does that exactly mean? Does it mean the submission system will not accept any submission after 11:59pm on March 30th?

There are three typical scenarios that you will encounter with most computer-science-style conferences (including most IEEE conferences):

Submissions shut down at the exact time specified, and nothing late will be accepted.  This is most common in large top-notch conferences with extremely fierce competition.  If this is the case, a time-zone will almost always be specified as well.
Submissions shut down an arbitrary but relatively short time after the deadline, i.e., when the organizers get around to switching it off.  There is still likely to be little flexibility, but the conference is less high-stakes, and so they aren't worrying about precision.
Submissions will actually be due ~1 week later, after a universal extension is announced.  This is most common in smaller conferences that are more concerned with making sure they get enough submissions.  It can also be counter-productive, since a tradition of extensions means nobody takes the first deadline seriously.

If you see a time zone, you're probably in case #1; if multiple past editions show an extension, it's probably case #3; otherwise, it's likely case #2.


Using code from github for own thesis For my master thesis I should write a simulation program, and compare the results with the results I get from commercial programs. Now I found a already existing script with exact the data I need on github which does all the background work for me, and I can modify it for my specific purposes. The script is already based on a public available script.
My approach would have be the same, but I would have needed some time to bring it to this extent. Now I am not sure how I can use this script in my thesis: Can I use it (github does not allow PMs to ask the author this question), and how should I cite it? I know that I have to cite the author in my literature appendix in each case, but how far do I have to mark my changings in the code?

Assuming the license on the code permits it there's nothing wrong with using open source code in your thesis. If the license is an open-source style license which allows derivative works you don't even need to contact the author for permission though it may be polite to do so.

How it should be cited depends on the citations style your thesis is to be written with but has come up before on the site.

How do you cite a Github repository?

In general you're golden as long as you make it extremely clear that your work is an extension of existing code and make it extremely clear what the source is. If this is central to your thesis then I'd mention it prominently in the text rather than simply listing it as a citation.

If it's academic/scientific code there may be documentation on the authors site specifying what publication should be cited in relation to the code .

If you want to show exactly what you've done yourself you can generate a file listing all the changed/added/removed lines which you can attach as an appendix.

I did almost exactly this as part of my MSc: taking an open source tool and adding extra functionality to it then publishing it with changes.

Edit: if there's no license then you'll need to get in contact with the author somehow. This may help.
https://stackoverflow.com/a/12687679/3535153


Should I correct a mistake on an arXiv manuscript, that I found while refereeing it? I recently received a request to referee a manuscript for a journal and, while doing so, I pointed out a crucial mistake undermining most of the calculations. After two unsuccessful answers on the part of the authors (where they addressed other concerns of mine, but basically ignored the mistake I was pointing out), I recommended the journal reject the paper and they did so.

Very recently, and within a couple of weeks after this rejection, the authors have openly posted their article on arXiv, without correcting their mistake. While I understand that manuscripts from arXiv should be taken with a grain of salt, as it is not peer reviewed, making a clearly incorrect result public seems wrong to me, both from an ethical standpoint and from a practical one as it might mislead researchers.

I am unsure how to proceed. Should I ignore it or take some measures such as publishing a reply/correction? If the latter, is there any way to do it for arXiv submissions? Is it possible to do it anonymously?

I think it is commendable of you to care, but it would be best for you to keep anonymity with respect to the authors.

A good middle ground would be writing someone who knows your identity already, and is known by the authors: for example the editor in charge of the paper for the journal you reviewed for. Typically this editor is known to the authors, and they could pass on your comments without disclosing your identity.

In any case, the editor should be able to at least give you a qualified opinion on how to proceed.


I am unable to reach one of my faculty member through email, phone call or even in person, what may I do? I am unable to reach one of my faculty member through email, phone call or even in person, who have agreed on providing me with a recommendation letter. He is not replying to my email, phone number is unavailable and even not coming to the office. I do not know what is wrong or what is the matter, I might miss a deadline of a university which I am really intending to attend.I have given him multiple reminder and not even sure whether he has seen them or not.

Here are some ideas (from high to low priority / potential efficacy ):

Explain administrative stuff of the faculty your situation and ask for help. Maybe they know that he/she is abroad and will come soon. Or he/she is sick and will likely not be able to help you.
Find his/her students and explain your situation and ask for help.
Talk to some other faculty member asking whether he/she can help you to locate him.


Why isn't it the norm to have research repeated immediately by other academics? The potential benefit to society of good research, and the potential costs of acting on bad research, seem to be extremely high in both directions.
Why is it the norm to simply peer review research, including the methodology, but not the norm to have the actual data collection and experiments re-run by other academics for cases where it is relatively low cost and fast to do so? E.g., where a second experiment/data collection run would take < 20% of the cost of the original research and < 3 months to conduct.
If this were standard practice on inexpensive, short term studies it could improve trust and integrity in research, so why isn't it standard practice?
Note: I tried to tag this 'academic-integrity', 'integrity', and 'statistical-significance', but no such tags exist!

Researchers make or break their reputation on ground-breaking, innovative, and high-impact work. Reproducing the results of another group provides essentially no benefit to any individual group (even if a culture of replication could arguably benefit the field).
More often than not, in my experience (in physics), reproduction of results is done as a first step in a new research project. The point of this is usually to check one's code/understanding before building up to something new. But it is not unusual for errors to be found and corrected this way. If a result is important enough to serve as a stepping stone for another research work, usually the key aspects of it are reproduced and it's not common for a visible, erroneous result to survive very long.


Keeping my remote Job with MSC in Berlin I am born & live in Uganda, and I got an opportunity to study MSC in Computer Science in Berlin while also having a remote job with a company in Egypt at the moment which pays me very well.

Now I have been chasing this MSC for a while now long before I got my remote Job, I had actually given up on it as I thought it would never happen. But then right now, I have this great Job which I do not also want to loose at the same time.

I am very confused at this point as I look at my self as someone who wants to eat my cake & have it.

 So my question is, what are the disadvantages of keeping my full time remote job & still being in school with all the course work & everything.

I might feel really depressed if I have bad grades. Should I just let the MSC go & move on?

Both at the same time seems quite unfeasible. A degree in Germany is generally considered to be a full time thing by itself, not to mention the additional work of living in a foreign country, having to deal with German immigration and bureaucracy (which apparently is a special nightmare in Berlin).

I would say the question boils down to where you want to be in five years. If you can see yourself living and working full time in Germany, then the M.Sc. is the clear way to go. As far as I know, if you finish a degree on a student visa, you can to transform it into a work permit if you can find a job within a few months afterwards. If you want to ultimately stay in Uganda, then maybe keeping the job is better. But I don't know how much a European degree is valued there and if it could get you an even better job.

If you really need the money, asking the company to reduce your hours might be another option, but if you go your time is best spent studying (and possibly learning German).


Software to draw illustrative figures in papers I would like to have suggestions of good software for drawing illustrations in research papers. I already know about Xfig, but this works only on Linux and is at times, clunky when it comes to text. Moreover the resolution is not always perfect making it difficult to manoeuvre the objects. Besides it is tough to learn and master, with all its weird click procedures.

I would love to know about better alternatives. Not talking about graphs here, just block diagrams and explanatory illustrations.

A free, fairly portable, and very complete tool for general illustration is Inkscape. It uses SVG as its native file format, and aside from attempting to be a decent drawing tool in its own right, one of its design goals was to provide complete coverage of the features available in SVG.

For block diagrams, flow charts, and other simple sketches of process and data flow there is Dia. It's primary design goal is to duplicate the features of Visio in free software. Like Visio, it uses a stencils and connections drawing model that works really well for diagramming relationships and flow, but gets tedious when attempting to do art.

For clean layout of directed or undirected graph diagrams, it is difficult to beat the Graphviz tools. They are primarily designed to be used from a textual description (a concise intro here (PDF)) of the graph, but there are various GUI tools that can edit their .dot files.


Include a mistake that cost extra when asking for reimbursement after faculty interview? I was interviewing for a faculty position in a large city. When I was done I took a taxi to the airport... the wrong airport! I ended up taking another taxi to the correct airport and catching my flight. However, the second taxi ride was around $100.

Should I include this when asking the school for reimbursement, or just pay out of my own pocket since this was my mistake and makes me look like an idiot?

Assuming they liked your presentation, and consider putting you on the shortlist, but are not sure at which position compared to some other candidate; now, reflect, which impression this makes.

You made a nontrivial mistake which is also quite costly.
You ask them to cover that mistake of yours.

Even if they would be willing to do so (and assume it would be eligible at all, which is also not clear - why should they reimburse you for your mistake?), consider how this comes across.

Unless you really are in dire need of the money (and it's not clear you are going to get it anyway), it's probably the wise thing to let things be.


Should I mention my blog in a postdoc application? I am a PhD candidate in Physics, and I am applying to some interdisciplinary postdocs that deal with economics/climate science/etc. I have a pretty good academic publishing record, but also own a moderately successful blog that deals with economics, politics, science, etc. from a Left perspective.

Would it be sensible to include my blog in my CV or research statement to show that I am interested in that sort of interdisciplinary work and that I have good communication skills?

Some of the posts have a couple of thousands reads etc,  which implies I have an audience.  My issue is that, because it is a partisan blog it has obviously some strongly worded opinions, so I am not sure if it would be professional to mention it. The reason why I want to include my blog is that my PhD is in pure  physics, and I want to show I can "work" in other environments as well.

tl;dr-  While a good blog could be a professional asset, the given description sounds like something that probably wouldn't enhance an application.

Blogs can be professional assets, even with political content

A good blog can be a professional asset.  Such a blog could even touch on topics that others might consider politically sensitive; for example, it's entirely respectable to write a technical piece on forecasting climate change using data science techniques.

You can even write a heavily political blog in a professional way.  FiveThirtyEight's a great example of this: they're heavily involved in political analysis, but they're quite professional about it.  I'd imagine that its writers would generally do well to include a reference to it in their future job applications.

Then there's a grey area when it comes to the interfacing with politics in one's own field of expertise.  For example, if a climate scientist were to maintain a blog devoted to their research on climate change, then it wouldn't seem like the worst thing in the world if they occasionally included a political perspective piece in which they maintained an objective tone while expressing personal political opinions.  However, it'd be important for such opinion pieces to be substantial in terms of content and analysis.

Political rants tend to come off poorly

Political rants can cause the reader to think less of the writer.  This can be true even if a reader shares some of the same opinions.

I suspect that a lot of factors go into this.  As a partial list, in no particular order:

Readers get into the habit of filtering content from politically charged sources, so if the writer starts to sound like a source of politically charged content, it makes sense to put less trust into their assertions.
Strong political positions can reflect on a lack of political knowledge (Dunning–Kruger effect), professional focus, emotional inclination toward objectivity (stability), or/and reasoning skills.

  The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.

  -Bertrand Russell, on BrainyQuote

The willingness to engage in political rhetoric in professional venues (e.g., a job application) negatively reflects on one's general professionalism.

As a consequence of factors like these, many'll tend to respect a writer less for their political rantings even if they would tend to agree with the opinions expressed in those rants.

Overall, probably best to not share this blog

For the reasons given above, sharing a "partisan blog" that has "some strongly worded opinions" would seem like a bad idea.  While it's not impossible that a reviewer might actually enjoy it, I'd expect it to generally have a negative impact if anyone takes the time to check it out.

In general, folks'll be more likely to think well of your ability to operate in other venues if you're able to conduct yourself with the same sort of professionalism that you'd approach Physics with, keeping a level and objective perspective throughout.


How would an undergrad fund a conference trip with a single author paper? I am considering submitting a single author paper to a computer science conference that would be very expensive for me to attend based on travel costs alone. If accepted, is it realistic to expect that I could find some grant or other means of covering the entirety of the cost? I really cannot afford it on my own. The conference has a student volunteer position which I will definitely apply for, but it does not cover travel costs, only registration costs.

Also, the project is not quite finished – I anticipate a couple more months of work.

Many universities have funds specifically for student travel to conferences. (For example: University of Washington, Wayne State University.) Even if there is no special fund at the university level, your department may be willing to sponsor all or part of the trip. While it's more common in my experience for student travel to be funded directly by their advisor from their research grants, my department has, on occasion, been willing to pitch in (e.g. under circumstances where a student has no advisor, or the advisor can't sponsor the trip.)

Many ACM SIGs (special interest groups) and IEEE societies offer student travel grants including travel costs (up to some amount) for their conferences. Many conferences in computer science arrange student travel grants from a government funding agency and/or industry sponsors. So you might consider submitting to one of those conferences instead, if there is one relevant to your field. There are also special grants for minorities, e.g. this one from ACM's women in computing.

Regardless of the funding issue, I encourage you to find a faculty advisor to give you feedback on your work. (Also, every travel grant I have ever applied for required a letter from an advisor.)


How to choose between industry and academia after mediocre past work in both? I feel like I am at dead end of my career, need some guidance to restart it. Here is my status:

Masters in Physics (2009)
Industry position (2009-2013)

In the industry position, I learnt machine learning for applications in biology. After four years of work experience, my career reached a saturation level since I was always at back-end due to field mismatch, even though I was excelling in my work, so I decided to pursue PhD in my own field, Physics, to give a boost to my career (not a wise choice I know). I was doing fine in my PhD and
   then my supervisor left the university for a better opportunity and I
   had to take up another project delaying my PhD by at least 2 years.
   During PhD, I have taken one year maternity break as well, followed
   by juggling between PhD work and baby. Now, somehow I have submitted
   a mediocre level thesis last month.

PhD in Physics (2013-present)

I am 34 years now, with no
   clarity on what I want to do in career and financially broke since my
   funding got over more than six months back. Neither I am good at
   machine learning, nor at my PhD work. I don't have any teaching
   experience as well to go to academia so I am not sure how will I
   perform there. Going for postdoc with a two year toddler and at this
   age also looks daunting. So I have no clue from where should I
   restart my career. My confidence is at all time low level.

You're in the lucky position of having both industry and academic experience. That gives you a much better view of what to do next, and you can use your experience to inform yourself about the better option.

If you go to industry, chances are you'll have a more stable life. You won't have to move as often (possibly never). This could be better not only for you, but also for your child/significant other. You'll be paid more. You'll deal with different kinds of problems. If you're considering this path, I wouldn't worry too much about you being "not good" at machine learning because you've already excelled at your previous role. The odds are also good that you'll have learned something transferable in the course of your PhD.

If you stay in academia, chances are you'll have to move, a lot. Postdocs are transient positions that don't usually last longer than a few years. You'll also usually be paid less - often substantially less - than in industry. On the other hand you'll get to think about blue-skies problems that you might enjoy more, you'll have more flexible hours, and you can often work from home quite easily.

So which option do you want? Only you can make that decision. I'll just suggest one more thing: compare the time you spent in industry (2009-2013) against the time you spent in the PhD (2013-present). If you were stuck in a time loop and had to relive those years again and again, which epoch would you rather relive? I would favour that option.


What to do when paper is deemed in scope for the conference but not for the proceedings? I submitted a paper to a conference. I wasn't quite sure if my paper was within the scope of that conference (it seemed a judgement call), but it was accepted. I went to the conference, and after attending several of the talks, I felt my paper was actually a good fit after all. My presentation of the paper went well; lots of people were interested in the topic and asked good questions. I was reasonably confident that my paper would be accepted for publication in the proceedings.

All student papers received an extra round of feedback before the formal submission for publication in the proceedings. I just received my feedback; the reviewer was very complimentary, but said that the topic was not within the scope of the conference.

So now I'm not sure what to do. Making the paper fit the scope better won't really be practical; I already did the best I could in that direction. The formal submission is due in about a month. I believe it's a good paper, so I could probably find a home for it elsewhere. I have two questions.

Should I formally submit the paper as-is. Would it be better to simply try to find a more appropriate place to publish? Or should I just consider it a lesson learned, forget about this paper, and move on to the next one.
Is there something I could have done up front to establish whether the paper was in scope or not? Perhaps in future it would be better to only submit to conferences where it's very clear that the paper is a good fit. This issue is likely to arise again for me, because my research is sort of at the boundary of two fields.

Should I formally submit the paper as-is. Would it be better to simply
  try to find a more appropriate place to publish? Or should I just
  consider it a lesson learned, forget about this paper, and move on to
  the next one.

In academia, you have to fight for papers you believe.  Reviewers can vary wildly in their assessments, and their assessments can be wrong.  Ultimately, if you feel that this is an appropriate place to publish, I think it's worth submitting it anyway and rolling the dice.  I have two caveats:

If possible, ask a third party in your field whom you respect about their opinion of the paper.
Think hard about why you think the paper belongs in the proceedings and, if possible, add a clear motivation to the text.

  Is there something I could have done up front to establish whether the
  paper was in scope or not? Perhaps in future it would be better to
  only submit to conferences where it's very clear that the paper is a
  good fit. This issue is likely to arise again for me, because my
  research is sort of at the boundary of two fields.

In general, you can write to people on the technical program committee of the conference (or the chair of that committee) with a brief explanation of your work and a request for an assessment of suitability.  It is important not to get discouraged from rejections ... they are common, sometimes for good reasons and other times for utterly stupid reasons.  The key is to learn what you can from the reviews, improve the paper, and resubmit where appropriate.


Wrong information in my thesis At the beginning im so sorry about what i did. But in literature review of the introduction part of my thesis i realized that i made a mistake :(
It is about giving state-of-the-art part of my study area. When i describe a study i saw that, in paper it says that;
"this paper describes the design for bla bla (paper)... we will evaluate the design(at conclusion)" but also in paper it says that for example;
"knee design take advantage of the fact that knee generate needed power bla bla.

But when i describe the paper i wrote that; "In[5], they emphasized that the design produced correct power" here the faily part :( they didn't evaluate but i mention that the design PRODUCED correct power. and 2 similar sentences:(
For example i say: "ankle didn't produce unneeded power for bla bla".

but in paper it says; "ankle design take advantage of the fact that ankle doesn't produce large power for bla bla"

The case is here; they introduce the design or lets say, ,idea, proposes but i described as it produced that power etc but actually it wasn't made, those of them were ideas or claims of authors.
is it reason of revoking of my thesis later :( please help me.

If you aren't allowed to make a correction then you can't and it is what it is. But since it was accepted, there should be no issue for the thesis or for your degree.

However, in the future, if you do a publication that needs to cite the thesis, you can make a correction there. I assume, of course, that the error doesn't call your main result in to question. In that case you would need to either ignore the past or give a rather extensive update to your thesis in a new paper.

People make mistakes. People correct mistakes. Science moves on and advances.

Your thesis probably won't be the last piece of work that you do.


How to read a research paper at faster rate? I am a PhD Student works in computer science. I am currently in the middle stage of my PhD. I am facing a serious problem right now. It is about reading a research paper at a faster rate. I usually takes 2 weeks to read a paper nowadays, but my supervisor wants me to read a research paper in 4-5 days with greater detail. It involves mathematics and it takes time to get used to it. I have tried to explain him the problem that it is not possible at this time for me to read a paper in 4-5 days but keep pushing me to do so.

Question : How to read a research paper at faster rate?

Reading and understanding research papers in depth takes time! Two weeks sounds perfectly normal to me. I often need more time for indept understanding.

My strategy is that I read the core papers required for my research in great detail and other papers (context related) more generally. However, if I read quickly, I also tend to forget quickly.

Probably your supervisor is refering to his own (past?) experience or compares your speed with other researchers. However, this may not be a fair comparison. Learning and research styles are highly individual.

I notice that each scientist develops a certain strategy for reading papers. Ocassionally, I also see styles that I do not like. For example a scientist supporting a claim with reference to a source (of many pages) which didn’t even mentionned the subject although the title of the source suggested otherwise. The source clearly has not been read.

To conclude, you have to develop your own style. Ask your supervisor why he/she thinks you should be faster and try to solve the underlying sentiments. Maybe your supervisor is under pressure to deliver results.


Is it necessary to publish a research paper while pursuing MS? Is it necessary to publish a research paper while pursuing MS Degree in the field of Computer Science. Will not publishing one affect your job prospects?

The first question depends on your university's requirements. I think that it is sometimes required, but not universal.

The second question might also depend on what sort of job you are interested in. Most jobs for MS graduates aren't especially research oriented, so, while it would be a plus, it might not be essential.

But if your future is in academia, it is good to get started on research as soon as you can.

I you have an advisor, consult him/her for advice on what you want to do in your future.


Is it acceptable to cite an article from a corporate website? Can Wikipedia be used to prove credibility? I need relatively broad information on the functionality of a certain technology as part of the exposition to my seminar paper. As scholarly papers tend to focus on very specific questions, already taking the existence of my sought-for concepts for granted, and since suitable books don't seem available to me, I feel that I have to look for answers on a regular website.

For this, I've found a short article by a major corporation which happens to be the market leader of said technology. Is it acceptable to cite their web page in a seminar paper?

I understand that credibility of the used sources is a major concern. Given the fact they are market leader, I believe that credibility to be present. Do I need to name this company's status (e.g. "According to [company], market leader in [technology], ...") to validate the source? If so, would simply citing Wikipedia for this fact suffice, assuming their prevailing status on the market needs to be proven as well?

I agree with the answers posted here so far, but I want to add a few points.

You can realistically use any source in your paper, but it depends on how you use it. If you want to write about what X company says about a particular topic, then using that particular web article seems appropriate. If you want to write something informative about a particular product that X company happens to use, then citing that article (written by X company) is a less than ideal choice. As @Buffy mentioned, the company has a vested interest in portraying the product in a certain way, but as @Richard Erickson mentioned, this article (or Wikipedia) can be a good initial stepping stone.

Articles that you use for information need to be peer reviewed in order to have a high level of credibility. Not having access to books is not a valid excuse; universities have a plethora of resources for this exact circumstance. I recommend Inter Library Loan (ILL) for hard to get books and journal articles. Your professor may have suggestions on where to start.

tl;dr:

you can use anything as a source (even Wikipedia), but it depends on how it’s used
peer reviewed sources are best for research credibility
you can find obscure resources using your university’s library privileges
consult with your professor


Flexibility of the Newton Fellowship? I'm graduating this summer (2014) and trying to find a job in the UK so I can go live with my husband. I am thinking of applying for the Newton Fellowship, however, they have a really strange schedule and timing. That is, I wouldn't find out about the award until late October, and the position wouldn't start until January 2015. That would leave me with an awkward six months without a job or funding, unless I managed to get a short-term job. I've decided to start applying for other positions (lectureships and funded post-docs) with an eye toward the more immediate future and because the Newton is very competitive.

My questions are:

what happens if I take a 1-2 year post-doc offer and then find out I am awarded the fellowship?
Am I allowed to use the funds wherever I am?
If I accept a job-offer do I have to notify the fellowship and withdraw my application?

I ended up getting it after all! And my current University is letting me take the fellowship (at another university) and I can come back to my faculty position after. Very happy with the deal even though it means half the pay.


Am I obliged to share my most promising data? I have just started a PhD along with another candidate. We are each looking at different aspects of the same subject. His data provide context for mine, while my data simply add value to his. As I will be asking him for some of his data, he has decided that he wants some of my data.  However, he is interested in using a particular part of my data which I think will be the most fruitful part of my PhD.

His data are quicker to prepare than mine, and he will undoubtedly write up his chapters/ publications before I get a chance.  I am worried that this will have a negative impact on my ability to publish my papers.

Do I have to give him my most promising data?  Is there any way around doing this? I would prefer to rely on older data from Honours students looking at this subject and not ask for his data, if this allows me to keep my own data.

What does your supervisor say about this?

I've seen situations where someone not sharing data not only prevented papers being written, but completely obliterated the collaboration.

One possibility is handing the data over, but helping with its analysis and the subsequent writing of the paper (with co-authorship). You could offer the same to the other candidate.

In any case, as you have only just started, I wouldn't worry about the negative impact. There's plenty of time to build.


Change a graph of an accepted conference paper (before submitting the camera-ready version) My paper has been accepted to an IEEE conference. But recently, I found some minor errors in my simulation data (using matlab software), and I would like to modify the existing graph before submitting my camera-ready version.

This change will not have major impact on my results as well as the quality of the paper.

The question is, can I simply make this change or do I have to explain this change?

Unlike with a journal, the short review and revision timeline of an IEEE conference (or other EE/CS-style conference) means that it is unusual for there to be any opportunity for additional review.  As a result, there is somewhat more trust placed in authors for making "reasonable changes" for the camera-ready, and it is typically not just permitted but even expected that authors will improve their papers for the camera-ready version.  If nothing else, they are expected to do their best to address the issues raised by the reviewers; fixing problems that they themselves have found is entirely desirable as well.

In short: if your correction does not significantly undermine the basis on which your paper was accepted, you should simply make the change, and everyone will be the better for it.


Editor not responding. Should I withdraw my submission? I submitted a paper in October 2018. After 2 months, the status changed to "awaiting CE decision" and stayed it ever since. I waited a month and sent an email to CE in February 2019. I did not receive any reply. I then waited another month and sent a second email to CE and editor assistant in March 2019, still no response . I don't know what to do next? Should I email publisher? Should I send another email to CE. Since the paper has been in the review process for 6 months, should I withdraw my submission? What if CE doesn't respond to my withdrawal, can I submit the paper to another journal?

Check if you are using the correct email address and try to verify that it is not outdated. You can also try emailing some other contacts to communicate your issue.

If you are not receiving any responses from the editor for extended periods of time, you are justified in withdrawing your paper. Just make sure that you clearly communicate your decision to withdraw, either through their online system or through email (or both).


Is there any preference given based on how far in advance of the deadline a graduate application is submitted? During graduate studies online application submission period, is there any preference given for an applicant if he/she submits his application at the beginning of that period compared with someone who submits his/her application couple of hours before the deadline?

Or as long as the applications are complete there is absolutely no difference!

Look at all the application rules and guidelines. Unless the registration/application is specifically described as first-come first-served (which would be unusual), the date of submission doesn't matter as long as the submission is complete before the deadline.


How to cite earlier work, discovered only at the end, that claims similar results to a recently completed project? At the end of writing up our manuscript, we discover that there has been another earlier study in a very different context (but using a physical model very similar to ours) that claims a similar result.

We were not inspired by this earlier work and we could not have found it until we had our results; so this is not a case of not having done proper literature survey a priori.

So, do we cite them within the main text's introduction and results despite not having been inspired by it at all? Or do we cite them during the concluding remarks highlighting the similarities?

In either case, our results certainly complement theirs.

In mathematics (maybe in other fields too), one would put at the end of the introduction a statement like "After obtaining the results in this paper, we learned of related work by X.  In particular, X obtained ...." Here the "..." would be a description like "a stronger form of our Theorem 7" or "a weaker form of our Theorem 7" or "a result related to our Theorem 7" or whatever it was that X actually got.

In computer science (maybe in other fields too), papers often have a separate section called "Related Work", and information of this sort would naturally go into that section.


How to address the german “Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. X” in writing? I’m not familiar with German academic system.

I got a name card from a German professor and found that his title is as

  Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. X

When I am writing a mail to him, can I starting the mail as follows?

  Dear Professor Dr.-Ing. habil. X, […]

No, just "Dear Professor X" is correct and completely in line with the German conventions. The "Dr.-Ing. habil." part refers to certain qualifications (PhD in Engineering and a Habilitation -- a German qualification to teach at a University), but is only ever used on name cards and CVs etc.


How is it possible to do a master's and PhD program at the same time? I was browsing through Academia SE and found this question.

To save you from reading the whole thing, here is what confused me: the person who asked a question is in Master program at university, but the top answering person (with high reputation) asked them "By the way, do you mind my asking, why aren't you in a PhD program? In physics it seems a bit unusual to be in a Master's only program."

Maybe I got something wrong, but does this person mean that you could be in the Master AND in PhD program at the same time? How is it possible? I am going to apply to a Master program next year (in Europe: Finland, Switzerland, Russia, etc.) and all universities without exception require finished Master degree in order to apply for PhD program. I always thought that the process is the same worldwide, i.e. Bachelor -> Master -> PhD

In the US, in many fields, it's common to enter a PhD program with just a bachelor's (and typically, someone who does that can earn a masters along the way to a PhD.)

I did this myself - I am an electrical engineering PhD student with only a bachelor's degree.


What education does one need to be called "Professor" in the United States of America? What education does one need to be called "Professor" in the United States of America? A woman with a law degree in a junior college paralegal program insists on being called professor at a local community college. She is the only one in the whole school that does this. Is this normal?

I completely agree with the answers by ff524 and Pete L. Clark, but I'd like to highlight one issue that's in the background here, regarding whether this behavior is normal.  When someone makes a point of emphasizing a professional title, it might be because they are pompous, but they might actually have a good reason for it.  It's difficult to do your job well if the people you are interacting with don't maintain an adequate level of respect and professionalism, and insisting on titles can be an effective way to control the tone of your interactions.

Whether this is helpful is often correlated with gender or race: many white men are treated respectfully by default, while women or minorities sometimes find that students or colleagues interact with them in troubling ways that don't arise nearly as often for their white male coworkers.  For example, students sometimes expect unreasonably forgiving and nurturing behavior from women and react harshly if they don't get it, students sometimes disrespect women in class and try to challenge or undermine their authority (for no intellectually compelling reason), etc.  Of course this doesn't always happen, but it's a real problem for some people.

Insisting on the use of a formal title is one way to address this issue.  You run the risk of looking pompous or uppity, but you are willing to take that risk in exchange for reminding everyone of your position and your desire to maintain a formal and respectful tone.  This may not be the best solution in any given circumstances, but it works well enough that it's reasonably common.

So my recommendation is to approach this issue with some charity.  If you hear complaints about someone insisting on a title that nobody else cares as much about, especially a woman or minority, you should keep in mind that it may be their way of dealing with a difficult situation.


What is the best English equivalent for the Spanish 'Profesor Contratado Doctor'? This is a question about academic ranks or positions. I am interested in knowing the best equivalence for the Spanish 'Profesor Contratado Doctor' in English language (UK, US, etc.).

Description of 'Profesor Contratado Doctor':

tenured (i.e. permanent) position,
not a civil servant,
not an entry-level position to the tenured track,
is the previous position to 'Profesor Titular de Universidad' (which is sort of equivalent to the Associate Professor position).

So it is something between Assistant Professor (or Lecturer) and Associate Professor. Is it a sort of 'Non-civil-servant Associate Professor', 'Senior Assistant Professor', 'Assistant Professor with PhD'...?

According to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_ranks_in_Spain), 'Profesor Contratado Doctor' can be expressed as Associate Professor (but not a civil servant yet). I am writing the current question becauase I want to be sure about whether Associate Professor would be the best way to translate this Spanish position or not. I would like not to mislead anyone when I say I am an Associate Professor (meaning 'Profesor Contratado Doctor'). At least, I would like to mislead as little as possible.

EDIT:

I've seen in Wikipedia and also in this other thread here that mapping academic titles or positions from one country to another is really very difficult and there are too many particular cases.

So, maybe the point is finding a neutral, generic classification, something that can be understood for everyone. Therefore, assuming that we have the following kind of generic tenured positions (sorted in ascending order):

Assistant professor (entry)
Associate professor
Full professor (top)

what would be a name for something between 1 and 2?

EDIT:

More facts:

In this WordReference thread they conclude that Associate Professor is the most appropriate translation.
This sort of official PowerPoint presentation states that 'Profesor Contratado Doctor' is equivalent to 'Assistant Professor (tenure track)'.
This report says that a 'Profesor Contratado Doctor' is a Lecturer.

It is often difficult to map (academic) ranks between countries and languages. There might be subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) differences, that make a perfect mapping impossible.

I would write something like: "Associate Professor (Profesor Contratado Doctor)". In that way you provide your official title (no confusion), and a title the reader can relate to (clarity).


Should I mention a part-time job that may have affected my undergraduate grades in my PhD application? I'm applying to top 10 CS PhD program in the USA. During my undergrad semesters, I sometimes (for financial reasons, ie, to pay the bills) had to work part-time jobs (sometimes as a developer, sometimes even more unrelated), while also taking full credit load and double majoring with Math. So, sometimes I got less than optimal grades (B, B- etc) in some courses (whereas in some semesters I have perfect GPA, and my overall GPA is 3.9+).
Should I mention this? I'm not going to explicitly blame those grades on the work or even mention the grades, but I will say that I had to work during semesters for financial reasons, hoping that they would connect the dots?

If you mention it, don't try to overemphasize it. Many students need to (or choose to) work part time. And if you try to use it as an excuse for poor performance it will not help you. But, I wouldn't really worry about it for several reasons.
You don't say where you got the "low" grades, though B's would be good by many standards. If they are in your major courses it has a different meaning than if they are in general education courses.
Your overall average seems quite high to me. There are, of course, lots of "perfect" students, but they don't always do well in graduate study as it is possible they have never been challenged and fall apart when things get hard and they aren't prepared for it.
Also, a grad school application in the US depends on many things, not just GPA. Decisions are made by people, not computers looking at numbers. What courses have you taken? Any research experience? Can you write? What do your letters of recommendation say? Any standardized testing evidence? People will be looking to make a prediction about your future success. Make sure that you provide plenty of that. A few "lower" grades won't be a deciding factor.
But to say that you worked your way through school financially does say that you work hard. That can be a point in your favor. But don't make it an excuse.


How to deal with uninterested students during an optional exercise session? Last week I taught my first exercise session. I am a PhD student so the kind of classes that I will teach are exercise sessions about what the Professor explained in the theory class. They essentially have to work problems and I have to explain and help them with their approach in solving them.

Students of the same year are divided into small groups. I had about 25 students and from what I noticed: 17 were working hard, 7 were working more slowly with less interest and 1 was watching videos with his smartphone.

I tried to get his attention in a kind way several times (by going to him and telling something like "I know that videos are funnier than this theoretical stuff but if you want to practice for the exam you should do also exercises") but even if he stopped and started to read the exercises then he always restarted watching videos.

Since I will not assign grades and this kind of class is not mandatory, his participation will change nothing in his final grade.
So at a certain point I just wanted to ask him why is he attending.  There are many seats outside the class where he could sit and watch videos, but I just stopped to get his attention and I left him watching videos. I made this decision because he was watching videos/surfing the web without audio and without annoying the other students.

What is the best way to deal with these situations?

Do you prefer more or less authoritarian style?

More authoritarian: "If you come to my class, I assume you wish to be taught by me and respect my time. In other words, you are to work on your assignments. If you do wish to watch videos or to Facebook, that is fine, but please do not do that in my class - it is disrespectful to me and in fact also to your fellow students who come here to learn. Feel free to leave to watch, and to come back when you are done and wish to return to the exercises."

More liberal: "It is everyone's own responsibility to learn and I will help you to understand the material and how to master it. If you do not wish to engage in it, that is your free decision, but you need to be aware that this is your own responsibility to engage with the material in order to benefit from it [and pass the exam]." - say it once at the beginning, and then perhaps one more time in the middle of the semester. That's it.

Modify as required, this is just a coarse line of action, YMMV.


Does it make sense to publish papers/ theses online? I've left academia for business some time ago. However, it occurred to me that I could publish some of my old final papers/ theses online as online books.

I have all the copyrights.

The theses are good and I could probably publish the most recent ones in "traditional" publishing houses, but with my new job, I don't really have time for several rounds of corrections and re-writing of old papers.

These are papers with implications for the practice and on topics "general public" may find interesting. What I mean in this post is, obviously, not "scientific publishing" online, but non-fiction publications directed at general public.

My goal is to earn a bit with the texts. I don't really need a list of publications for my current career, although it's never a bad thing to have some publications I guess, so if the publishing "channel" is not completely ridiculous it's even better.

Have you had any experience with self-publishing online? Does it make sense? Or is it useless work?

Edit I don't see much point in discussing whether the papers are interesting/ valuable/ up-to-date or not and I'm a bit surprised that this topic has been raised at all. (Because I would expect a bit more scepticism concerning making assumptions on details not mentioned in the initial post from academics). Instead, I would find it interesting to hear from someone who actually has had some experience with self-publishing their work/ academic work online. That's the point of my post.

My goal is to earn a bit with the texts

My understanding of book publishing is that making money is really hard, and even harder if you do not have the backing of an established publisher. Established publishers often have contracts with university libraries that guarantee them a minimum number of sales. They generally like authors who will then teach off the book which gives them some more sales. When the author convinces colleagues at other schools to teach with the book also, profits can be made. You do not seem to have that type of network, so I doubt you will make any money.

The hit rate of established publishers to actually turn a profit is pretty low. With their network and approach, their costs are generally covered such that a couple of successful books is all they need. This means they scoop up anything that even remotely has a chance of being profitable.


Asking direct question about attitude in online survey I want to ask my participants directly about their attitude. What is the best way to do it?
Is it enough if I only ask:

I have a positive attitude (rating with 5-point Likert scale from totally agree to totally disagree). Because if they click on totally disagree, I can translate that to having a negative attitude and if they click in the middle of the scale it can be translated as a neutral attitude?

Or should I let them rate all three options:

I have a positive attitude (from totally agree to totally disagree)

I have a neutral attitude (from totally agree to totally disagree)

I have a negative attitude (from totally agree to totally disagree)

(It has to be with a 5-point Likert scale)

Thank you!

While you will get numbers with such a question they won't mean anything. This is the sort of question that people will naturally skew toward "positive attitude" regardless of their actual attitude. The second method will also get you potentially inconsistent results.

Instead, you need a set of questions that will be honestly answered, maybe responding to scenarios, and from which you can infer the attitude.

Asking "Are you smart?" gets just noise. Some people answer the opposite of what they truly are for a variety of psychological reasons.


Leave out degree on academic CV? Say I have done a BA, two MA's, and then a PhD (which, technically, includes another MA).

Could I then just not mention one of my MA's on my CV or on my profile on the faculty website? Will I have to list everything, all the time?

It needs to be on your CV when submitted for application to any position. Most institutions would find missing information to be misleading at best and fraudulent at worst. Explaining how you spent the years of your life between starting university and now is part of the purpose of your CV and relevant to the application process. Leaving things out makes it appear that you are trying to hide something, and people reviewing your application won't like that.

If you don't want to highlight this degree on your website, there's likely no real harm since your website isn't part of your application to anything.


Paper contributions and first authorship Twelve months ago I started working on a project (which began at that time) with my advisor.
Six months ago another student (refered to as A in the following) joined the project.

We are now publishing a paper on our results. My advisor asked me if I would find it reasonable that A’s name was put before mine in the article. Our advisor’s reason is that she believes A has contributed a lot more to the publishable results and making figures for the article.

I agree with this latter part: student A has definitely been the working horse behind these results and made the graphics for the article. However, my contributions were in the first 6 months of the project, laying the foundations for the setup, etc.

I’m not sure how to feel about my advisor’s question. Is my contribution worth less because they are further back in time? And does making article-figures count as “ammunition” to be put first in an article?

Authorship questions are among the most difficult aspects of academia and where feelings may run high. First, it seems you have a reasonably good working relationship with your advisor, it is good that she asked you. Some would tell you, some would just do it. So from this perspective, your advisor does what she (in this case) should.

The question of ordering of names is tricky and there are no simple rules, or actually there are simple rules, but they may be difficult to apply in the individual case due to a variety of reasons, including anything from personality clashes to just simple difficulties to asses who has done most. There are examples of point systems where authors are given points depending on what they have done and how much. In one case, the study design and writing (discussion) had much higher weight than aspects of experimentation and data analysis. the problem is that one should agree on such matters before starting on the writing.

So, to assess your and your co-author's contributions, you need to split the project down in at least four parts:

Who came up with the original idea and designed the study (high credit)
Who did the experimental work (equivalent) that generated the data
Who did the analysis (equivalent) of the data
Who contributed to interpretation and discussion towards the conclusions

Each of these have some weight with 1 and 4 most often larger than 2 and 3. Then when several persons split a chore you need to figure out roughly how much of each point each person has contributed. This would then give you a profile of who has done the most (important) work etc. I completely agree with anyone who would say this is easier said then done but you probably see the principle.

So to the question(s). If you have work earlier or later on this is of less significance, it is what type of work you have done and of course how much. figures can be extremely important. Good graphics convey the message in condensed form. plotting data is, however, in most cases not much more than a technical issue. Creating conceptualizations of processes, events etc. can be key to the paper so making figures can be a considerable input to be counted.

You can also check the text on this link for a text on authorship. An example of how authorship can be determined is given on AuthorOrder


Could a paper that's just a title and abstract be listed as a publication in CV? I submitted a paper that only contained a title and an abstract to an international meeting, which is one of the most important conferences in my major. I will give an oral presentation in one session of the meeting. Because it is not a full paper, I want to know whether I can put it in my CV as a publication.

Congratulations on presenting a paper in one of the most important conferences of your field. That is certainly something to be proud of, but the correct place to list the achievement would be under a heading such as "Conference talks" or "Presentations" as others suggest. A title and abstract cannot under any reasonable definition be considered a publication, and personally if I were looking at your CV and saw it listed as a publication (and looked it up to see what it contained, which I often do in such situations), I would get a pretty negative impression of someone who is trying to dishonestly pad their CV with dubious achievements.


Should I include web links in my statement of purpose? In my statement of purpose, I want to include a web link to give details on research projects that I've worked on. I was wondering if it's a good idea.

JeffE recommended the practice, although I'm not sure if his recommendation is limited to the CS area. I also worry that this may be seen as a way to circumvent the length restrictions on the SOP.

My feeling is that whether including a link is a good idea or a bad idea depends on how you are using it.  A statement of purpose should be a generally self-contained document.  Thus:

If your statement of purpose is difficult to fully comprehend without following the link, it would be in a problem (whether in computer science or elsewhere)
If the statement of purpose is complete without the link, however, and the link is essentially an faster alternative to googling for more information, then I would find it a useful courtesy to the reader.


How can a student stop/report conversations with a professor that make her uncomfortable, while avoiding negative consequences for the student? I have some concerns about the behavior of a professor whose class I am taking, Professor A.

First, Professor A has been trying to involve me in his attempts to get another professor in the department, Professor B, fired:

I am taking different classes from two different professors that are in one department. Professor A has asked me to BCC him on all my emails to Professor B, in case Professor B does not pass me in his class.  I took a class in the Spring semester with Professor B and never had a problem with him. Professor A said he can defend me, to the dean but needs documentation to prove I asked for help during the semester.

Today, Professor A asked me to write a detailed outline to him about Professor B and all of the things he has not done correctly in my class and then sign it and include my name, the company I work for and my job title. He wants to turn it in to the department chair to have Professor B fired. Professor A continues  the conversation and tells me Professor B was supposed to have been placed on a performance improvement plan, but the school has gone through 4 chancellors so Professor B did not receive any disciplinary action.

I am also uncomfortable with other conversations I have had with Professor A:

Another time, Professor A asked me to look at an invitation his wife created for a fall fundraiser for the school. Both he and his wife want my opinion. I work in corporate America, but never did fundraising. He asked for my cell phone number to give it to his wife. I didn't think anything of it and gave it to him. He texted me in the classroom so I would have his number. I thought it was very strange. I have stalled the meeting because I am busy with school and work. Plus it seems weird to me.

Professor A gave me his business card that his wife made him in case I want to contact him outside of school. Apparently, he is a musician when not teaching during the week.

I am really uncomfortable with these conversations. He waits until after class to have them. He told me he records all conversations on his phone when he speaks with the administration to use it against them in case the administration tries to get rid of him. I think it is unprofessional and unethical to say any of this to a student.

The semester is half over with and I only want to pass the class and never speak to Professor A again. I have not committed to anything because he creeps me out! I feel like he should be reported to someone, but I don't want anything negative coming back to me. Can someone please help me with what I should do?

This sounds like an instance of mental health problems on the part of the Professor A...

Probably it is simplest to behave "incomprehendingly", to just be unresponsive, disengaged, listless, and generally not react at all to the machinations of the person.

It is unfortunate, but does happen, than people (apart from gender issues) get caught up as "dupes" or "accomplices" in the schemes of mentally ill people who've managed (despite their problems) to get into situations where they have considerable power over others.

While in principle one can file grievances and/or hire lawyers (e.g., in the U.S.), this is often a path that has great costs, psychological, personal time, and one's reputation (even if one "wins").

So, as often is the case, again, if it is feasible, "playing dumb", being unreactive, and just letting the drama pass you by, is probably the most desirable/happiest approach.

(No, "justice" is not served ideally-well by this approach, but it may be served as well as can be...)


Inadmissible theorems in research One of my engineering friends told me how e once had to take a make-up calculus I exam due to being hospitalised and so self-studied a lot of the missed topics. For the make-up exam, e used L'Hôpital's rule, although we weren't taught that until 1 or 2 exams later. My friend told me that the professor wrote

'You are not yet allowed to use L'Hôpital's rule.'

So, I like to say that L'Hôpital's rule was inadmissible in that exam.
Now, it absolutely makes sense that if you're the student that you're not allowed to use propositions, theorems, etc from future topics, all the more for future classes and especially for something as basic as calculus I. It also makes sense to adjust for majors: Certainly maths majors shouldn't be allowed to use topics in discrete mathematics or linear algebra to have an edge over their business, environmental science or engineering (who take linear algebra later than maths majors in my university) classmates in calculus I or II.
But after bachelor's and master's and maths PhD coursework, you're the researcher and not merely the student (this is supposed to link to a star wars video): Say, you're doing your maths PhD dissertation or even after you've finished the PhD.
Does maths research have anything inadmissible?
I can't imagine you have something to prove and then you find some paper that helps you prove something and then you go to your advisor who would then tell you, 'You are not yet allowed to use Poincaré theorem' or for something proven true more than 12 years ago: 'You are not yet allowed to use Cauchy's differentiation formula'.
Actually what about outside maths, say, physics or computer science?

Does maths research have anything inadmissible?

No, but trying to prove X without using Y is still a very useful concept even in research, because it can lead to interesting generalizations, or new proof techniques that can be applied to a larger set of problems.

For instance, in some sense the Lebesgue integral is "just" trying to prove the properties of integrals without using the continuity of f, or the theory of matroids is "just" trying to prove the properties of linearly independent vectors without using a lot of properties from the vector space structure.

So this is far from being a pointless exercise, if that's what you had in mind.


How does failing in a course during Master's studies in Germany affect job prospects? What are the implications of failing an exam of a particular course during Master's studies in Germany? Is it considered bad in terms of future job prospects in that field? Does that disqualify you from pursuing a job in that specific field?
For example: If a student fails in the exam of a compulsory course "A" once or twice and he/she passes the exam in the second or third attempt. But his/her field of interest is very relevant to the course "A". So will he/she find it difficult to get a job in that field because he/she failed in that compulsory course "A" once or twice?

In my experience, it will have minor to none implications.

Job interviews barely talk about failed exams, if they even pose a question about your studies at all, they focus on what you put your focus on.
You could check your Prüfungsordnung or get in touch with the Studienbüro, if they actually include the amount of failed attempts in your Abschlusszeugnis. If they don't, you could chose to lie about it.
Your final grade and internships plus work experience are far more important than a failed class. So even if you decide to tell them, it should have minor implications.
Nonetheless, I think if they have to pick between two equal applicants where one has no failed attempts, they will pick him/her.

Things that actually are part of job interviews/applications in germany (in my experience)

Hobbies you persue (as an opener for the interview)

Final Grade

Your Abschlussarbeit, if it's related to the field you want to work in

In Computer Science, they could ask algorithm questions, although this depends on if they have qualified personnel

Experience in the workfield (internships, experience during your studies)

Questions to check if you fit into the company and have the required competency to do the job.

In the job interviews I had, they never mentioned my transcript of records.


Showing book cover in public presentation I have a follow up question from my previous question that I thought could be of benefit to others if they had the same question.

I’m giving a public talk for a sci-com event and wanted to show some books that people could read if they were very keen and wanted to learn more.

Is there a copyright problem if I just showed the cover of these books in the presentation? I’d imagine it’s the same as looking at a book at a bookstore, but I could be wrong (has happened before!).

Would I need to at least acknowledge the authors and publishers?

No, I can't imagine anyone objecting to free advertising. It is just a visible citation, actually. If you think the people at your talk will want to follow up, you could also provide a list of titles and ISBN numbers to make it easy for people to acquire the books.

Whether your presentation could be considered a "republication" of the graphics or not, I can't say. Not a lawyer here. But publishers in general would be happy to have their wares pushed like that. If you were putting those graphics into some (printed or online) publication, you would possibly need permission, but the titles etc would be enough for such purpose anyway.

In any case, in the US, at least, showing the cover or even snippets from the books is probably covered under fair use if this is an academic use. In particular, you aren't reducing the value of the work by showing its cover.