Should I use a not-self-hosted website for both blogging and collecting academic materials? Several researchers in my subfield (and in mathematics in general) use not-self-hosted wordpress.com subdomains for their 'professional blog' (to blog about their research, their latest papers, or any topic related to their interests). Few of them use some pages of their blog as 'professional websites' too (to upload their CV, list of publications, material for courses, and so on).

I've made up my mind to start blogging myself; also, I'd like to create a webpage 'independent' from the one on a subdomain of my current institution (to make my life easier when I'll change place and to have some more flexibility).

Should I use a not-self-hosted website for both blogging and collecting academic materials?

So far, these are the results of my research (in and outside my department) on the topic (but I'd like to examine some more objective and expert points):

"Pros"

I like that it is easy to use and set up (without any need to set up (and pay) your hosting yourself and actually "code" your website -- which would be hard since my knowledge of computer science and programming is very limited). Plus, some free themes are nice, essential, and easy to navigate.
I like the idea of connecting blogging and actual academic work.

"Cons" (i.e. the points that I'd mostly like you to address)

A friend of mine (who is not in academia anymore) implied that not-self-hosted websites look very unprofessional and cannot be fully optimized and personalized. Is the perception of not-self-hosted websites as unprofessional a real thing in the academic world? (In my opinion, on the contrary, seeing a website of the form namesurname.com could leave the impression of great pretense).
It has been pointed out to me (by a much senior researcher) that having "serious" (or at least would-be serious) research achievements on the same website as "more relaxed, informal, or expository blog posts" may be detrimental to the perception of the research itself. I strongly disagree on this point, but I'd like to do a reality check to see if this is actually a potential issue or just an "old-styled-man's viewpoint".
These subdomains and (mostly) the themes can be unstable (or be no longer updated/supported) and thus force me to redo the set-up at some point in time. Specifically, they may be more unstable than the website of a university. I really don't know about this, so I'd like to check, but I've heard it from a grad student in computer science.

In academia, an amateurish-looking website can almost be worse than having no website at all. Now "amateurish" here does not mean "made yourself"; it instead refers to sites that use bad design practices (lots of garish colors, ill-chosen animations and transitions, poor design choices that make it hard to find information). However, there is not necessarily a strong link between poor design and web host. So, you can and should decide if the web host makes sense for you.

I know a number of researchers who have their websites that are hosted by sites such as Google Sites, but they do look professional enough to pass muster. On the other hand, the main issues for a web site in academia is that you are able to find the information you need. A bare-bones text-based website (which many people still use) is perfectly acceptable if you can access a researcher's CV, lists of interests and publications, and get contact information.


The Professor-Postdoc Relationship in Research Supervision I am in the second year of my Postdoc working with a successful professor. I joined his team just after I obtained my PhD. During my PhD, my advisor (as all advisors)  used to proofread my manuscripts and giving me feedback. I felt that I gained experience which led to a good PhD thesis, where no reviewer has requested to change anything before final publication.

With my current supervisor, I feel that I am still a master student, where his feedback is always too much. After several rounds of internal revision (based on his feedback) of a proposal abstract, he sent me back the PDF file completely yellow (highlighted with his comments).

Most of these comments are about the writing style such as "do not use sentence A when you can use sentence B". I don't know whether this is typical supervision, he is exaggerating or I am too bad.

Based on comments, I'm going to guess that "yes" he is exaggerating but also that, based on his experience you should consider his advice.

But that doesn't imply that you need to take all of the advice, any more than you need to take any particular bit of advice from a formal reviewer after paper submission.

I'll also guess that his intentions are good, even if he is a bit overwhelming, and that you should just try to make it work between you. You won't be in this position forever and will want his good will when it is time to move on.

I think that the opposite would be worse - no real comments.

Resist if you think he is wrong, of course. But think long term about your career. Learn what you can from him and then go your own way.


How to cite quote from Gutenberg Project ebook? I am reading 'The life and letters of Charles Darwin' from Gutenberg Project ebook. I want to cite some quotes from this book in academic article. How can I cite it?

Project FAQs suggests following

  No permission is needed to credit, cite or link to Project Gutenberg
  as the source of something you use. This applies even for commercial
  use.

However, I want to cite this book (maybe with page number of the quotes). Project homepage did not give any other metadata about publisher and ISBN number. This metadata is available on Amazon. I am little confused, whether I should cite without publisher and ISBN or use the one from Amazon.

I know this is not a big deal but I just want to be correct :)

No permission is needed to credit, cite or link to Project Gutenberg as the source of something you use. This applies even for commercial use.

Firstly, I think you may have misunderstood this a bit. The text isn't saying you shouldn't cite Project Gutenberg; in fact, it's saying the opposite -- that you don't need permission to cite them.

Project Gutenberg even has explicit instructions for how you can cite them here. They give an example:

  Carroll, Lewis. (2006). Alice in Wonderland. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved February 21, 2016, from www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19033.

The above assumes that Project Gutenberg is the publisher for the version you are citing. That seems valid enough to me, as many books are published in various versions anyway, and you would just be citing one of those versions. The most important thing is not the publisher, but the author and title of the work -- the rest, including the year, is just there so that someone else can find the book that you were reading.

Here is a related question about 2nd editions of books. Note the advice there: You cite the version of the text that you read, not a version that you didn't read. The problem is the quote, page number, etc. may differ in different versions, so you want to be careful. I see Project Gutenberg as an online version of a previously in-print book.

However, some caveats:

It is confusing that the year will be off if you cite Project Gutenberg, so it would always be good to include a parenthetical in the citation: e.g. (originally published 1865) for Alice in Wonderland.
Be aware that citing Project Gutenberg is a bit nontraditional; probably most people would prefer to cite a print version. But that culture may be changing, and I don't see anything particularly wrong with citing the version that you read.

If you prefer to be safe, you can choose to instead cite a print book, e.g. using an ISBN found on Amazon. In this case, if you wish to credit Project Gutenberg for their help, you can include something in the acknowledgements to your article:

  Acknowledgements. The authors would like to thank Project Gutenberg for making some books referenced in this article available online.


Is research experience in a different field relevant for PhD application? I am a economics major undergraduate student who will apply for grad schools in the coming semester. I think I have quite a strong research experience in mathematical statistics (asymptotic statistics to be specific), but, unfortunately, not much in economics itself. So I am curious if economics departments in graduate schools will care about my research experience in statistics?

Maybe a broader question is if grad schools care about applicants' research experience in a different (maybe even unrelated) field at all? I guess in my case statistics and economics are still quite correlated, but what about other more distant combinations of target departments and previous research experience?

While field-specific research experience is always the best kind, I think there is a role for good research experience in any related field. Close-by disciplines that share similar research methods and approaches will carry much more weight than something much further removed. (For instance, as a chemical engineer, I wouldn't put much stock in somebody doing sociology or clinical medical research, but somebody who had a background in research in applied mathematics or mechanical engineering would be potentially of interest.)

So, if you're going to go into an area of economics where your mathematical statistics background will be of benefit, I think that will (or at least should) be viewed favorably by an admissions committee.

That said, you will want to make sure that your research supervisor understands that you're applying to economics programs, and tailors her letter of recommendation accordingly. Also, if you have a lot of experience in a different field, you will need to make clear to the admissions committee why it is you want to pursue the new field.


"Awaiting Reviewer Invitation" after "Acceptance with Minor Revision" I have submitted an article (media and communication studies) to a ScholarOne journal. The paper was accepted with minor revision (two reviewers both recommended 'minor revision'). I revised the paper accordingly and addressed the feedbacks. After submitting the revised article for a week, a ADM was assigned and the status has changed to "awaiting reviewer invitation." Does it mean that my paper will go through another round of review with new reviewers? I was told that for paper with "minor revision," it is likely like it will not be sent back to the reviewers. Has anyone experienced similar situation?

I don't know what "awaiting reviewer invitation" means.
But usually, the paper with minor revision will be sent directly back to the same reviewers for the final decision. They need to check whether you revise according to their reviews.


What are the benefits of working as a teaching assistant? I am a first-year international master student in a US statistics department. I am offered a 10-hour teaching assistant appointment next semester. I am considering taking it. I have no idea how to weight the benefit and cost of the appointment.

Background information:

I plan to apply PhD next fall.
I plan to take 14-credit course next semester.

Costs (that I can come up with):

Potential overload

Benefits:

Improve my English skills
Half-coverage of tuition and salary (important to life yet trivial to PhD application)

What are the other cost and benefit of taking a TA appointment? In particular, how would TA experience affect PhD application?

Being a TA has helped throughout my Ph.D. I would highly recommend becoming a TA for the following reasons.

You get paid.
You learn teaching skills
You strengthen your knowledge.
It's good for the C.V.

First and foremost you need to fund your life and studies. Although being a TA might not offer the greatest of pay and may take a lot of time. It does seem to pay reasonably well for the amount of effort you have to put in.

Secondly but possibly one of the most underrated things about being a TA. You learn to communicate, and you learn to communicate and learn how to teach.

By communicate, I don't mean just how to improve your English, but how to engage with students. Teaching skills are great, and if you want to go into academia or wish to go in a role where you have to explain concepts to others this will come in handy.

OK, you're teaching at undergrad level. So you may think you know everything. You may actually be surprised that some undergrads may ask some really advanced level questions. Also you may find yourself recapping on some content which you just swept over in your own undergraduate degree. Recovering content, you could find you have a better understanding of it.

Since being a TA. I have had several offers to teach in academic and commercial organisations, and have become a visiting lecturer at another institution based on some of my TA activities.

In terms of cons:

Time

Teaching, marking etc takes time. You may only be teaching for an hour of time, but actually its 4 hours worth of work. From preparing slides, teaching, marking coursework, meetings about students progress with academic staff etc.

I would suggest you give it a go, its only 10 hours after all. If you find it's too much you can always say that it's too much and you will be unable to continue being a TA as you feel your studies are suffering.

Best of luck and I hope this has been of some help.


What does it mean when the reviewer says "the results are rather straightforward"? We submitted a manuscript to a reputed journal and we are asked for a revision. One of the reviewer commented

The results are rather straight forward and would be useful to the community of specialists working on optical properties of anisotropic crystals

What does it mean when the reviewer says "the results are rather straightforward"?

Offhand, it could mean two things:

The results are to be expected, i.e. not surprising. Normally not a good comment to receive since it implies the paper is not interesting.
The results are gotten in straightforward fashion. For example, if you were asked to take the derivative of an elementary function, there's a well-known series of rules that will lead to the derivative. If the function is complicated enough then taking the derivative will also be complicated - but it is straightforward. Apply the rules correctly and you will get there.

The rest of the sentence leads me to suspect the second interpretation is correct.
If the second interpretation is indeed correct, it wouldn't be something to worry about, and your attention is better focused on what the rest of the review says.


Should exploratory and incomplete work be part of a thesis? I just finished the first draft of my thesis in computational neuroscience. It contains all the published work and some other material that is relevant to the main theme of the thesis. I deliberately kept some very recent work out of it because I thought it won't add any value to the reader.

Now I am tempted to include this exploratory work into the thesis as well since I've put quite a lot of time on it. This work is an attempt to extend the main results of the thesis. The problem statement is well defined with a good literature survey but no concrete result.

I can probably add to the appendix? Or epilogue (doesn't sound great for a technical document)? Or is it a bad idea altogether?

That may be something to add in a "further work" section as part of the conclusion.


Expulsion from doctoral program I was recently expelled from doctoral program in English for plagiarism in qualifying exam. Although it was for the lack of a citation, I attended a major research university with a zero tolerance policy. What are the chances I can reapply to another doctoral program? Specifically, I am in creative writing/poetry and I was in an English PhD program...what if I apply to a PhD in creative writing program? How do I go about addressing the plagiarism of the qualifying exam in past program, but highlight I have had numerous national publications since then in poetry and won a major book award, not publication?

My experience is in mathematics, rather than creative writing, but I imagine both fields approach this issue similarly.  Issues of academic honesty have come up when I've served on admissions committees, and they're a huge obstacle to admission.  A previous expulsion for plagiarism could turn an otherwise strong case into a quick rejection.  In order to have any chance, you need to do several things:

You have to give a convincing explanation of what happened and why nobody needs to worry about future dishonesty.  This is not easy, and most people fail to write anything convincing.  For example, if you write "I didn't realize this counted as plagiarism, but now that I know, I certainly won't ever do it again", people will wonder what other ethical principles you might be unclear on (and how you made it to the qualifying exam in a doctoral program in English without knowing what's considered plagiarism).  If you write "I was sloppy, but I've learned from the experience and will be much more careful from now on", people will worry that being careful is easier said than done, and that this is too facile an excuse.  And it only gets worse from there: if you knew it was wrong and did it on purpose, then you really have a lot of explaining to do.
You need letters of recommendation from people who know what happened and are nevertheless willing to vouch for you.  A letter that doesn't mention the plagiarism will probably be ignored, since the committee won't know whether the recommender even knows about it or how their opinion might change if they found out.  (And it's a sensitive enough subject that nobody's going to call up the recommender and ask, out of fear that you would complain that the committee was leaking confidential information.)

I'd recommend starting by trying to recruit letter writers.  If you can convince enough people to write strong letters for you, then you can take the explanation you used to convince them and incorporate it into your personal statement.  If you can't secure enough letters or aren't confident in their strength, then it's not worth applying now.

  I was recently expelled from doctoral program in English for plagiarism in qualifying exam. Although it was for the lack of a citation, I attended a major research university with a zero tolerance policy.

I should warn you that this sounds like a terrible basis for an explanation.  It comes across like you are saying omitting citations is not so bad and your expulsion was due to an overly strict policy.  Maybe that's not what you meant, but this is a delicate issue and it's important to keep from being misunderstood.


Refusing a research project and/or assignment because of personal convictions Is there a general rule about what a postdoc or graduate student can or cannot refuse to do because of personal convictions?

I assume that there must be institution-specific rules, but also maybe legally defined limits? I know that (fortunately!) in most countries, a supervisor cannot "force" a student or postdoc to do something that goes against their religious convictions, for example, but there can be grey areas that are not as protected as religious belief; what about personal opinions and life choices?

For example, I am wondering if personal convictions are a valid and protected reason to refuse:

Experimenting on animals
Applying for defense/military funding (e.g. DARPA)
Collaborating with companies with discutable ethics
Working on any type of dual use research
Conducting experiments that generate significant amounts of pollution

Most of the time this kind of ethics dilemma can be avoided by carefully choosing a laboratory. But not always - money can be tight, reviewers can ask for animal validations after submission... So I am wondering if there is a rule of thumb for determining what is a "reasonable" reason to refuse an academic project based on moral arguments.

Standard IANAL disclaimer (I’m speaking from anecdotal experience and could be very wrong).

I had a student who recently refused to work on a political dataset because of her political views. I could’ve told her that this was a material part of our work and she has to do it or I can’t advise her. I don’t think there would’ve been any repercussions to me if I did. Generally speaking, if an advisor doesn’t want a student the reasons why aren’t very relevant, it’s best to part ways.

Eventually I chose not to and assigned her to another project. Did her academic progress suffer as a result? Sure. She made a choice and is paying some price for it.

For funding/collaboration, I can hardly see what legal protections could exist. If you choose not to apply for a DARPA grant or work with anyone there, you can’t reasonably argue any grievance as a result. Say, if you’re up for tenure, saying that you didn’t secure any funding but that’s only because you refuse to work with DARPA sounds preposterous.

A similar case goes for boycott movements (e.g. BDS). My field (computer science) has a very strong Israeli presence; if you’re a BDS supporter it may limit your future academic  prospects. No one can force you to collaborate with Israelis, but in some cases, it may become very difficult.

In the end, nothing in life is free, and you need to decide how important are your personal convictions vs the price of following them.


Most number of co-authors in a single paper? Previous research

I've tried to find the answer to this question looking at the list of "Questions that may already have your answer" as I typed in the question, with no luck.

Question

What are some, say five, examples of publications with the highest recorded number of co-authors ever published, and in each of these how many co-authors were involved?

A good survey can be found in this article.  In short: within approximately the last 5 years, large international collaborations have started to exceed 1000 authors per paper.  The largest authorship papers are all LHC papers at present (with 3000+ authors), but other collaborations, particularly in biomedicine, may top that in the future.


Are Canadian applicants favored in graduate admissions or funding for Canadian graduate programs? I'm not sure if this question is off-topic here, but I have applied to some Canadian master's economics programs as an international student along with my Canadian classmates. Even though I have a better academic record than they do, I didn't get into the schools with as much funding as my Canadian classmates. My question is why is it so? Based on my knowledge and experience, I don't think that schools in US have this type of a double standard policy, as I received enough funding from some public universities there. I know I could be wrong as I may well be generalizing.

Without knowing the details of your classmates funding, it's difficult to say whether there's bias. Having said that, Canadian students will be at a definite advantage when trying to get funding at a Canadian University.

For some students, funding at the Masters level will be formed from multiple sources:

Government Scholarships. Some of these are open to international students, others are not. For example, the NSERC Vanier scholarships accept international applicants, but the NSERC CGS M does not.
University scholarships: These are typically funded from a variety of sources which will have varying requirements. Some must go to students from Canada, some must go to international students, some are purely merit based.
TA/RA-ships. My experience is that these typically aren't restricted based on international status, but I can't say for sure.

So, it's easy enough to imagine that your friends funding could simply include scholarship money that is unavailable to you as an international student. Most universities realize that international students aren't on perfectly even footing, and will have sections of their websites dedicated to funding for international students. This could be of great help for you, though the money  might not come soon enough for you to be able to make it work.

Another thing to mention, is that some countries have scholarships for outgoing international scholars. These vary hugely, but should also be considered.


What are the responsibilities of the Publication Chair of a conference? I received an "offer" to become the publication chair of a high profile IEEE conference. Before accepting the "offer" I would like to know what are my responsibilities, and I would like to plan ahead as what portion of the available time such a commitment would eat up.

I saw this description, but it is rather vague. It says:

  Publications Chair: Responsible for the coordination of production of conference content (e.g., papers from special tutorial sessions or colloquia, summaries of conference papers, programs, etc.) and serves as the point of contact for all Xplore submission-related inquiries before and after the conference.

It tells nothing about the pitfalls, so I want some feedback from people who have really done this.

EDIT: additional questions

Does it have positive or negative impact on the student. In terms of workload vs. benefit?

I've been publication chair of an IEEE conference before, and it's pretty straight-forward.  IEEE has a well-arranged process for managing conference publications, and you basically just need to hold up your side of the deal and make sure that nothing falls through the cracks.

In particular: you should have an IEEE CPS publications contact.  You can get this from the current general chairs, since they're dealing with IEEE, or (since its usually the same from year to year) you can ask the previous publications chair.
Set up a meeting with that person ASAP and they can walk you through the process and make plans with you; I've had very good experiences working with their publications personnel.

The key responsibilities that you should expect to fulfill are:

Set a schedule acceptable to IEEE and the conference chairs
Work with the general chairs to fill out the required forms and get them to the IEEE on time, so that you can get the publications IEEE CPS contract signed.  This will include setting the various different types of publications (e.g., main track, short papers, workshop papers, tutorial abstracts, etc), as well as pages sizes, expected number, delivery method (I recommend USB sticks) and budget.
Send information about camera ready from IEEE to the various conference chairs that need it (general, program, workshops, tutorial, etc.).
Work with chairs to get all of the front matter prepared in a timely fashion and within the schedule negotiated with IEEE (cover, index information, introductions, sponsored material, etc.).
Immediately after the conference, report to IEEE whether there were any no-shows (who should have their papers removed).
One month after reporting whether there were and no-shows, everything should appear online in IEEE Xplore. If it doesn't, then you need to keep pinging IEEE's representative to make sure things get into IEEE Xplore as promptly as possible.


Student responsibility for synchronous online assessments Here are constraints for my course (which will be delivered remotely):

The class size is huge (250+ students).
Lecture contents will be delivered asynchronously (with pre-recorded videos and live Q&A sessions).
Synchronous (scheduled weekly for 20 minutes), frequent, small assessments will be used to test lecture contents.
Each assessment is web-based and can be automatically graded (say manual grading is not possible, given the TA hours, for this large class).

Given that it's an online course, is it fair to assume the responsibility of stable internet connection (so that each assessment can be started and submitted in time) on students?
If such an assumption is not fair, then does it mean any student claiming a network-related problem can be accommodated unconditionally for extra time or another test?

This is something you need to work out locally and before the course starts if possible. People here will have opinions, but only the local opinions at the university will have any actual weight.
Some things here seem foolish to me. Especially a large student population with insufficient TA support. There should be a dozen or so TAs to make this possible. Harvard's CS 50 course is also huge, but the student to staff ratio is about 20 to 1.
It may not be fair for the course designers to make such assumptions but you are probably going to be stuck with them whatever they are.
You point out some of the deficiencies of online instruction at this time. Even worse is that some students just don't have access to the equipment or bandwidth. But it is a chaotic situation.
Probably the best you can do is file a statement, say with a department head, and get acknowledgement of it that (a) internet connections can be flaky (b) cheating can be rampant no matter the technology (c) policies need to be established to fairly account for as many of the potential problems that might occur. And the policies will need to be somewhat flexible.
But demands are likely to be ignored. Enter into a conversation so that you have some assurance that fairness will be maintained.
On the other hand, some things about this course seem fine to me, such as frequent small assessments rather than a few high risk exams. Question-answer sessions is also a good idea if the times are flexible. Mailing lists can also be used to increase communication.
The course may actually need to oscillate a bit toward a successful outcome as there has bee insufficient time to even design the research needed for successful pedagogy. But if those assessments are well designed it can work out.
And you should prepare a quiet place in which to work if that is at all possible. Especially for the assessments.


Does Joseph Campbell's advice work for the natural sciences? This article quotes famous mythologist Joseph Campbell as saying:

"Reading what you want, and having one book lead to the next, is the way I found my discipline. I’ve suggested this to many of my students: When you find a writer who really is saying something to you, read everything that writer has written and you will get more education and depth of understanding out of that than reading a scrap here and a scrap there and elsewhere. Then go to people who influenced that writer, or those who were related to him, and your world builds together in an organic way that is really marvelous."

Based on my limited experience with computer science and economics, my guess is that the answer is no, but I was wondering if this strategy might work in Biology or some other discipline?

While this might be a strategy, I think it would be a mistake if it were your only strategy. Normally a lot of people contribute to a discipline and each of them have slightly different insights and thoughts to bring to bear. Even though you want to delve deeply into the topic of interest, it is likely a mistake to get too closely involved with the thought processes of that one person, unless they are the subject of study itself.

Interesting idea, though. But I wouldn't use it extensively.

However, going back to the influences on a researcher can be fruitful, especially if it gives you insight in to their insight.

I think the fields that are overwhelmingly interested by one person are rare, though there are a few. Stephen Hawking comes to mind, of course.


Is seeking co-advising encouraged during Ph.D? I'm an undergraduate student about to apply for a Ph.D program this year. I am interested in knowing whether seeking co-advising from a related, but different department (in my case I'm applying for econometrics but thinking about looking for co-advising from the statistics department) is seen as a thing to be encouraged in graduate schools in the U.S., or is it considered a violation of the division of departments?

Also, would it make sense if I mention in my personal statement that one of the consideration of my applying for this school's economics department is that it also has a very good statistics department, from which I can potentially seek co-advising? Would the graduate admission committee be happy to see this kind of statements?

It is perfectly okay to have a co-adviser from another department. Econometrics and statistics are very close areas and often students pursuing PhD in Economics and Industrial Engineering (such as Reliability Analysis) have co-advisers from Statistics.

Often acceptance of an applicant in the program differs from department to department. However, you may mention an intention for collaborating with statistics department in the research statement. Also, if you do things appropriately you may have scope to get into the statistics department as a PhD student and pursue your research in light of economics. In other words, you may have greater chance of getting into the university as a PhD student. You may have to inquire about the possibility with the Statistics department. I guess you have good background in both statistics and economics so this seems to work out for you.


How do I tell the professor that I am burnt out and I want to move on I am a first year CSE grad student. I have been working with a professor for more than half a year now. The topic looks like a deadend and I do not know how to tell him the same. Ironically, he is a nice guy and has supported me all the way through.

My prof meets with me twice a week and brainstorms with me about possible avenues of this research. The sad part, I think, my prof is not sure if a particular line of research of work may be successful or not. I am not looking for a foolproof way of doing research. At least, 5 out of 10 attempts should be successful, I guess. Correct me, if I am wrong. Currently, I just feel like a mule trying to implement his ideas. There seems to be no theoretical justification for why a particular avenue could lead to good results.  I could as well implement my own ideas and probably could have a better success rate.

This is not how I expected my project to turn out. Around 90% of the time, I just keep working on Code (writing code and fixing bugs), without any learning I can take away for future. Only 10% of the time, I just read some conference papers related to this topic. It is just too much of study in a small highly specialized area.

I love to understand new concepts and teach them to others, hence the reason I started out for Ph.D. (so that I can settle down as a Prof).  Now I am not sure if I am preparing myself for a career in academia as most of the time I just keep working on Code - There is nothing new to learn so that I can teach to my future students.

I expected research to be more theoretically enriching but it is turning out to be the exact opposite.

These long hours have already taken a toll on me. I am missing out on the 'enjoy your research part'. When I started out, I had this zeal for research and enjoyed the work. It has been one year.  Now, I just want to publish whatever results I have already with us, in any 2-tier journal/conference, without further go down this route.

But, my professor expects me to keep trying.

Sometimes, I feel I am better off with any supervisor. At least, I can study stuff which I like to.

You are in a bad spot and it is difficult to diagnose the disease, much less the cure. It may be that your advisor is inexperienced - some things you say indicate that. But as commenters have implied, some problems worth solving are just hard - damn hard. I once worked on such a problem and had to abandon it, but the professor agreed and we found a better one.

However, it may be that your "best" solution is to find a different advisor. That can be difficult (or impossible) as there is department politics to consider. Some large departments even have factions. The radical solution is to change universities and thus find a different professor with different ideas.

But a student working on an extremely hard problem is itself a problem since it takes time and the student would like to actually graduate before the Sun goes nova. I also worked on problems that were too easy (mathematics) and hence had no real merit. The trick is to find the sweet spot of a sufficiently hard but do-able problem. Not all professors have the ability to to that regularly.

But you need to judge. If the problem is hard, but its solution would be a significant advance and you have the time and resources to pursue it, it can result in a big win. But the win isn't guaranteed.

However. It also sounds like your current advisor is truly invested in you. Two meetings a week shows commitment. You won't always find that in an advisor.

You might try two things. First is to have a conversation about the likelihood of actual success in a reasonable time frame. The other part of the conversation is to try to set a limit on attempts and explore alternative problems that don't completely ignore what you have done so far. If your advisor is, in fact, invested in you and not just in the problem itself, that conversation might be possible.

As a first year doctoral student it isn't yet time to panic, in fact. Significant things take time and focus.


How to write a believable CV? I'm having trouble writing a believable CV. I want to apply for masters degree. I'm a professional in IT industry. I have done dozens of high-tech projects. The problem is my bachelor G.P.A is low(3.2) and when I list my abilities and projects in my CV, most of readers won't believe it. I had this problem with companies when applying for job. Now I'm having this problem with universities. For example my grade in Networking course is very low(C) but I was actually a network designer in my previous jobs.

Another reason why people don't believe it is the diversity of my knowledge. I have done projects in networking, embedded systems and big data which don't relate to each other. This problem yields to rejection from universities either with low or high global rank. Unfortunately I work on very very back end side of projects which means I don't have something to present like designers. Most companies I work for don't want to give me a reference letter because some of them are military or government dependant.

How can I write a CV that is believable?

You need to focus your CV on the specific department and specialty you are interested in.

First, look at some programs of study.  Look at the research interests.  Look at some of the published papers.  Think about which of your many areas within IT you would like to delve into more deeply; think about which areas interest you the most for working in when you are done with this next degree.

Once you've identified some programs that YOU are excited about, pick and choose which items in your full CV you'd like to emphasize in your application.

Try to get some feedback from a couple people whose opinion you trust, about your draft CV and application.

You absolutely need at least one strong letter of recommendation -- so figuring out who could write this is going to be important.

I apologize, I don't know the specific differences between the European context and the U.S., but hopefully this answer, written by someone who knows the U.S. system best, will still by helpful.


Using the same letters of Recommendation from previous admission cycle My question is geared toward Math PhD programs, but perhaps I will broaden it a bit, so it serve useful for future questions. Hypothetically, if you applied to a graduate program and didn't get in a given admission cycle, is it viewed negatively by the admission committee if you applied to the same institution with the same letter writers next year of the admission cycle.

You should always try to get newer, up-to-date letters, if the first set didn't work.

You should try your best to get a letter specifically from the gap year, such as work experience or another type of academic program, that would benefit you greatly.

From personal experience, if it doesn't work the first time, trying again with the same package typically doesn't provide you a major benefit and ends up being you wasting money for admissions fees.


What classes to take in undergraduate for graduate school instead of graduating early I am an undergraduate sophomore but  I will be able to finish and graduate at least a semester and maybe a year early if I take the classes I need to get my BS. Either way I will have space in my schedule (I had a lot of credit coming in from high school) However, I have a scholarship and I would like to stay in school for the full 4 years.  I plan on attending graduate school.  Can I take graduate classes as an undergraduate and have them transfer to graduate school?  What should I so with the extra space in my schedule to be productive or to help me get into graduate school?

It really depends on where you go for graduate school. Some schools may accept graduate courses from other places, some will allow you to use them to test out of prerequisites, some won't accept them at all.

That being said, taking gradate courses as a undergrad will look good on your gradate school applications. Depending upon your subject, if you can also manage to swing some undergrad research experience, your gradate school applications will be in really good shape.


Do I need to disclose my academic misconduct on this grad school application? I have one incident of academic misconduct on my record from my sophomore year (I was guilty), and I received a grade sanction and disciplinary probation. This does not appear on my transcript and I am no longer on disciplinary probation.
I am now applying for PhD programs and some applications ask about conduct. On one application, I'm not sure whether I have to disclose my academic misconduct because of the wording of the question.
It asks if I have ever been "disciplined for academic performance" and gives examples like "academic probation, dismissal, suspension, disqualification, etc." For the same question, it also says: "Academic Infraction: Indicate whether you have ever been disciplined or placed on academic probation while attending an academic institution."
At least at my university, academic probation is something you receive for poor grades (like having a dangerously low GPA), whereas disciplinary probation is something you receive for misconduct (anything from underage drinking to academic misconduct). So I'm thinking I can answer "no" to this question, since I was disciplined for misconduct not academic performance, and it was disciplinary probation, not academic probation. It seems that "academic infraction" would be discipline for poor grades. But that "etc." makes me nervous and I wanted others' opinions.
I don't want to answer "yes" and put myself at a disadvantage when I don't have to, but I also don't want to mistakenly answer "no" and then be caught and have my application disqualified (or worse, get accepted, have someone find out about my academic misconduct halfway through my PhD, and be dismissed). I want to make sure I'm being truthful, but only as truthful as I have to be. For obvious reasons, I don't want to disclose this unless directly asked/required. Do you think I should answer "yes" or "no" to this question?
Edit: To be clear, I am not intending to deceive by being so particular about the word choice. I have disclosed my misconduct on other applications where it was clear that my answer should be "yes". I think it's understandable that I want to be absolutely certain that I am required to disclose it before I do. I am trying to be honest and accurate.

It seems that "academic infraction" would be discipline for poor grades.

That is wrong.  Misconduct is a type of infraction.  You were disciplined for an infraction.  Disclose it.


Can publications on research conducted before I started my tenure-track position count towards tenure? Do they need to have my new affiliation? I am joining a new school as a TT Assistant Professor soon and I know I will be on the 'tenure clock' and have to publish manuscripts in certain prestigious journals. I have two pending publications in high quality journals that would certainly help a lot with this. In both, most of the research was done before I joined the new school, but will be published after I officially join.

How do these papers get counted? Do they need the new affiliation in order to count towards tenure?
Is it acceptable to change my affiliation to the new school?

There is substantial variation between universities, and to an extent departments within a university, about what counts towards tenure. The best way to find out is to ask your department chair, a mentor, or someone on the tenure and promotions committee about what counts.

That said, there are ethics regarding what affiliations should be listed on publications. If your "pending publications" are in press or far along the review process, it would be unethical to switch your affiliation. If you are still writing the manuscript, or the reviews require a major revision, and you do additional work while at your new university, then it would be appropriate to add an additional affiliation.


How do you motivate collaborators to meet deadlines, when there is no financial incentives involved in their work? I'm becoming frustrated with an international collaborator that has been involved in the project since early this year. He has been responsible for translating the survey into another language and we aim to use his connections (via his University) to launch the project in their area.

He has been valuable and is important to the project. I admire his insights and suggestions. However, he takes FOREVER to get anything done, often suggesting more and more unnecessary changes to our survey and delaying delivery dates indefinitely.

As final deadlines are closely approaching, I have started setting deadlines for him to meet, asking him to identify why such delays, and encouraging energy into his end to get it launched. However, the same pattern emerges - more delays, extremely long turn arounds on work, and ambiguous excuses. I'm frustrated, but I believe he will deliver eventually.

I want him to launch the survey in his area. So, the question is - How do you motivate someone who is prone to delays when there are no financial incentives involved?

I believe I need to talk frankly to him and address these concerns over the phone (we work through Skype). How do you create a conversation that is frank, but fair? When is it time to let him go?

Perhaps you are asking for more than can be delivered. The other person, I assume, has his own projects and deadlines and, perhaps, needs to put those first.

Incentives can be other than financial, of course, but perhaps the incentives important to the other person are all directed toward making progress on work more important to them than to you.

Trying to beat up on someone who has been valuable to you is a mistake, I think. Setting deadlines for someone who is neither your advisee nor your employee is likely to be fruitless.

What incentive can you offer. The carrot, not the stick.


Doing research, outside of my specific interests, for a MS program Here's a very brief description of my scenario: I have ambitions to pursue a PhD in a bit a of fringe field (vertebrate paleontology). I already have schools and faculty in mind who are doing research I am very interested in. But I find it very important to first get a MS in order to secure research experience and to possibly offset my less-than-immaculate undergrad GPA. However, the schools I'm set on for a PhD do not offer MS programs.

I am currently in the process of applying to 6 other schools for a MS, through departments of biology, zoology, and geology (My undergrad was in Bio). Only 2 of the schools contain faculty members whose interests are at least decently aligned with my specific interests. But I don't want to limit myself, so I'm applying to the other schools as well, even though their faculty members' interests may not be too relevant to my specific interests.

So what my question boils down to this: In the event the other 2 schools don't work out for me, would it be worth it to temporarily change my desired research interests to better align myself for a MS program that is at least in the same discipline?

Like I mentioned earlier, my main reasons for wanting to enroll in a MS program is to gain experience in research, and show that I can perform well at a graduate level. So my initial thought is "Yes, it is worth it". But I am also concerned about unforeseen consequences this may have. Is it common for someone to change their research interests between switching from a MS program to a PhD program? Or are there complications with that I may not be seeing, and I should stick to applying to schools that better suit my current interests?

You shouldn't say that you want to do something you're not interested in just to gain admission. It will end badly for everyone.

If you're just not certain you're going to like an area, that's a different story. There are a lot of programs where you have the ability to be "matched" with an advisor before or after admission. In such cases, the key is to finding a match you're happy with.

But if you're asking if you need to change research focuses as an undergraduate to align with programs later, the answer is that you don't. It's understood that people are likely to change issues early on. (After all, faculty members do so regularly; why can't students do so before joining their group?)


How to change PHD sponsored by Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship I come from an EU country, and I am doing a PHD funded by a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Network (ITN).

The problem is that, after almost a year spent here, I realize that I do not like my subject, nor the professors. I would like to continue my PhD studies, but I need to make a change (professor, subject, maybe country).

I don't know if it is possible to make such a change, while maintaining the Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowship.

It is hard to find an answer because I prefer not to talk about this with my professors. Also, I asked a Marie Skłodowska-Curie project secretary, and she only told me that I can quit the PhD any time without any financial consequences for me.

I prefer not to give details about subject, the university, or the names of my professors. Still, feel free to ask me if you need more details and I hope I could make my question clearer thanks to your feedback!

Thank you all!

Since you consider changing supervisors, subject and the place where PhD is carried out, it looks to me that you in fact consider quitting your current PhD and start a new one. You need to check your offer and contract which you signed when you accepted the PhD, but it is very unlikely that you can take this funding with you.

Seeing that you're having difficulties locating the ERC website, it is clear that you were not yourself applying for the funding. I suspect that the University where you are studying applied for ITN and you have got a place in this network. This is technically not your funding, hence you most likely can not take it with you.


Should I put my papers which are not written in English on my social-media profile? Is it OK to put my non English internal conference or journal paper on my social media profiles such as Google Scholar, Academia, Research Gate, etc? and also, should I translate their title and other information into English?

Yes, it is. English is a lingua franca, but that doesn't mean that all scholarly literature must be in English. Make sure your paper is in a institutional or disciplinary repository, if you like the idea of your paper to be open access. Translate it, as Davidmh suggests, to make it even more available.

Regarding indexing in Google Scholar, that depends by the site you archive your paper into. You can make some arrangements to be indexed, but in my experience even if you suggest resources to GS you cannot be sure you'll be.


Is it considered offensive to address one's seniors by name in the US? In my country (India), there are several implicit norms that need to be followed by almost every one.
Among all, an important norm is that juniors does not address their seniors by name. It happens in both students' circles and faculty circles -- thus, even junior professors would not address senior professors by name.
Recently (in the US), a female assistant professor addressed a male associate professor by his name. It is the first time ever I saw an incident like this personally. I personally considered it as an offense to the male associate professor.
So, I am wondering whether it is a norm in the US to address seniors as "sir" or any other respectable salutation instead of addressing by name.
Note: The question is broader than only addressing a professor.

No, in the US, it's usually not rude to address people you know more than in passing (e.g. are colleagues, classmates, or in their class) by their first name. NB: The question isn't "How should I address a professor?" it's about general rules and behavior, especially (my interpretation) the same university.
In the US, professors, staff, and PhD students would address everyone on their own "level" by their first name. In every department I have encountered, anyone in any of those groups would address each other by their first name, but as others have pointed out, occasionally Master's students maintain a bit more formality.
Occasionally, some professors prefer their undergraduates (especially in large classes) to use their title, whether "Professor," "Doctor," or "Mister/Miss/Mrs."
All undergraduates would use first names, and would almost always use first names with staff and graduate students they are familiar with.
However, it's typically considered polite to start using the title (for faculty, and maybe staff) and to only use their first name when invited, which most people in academia in the US do right away. Often, the convention is people sign their emails how they want you to address them. In my experience, it would be a raised eyebrow to use a first name where it was "incorrect," but would really only elevate to "rude" once someone has consistent disregarded someone's expressed wishes.
In regards to your example, it would strike me as incredibly rude if  a professor took offense at another professor by using their first name.


When should you publish code on GitHub? Work-in-progress or after publication? What is policy are you following about publishing data analysis code on GitHub? Do you do it after publishing or as a work-in-progress?

I developed a number of Python algorithms to analyse a large dataset, and I would like to make my work visible.

There is a movement gathering strength lately to encourage publishing the code:

Nature-Publish your computer code: it is good enough

Or, more vehement:
If there is no code, there is no paper

The reasons outlied on the article are very reasonable. If you are expected to publish detailed derivations, experimental methods, and proofs of theorems, why would you be allowed to keep the code? No one will accept a theorem if you claim: "the proof is too messy to show, but hey, here are three cases where it works".

I think the best way is to publish the code used as supplementary material, and include a link to the repository, so people can get the improved versions. If you are concerned about people using too bleeding edge versions, make releases, but leave the development public. This will also help you get bugfixes and contributions.

Thank you for wanting to release your code. I really believe this attitude will help make research better.

Edit:

After some time, I have something to add. Most of the code in an application is there for "administrative purposes": load and write data, massage, check conditions... For publishing, that part can be as hackish as one needs it to be. The real "research" is usually in a small part. That is where one should dedicate one or two hours of adding a few comments and clearing the code.

For the rest, a docstring in the functions or a paragraph explaining the aim, should be fine.


PhD student hiring a LaTeX expert to typeset thesis? I am close to finishing my PhD. Some of my peers use LaTeX. Obviously, it looks much better than Word and alike. As I wrote a few papers that go into my final thesis, I however have numerous formats depending on the journal in question. I would like to transform them all into one final document with matching layout. I am OK with TeX, but I'd rather see a professional do it.

I am now considering two options:

Taking my limited TeX-Knowhow to the next level.
Hiring an expert.

My time is limited. I've got a couple more weeks to go and that should be enough for option #1, as I already know a bit of TeX. But I am an external PhD student and I work on the side.

I have two questions:

What factors should I take into consideration in deciding which route to take?
If I decide for an expert, what criteria do I need to evaluate if the expert is any good?

(I will quote a comment by kahen and a chat message by Ulrike Fischer.)

You have got three qualities of the thesis production: good, cheap, fast. You can choose two.

Hiring a LaTeX specialist is good (if you find a good one), fast (if you find a good one) but expensive --- typesetting a 100-page thesis can take around 20--30 hours of work, easily more depending on the text, on the person you work with, on the amount of discussion about the appearance, proofreading etc.
Making it yourself is cheap. However, unless you are Jarod from the Pretender series or you know LaTeX already, it cannot be both good and fast.

Of course, making it yourself is better in moving your LaTeX skills forward, but I do not think this is crucial for an academic career, surely it is not more crucial than submitting a quality thesis in time. People hire services of all kinds, you get grant-writing, typesetting, conference organization, IT, etc. --- very various kind of out-sourced services for which someone can say: "A good researcher has to be able to do this."

To answer your question about LaTeX services: I doubt universities have, in general, such services themselves. Some have a LaTeX theses class (of varying quality), some even do not have this. However, there are independent LaTeX consults and consulting companies. I can't list any since (1) I don't know them and (2) this is not an advertising site. However, remember that these people are highly specialized, and the prices of their services reflect this.


Switch from linguistics to CS for PhD? I have an undergrad degree in linguistics, and a masters degree in natural language processing from a department of linguistics. I would like to continue research work in natural language processing, but change fields to computer science. How can I make this happen? Many say its not possible, but I'm willing to put in the work and do what it takes! Although continuing my research as a linguistics PhD would be easier, I am not interested in taking this route.

More about my background:

I am 25 year old female.
I currently have 2 publications: one is a publication on software that I developed, the other is a somewhat random bioinformatics publication.

Many more publications to come in the next year! I have worked at 1 research institute (where I developed and published my software), worked in a CS lab, and now I work in government R&D and am affiliated with an R1 university.
I have been involved in A LOT of digital literacy efforts, volunteered to help at women's hackathons, etc. and have given a lot of Data Science presentations to the public.

My plans:

GRE & GRE Math subject test.
CS self-studying. I'm comfortable about data types and learning more about algorithms.

Questions:

Do I have to get another masters? I can't afford it :(
Would community college classes actually help me get in? I'm afraid they won't be taken seriously...
Other ways to obtain/prove I have the necessary prerequisites for a CS degree?

I know some universities will simply not accept someone without a CS background, but some explicitly state in their CS admissions that they will (e.g. UWashington, UToronto)

I have a bachelors and masters in a non-STEM field and am currently in a CS PhD program. I had a similar constraint that I could not afford a CS masters degree and wanted to go directly into a research PhD. You seem like you're in a good enough position to just apply now, but given my non-STEM background, here's what I did:

I took online courses such as Algorithms, Automata, Databases, and Machine Learning. I did all the assignments and took detailed notes. I'd suggest you look into Deep Learning since neural machine translation is a hot area.
I put everything I coded on GitHub. I made sure my code was clean, organized, and well-commented. This was primarily for employers—I'm not sure if grad schools care—, but I had to pay the bills while teaching myself on nights and weekends.
I held a couple of programming-related jobs, starting as a software developer at a startup and ending as a research software developer in a bioinformatics lab. The first kind of job is good for getting your foot in the door and the second is good for publications—you might already be set on the latter.
Because of the above job, I curated my application for ML + computational biology tracks in CS departments. Cross-disciplinary labs are nice because no one knows everything and everyone brings something to the table. For reference, one professor at another school told me that he wanted to accept me but was worried about my background. This lab was extremely focused, and the school expected me to start research in that area on day one. I interviewed twice but didn't get in. I think where you apply is probably the most important variable, provided you have a solid application.
I applied to 8 schools and was only accepted by 1. Just FYI.

Good luck.


Is it always OK to ask for a copy of the lecturer's slides? Weeks ago I attended a lecture/seminar in NYU Shanghai, and I am not a student nor an alumnus of it. After the lecture I attempted to ask if I can have a copy of the slides because the content is so interesting. The lecturer said to me that I'd better email her later and she will send me it. And I searched Google for her name and found her email address and shot her an email(using my hotmail email address), but now I still have not recieved the slides.

I thought she doesn't know me and hence might don't know that I am not affiliated to NYU Shanghai. But it seems that she doesn't have any reason to share with me the slides.

When I was a graduate student I attended a lecture on open source and what the lecturer said about it is still whirling in my head: the slides that are not allowed to share are not valuable enough to be shared. I love such ideas, abeit sometimes too idealistic.

But when is it appropriate to ask for a copy of the slides and when it is not?

EDIT after one day of waiting and two additional emails:
Following the suggestion by @WolfgangBangerth I sent the lecturer one more email and she redirected me to the host of the seminar and then I cold-emailed the host with some explanations such as who I am, how I relate to the university and why the slides are important to me. Just now I recieved the slides from the host. Thanks.

It is always appropriate to ask. But some people are unwilling to share their slides for a variety of reasons (none of which I think are particularly good, for basically the reasons you mention in your quote).

So you may or may not get the slides, but it is certainly ok to request them!


Is it possible to get perfect score in TOEFL's Speaking Question Type 1 (Personal preference) without using examples? The ideal way to approach Question Type 1 (Personal preference) type questions is to state your preference/opinion along with 2 reasons and examples to support each of them. Personally, I find it a bit too tedious to come up with 2 examples to support 2 reasons. I can only manage to think of the reasons. I'm planning to skip the examples and elaborate on the 2 reasons instead. Will doing this refrain me from getting a perfect score in Question Type1?

Alternatively, I can manage to come up with only 1 reason with a strong example to support it. Is this better than my previous approach i.e using 2 reasons with no examples?

I'm not sure about the relevancy of TOEFL prep questions on the Academia Stack Exchange (you're probably better off using a forum like this one) but to answer your question: The official guide to the TOEFL published by ETS states:

  This question will always ask you both to describe something (for example, an  important event, a favorite activity, an influential person) and to give reasons-to  explain why the event was important, why the activity is one of your favorites,  how the person influenced you, and so on. Be sure to respond to all parts of the  question. Your response should include specific details and/or examples because they will make your description informative and your reasons comprehensible.

If you think you can make your description informative and your reasons clear without concrete examples, do so. In my opinion, it is better to stick the official guide's recommendation. However, it does not specify any specific number of reasons and examples. I got a full score and I only gave one reason but elaborated on it with a specific example and a detailed argument.


Is it a good idea to go to a university just because of its high international ranking? I'm an international student and I'm currently studying pure mathematics in undergraduate level with a relatively low GPA (~3.5/4.0). I've recently read so many positive reviews about the universities in Singapore. I checked the "National University of Singapore (NUS)" on the internet for its international ranking and it was ranked 9th in mathematics!

How much do you think the ranking of a university positively affects my future career? For example, one of my dreams is that I can study in some Ivy-league university in the USA or some grand ecole university in France like Paris Sud 11 in the future, but because of my low GPA I'm afraid that that will never happen for me. Do you think that going to the NUS can help me to get accepted into world top universities in the future?

Is it a good idea to go to “National University of Singapore”

It may be. I have recently visited NUS, and talked to a lot of smart faculty and some truly outstanding students. Personally, I can only recommend both NUS and NTU Singapore. Singaporean universities are well-funded and offer a reasonable research environment. Singapore itself is also a nice place to live, with a quite interesting mixture of different cultures, lots of food, high standard of living, etc.

  just because of its high international ranking?

Oh god no.

If you want to go to NUS, then because of the reasons stated above. It think convincing the world that university-level rankings are a good thing is the largest disservice that the US has done to research. Let me make this clear - if you graduate from NUS and do uninteresting research, nobody will hire you. If you graduate from another reasonable university and do good research, you will find a post.

  Do you think that going to the NUS can help me to get accepted into world top universities in the future?

Only for the reasons stated above - NUS has an environment that certainly enables you to do world-class research. For this reason, NUS may certainly help you get into a top university, but it does not make you accepted. The hard part (being a good researcher) will still be required from you.


Can I withdraw an accepted paper if the fees are higher than expected because the proof is longer? I have received the acceptance of my paper from Editor board. However, the print charges is much higher than I expected. My original manuscript contained only 12 pages but the proof (final version), which was sent to me contains 24 pages. So the print charges are doubled.

Now I want to withdraw this paper. Is it ethical/acceptable/legal?

You can withdraw the paper.

That said, it is expected that you are informed about the rules before you submit. Unless those prices/editing practices were hidden upon submission, it would not be professional to have your paper reviewed by 2-3 experts, evaluated by an editor, perhaps multiple times, and then withdrawn because you do not agree with the publication policies.

Your particular case makes me think that your submission was within the declared costs, and that the editing process made it longer than required.

What I can recommend to you is to explain your situation to the editor and to the publishing staff. You might obtain a fee waiver, or a discount.


When should the grading scheme for quizzes and exams be finalized? I am currently working as a graduate teaching assistant for a semester-long introductory physics course, aimed primarily at Biology/Pre-Med undergrads. The students usually have a short quiz every two weeks in a discussion section, along with two prelims (mid-terms) and one final exam. The TAs make the grading schemes for their own quizzes as each discussion section has a different quiz.
One thing that I find very strange with the grading (quiz or prelim) is that the grading scheme is made after seeing the answer sheets submitted by the students, not before. The intention behind doing so (at least for the quizzes) is to assign less points to the harder questions and more to the easier ones so that the average is roughly 7.5/10 (this is a soft rule).
Similarly, on the prelim, the points for individual sub-questions were decided after conducting the exam and seeing a few answer sheets (points for each question were fixed beforehand).

Is this a standard practice for introductory physics courses in the US?

What are the benefits of this practice over deciding a grading scheme beforehand?

From an answer describing a good grading system:

At minimum, a good grading system should meet three criteria:

it should accurately reflect differences in student performance
it should be clear to students so they can chart their own progress
it should be fair

On the first two counts, making the grading scheme afterwards seems to be a bad choice:

Accurately reflecting differences in student performance → making the grading scheme later may bias the grader towards assigning higher points for conceptually easy questions instead of more challenging ones.
Clear to students → the points for individual sub-questions are not assigned beforehand so students cannot judge how much time they should devote to different problems.

This seems perfectly reasonable to me. In this type of freshman physics course, there are some very common difficulties that students have:

Physics is counterintuitive, e.g., students often intuitively believe in some kind of half-baked aristotelianism, and this belief can be resistant to instruction.
Students try to solve problems by shopping for a formula that has the right letters in it, and then plugging numbers into the formula. They don't think about what the formula means, when it's true and when it's false, etc.

This is all very well documented in the pedagogical literature. The best summary I know of, although it's out of date, is in Mazur's book Peer Instruction. Mazur shows a lot of evidence that physics instructors are in denial about what their students are really learning and about the (in)effectiveness of traditional teaching methods. There is a huge gap between how physicists think about their subject and how their students think about it.

A lot of these issues are qualitatively different than in other fields, such as mathematics. E.g., I don't think students have deeply held intuitive preconceptions about derivatives and integrals before they walk into a freshman calc course. In a course like freshman calc, a lot of what the students are learning to do really is just algorithmic -- there's a reason it's called calculus.

For these reasons, it can be extremely difficult for an instructor in a freshman physics course to write appropriate exam questions. Results can be really horrible if you write questions that require conceptual understanding, multistep problem-solving, symbolic rather than numerical calculation, or interpretation of symbolic results. You can write problems that just require plug-and-chug, but then you're dumbing down your educational standards.

Because of the gap between how instructors think about physics and how most students think about physics, there is a real danger when setting an exam that you will be taken by surprise by how horrible the results are. This is particularly likely to happen with inexperienced instructors. Fiddling with standards after taking a look at the answers is IMO not an unreasonable way to prevent this kind of meltdown. Especially for a non-tenured instructor who can't afford bad teaching evaluations, I think it's pretty understandable to do this. As time goes on, people usually get a better feel for what kinds of questions will be hard. If I were evaluating someone for tenure, I would rather see them doing the kinds of things described in the question than see them writing plug-and-chug exams.

There is one thing that does seem a little odd to me about the specific situation described in the question. If I'm understanding the question correctly, the instructor in charge of the course seems to have delegated the writing of some of the lower-stakes quizzes to TAs, but the instructor will still be the one writing the final. However, there doesn't seem to be any mechanism for making sure that the standards and style are consistent throughout the course. Ideally students would be doing homework that is similar in style and difficulty to the quizzes, prelims, and final. The instructor should be setting the tone as to what should be the mix of easy and hard, concepts and mathematics, numerical and symbolic. If that isn't happening, then something is wrong.

Daniel R. Collins wrote in a comment:

  In future semesters adjust the tests so that's not needed. Personally, I don't find it hard to dial in an appropriate difficulty level after the first semester.

If these questions are being written entirely by TAs, with almost no supervision by the instructor, then it seems unlikely that there is any institutional memory that would allow this type of adjustment to occur over time. If that is the case, then the serious problem is lack of supervision, guidance, and institutional memory -- not a particular practice in grading quizzes.


Best options for publishing original research without being in academia? What are the best options for publishing an original piece of research for someone who is not in academia? The main issues are:

zero prior publications, i.e. no reputation whatsoever in the given field,
no contacts, i.e. no-one that can step in as a "referee" or a "supervisor",
no academic titles in the given field (ex. a PhD or something equivalent).

The research is original and does provide new information about a given topic. But given the above limitations the options are not obvious.

What can one do in this case? I heard people who are starting out in publishing can post on arXiv.org, and once they have a couple of "published" papers respectable journals will be more likely to consider the candidate.

Is there any advice out there for people doing research as hobby?

My advice: Work on the second point, get contacts.
Send an email to people working on related topics, ask them if they would like to take a look at your work, if you can ask them a question, etc.
If possible, try to contact PhD candidates or recent post docs, as they often have more time available than a professor and might be more willing to look at what you did. For that you should have a nicely written, complete draft available, that is both short and informative and that is nice to read - for example: don't put way to long equations, try to drop these and state that "one can prove, that...", maybe adding that you will send the proof if needed.

Once you have established a contact, the first thing should be to find out if what you did is really worth a publication. Maybe it is already known and you simply don't have access to the journal? Maybe it is not interesting enough, e.g. it might be considered a simple homework exercise for someone who is an expert on the field?

If the expert agrees that what you did is indeed new and a nice result worthy of being published, ask him for advice to proceed. If possible, get him as a co-author or ask him to refer you to one. Such a co-author might take care of things like

Literature review.
Explaining why the found results are important and have an impact on topic X.
Which journal to send to?
Given his (known) name, journals will no longer reject due to unknown author.
...

Of course you would not be the single author anymore and people might think that your co-author came up with the idea. How to deal with this topic depends on what you plan to do next: Do you want to go for an academic career? Do you say you don't care as long as people get to read your results, because you are only doing research in your free time and it will most likely be years until your next publication?


Is it wise to choose a better journal with lesser number of similar papers? I need to choose between two journals for my article. Both candidates are, in principle, suitable for the topic. One of them has a (considerably) larger number of articles similar to mine but the other one is a better journal in my opinion. The first one is a journal of both research articles and educational articles. Whereas the second one is a journal of purely new research.

My article is about the re-derivation of a very well-known result using fewer axioms. Thus, it is new research but might be more appreciated by a community engaged in both research and education. So, I am confused as to which one to choose. Personally, if both the journals were ready to accept my article, then I would choose the second one (the one with only research articles) for its more serious tone and thus, for the possibility of my article getting more serious attention.

But I think I need to make a choice incorporating the chances of acceptance as well.

Ask colleagues more experienced than you, ideally colleagues with experience of submitting to those journals, what they think of your chances.

If there is a question of whether your article fits in the scope of a journal, you could also ask an editor whether they would welcome a submission such as yours.

Usually, though, it will end up being a judgement call. You could, of course, submit to your top choice, and then go with the other one if your paper gets rejected. This is quite commonly done, even if the top journal is a long shot. However, this takes a lot of time and effort, and in my opinion it is often not as good a use of your time as getting something punished quickly and moving on to new work.


How to change author profile name in Google Scholar? I would like to change my author profile name after a divorce in Google Scholar. I tried to open a new account with my maiden name but I couldn't When I entered my current account on Google, it doesn't give me any fields to be able to write my maiden name. Is there a way to edit or change it easily?

While signed in, visit My Citations in Google Scholar.

Click on the "Edit" button next to your name to change the name in your author profile.

Click "Save" after you have made your changes.


Recommendation letter from advisor with different research interest While I was an undergrad, I wrote a paper on topic A with my advisor. Currently, I'm working in a research institution with an Economist whose work mainly lies on topic B. However, I've come to understand that I do not like A or B, but I'm more interested in topic C, and I've done some independent study on topic C. I'm thinking of asking my undergrad advisor and my current Economist for recommendation letter to apply for PhD in topic C.

How will admission committee for PhD view such recommendation letters from academics whose work is not on my current interest? That is, will it have any negative influence in my application, if I seemed to change my interest often?

To be specific, all topic A, B and C is under the field of Economics, but are vastly different from one another (especially the switch from A to B; it was like learning completely new subject). Knowledge gained from A and B can only be partially transferred to C.

Related, but does not quite answer the question that I have: Value of recommendation letters from professors in a different field. My question is more focused on the fact that two recommendation letters will show my interest in certain research topics were very short-lived.

I think it depends on exactly how long you worked with these two individuals and what you accomplished. You want strong letters, so if you worked with both of them long enough for them to assess your basic research abilities and potential to develop into an independent researcher, I think the fact that they don't work in your exact desired field won't matter much. The fact that all three topics fall under the same Economics umbrella probably makes it even less of an issue.

It is true that sustained interest in a field/topic is usually a positive. However, I think you and your recommendation letters can spin even short-lived interests into a positive thing if you demonstrate that your prior experiences in A and B were valuable from a research skills development standpoint, while also helping you narrow your research interests down to topic C. Switching topics after you start a PhD can become difficult (especially the longer you wait), so admissions committees may look favorably on any prior work that helps you discover your research passion.


How to write a recommendation letter if you are not sure about its appropriateness As supervisors, many times we are asked to write recommendation letters.
In my case, I have been recently asked to write one for a student, who is looking to enroll in a Ph.D. program.
Due to the short time working under my supervision and the lack of results, it is not easy to highlight their strong points.
In fact, It is also difficult to emit my recommendation.
What would you do if you were in my shoes?

Decline on the grounds that, indeed, you've worked too little together.

However (and actually adding to Peter K.'s answer), a discussion in order to understand why they chose you might be useful -- meaning that usually one asks for recommendation from people with whom they've worked longer. If their background and intentions don't seem suitable, maybe also tip them that another career path would be better?


Five-year cutoff for postdocs? I am currently a postdoc in a genomics lab, doing computational work. I will be completing three years in the lab, this fall (this in the US). I graduated with a PhD in theoretical physics in 2012 (US university) and during a postdoc year at an obscure lab somewhere in Europe (this was the only offer I could land), I decided to switch fields and move into computational biology. It took me about a year to figure out the background for the field and land another postdoc (which is where I am now). I have managed to publish one paper in a high impact journal at this lab and also picked up lots of bioinformatics techniques.

However, the lab is not a good fit for me. It's not really multi-disciplinary and does not use any of my physics skills. But by going to conferences and talking to other people, I have managed to figure out what kind of work I'd like to do in the broad field of computational biology. I've also taught myself the necessary analysis methods that would be helpful.

So here's my question: I am going to apply this fall for another postdoc in labs that are much more aligned with my interests and where I can be a better fit. (a) But some universities specifically state that the PhD should be within five years. (b) Others state that the total postdoc time (including previous experiences) should be five years. (c) And there are yet others which state that the total postdoc time at that particular university should be five years.

Cases (a) and (b) could hurt me. Are there other researchers here who've been in similar (or remotely similar) situations? How strict are these five-year cut-offs? I have now acquired a lot of skills and have a much better vision of where I'd like to take my research in computational biology. I am worried though that this five-year cutoff rule could hurt my research plans and career.

In physics itself, I know many post-docs who did more than two post-doctoral stints with a total time exceeding five years. I wonder how they managed to deal with this rule?

At least in the US, postdocs are hired by individual faculty members without consultation from others, so the guidelines are somewhat fungible, particularly if there's a compelling reason to hire you.

The one exception is for external (and some internal) fellowships—in such cases, the recency rules are pretty much absolute.

In other countries, though, the rules for what is or is not allowed are stricter, and it may not be possible to circumvent them without significant amounts of work on the part of all involved.


Why does academia.edu reserve the right to sell, modify, and "exploit" my papers if I post them there? In academia.edu's terms of service, it says

  By making available any Member Content on or through the Site or Services, you hereby grant to Academia.edu a worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free license, with the right to sublicense, to use, view, copy, adapt, modify, distribute, license, sell, transfer, publicly display, publicly perform, transmit, stream, broadcast and otherwise exploit such Member Content only on, through or by means of the Site or Services.

This seems crazy, and posting anything there would clearly violate even the most lenient publisher agreement (for instance, many math publishers allow me to post the final paper on the internet, but not to sell it).  Furthermore, these terms seem potentially very harmful to the users.  What is their rationale for employing such terms?  And why would anyone in their right mind even consider posting a paper there?

Note (as of July 2016): this part of the terms of service have changed and seems slightly less horrific.  Though other parts seem more insane, and also in contradiction with each other, like they own all your intellectual property rights.

It's not necessarily crazy for academia.edu to ask for these things (although, as I say below, I certainly don't think users should agree to these terms).  I imagine their lawyers advised them to use an agreement that covers all possible use cases as their business model evolves.  For example, if they decided to charge their users membership fees, and only users who paid the fees got access to the site and could view profiles and download papers, then that would be tantamount to selling the papers and other user data (so they couldn't do it unless they had permission to sell this content).  Posting ads on their web pages could be considered a form of commercial exploitation of the data, so they want to make sure they can do it.  They might someday want to change file formats, such as converting PDFs into future super-PDF formats, and having permission to modify content submitted by users guarantees that they could do this.  Even if they intend to take things down upon receiving requests from users, having irrevocable permission to post them means users cannot sue them for failing to take them down quickly enough.  Basically, this agreement says they can do anything they want, which is obviously very convenient for them.

For comparison, Harvard's model open access policy also retains very broad rights (although not the right to sell papers for a profit).  I believe the motivation is that universities can be trusted, and it's better for them to retain more rights than fewer, in case they need them someday.  See the notes to line 7 in the model policy for more discussion of this point.  Of course, the difference is that academia.edu is a commercial website, and even if they are trustworthy now, they might become less so in the future or be bought by someone untrustworthy.

On the other hand, even if it's not crazy for the site to ask for these rights, it's certainly crazy for users to agree!  I'm amazed that these terms of service are being used, and I assume just about nobody using the site has actually read them and understood that they are permanently granting the right to sell arbitrarily modified versions of their papers.  I hope you send them a complaint, as well as publicize this on the internet, because they need to change these terms as soon as possible.  In addition to being completely unreasonable, they clearly conflict with a large majority of copyright agreements for papers, as you point out.


Contacting authors at conference after refereeing their work There are a few questions about contacting authors of papers when acting as a referee, but my question is related to the review of conference proceedings. After reviewing a paper which was submitted as a work in progress (meaning that it is in the early stages and the author intends to receive feedback at the conference) I am wondering whether I should approach them at the conference and reveal that I was a reviewer on the work. As I reviewed the paper I thought their idea was good but there are lots of small things I've commented on; perhaps since I reviewed the paper I have read it more closely than others will.

So the conversation would be,

  Hey I read your paper, such and such title, as a reviewer before the conference and I thought it was good. I've been thinking about your ideas since then and ...

I can obviously approach them noting that I've read the proceedings, but should I reveal my work as a reviewer?

This is just my opinion; in some conferences and journals, it is specifically mentioned that the review process is blind and the authors should not know who the reviewers are.

If I was the author, I would be more comfortable with your opinion about my work, without mentioning that you have reviewed the paper.

You can simply say: "Look, I have read your paper and listened to your talk, some might say ..., but I believe .... You'd better work on ... etc"

You don't need to mention that you reviewed it at all (although they can pick it up quickly). If you explicitly mentioned it, you can put the authors in an awkward situation.


Postdoc position not specifying about required recommendation letters As I'm approaching to the end of my PhD, I recently applied for a postdoc position. Before applying, I contacted the scientist offering the position, sending my resume and some publications which are of interest for the position. He encouraged me to apply as my experience would be important for his project and he also scheduled an interview at the end of this month, saying that he's making a decision in April.

However, he didn't ask me for recommendation letters, he just told me to apply online just to make my application official. The online form only requires a resume, any other document is optional.

Neither him nor the position advertisement specyfied any information about recommendation letters (e.g., the minimum number, or whether I should upload them online or just provide the emails of my references).

Is this common in research (the position is in the USA)? Should I ask him more info now or wait untill the interview?

While it seems unusual, I'm going to guess that he knows what he wants and needs. I wouldn't send things that aren't asked for in this case, as you seem to have already made it over the line. An accidental statement in a letter might actually hurt you, but I don't see how you can be "more" accepted than accepted.

If asked, send them of course. But you will likely learn more at the interview.

Depending on his funding, he may have wide latitude in who to hire and how to do it.


How does a faculty member get to work at two universities or more? This question is a follow-up on a comment at a recent question, where Dave Clarke mentioned that an acquaintance of his has "3 professorships and 2 doctorates".

How does a faculty member get appointed simultaneously by two or more universities? Are all except one honorary posts?
Can any faculty member work with a second university with the consent of his present employer? What are the conflicts of interests that come into play usually?

The situation I've seen most often is that a professor will hold a primary appointment at school A, where they have a lab and complete their research. Often for reasons related to collaboration, school B will then give the professor an appointment in a related if not identical department. If the professor also teaches a few courses at school C, they will likely be granted an adjunct position there as well.

This was my setup when I was in graduate school; I was a grad student in bioengineering at U Pitt, and I had a secondary appointment at CMU due to both lab collaborations and my being registered in a certificate program there.


Do professors starting at a school in the US in the future have any say/influence on the decision process for that particular round of admissions? I'm a master's student applying to PhD programs this round, and a few schools will be bringing in new professors in my field of interest starting from 2021. When I sent in my applications and checked off faculty of interest, I chose "Other" and wrote their names down.
I'm just curious if these professors have any say in the admissions process? Does the school grant access to the information for those professors even if they're not yet officially affiliated with the institution?

As far as I know, in most schools there is a committee made up of professors and administrators that decides on which students get invited for interviews (or gets offer letters). While the committee members may take your interest into account, I do not think that the newly recruited professors would be part of this committee, so they likely wouldn't be directly involved in the process.
However, again depending on the university, the committee may ask different faculty members to review students and I assume newly incoming faculty might be included in the process. And even if the new faculty may not be an official reviewer, the committee may still reach out for their opinion.
So I'd say it won't hurt to include the new professors in the 'faculty of interest' category, but I would not have this be my only choice--just in case that at his university incoming faculty member opinions are not considered.


Does the eigenfactor ranking depend on number of articles in a journal? The eigenfactor is offered by ISI Web of Knowledge as an alternative journal score compared to the impact factor. It is explained on their site as follows:

  The Eigenfactor Score calculation is based on the number of times articles from the journal published in the past five years have been cited in the JCR year, but it also considers which journals have contributed these citations so that highly cited journals will influence the network more than lesser cited journals.  References from one article in a journal to another article from the same journal are removed, so that Eigenfactor Scores are not influenced by journal self-citation.

From this explanation, I am not sure whether the eigenfactor depends on the total number of articles that a journal publishes?

Wikipedia’s article on the eigenfactor.org ranking of journals answers your question:

  The Eigenfactor score is intended to measure the importance of a journal to the scientific community, by considering the origin of the incoming citations, and is thought to reflect how frequently an average researcher would access content from that journal. However, the Eigenfactor score is influenced by the size of the journal, so that the score doubles when the journal doubles in size (measured as published articles per year).

To give a simple example: the Journal of Physical Chemistry B is the highest-ranked journal in physical chemistry by this criterion… in good part because it carries the largest number of articles. It is a good journal, but under all other metrics it is not at the very top of its field.


Scheduled graduate admission interview never occured I have applied for admissions in a Ph.D program in Mathematics. It's a small department at a public university.

Some time ago, I inquired the graduate chair about my application status (he/she was the preferred adviser I've put down on the application) and was told a decision was not yet made. Furthermore, I was asked to attend an interview session, so I agreed.

However, the professor never made contact at the scheduled interview time, nor did he/she reply to my follow-up email (singular).

What should I do next? I found myself in a difficult position.

Thanks.

I would send another follow up email 1-2 weeks after the first one you sent. Inquire politely, and offer to reschedule the interview. However, do it in such a way that they're allowed to save face. Meaning, phrase things in way that don't inadvertently point a finger at them. It might sound silly to placate egos, but...welcome to academia. :-/

If nothing comes from it, I would write this program off. As Astronat said, this is pretty poor behavior, and I would add that it might be indicative of what's to come if you were to be part of that department.


Should I do another master followed by a PhD or do a PhD directly I hold a Master's degree in computer science (machine learning) and I am published (not in very top conferences).

During my Master's studies, I found out that I am more interested in the theoretical aspect of machine learning instead of the application. However, it requires more knowledge of maths, which I am lacking.

I am thinking about following another Master's degree in applied maths, perhaps that available in Netherlands. The courses include measure-theory based probability and more challenging statistics, in which I am interested.

I might also consider following a PhD (directly) in data science or applied machine learning,  which is consistent with my master's study.

which track should i consider ?

I am thinking about following another Master's degree in applied maths...The courses include measure-theory based probability and more challenging statistics, in which I am interested.

You don't need another degree to research the theoretical aspects of machine learning (instead of the application). During research, you can study any aspect of mathematics that are necessary and your supervisor et al. can help you.

  which track should i consider ?

The theoretical aspects of machine learning. Perhaps with a supervisor that is also interested in applied machine learning, so that you can switch, should you want to.