Who can submit papers to peer-reviewed journals? Financial terms, content quality, etc, is not a problem. The author has a contribution that will significantly impact the advancement of human knowledge about a particular topic.

Can anyone submit a paper? Or does it require some affiliation with a larger group such as an educational/governmental/corporate institution?

I am talking about journals of such clout as the Journal of Fluid Mechanics, Physics of Fluids, etc.

Anyone can submit a manuscript to a peer reviewed journal. The challenge that face persons without training in scientific writing through, for example, a PhD, is that the manuscript is probably far more likely to be rejected because of poor writing or other mistakes. The key issues for authoring a good paper is to have a good grip on the literature in the field, knowing the sources that should be referenced to provide the basis for the own work, to know how to write clearly, concisely and precisely, and to understand any specific publishing aspects of the field.

It is not rocket science but usually requires both good coaching and training. Approaching the authoring with care is therefore a good strategy.


What are the potential pitfalls of putting a PhD on hold to be employed by the university? I am a PhD student in an applied science subject at a UK university, part way through my first year. I have two supervisors: 'A' is a senior professor, and 'B' is a PDRA. Most of my work is centred around a large multi-university project. A is the PI on this project, and most of B's time is spent on it. B and I often work together on the same problems.

B has recently informed us that she is pregnant and will be going on maternity leave next year. By that point I will be a few months into year 2 of my PhD.

A has told me that that there is a possibility that, if I am willing, my PhD could be put on hold for the duration of A's maternity leave, and I could be employed as a RA to cover the work that she would have been doing.

My initial thought is that if this comes to pass, it would be a win/win: It would provide continuity for the project, and give me more experience and more time around the subject before my funding runs out. While the work that I would be doing would be slightly different to my PhD topic, it would be relevant and closely related.

My question is: What potential pitfalls are there here? What questions should I ask if this is formally proposed? What pros & cons can you see?

I don't know your field, so my answer might be wrong.

It seems to me that taking this opportunity runs the risk of a small lifetime earnings hit (since there's a good chance that it means you would spend an extra year at PD salary rather than TT or industry salary), but that beyond that it would only help you career-wise.  Especially since this year wouldn't count against your clock.  That is, compared to your peers graduating at the same time as you, you'll have more experience, more publications, and experience with more projects.


What motivates professors to train Ph.D students who aren't nearly as smart as them in their schooldays? Many professors got their Ph.D degrees from departments that were much more prestigious than the ones they are working in. So when they train Ph.D students in their current department, (I think)they may have the following comparisons, though they will never speak them out:

"When I was an undergraduate student in Princeton University, I could solve such problems much quickly than you graduate students do".
"When I was taking algebraic topology with *** in Princeton University, we covered the whole book within one semester while you guys...."

At the same time, the students may also have thoughts that they can never make achievements as big as their advisers in the future. For instance, they will get positions in departments that are much less prestigious.
So my question is, what motivates professors to train Ph.D students who aren't nearly as smart or excellent as them? Of course, I am comparing students and they advisers in their schooldays. I know professors just can't refuse students who want to work with them without strong reasons, but what makes them "feel happy" to work with students who are not nearly as good as them?

As often happens, I'd disagree with significant parts of the implicit and explicit premises of the question.

For example, "as good as" traditionally makes most "sense" in the solitary-hero model of mathematics, in which there is some mystical gift/talent/genius without which one cannot reach the statospheric regions... blah-blah-blah. Further, "fast problem solving" is easy to see, but not much related to serious, long-term research enterprises, so to think about "solving problems faster" is misguided (I claim).

Yes, it is convenient for an individual (as it was to some degree for me years ago) to do well in contests, because this is an easy "success" to put on one's resume. In contrast, a natural affection for mathematics is hard to document, hard to "show", and so on. Many in my cohort at Princeton years ago had done very well on the Putnam, but turned out to not really like genuine mathematics (without quick gratification) enough to finish their PhD.

And, really, should one care in one's heart about the prestige of one's workplace? Sure, in some practical regards it may have advantages in pay and "status", but there are equally obvious downsides: pressure to generate status, as possibly opposed to genuinely advancing our collective understanding (for example). Tension and stress. Who needs it?

My own preference is for students who are genuinely interested in math, as opposed to viewing it as a career choice or a vehicle for ego. (E.g., some of my students who manifested a sort of mathematical "Oedipal" complex created needless troubles for themselves, and saddened me as well.)

To my mind, the operational difficulty in making interesting, genuine contributions to advancement of our collective understanding is not our "lack of heroic genius", but the commodification of research, and corporatization of universities, insofar as it leads to a fake objectification of "research". For example, success as measured by federal funding dollars. Srsly? The federal government as font of sage wisdom about human knowledge? "Even" NSF is driven by its accountability to congress, and certainly never having enough money to fund all the reasonably worthwhile projects people propose.

In summary, I like talking about interesting (to me) mathematics with people who are willing to not try to sucker-punch me or prove they're "better than me", but, instead, "focus on the math". Likewise, I have no interest in "proving I'm better than" anyone else, because I am less interested in those feral (if typical human...) interactions than in understand mathematics better.

The backstory on my possibly-extreme context for valuation of mathematics is that while I greatly enjoyed reading a variety of mathematics books in the public library as a kid, I had no idea at all that a person could make a living by doing such stuff, and was entirely prepared to just "think about math" as a hobby after 5:00 pm at some engineering job. The idea of teaching high school math was out of the question (crowd control), and community college was barely plausible (and pay not so good). The idea that one could teach "as little as 15 hours a week" and think about math the rest of the time and get paid pretty well was amazing and unfathomable to me at the time.

Plus, I claim that "math is not so hard", if portrayed less strictly-orthodox-ly than is common when "requirements" are used as a club to beat people with. That is, the ground question is interest and aesthetic, not "genius" (which is kinda a fake thing anyway).

(It is true that some people think their students should go off by themselves and come back only when they've done something amazing, but this seems to me a pathetic waste of the (supposed) accumulated knowledge/wisdom of more experienced people... This ultra-Spartan model connects to the bad hero-model, in my opinion.)

Wait, what was the question? :)

EDIT: ... and I should add that the main benefit of going to a fancy place for grad school was to get the idea that mathematics was not the dreary, grim, tedious, ugly thing that it may be portrayed by people who feel that they are inadequate, or don't really like it after all, but are "in too deep". That was a great relief!!!


How to deal with overly helpful co-advisor? I have 3 advisors; two are great (main prof and a daily advisor) and one ('Jill') is not. Jill invited herself to my advisor team after coming back to work from a long medical leave and she's ready to Kick! Some! Butt! in the academic arena. The problem is that her help is not very helpful because:

She is not directly involved in research and has little knowledge of my area so her feedback on my work is superficial, nitpicky or just plain useless.
She is often late to our meetings which is annoying and a waste of time for me since the meetings are planned only for her benefit (I speak regularly with my daily advisor so he knows my progress but for some reason we have a weekly meeting with Jill as well).
She is a Chatty Cathy and wants to make the office one big happy family. She's the kind of person who would judge you for being on the quieter side and make it her mission to prod you out of your shell.

I find her presence draining. She on the other hand is DESPERATE to help me and feel useful, so much so that it comes off as patronizing. Basically she treats me like her duckling.
I'm in my final months of writing and I just want to get my stuff done without having to involve her, but I can't get rid of her and don't want to burn bridges. The other advisors seem fine with her. How do I best manage this dynamic without going insane?

Set a meeting with all three advisors, explain you'd like to focus entirely on the writing, and ask whether regular meetings can be replaced with less-regular meetings when you need support.


Research careers other than professor? My last question about making a career as a research scientist/staff scientist hasn't gotten many replies from people in that career, and when I tried to look for someone at my university who has that job to ask them about it, I didn't have much luck finding people. I am starting to wonder if that might be because this career path is not as common as I thought it was...

Are there PhD-level people who decide that they don't want a tenure-track position, but who really like coding/study design/analysis and decide to specialize in doing that for other people as part of their research team(s)? Or is that pretty much unheard of (or seen as extremely undesirable and only a short-term arrangement, not a career) in academia?

I know there have to be other people like me who decide they really like coding/study design/analysis, and would rather do as much of that as possible instead of taking on all the teaching/management/service responsibilities of a tenure-track professor... where do people like this go? Is it best for someone like this to head into industry, or is it common for us to end up at schools of medicine/etc. helping PIs to carry out their research?

(If this varies by field, my field is epidemiology, and my main focus is genetic epidemiology. I live in the United States, but would be happy to move to a European country too if it was possible to get a work permit.)

Several people I know who studied public health have gone onto research careers at universities that have affiliations with hospitals. They are considered faculty members, but they have no teaching responsibilities. Besides research, they are expected to contribute to submitting research grants for their respective units/departments. Some are more independent than others, with one person essentially having the responsibilities of a senior postdoc, while another runs her own group within the hospital itself. For example, this unit may represent what you're looking for (I am in no way affiliated with them, and just came across this via Google).


Development Economics Minor for CS Major I am an undergrad CS Major and am looking to minor in Development Economics, basically economics for understanding challenges created by world poverty (this is the only form of an economics minor that my school offers). I have seen several posts here regarding what a good minor for CS majors is and most of the of responses say to take what you are genuinely interested in that has a good chance of helping you career-wise in the future. I plan on to going to grad school probably for ML and I wanted to know if I should pick a different minor knowing this. My school doesn't offer a statistics minor (for grad school ML) and I also want to minor in something I am genuinely interested in - the last thing I want to do is get stuck doing a minor I hate for the possibility of grad school. Also, I am also doing undergrad research this upcoming semester; would undergrad research or a specific minor be more valuable to a grad school?

I agree with the others that it makes sense to explore what interests you at this stage. CS is already a strong major and you will be forced to specialize more later on. A few points in favor:

I don't think anyone pays too much attention to your minor, to be honest. I would weigh the transcript more heavily than the precise name of the major or minor, so if your coursework shows a strong foundation in math/stats/CS classes then I see no problem with having an additional interest.
Economic thinking is an interesting and new perspective in and of itself which could benefit you as an intellectual. I think it would broaden your horizons and give you an approach to modeling that many CS majors won't have. The intersection of econ + CS is also growing in popularity.
There is a decent community of emerging around computing for development. Some resources you might find useful are:
https://acmcompass.org/
https://didl.berkeley.edu/
https://crcs.seas.harvard.edu/
https://www.ml.cmu.edu/academics/joint-phd-mlpp.html
Maybe you can find some profiles that look like yours for inspiration.

That said, I agree with the commenters that math and statistics will be very valuable to you if you pursue ML at a higher level. So it would be good to load up on these courses now if you plan to move on to a competitive graduate degree.
Also, if by "graduate school" you mean PhD, I believe research would be much more important than adding a single line to your CV as a minor. Perhaps you could do some research at the intersection of computer science and development?


How to search for list of papers citing both papers A and B? For given papers A and B, I would like to search for all papers that cite both A and B. I guess one can generalize to papers {A,B,C,...} and find all papers that cite all of them.

A quick Google Scholar and Web of Science search revealed nothing. Google Scholar has a "cite=..." thing in the URL, which I messed with a bit to no avail.

Just get the citations of each document from the Scopus database, export the results into two files, and write a Python script that does a set intersection. You can generalize this to any files.

You can export the Scopus results to .csv files, and then use the csv python module to read the files. You can then have the set operation based on the title of the articles (even though I would also export the DOI and use it). If you know how to program in Python, writing this script shouldn't take you more than one afternoon.


Is it reasonable to not study previous research to avoid bias? I am currently a student at a tech school and otherwise unemployed.  I’ve never been a scientist or published a paper.

So I am a little skeptical of some results I have been hearing about experiments using computer simulations, and I would like to at some point do my own experiment.  (The topic is among differences in gender, homosexuality, global warming, etc., i.e. a topic that can provoke emotions.)

I figured that I should probably learn as much about research as I can before I do any experiment.  On the other hand if I learn how exactly the others did their experiment that would bias how I construct mine.  I would be prone to solving problems by doing the same thing rather than coming up with a new way to test it.

So does it make any sense to limit the study of existing experiments for the sake of more diverse testing, or should I try to learn as much about them as I can?

You should write down your thoughts now, then get on and do the proper research, before trying to do any experiment, if you wish to be taken seriously. While there is a need for radically different ideas, most research succeeds by following what has been done before ('standing on the shoulders of giants'). It is very unlikely that you will come up with something amazing without any reference to all the other intelligent people who have thought long and hard about the issue.

If you did come up with something, but without reference to any other work, the likelihood is that you would be seen as a 'nutcase', or at least viewed with deep suspicion, until you could explain yourself very clearly. Your research should not be about simply accepting what others have said. You should think critically about it, and question their assumptions and conclusions. For the most part, you do not find new ways of doing things by working in isolation, but by looking at what others have done and making different choices where you aren't fully convinced by the justification for their choice.


What value will PhD give me? I'm a lecturer (I have an MSc) at university. The university wants me to do my PhD at another country (the UK). However, I didn't think about PhD before and now it is a must or they are going to change my job to something other than teaching.

I'm thinking now what value will the PhD give me after I get it? I mean what are things that will become special in my life?

I am a Mechanical Engineering PhD, Electrical Engineering MS, Bioengineering MS, Electrical Engineering BS in USA. I was an international student and I met my wife who was also an international student when we were B.S. In order to keep our relationship, we stayed in US as students. Last year I got my green card (No green card is very difficult to find job in US, even if international student may apply working visa. Not much company is willing to hire a temporary working visa people).

Currently, I am a contractor in a small private company. My hourly paid is as same as a B.S. student that I taught when I was a PhD student. My previous labmate who is a US citizen got a government job, the other one also citizen got a position at NASA.

PhD is almost no value to most of industries. I used my PhD title to get my current job, but this job is totally unrelated to my research. Small and middle size companies do NOT spend time to train you. They need someone knowledge more than creativity.

If you want to use a PHD title, so that you can a professor. At least in USA, you need to have a few years of post-doc training first. Moreover, there are 400 applications per assistant professor position open in my previous university (Top 100 NOT Top 10).

Do NOT do a PHD if you don't have to.


My paper was accepted in Springer International Conference and National conference. What to do? We had prepared the paper and applied for National Conference. After some days came to know about the International Conference and improved the paper and applied for it. After a month we got an accept mail from Springer Conference(Not expected as we are beginners). Today we presented our paper in the National Conference and our paper was selected as the Best Paper as well as got shortlisted for the International Journal. Now we are totally confused what to do ? Can we accept for publishing in the Journal but the Slight Modified (Improved) paper will be getting published in Springer Conference in July this year. Will this lead to any problem ?

This would help a lot in boosting our resume and also getting an Admit from Good University for my Masters.

The only thing you can really do here is to contact the organizers and publishers of both journals, and indicate what is going on. More likely than not, you will need to withdraw one of the papers, as publishing both papers under very similar titles with identical scientific content (or very nearly so) is considered inappropriate.


During an application/interview should an applicant justify leaving a current faculty position (pre-tenure)? I have been in a tenure-track position for 3 years and am going back on the job market. Would I be expected to "explain" why I am leaving, especially when it is pre-tenure? I suspect that a search committee might think I'm leaving because I felt in danger of not receiving tenure -- that is not the case here. However, my reasons for leaving stem from a two-body problem that I'd prefer not to disclose until after an offer is made.

A more concrete way of asking: how should the application cover letter look different, coming from someone currently holding a faculty position compared to a newly minted PhD?

It's not uncommon for people to move because of two-body issues, and if you're not comfortable disclosing the specific reasons, one possibility is to mention (at interview time) that you have non-academic constraints that force your departure from a place that you like.

Having said that, you're not going to get an interview call unless you're a superstar and everyone wants you OR you have some positive argument for why you're interested in a particular university. So in your cover letter you'll at least need to provide some positive reasons.


What is the mean in an standard exam? (For grading on a curve) Suppose a grading system is used in which grades vary between 1 and 100. Grades below 50 are failing grades. If I want to grade the students on the normal curve, which grade should I choose as the mean of the distribution? In other words, what should be the mean of the new grades? The number 50 is somehow counter-intuitive, as it results in half of the students failing the exam.

Note: This question was previously posted to stats.SE, but was voted as off-topic there.

“Grading on a curve” means that you select what percentage of grades you want to correspond to a given final grade. It’s entirely up to you how you choose the resulting mean grade using that system. If you want to make the mean a 60 or an 80 or anything else, that’s your call. Ultimately, though, the point of the curve is to avoid having “grades less than 50 are failing.”


Are distance degrees from US universities worth anything? I'm hoping some kind people could help me from making (more) big mistakes.  I've spent several years at a Canadian university, and I've gotten a good number of science and math courses under my belt.  Unfortunately, I hit a rut and made a mess of my third year, and haven't been back to finish my degree.

That was ten years ago, and just now I'm quite taken with the idea of returning to finish my computer science degree.  The problem I'm facing (and am hoping for help with) is that my life isn't compatible with the university experience.  I have a house, two toddlers, a full time job and I don't live near a university (I live in rural Canada, for reference).

Still, I'm doing my best to correct past mistakes and get back to the career path I wanted.  It turns out, undergrad degrees are not exactly flexible.  I'm not sure how long it would take me to complete the degree with full time schooling, but I've been exploring distance courses and part time, first.  Canadian universities do not like to teach computer science over the internet, it seems.

Quite a few universities from the USA are quite willing, however (see, for example Oregon State's online degree program).  I am quite uninformed about the validity of a distance degree, particularly in the computer science field.  I'm hoping someone with some experience in this area could share their thoughts on if this (distance educated computer science from a US university) is a worthwhile endeavour or if I'd best look elsewhere if I want a degree that can be taken seriously.

Any thoughts at all would be awesome, even if it's just pointing out a resource I could use to figure some of this stuff out on my own.  I'm feeling pretty overwhelmed and lost, I don't want to do this wrong a second time.

Whether an online degree program can give you what you need depends strongly on how you want to use it.  A university degree can typically provide three key assets:

Skills: the technical foundations for professional success, particularly in STEM fields like computer science.
Network: connections with fellow students in your cohort are an excellent way to bootstrap one's professional network.
Prestige: the reputation of a school for achievements in its graduates, typically closely tied to skills and network.

An good online degree program can provide you with valuable skills, but is unlikely to give you much network and is definitely lower in prestige, even for the best programs (though these are slowly gaining in respectability).  If that is enough for your goals, then an online degree program can definitely provide it---and the better US distance learning programs are often explicitly intended to serve people in situations like yours.

It is important, however, to make certain that you pick a good, accredited program, or else your degree certainly will be worthless.  Many rather nasty for-profit organizations have gotten into online education and are essentially ripping off their students.  There are some good guides online to help you figure out the difference, however, such as this one.


How do I request feedback on my paper? I have written this paper and I would like to ask, via email, from some professors in other universities to give me feedback. How is the best way to write such a request? First, what should I write in the email subject box? Then, how do I write the body of email?

Professors are busy people. If you send a random professor with whom you've never had any contact a paper and ask him or her to review it and provide feedback, odds are that you will never hear back from them, because they will ignore the request.

If you want a better response, you will need to cultivate a relationship with the faculty members over a period of time.


Potential PhD supervisor expressed interest, but had a short response. What do I reply? I emailed a potential supervisor at a US university recently. He replied promptly, cc'ing the graduate school dean in the email and saying I had a very good idea but then suggesting another research question that needs to be answered first.

I saw that no one has done it yet (nothing published, as far as I know), and I then asked if his lab is currently tackling the problem, and he simply responded:

  We are not working on it yet

I have asked the graduate school dean several questions after that, but I have not responded to the potential supervisor yet. How should I continue our correspondence? I'm really interested in the new research problem, but I don't know how to respond to him.

I think he is busy and just responded in the quickest way possible to your query. If you are interested in it, respond that you are and would like to take it up. More importantly, respond that you want to take it up under his supervision and will be following up with your formal application.

If you come up with any deep thoughts on the problem or partial solutions, you can (now or later) communicate that you have progress and maybe share some of that. Since you don't really know much about him, I wouldn't lay everything out early on, however. Wait until you can assess one another first.

If you read other questions on this site note that some of them are about unethical behavior by supervisors. I have no reason to even suspect this is the case here (and since it is rare, I doubt it). Others questions are about misunderstandings. If you are familiar with the game Poker, don't show all your cards early.


Can a publisher publish a manuscript without the authors permission? This is a follow on from Is it ethical to withdraw a paper after acceptance in order to resubmit to a better journal?

If a journal is willing to publish your submitted manuscript "as is", can you prevent them? Clearly if they want you to make changes you have the right to say no, but once the manuscript is accepted can you really withdraw it against the publisher's wish? Further, who has the final say on copy edits and type setting?

In my field we electronically sign a copyright transfer when the manuscript is submitted that comes into affect if it is accepted for publication.

Of course I'm not a lawyer, but I'd distinguish between two thresholds:

Before the paper can be published, you need to grant legal permission via a license or copyright transfer.  If you haven't done that yet, then the publisher can't force you to let them publish the paper.  That gives a narrow window in which you could still block publication after the paper is accepted (but whether you could ethically do so depends on your reason for objecting).
Once the published version has appeared (even just on the publisher's website), there's nothing you can do without a powerful reason.  At that point, you would be retracting a published paper, which is a far more serious act.

In between these thresholds, I don't know what would happen.  I'd guess that if you asked the publisher not to publish a paper you had already signed a copyright transfer for, then they would probably agree.  After all, publishing a paper against the author's wishes could look bad, even if they were legally entitled to do so.  However, if you didn't have a very good reason (such as a major error in the paper), then the publisher would be rather unhappy.  I wouldn't be surprised if they asked you to cover any copyediting or typesetting costs, and this sort of unprofessional behavior would be terrible for your reputation.

  Further, who has the final say on copy edits and type setting?

In principle this depends on the publishing agreement.  In practice, the ones I've seen usually give the publisher final say, but the publisher usually defers to the author about anything intellectually substantive during the proofreading stage.  (On the other hand, the author gets more or less no input into matters of style such as font choice, British vs. American spelling, etc.)


How to deal with the COVID-19 outbreak while organizing a conference? I am an organizer for a graduate student conference in Mathematics occurring in April. My co-organizers and I are debating on a plan for what to do if the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States worsens. Right now, most of the participants are from states with no confirmed cases of the coronavirus, but this may change rapidly as the situation develops between now and the conference.

This is an issue other conferences throughout history have surely had to deal with, so I wanted to ask StackExchange if there were any best practices around for dealing with an issue like this. Some questions:

How far out should the go/no go decision be made? If the conference is late April, should we be planning to let participants and speakers know by early April so they can cancel flights and so on?
What criteria should best inform whether we cancel or not? Number of cases in the participants' states for instance?
In the event we are to cancel the conference, how can we still give the speakers a chance to advertise their results? Have there been successful "video conferences" before where the organizers collect video for each talk and then upload them and participants can make comments?

Regarding remote conferences, these have been successful. Often the motivating factor has been mitigating climate impact. For example, Yale Climate Connections wrote an article giving advice for running virtual conferences. Author Sara Peach presents three kinds of virtual conferencing, all of which have been done successfully:

remote presentations in a traditional conference format. If people choose to not travel, they can still remote in or follow the session on social media. (Example: AGU)
hub-based conference, where people gather in regional clusters. Each hub has some of its own content but are able to watch each other's presentations. (Example: International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition)
an entirely remote conference, where people record and upload videos of presentations and conferencegoers have weeks to ask questions and interact. (Example: A Nearly Carbon-Neutral Conference Model)

I'll add that an entirely virtual synchronous conference has also been done successfully. One example is NACADA, the Global Community for Academic Advising, which ran a 24-hour live-streaming virtual conference.

The mixed-conference or hub models may or may not be feasible, since they would still involve people gathering in some models, and you aren't sure yet whether that will be feasible on any scale. Also, developing regional hubs would take time you don't have.  Thus, if you decide to go entirely virtual, a synchronous-with-live-streaming conference and a asynchronous recorded approach have been done, and the resources linked should provide a way to start researching or planning that model. I also advise contacting your own IT department about the possibility.


Do I need to wait for a journal to "consent" to paper withdrawal before submitting elsewhere? I have a question about submission elsewhere and journal's "consent" of paper withdrawing.

Recently I have withdrawn a paper of mine from a journal, which I want to submit elsewhere. Since I knew that the journal had received my email (by read receipt device) on withdrawing the paper and since I am just in the stage of being notified that the paper has been accepted for publication, the problem is: In order to submit the paper elsewhere, do I have to wait for the journal to consent to the withdrawal?

I am looking for some ethical advice.

I'd recommend waiting a week or two to see whether you get a response to your withdrawal.  At this stage it can't be urgent to resubmit immediately, and having their reply would guarantee that they are aware that you have withdrawn the paper.  (By contrast, I don't think an e-mail read receipt means much.  For all you know, an administrative assistant opened the e-mail and then mistakenly deleted it without realizing what it said.)  I wouldn't go so far as to say you are required to wait for a response, but better safe than sorry.

I think you've got a much bigger issue to worry about, though, and that's why you withdrew the paper after acceptance.  At least in mathematics, withdrawing an accepted paper is extremely unusual.  To a first approximation, it typically means there's something seriously wrong with either the paper or the journal.  You can certainly do it, but given the effort that has gone into handling and refereeing the paper, you will cause offense if you don't have a very good reason.

If you inadvertently submitted the paper to a junk or predatory journal, then you don't need to worry about causing offense.  (Offending the editors of predatory journals is not a bad thing.)  In that case, withdrawing the paper is certainly the right decision.

If you dreadfully screwed up in your choice of journal, for example by submitting a brilliant breakthrough to a respectable but not impressive journal without realizing how good the paper was, then you should apologize profusely for wasting everyone's time.  Hopefully they'll understand that it was a genuine mistake on your part, and they'll sympathize with the awkward position you are in and give their blessing to resubmitting elsewhere.

If the paper is seriously flawed, then that's a respectable reason to withdraw it.  You might look bad for having submitted it, but then again, the referee didn't find the mistake either.  But this isn't a compelling reason to submit elsewhere soon: if you don't check whether the original journal is willing to publish the revised paper, then it looks like the changes were just an excuse to withdraw the paper.

Under normal circumstances, it will cause offense if people think you are withdrawing an accepted paper just to try your luck at a more prestigious journal.  In particular, this is a dangerous impression to leave if you ever hope to submit to this journal again.  As an editor, I would certainly not be happy to see a new submission from an author who had previously withdrawn an accepted paper without a compelling excuse.

All this gives you another reason to move slowly and wait for a reply.  If you have a good reason for withdrawal, then it's worth making sure you have communicated it clearly.  In any case, you are doing something rather unusual and serious, and it's best not to give the impression you are treating it lightly or casually.


How to edit the pre uploaded full text article on ResearchGate I found my article pre uploaded on ResearchGate.
But the fact is, I updated it and republished it in the same journal and it has same DOI.
I want to delete the older version of the article from ResearchGate and upload a new one.
Is there any way to do this or ResearchGate updates it automatically?


Should I include a reference for an image that is released into the public domain? I am writing my thesis and came across an image on Wikipedia that I would like to use. The licensing on this image is:

  I, the copyright holder of this work, release this work into the public domain. This applies worldwide.
  In some countries this may not be legally possible; if so:
  I grant anyone the right to use this work for any purpose, without any conditions, unless such conditions are required by law.

Should I still include a reference to indicate this image is not my own work, if so, who should be given credit (the author is not known in this case)?

Should I still include a reference to indicate this image is not my
  own work

YES If the idea is not yours, you need to reference it.

  Who should be given credit

That is a harder question. Ideally, you should find the original author/source. Given a reasonable attempt to find the original author/source fails then reference the secondary/reproduction (i.e., wikipedia/wikimedia).


Taking PhD course with potential advisor? I have been told by other grad students that it is a good idea to take the Ph.D. course given by a professor who you would want to be advised by in the future and even joining their lab.
In my case, there is a course given by a professor who I would want as a graduate advisor and possibly having him on my committee. This is an applied machine learning course in the PSYC department (I'm a social science Ph.D. student). However, there is also a graduate machine learning course given in the CS department that is more advanced, and I would obviously get more out of it.
So, should I take the course given by the potential advisor, or the more "interesting" course risking the lack of exposure?

It is certainly worthwhile to get to know your potential advisor, and get noticed back. Taking the course might help you explore common interests, even hint at potential thesis thema.
Taking a more advanced course can get you faster to the bleeding edge where your thesis will presumably move, if it is primarily in the area. Then again, you'll soon have to move beyond coursework. Perhaps somebody teaching the other courses is a better match?
Knowing nothing about your background, the involved courses, your interests and the ones of potential advisors, it is impossible to give real advise.


Two abstracts accepted for oral and poster presentation, but I prefer they are swapped A conference has accepted my two abstracts in the same track, the first for an oral presentation and the second as a poster.

However, I expected the second one would be accepted for oral presentation, as I believe it is more important and relevant to the area and probably to the track and the conference in general. It is also about my primary work, which is more sophisticated and robust than the first one, and I think it would be better for me to present it orally.

But I understand the conference committee have their evaluation and criteria for deciding the way of presentation for each abstract.

Shall I just accept this allocation, which is good anyway? Or is it common and accepted to request, with justification, that they swap the two abstracts - provided they didn't print and disseminate the program yet?

It does not hurt to ask. You can send a polite email explaining your reasons and ask if it is still possible to swap the talk with the poster. It is possible that the decision of the conference committee was based only on the number of slots available, and they will not hesitate to swap talks at all. It may be also that their decision, as you described, is based on some evaluation of strengths of the abstract and potential interest to it among the participants. In this case they will simply refuse to do as you ask, but you lose nothing but a bit of time.

The request to swap talks is not quite common, I guess, but also not unaccepted or weird. I would say, it is worth to try.


Using data in second study w/o consulting all authors I just submitted an article using data from another study that was done together with a colleague. I am (technically) the first author of the first study, though we are equally credited first authors and we did refine the first study’s design together, though it was my idea and I wrote the software that eventually performed the data collection. I did say that the data came from our original study and cited it in the second.

He is upset as I did not ask him for permission to use the data from our joint project (I could probably still tell the journal to add him to the acknowledgements). But, he also wants to be credited as an author, even though he did not contribute to the current study. Does using data from a previous joint project warrant his authorship?

As with most authorship discussions, the issue is somewhat nuanced:

On a purely technical level, everything appears to be in order. The two of you conducted a study, and you published it together. You did a second study alone based on material from the first study, and credited it correctly. No academic misconduct has happened in any part of this process.
However, on an emotional, personal level, it is easy to see that your co-author probably assumed that you would continue working on this project together, and he feels betrayed by you taking a significant chunk from your earlier joint work and exploiting it without is knowledge, and without giving him a chance to partake and continue to get credit. Note that the issue here is not so much that he is not a co-author of a study that he did not contribute to, but that you presumably never gave him a chance to contribute and continue to be part of the project.

Edit:
Based on the OP's comments, it's not actually clear to me anymore whether the co-author did not in fact also deserve authorship in the second study. Personally, I would at the very least be highly uncomfortable using unreleased, so-far unused data that somebody else helped collect.

As is often the case, I feel it would help if you put yourself into your co-author's shoes. Would you feel that everything is ok if the roles were reversed, and your co-author just conducted this follow-up without telling you, and based partly on your earlier work and data that you collected?

Unfortunately, it is difficult to move forward from where you currently are without any hard feelings. Adding your previous co-author to the new study, if even possible, is not ethical as (s)he did not contribute, and obviously you can't go back in time and give him a chance to continue working on the project with you. I feel an important part to clean up this situation is you apologising for not handling this situation in the best way, and acknowledging why the other side is upset (rather than focusing on whether or not you have "technically" done something wrong). If your personal situation seems salvageable, (honest) promises of joint future work usually do wonders in smoothing over rocky current authorship discussions. However, if your personal relations are sufficiently tainted, it may be best to just store this away as a learning experience and move on rather than continue working in a collaboration where the trust has been lost.


When someone says a paper is published "in Nature", does that mean it's published in *Nature*? Oftentimes, researchers talk about a paper that's been published "in Nature" (typically to establish its notoriety).  However, I would like to clarify exactly what this means.

Along with Nature, the Nature Publishing Group publishes a wide range of journals, including journals with the word "Nature" in the title, such as Nature Biotechnology, Nature Cell Biology, and so on.  Other journals published by Nature Publishing Group do not include the word "Nature" in the title, such as Heredity, Molecular Systems Biology, and so on.  (See the journal index.)  With this in mind, it does not seem clear to me exactly what it means to have published "in Nature".

  Question: When someone says they've published "in Nature", does this literally mean they have published in the journal entitled Nature?

I've never heard a neuroscientist say they published in Nature, if it was in Nature Neuroscience.


Does becoming good at scientific research force one to become one dimensional? I'm an individual interested in multiple academic disciplines such as neuroscience, biological engineering, computer science, history, anthropology, psychology, political theory ... to name just a few. Currently, I have a normal (40 hours/week) engineering job that leaves me enough free time to follow these topics to a moderately satisfying degree.

However, primarily due to intellectual curiosity, I'm considering doing a PhD (in Europe) and would ideally want to move to research later (discipline: something along the lines of genetic engineering, computational biology or cognitive neuroscience - not sure yet, but my background is in computer science). Given the highly specialized nature of modern scientific research that seems to demand intense working hours, one concern that I have is the fear of becoming highly one dimensional: completely failing to follow progress in other fields and in society as a whole, with publish or perish environment creating an inescapable feedback loop, where one cannot afford to read articles and books on topics not related to work, or follow public debates; yet alone write a blog about e.g. social issues.

I realize there are academics out there who seem to be prolific across multiple disciplines (e.g. Chomsky, Pinker ...), but the question still stands: in a modern research environment, can one satisfy multiple intellectual interests that transcend immediate work requirements, or has the game become too competitive and focused for that? What are the main variables?

You can do it, but you might not be a professor. I have a PhD in Aerospace Engineering, and I work in CFD, HPC clusters, and BigData/analytics when I do research. My primary job is running the HPC department at a large-ish computing center. If I were a professor, I doubt I could pull this off. My research output is much smaller that professors my age, but I still have a pretty satisfying career.

You best chance for doing lots of different kinds of research is to find a center who appreciates you for your broad interests and to help it grow its mission while pursuing your more esoteric interests when you can.


How does a graduate admissions committee consider junior/senior grades that are not yet available? When transcripts are submitted as part of your graduate admission's package, how can the graduate admissions staff consider your junior/senior grades, when your applying to the program a year in advance? Basically, when you submit your transcript, you will only have your freshmen, sophomore, and junior grades listed. How do the committee estimate your senior grades when they have not been completed?

You're right, most programs simply don't take 4th-year grades into account. If you want, you can send them an additional transcript once Fall semester grades are released (some schools will request that you do this), but for the most part that's just how admissions works.


Academic mobility and the 2020 UK research review The UK Research Excellence Framework (REF) is the centralised mechanism by which the government determines the research output quality of an institution.

In the 2013 UK REF, it was possible for researchers/academics to move to a new institution just before the REF but still have research performed entirely at their old institution count towards the new one.

Is this still to be the case with the 2020 REF?

TL/DR: We don't know yet, but outputs will probably not be portable.

In July 2016 Lord Stern published the Independent Report: Research Excellence Framework Review. The report identified recruitment (i.e., poaching) as a behavior designed to "game" the system and:

  We therefore recommend that outputs should be submitted only by the institution where the output was demonstrably generated. If individuals transfer between institutions (including from overseas) during the REF period, their works should be allocated to the HEI where they were based when the work was accepted for publication.

This report was a reflection on the 2014 REF (and earlier RAEs). The post 2014 REF has not been fully defined (or really even partially defined). The Department for Education responded on 13 October 2016 to Lord Stern's report. In general, the response was positive and the Department for Education has asked HFECE to create "specific and detailed practical arrangements". The HEFCE posted a brief on 16 Oct 2016 about the plans going forward. Specifically, they are now looking at "non-portability of outputs". Consultation is slated to begin November 2016.


How exhaustive should I be when enumerating works in a State of the Art I'm currently writing my PhD thesis' State Of The Art.

I have subdivided the field of study. My problem is that I found my self on many occasions writing paragraphs as follows:

  'Several authors has proposed to use the K-POP method to enhance the
  egnasticity of the computations by solving the Muffin
  equations. In [1] statistical values are used with X improvements.
  Smith [2] proposes a Montercarlo solution for Muffin with this and
  that results. Also...

And then I realize that there are at least 20 different ways to solve Muffin equations. I could further subdivide the field, but I don't want because this won't really contribute much to my SOA, because all I need to point out is that egnasticity can be improved using a solution to Muffin equations.

At this point I wonder: How exhaustive should I be when enumerating all the works of a given area that I don't want to subdivide any further? Should I describe all? Should I describe some and cite all? Should I describe some and cite some?

Note: needles to say 'egnasticity' or 'Muffin equations' are silly names for the example and the K-POP is usually used for different purposes than research.

It is difficult to give a general answer to "how much detail do you need to summarize", since that depends on a lot of things, but you should first of all ask your supervisor what they expect. That is always the definitive answer to "how much is enough" regarding a thesis: it doesn't really matter what answers you might get at Academia SE; what really matters is what your supervisor (and thesis committee) accept.

That said, if your goal is to provide the most useful information for researchers that might read your thesis, then I would suggest that you be as exhaustive and detailed as possible. If you have gone through the trouble to read these articles (at least enough to actually understand the differences between various Muffin equations), then it would be very helpful to others for you to spare them the read by summarizing what you have read and understood.

From what you describe, though, I don't think writing a textual paragraph would be the most helpful way to describe this information for your readers (nor the easiest for you). I recommend that you present these details in a table which cuts out all the fluffy words and just gets to the point: the name of each variation; the citation of the article that presents it; the key details that distinguishes it from other variations; the pros and cons. In addition, if you could group the 20 variations into three to six categories that are similar to each other, that would be a further helpful layer of synthesis.

There are two further advantages of using a table:

For yourself, a table helps you focus on what is essential in each article. By carefully thinking about the structure of the table (mainly, which columns are necessary), you help yourself to better understand what you're reading and to focus on what you consider important.
You don't need to worry about which ones are "worth" summarizing or in how much detail: you just simply summarize everything, briefly and to the point. That said, if a few variations stand out to you as important, then by all means write as many paragraphs as you want to that discuss these ones in detail. But then you won't need to do that for any of the others that you have already briefly summarized.


Advisor asking me to do review work after my PhD is finished In the question Is it common to review papers assigned to your supervisor?, it is answered that it is not uncommon for the advisor to ask a student to review a paper.

I was ok with it during my PhD program. But now my PhD is finished, and even though I keep working with my advisor on some research papers related to my thesis, he sent me a new request to review a paper on his behalf.

I really would not like to review this paper, as it was not assigned directly to me and I'm not a PhD student anymore. On the other hand, I don't want to sound rude and, in the future, I plan to work as a teacher on the same university, so I wouldn't like to burn any bridges.

How should I answer to this?

I think this dilemma can be best understood by separating it into two sub-questions:

To what extent should you be doing reviews after graduation?
Assuming you are doing reviews, does it matter whether they are sub-review requests coming from your former advisor?

For the first question, there are already good answers on this site about number of reviews and about whether reviewing is mandatory.  Both essentially say that reviewing is good community service but never required, and it's better to not review than to give a poor quality or resentful review. Considering this, if this paper came as a direct review request to you from a journal / conference rather than a sub-review request from your former advisor, would you be willing to review it?  If the answer is no (which I think it might be given what you wrote in your question), then the fact that it came from your former advisor is beside the point; you can politely decline just like you would if you had been asked directly.

Now, if you would be willing to review if asked directly, but not when asked as a sub-reviewer by your former advisor, you need to ask yourself why this is, and frame your response accordingly.  For example:

If you are concerned about getting credit for your service and the review request is from a journal, then you can tell your former advisor you're wanting to build relationships with journals and ask them to have the journal transfer the review request (conferences may be unwilling to transfer, depending on how they manage their program committee).
If you're feeling resentful because you want to "leave the nest" and the way that you were asked makes you feel your advisor is still treating you like a student, then you might respond by saying you are very busy in your current position (no doubt true) and suggesting that your former advisor send this to one of their current students instead of you.

Other reasons may have other responses, but these are the main ones that I could think of, and I think may cover the most likely possibilities.


Citations in interview transcript I'm editing an interview transcript. One of the speakers mentions a concept popularized in an academic paper. Would I add the citation within the interview transcript?

I recommend against adding an in-text citation, but you could use a footnote if you think it's important. But it may not be. For example, if you were interviewing someone about current theories on some topic, and the person referred to 8 different theorists in one paragraph, it would disrupt the reading of the text to add all those citations. An interview is what it is---less formal spoken language unburdened by the necessity of validating statements with citations. You can add bracketed changes to a transcript when something is really unclear, but you shouldn't amplify someone's speech because you think it's missing something. Take it as it is and do any amplifying in the following text.


What is the difference between early career research positions I am looking for the differences between the following positions:

Researcher
Postdoctoral fellow
Postdoctoral researcher

Researcher may be a permanent position (or not). Post docs are usually term limited and possibly renewable, but not likely indefinitely.

But I imagine that different institutions may use them interchangeably for things that are pretty similar.

Some postdocs actually do a bit of teaching and advising, and in that case, might not be best described as "researchers", but I don't think there is any universally valid terminology for these things.

But each offering announcement should make clear what the expected duties are and, how free you will be, or not be, to carry out your own research.


How should I ask professor for letter of recommendation? I'm a freshman undergrad student, and I'm applying for some programs that require letters of recommendation. I already have one professor who seems happy to write one for me, but I have another who I don't know how to ask. In the past when I've contacted the professor, he has neglected to reply. He's quite busy and disorganized. Most people I've talked with have also had trouble contacting him. In addition, I am worried about asking because I have only had one class with him and I'm not sure he likes me or can actually write much about me.

I have a class with him starting about 3 weeks before the deadline. Should I ask now over email so he has time to look at it? Should I include information about the programs I'm planning on applying to in the initial email, or would that seem presumptuous? Thanks for any help!

If he's really your only option, e-mail him and ask if he'd be willing. Keep it short and to the point, just tell him you're applying for a program and ask if he'd be willing to write you a letter. Be sure to mention you'll supply him with a CV and any necessary info to write a proper letter if he agrees.

Hopefully, he'll respond quickly and you can send the necessary info. But as @Roboticist mentioned, you'd really be better off finding someone else if at all possible, especially since he's ignored you in the past.


Listing authorship on a resume I recently published a paper with four other colleagues. The authorship is listed as A*, B*, C*, D, E, where * represents "these authors have contributed equally to this work." I am B*. Do I list "Co-authored a paper published..." or "First co-authored a paper published..."?

If your resume has a text statement about this work, describe your contribution, not your authorship position.
The point of author ordering is to give a rough guide of level of contribution.  But if you are actually describing the work in words, you can do better than that: give specifics that highlight the importance of your role.  Examples:

Was the primary person responsible for developing algorithm X.
Designed and executed experiments showing Y.
Conceived of the original idea for the work and contributed to experimental design and statistical analysis.

This is much better information about what you did.
If in some context you need a way to describe your authorship position in words, you could call yourself:

Co-first author (along with A and C).

You would need to mention A and C so that it is clear you are one of three, not one of two.
However, I'm not convinced that people will give you much credit for being one of three "first" authors.  I probably wouldn't bother to mention it.


How do I find a supervisor for PhD studies? I am thinking of doing a PhD. Problem is, I am not a student and the only professors I do know are the ones from the university I took my bachelor and Master's degree. However I was thinking of changing institution or even moving to a relevant scientific field and thus I do not want to contact one of those professors.
I have located some institutions and faculties I might be interested in following a doctoral programme. Question is how can I contact one of the faculty professors, since I do not know them either personally or academically? Is there any other way except of spam emailing them?

The difference between "spamming", which you should not do, and a completely acceptable contact is how targeted your emails are. Make sure you know what you want and what the professor you are contacting does their research in, and that these two things align. Explain in your first email why you want to work with that specific person, what your background is, maybe also include your university transcripts. You do not need to know the professor personally before contacting them.


How to automatically add articles in Google Scholar profile for journal? Is it possible to automatically add publications to a journal's Google Scholar profile?
I know this is possible for a person's profile, because Google automatically find and adds the publications where that person is an author.
But in the case of a journal, there are numerous publications with different authors and I don't know if Google can recognize that they belong to that journal in order to automatically add them. The common criteria for automatically adding the articles should be the journal's name.

In the comments, you list two examples:

Robotics (by MDPI), and
JEEECCS

Interestingly, Google Scholar (GS) profiles are meant to showcase authors' research, and not journals' research. (Cf. GS' self-description.)
Consequently, GS contains a function that can algorithmically add new publications to your profile based on author names. But it does not provide such an automatic function based on journal names.
Thus, if you maintain a Google Scholar profile for a journal, then you need to add all publications manually.


As an undergrad, is it unethical to work in a field that I'm not interested in pursuing further in graduate school? I'm a CS undergrad in my senior year(last week!). I've been working as a part-time research assistant in a research institute. I didn't think twice when I took the job, as I just thought it would be fun, and because it's not a school, I never thought I'd continue my research in this field after this job-at least not there.

However, recently I've decided to go to a graduate school, and I want to pursue a master in a different field. I still want to finish my work and hopefully publish my current project, which would probably take 6 months to 1 year more.

During a lunch, I told another RA(graduate student) about my plan. He said that I should quit my job immediately, or otherwise it'd be abusing resource. I'm very confused right now as to how should I take this situation. Is it generally considered unacceptable or unethical for me to not quit my job?

It is definitely not unethical. Many undergraduates interested in medical careers do research in, say, biology labs, since it looks good on their applications. It is common practice in the field, and no one considers it abusive.

More importantly, oftentimes people take up RA positions specifically for a purpose like yours: to figure out whether or not graduate school is right for them and, if it is, whether they want to stay in the same area or switch to a different one. Being an RA is one of the best ways to try out a particular line of research  without a long-term commitment. That said, once you decide that you want to pursue research in a different area during grad school, it definitely doesn't mean that you should immediately resign (especially since you are planning to publish your work). Even though you are not planning to stay, you can still make a contribution!


U.S. abbreviation in APA style APA says that "U.S." should be typed out with periods if the abbreviation is being used as an adjective. If you are using this "common" abbreviation, do you need an earlier parenthetical explanation of the abbreviation?

In other words, if the progression of the text is:

"He lives in the United States ... He is a member of the U.S. Navy."

should it be:
"He lives in the United States (U.S.) ... He is a member of the U.S. Navy."

?

You can use abbreviations like U.S., IQ, DNA, cm, laser, etc. that have entries in standard dictionaries without defining them first. Here's a couple of APA blog posts expanding on this:

An Abbreviations FAQ
How Do You Spell IQ? Abbreviations as Words in APA Style

I suggest erring on the side of caution if you think the abbreviation might be misunderstood though. However, with the case of U.S. that shouldn't be a problem.


What are academic resources that provide open source lecture notes? I have just answered a similar question on ResearchGate website and thought that it could also be beneficial for the Academia.SE community to share my answer here as well (as a wiki). Obviously, corrections and contributions are very welcome. Please see my answer (initial wiki post) below.

There exist a significant number of repositories that, in one way or another, contain open source lecture notes and similar or related information materials.

First and foremost, large open courseware repositories contain information on various courses, for many, including course notes. For example:

MIT OpenCourseWare;
Open Course Library by Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges;
repository and search engine by The Open Education Consortium.

The second significant source is represented by a multitude of repositories of open source textbooks on various subjects. Such repositories include:

OpenStax College repository;
Open Textbook Library by Open Textbook Network;
MERLOT repository by California State University System and its partners;
Open Textbooks repository by Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources;
Open Access Textbooks project by Florida Distance Learning Consortium;
College Open Textbooks search engine by The College Open Textbooks Collaborative;
The Global Text Project;
Wikibooks and Wikiversity projects.

Finally, additional stream of information can be traced to individual university departments, groups, and labs. Usually, such resources are quite narrow in their coverage and might apply to specific areas of a discipline or a course. For example, see the ETH's open source course notes on advanced methods and strategies in organic chemistry. Also, many (IMHO, most) individual professors share their own course notes on their personal university-affiliated websites.


What is the proper way to include a link to a web archiving site in a list of references? This is a reference in a list of references presented in Harvard style:

Beard, M. (2003). Non-terrestrial channels overtake BBC1 and ITV1 in ratings for first time. The Independent. [online] Available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/non-terrestrial-channels-overtake-bbc1-and-itv1-in-ratings-for-first-time-116550.html [Accessed 18 May 2017].

Here is a perma.cc archival link to that reference:

https://perma.cc/9TR9-WBRG

What is the proper way to incorporate the archival URL into the citation in the list of references?

You could write

  Beard, M. (2003). Non-terrestrial channels overtake BBC1 and ITV1 in ratings for first time. The Independent. [online] Available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/non-terrestrial-channels-overtake-bbc1-and-itv1-in-ratings-for-first-time-116550.html [Accessed 18 May 2017]. (Archived at https://perma.cc/9TR9-WBRG.)

Or, you could use an archive site that includes the original URL, e.g.,

  Beard, M. (2003). Non-terrestrial channels overtake BBC1 and ITV1 in ratings for first time. The Independent. [online] Available at: https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/non-terrestrial-channels-overtake-bbc1-and-itv1-in-ratings-for-first-time-116550.html [Accessed 18 May 2017].

I favour this instance, because you only need to include one URL. (The original URL is clear from the archived URL.)


Are TED presentations academically credible? Many people, including myself, are fascinated by TED speakers. They provide us a new perspective. For example, see the TED talk The best stats you've ever seen by Hans Rosling.

However, when I talked about this to an anthropologist, he said that the statistics in this TED talk are unverifiable. He suggested that the speaker doesn't give us his sources, so therefore the talk is no longer a scientific talk. As a result, he suggested, real scientists are clever enough to stay away from these presentations.

Do TED talks have the necessary rigor and foundation to be citable in papers and other "scholarly" publications?

I think you are asking two slightly different questions at the same time:

“Are TED speakers and their ideas credible? (as in "likely to be correct")” I'd say yes, since TED's process for inviting speakers is at least as strict as that of many scientific publications. Most TED speakers are invited to speak at TED because they've become renowned scientists through their peer-reviewed publications.
“Are TED talks scientific (as in "usable to base your own science on")?” Here the answer is definitely "no", for the reasons you mentioned: they lack the information needed to be independently verifiable.

Note that this does not mean that their content is wrong or unscientific; it just means that the talks are incomplete from a scientific point of view, and thus not by themselves verifiable. But most TED presenters will previously have published the findings they present at TED in a regular peer-review scientific publication in a scientific format.

The bottom line is: you should treat TED talks like you should treat Wikipedia: use it to quickly understand new and interesting concepts. But before you actually apply one of these concepts, verify them using scientific literature.


I did master (M.Sc) in Germany with Mathematical Modelling of Complex System, can I call myself Diplom-Mathematiker? Is Diplom-Mathematiker equivalent to M.Sc?

(Note: The answer is primarily referring to the question in the title, which is not quite the same as the one in the text.)
No. Why would you think so?
Diplom-XXX is a title which is, mostly, not awarded any more.  The "Diplom" system has been replaced with the BSc/MSc-system. But this does not mean they are equivalent (it is a rather different system), and you certainly cannot call yourself Dipl.-Math..
From a more pragmatic point of view, I would consider it a more or less equivalent degree. But again, this does not mean you can call yourself "Diplom-Mathematiker" if you got an MSc in Maths.


Journal doesn’t react for several months – should I withdraw? I submitted a paper to a journal in mathematics. For the last three and a half months, the status of the article is with editor. I sent a mail to the editorial office to update the status. They replied me saying they will ask the handling editor to contact me. After one more month I asked to expedite the process. No reply. Now for the last three and half months, there is no change in the process.

Is it better to withdraw the article or wait for some more time?

If the journal fails to respond to your requests over several months, this suggests that something or somebody is not working properly – even in very-long-review fields like mathematics. It may be that the editor is missing in action or that some communication got lost or the entire journal is malfunctioning, but what exactly is going on is hard to tell for any outsider.

From your account of the situation I can only see two reasons why withdrawing may not be in your favor:

The next-best choice of journal is significantly worse (in terms of level or suitability).
The paper is already under review but the status doesn’t reflect it. In this case you actually lose progress by withdrawing.

You have to decide for yourself how likely it is that one of these applies, but I consider them rather unlikely. Should you decide not to withdraw immediately, I would at least send another mail to the journal setting a clear short deadline (a week or so) for them to show at least some sign of life.


Advice for postdoc application As part of applying to a postdoc fellowship, I need to write the following:

"Please describe your planned research activities for your postdoctoral studies (up to 650 words)".

I'm not sure whether the intentions are to describe my future research plan (as in what research questions I'm going to tackle) or what research activities I plan to have (e.g., conducting simulations, reviewing papers, collaborations or organizing workshops).

I suspect that the answer is trivial, yet I'm not familiar with this academic terminology. Any help?

Edit: following Nathan's answer, I add the other questions:

Please provide a summary of your dissertation (up to 450 words).
Please provide a summary of your present research, if different from your dissertation (up to 400 words).
Please describe your planned research activities for your postdoctoral studies (up to 650 words).
Explain, in some detail, the reasons for your choice of country, institution and academic supervisor abroad, and the connection, if any, with your present and planned future work (up to 130 words).
Please describe in one paragraph (10-12 lines) what you hope to have achieved at the conclusion of your post-doctoral studies.

The best answer may depend on what other questions are asked on the application form. These types of questions are usually used to assess whether you have a clear research line moving forward, but it is also helpful to know how you are going to break your research line into smaller goals. This is typical for grant applications -- high level research questions followed by measurable research activities.

So, if the 650 words gives you space, I would suggest providing both answers. The high-level research questions you want to answer and the first few research activities that will support this.

I wouldn't spend too much time talking about general service activities such as reviewing papers, but organizing a workshop to support those working in your research area would be worth mentioning, as this demonstrates broader impact.

After the edit:

As I suspected, the other questions are related to the first question you asked about. So, my overall advice doesn't change, but you can spread the answers across your questions as appropriate.

For instance, what you hope to achieve is related to the planned activities, but is looking for a broader answer - here is where you can talk about the expected impact of your work on the field.

In your dissertation or present research summary you can introduce some of the higher-level questions being answered, leaving more space to talk about specific activities in the response to that question.


Translating a foreign degree's name? I plan on obtaining a bachelor's degree at a Norwegian university in what is called "dataingeniør". In the future I'd like to continue my studies in a different country, so I'm going to need to know what to write in my CV.

A direct translation of "dataingeniør" would be "computer engineer", but my understanding is that that usually refers to hardware engineers in the English speaking world. The program I'm planning on taking is however strictly software as far as I can tell.

Is there anything wrong with simply calling it "computer science"? The program covers typical CS stuff like OS, algorithms, databases and programming, so I feel like they are equivalent.

I made a post on this matter a little while ago and just finished translating my CV, so I'll tell you what I did.

Leave the university name alone, don't translate it, UNLESS you think it would be unreadable by the folks who are reading your application (so if it was in Russian or Chinese for example). Does the name of your university look like something that would resemble 'university' in English? Leave it alone, or, if you have to, put it in quotations NEXT to the original university name. But do not remove or change the university's name, since it's a proper name.

In the case of "dataingeniør", leave that name there as well, and put in quotes the equivalent thing in your country. Same with the actual title of the degree e.g. B.Sc. Dataingeniør (equiv. Software Engineering Bachelors). Or you could put Computer Science if you feel it covered all the equivalent content (verified by a cursory glance at the CS programme information of the university for which you are applying). In any case, leave the title alone but then put in parentheses the equivalent qualification. And make sure it's actually equivalent (having a person from that country on hand to answer questions is important).

I was told also to not translate the name of project/thesis titles, UNLESS they are in a very hard-to-read language, and to go again with the quotes. But my advisor advised against this because it makes the CV 'look cluttered' and, according to him, it's not important unless the title uses a different character system.

Finally, if you are applying for a PhD, you should have a prospective advisor lined up, no? In that case, you can ask her/him or someone in her/his group to have a look over it for you, as it's in their best interest that you look good for the admissions team. Alternatively, somebody from the country should do.

Add a comment if you need to know something else. I just translated my entire CV so I'm happy to clarify additional stuff.


On the definition of research - are 'what' and 'how' questions also considered as research? In Philips and Pugh's How to get a PhD, the authors describe the general philosophical concept of research 'in all disciplines'. I have two questions in this context.

A. They said that an activity that tries to answer a question like

  'What are the age, sex and subject distributions of doctoral students in
  British higher education?'

is considered descriptive, intelligence-gathering activity, but not research. This is pretty clear and agreed upon. However, they attribute that to the 'what' nature of the question.

Later, they said:

  Research goes beyond description and requires analysis. It looks for explanations,
  relationships, comparisons, predictions, generalizations and theories. These are the ‘why’ questions. Why are there so many fewer women doctoral students in physics than in biology? ...

  All these questions require good intelligence-gathering, just as decisionmaking and policy formulation do. But the information is used for the purpose of developing understanding – by comparison, by relating to other factors, by theorizing and testing the theories.

Is it sound to consider only 'why' questions as research? How about some 'what' and 'how' questions?

B. In the same text:

  All research questions have comparisons in them, as the words ‘fewer’, ‘different’ and ‘less’ in the examples above illustrate.

Should all real research questions really contain comparison (explicitly or implicitly)?

In biology, what questions are extremely popular, even though they can be largely descriptive. The point is, that knowing descriptive details of a system is the first step in understanding how it works, and can often raise many interesting hypotheses. In fact, this trend of questions is increasing as high-throughput experimental methods are used to collect more and more data (which by itself is only descriptive).

Some famous examples of such what questions are "what is the structure of DNA?" and "what is the sequence of the human genome?".


What are acceptable “relationships with referees”? I am applying for grad school and need to give referees, and their relationship with me. I am not sure how to phrase things. My referees are:

in my previous job, in-direct supervisor, who I had worked for on one project, I report the project to her
in my previous job, whom I worked with on one project, but he is the project lead

thanks

Assuming that you mean "references", they should be people who know your academic work well. Basically anyone is acceptable as long as they can be expected to give a fair and accurate statement about what you have done and about your probable likelihood of success in the academic program.

Professors, advisors, employers, Lab PIs. etc. are all fine. They need not be supervisors, but can be. Your mom, and uncles, however, aren't the best, nor is a spouse or child. Anyone with whom you have had a professional/academic relationship and has some stature is a good choice.

As for the description, just say it like it is.


How to stay on top of recent literature? When I started my Masters thesis one advice I got for getting good material to read was to subscribe to several journals' alerts system, so that I would get mails with eTOC (electronic Table of Contents).

This was pretty cool then, for months I could stay on top of what's been published out there and was up to date in my own little narrow area. Now almost 3 years later that list of journals have expanded a bit, and the more work I have at the lab more mails that accumulate in my mailbox. What used to be no more than 10 unread mails is now about 900. The output is more than I can handle, what more restrictive method can I implement?

I guess it is pretty clear that this way of following literature is not sustainable in the long run. So I wonder if there are other and perhaps better ways of staying on top of recently published articles?

Please note that I have checked the following two questions prior to asking this one. I do feel though my question differs from these two in its essence.

Am I reading enough of the scientific literature? Should I read for breadth or depth?
How do we know if something relevant is already published?

During my PhD, I subscribed to the RSS feeds of the journals I would regularly read (started with 6 of them, ended up with a dozen). I would skim through titles of all new articles, and read abstracts of those whose title drew my eye. I then found out that some journals (J. Chem. Phys. in that particular case) offer specific RSS feeds for each of their sections, in addition to the “whole journal” feed. That helped reducing the number of journals I was skimming through.
Now, after the end of my PhD, my research interest are broader, the number of journals I like to watch is larger but my time is more limited. This system didn't work anymore, and I set up a new system, which has worked well for a few years. I use bibliographic databases (SciFinder and Web of Science; but I'm sure Google Scholar and PubMed have the same features) to create publication and citation alerts. Here's what I have set:

Citation alerts for all my own papers: if someöne cites my work, there's a good chance I'll be interested in their paper. This one has two additional “strategic” bonuses: you get to keep an eye on your competition, and you can suggest newer work to other authors when relevant (“hi there, I saw your recent paper citing my 2008 article on X, I thought you might be interested on a new extension of this algorithm that we published this year”).

Publication alerts for major players in the field of interest: I have 10 to 20 of those, watching all papers these people publish.

Citation alerts for some seminal or high-impact papers by others in the field: a good way to see how a new idea is adopted/improved by the community. Those tend to trigger a massive number of cites, so you may want to get rid of them after some time. I have between 5 and 10 of those alerts at a given time.

The only drawback to this method: database updates tend to lag somewhat behind the RSS feeds of the journals themselves, so you get papers that are 2 to 8 weeks old.

In addition, use conferences to stay on top/catch up with the literature:

Look at contributions made, see what's new and go check the relevant recent publications.

Even if you're not at the conference, look at the online program and see what looks new.

If you're attending, talk with people… you can also use that opportunity to ask some people (whom you do know well enough):

Have you seen that new technique by the team at MIT? it seems to work really well… I was wondering: what has caught your eye in the recent literature?


Big Lab vs Small Lab for Postdoc? I need a point of view of users here regarding doing postdoc in small lab or big lab. I am currently looking for a postdoc position. During my PhD years, I worked in a small lab with inexperienced supervisor as principal investigator. She was a very nice supervisor who is concerned a lot regarding my PhD study. However, she has a weakness of not publishing a lot papers into journal and she is also not a risk taker when it comes to researching high impact research that will result in novel and interesting findings. As a result, I did not manage to publish a lot during PhD study but somehow I did manage to have a smooth PhD study without too many problems because my previous supervisor helped a lot.

Now, I am researching/ looking for a lab to do postdoc study. While I already received an offer from my previous PhD supervisor to do postdoc with her, I am contemplating to accept that offer due to the fact I mentioned before that her lab is small and she doesn't focus much on publication. I want to keep my options open to the big lab that might have more experts in my field and more publication opportunity. On the other hand, my previous supervisor is a very nice supervisor who is a great leader and boss. And the grass is not always greener at the other side so who knows I might not like new lab.

So the question is, big lab or small lab is better for postdoc research?

So the question is, big lab or small lab is better for postdoc research?

There is not inherently an answer to this question, but rather plusses and minuses. For example:

Big Labs:

Lots of people around mean it's likely easier not to feel isolated
May have more secure funding
Presumably put out more papers
Professors are more likely to be dealing with keeping that lab funded, so if you were hoping to learn directly from them, this might not be as easy
It's also easy to get lost in a big group and be incorporated into "Professor So-and-So's Group" without establishing an identity

Small Labs:

A larger % of the lab's productivity rests on each person, so there may be more pressure
Might be dependent on a single grant
Likely more personal attention from the PI
More likely to end up as the first author on most of your papers

My suggestion, having been part of labs of all sizes at various stages of my career is to get experience with both, so that you can find what style works best for you and try to pick and choose what you liked from both.


Why would an author use a different symbol for the same meaning? People often use a different symbol to denote the same meaning.

For example, an author used symbol a for a data sequence. However, the same author, in another article, uses the symbol x to denote the same data sequence in the same context.

Why doesn’t he use symbol a for the data sequence in the second article? Is it just to make the manuscript look different compared to their previous one? Note that there is enough degree-of-freedom to use the same set (or sub-set) of previous symbols in next manuscript.

Nevertheless, it becomes more complicated for the readers when they use Greek symbols together with superscript and subscript. I agree that people have their own choice to use the symbols in their manuscript, however, why would the same group of authors use a different symbol for the same meaning in another manuscript?

I can't speak about the specific case you have in mind since I'm not a mind-reader, but there are legitimate reasons to change a symbol.

Maybe you want to avoid clash with notation used for something else in your second article.
Maybe that "something else" was introduced in an earlier revision and then eliminated, but then you decide to stick with the new notation.
Different symbols are standard, or natural, for different objects. You can write x(f), where x a function and f is a variable, but people don't, and for a good reason. Most of the time, you give it some thought when you introduce a new symbol, and try to pick the 'best' letter (and the best position for a subscript/superscript).
Sometimes, you realize only after writing an article that a different symbol would be more natural for a certain quantity. Possibly because it's related to something else in a different field, or because you find out that another author used the same symbol for this object in an earlier paper and several colleagues are already used to it. Or because two objects that you use in your paper are related, so it would be better to call them A and Ã rather than A and B.
Sometimes, you write papers targeting different journals/communities, and they have different standards, so you use different letters for the benefit of your readers. For instance, I may use Ax = b if I am writing about a least-squares problem in a numerical linear-algebra journal, or wX = y if I am writing in a statistics/machine-learning one.
Sometimes, it's a referee who tells you that you should really change your notation, and you comply. This might happen on the second paper but not on the first.


How can I quickly retrieve the Semantic Scholar IDs of all my co-authors? Some conference is asking me to:

Please enter the Semantic Scholar IDs of everyone who may be biased in reviewing your submission. These should include people like supervisors, family members, intimate friends, and students.

That's a pain to do it manually. How can I quickly retrieve the Semantic Scholar IDs of all my co-authors? (e.g., programmatically or some other tricks)
(I know that the set {"people like supervisors, family members, intimate friends, and students"} is slightly different from {"my co-authors"} but that's good enough for me.)

If you have a list of DOIs of your papers, you could do this using the Semantic Scholar API, or this unofficial Python interface for it.
For a query using the DOI, you get a JSON object (or a dictionary with the Python API) that contains the list of author names and IDs.


Received a less-than-great grade due to bad instructions. Should I appeal? Last week, I did a computer lab for a class. At the end of the instructions was a script that would verify that everything in the lab was done correctly. At the end of the lab, I knew I had done everything correctly; however, the verification script wouldn't show that everything was done correctly.

The instructor didn't mention that some additional changes would have to be made to all the lab files for the verification script to pass. I found that out by going to the TAs. I have proof that the professor took notice of this error last week only after I had brought it up, and that I submitted the lab on the same day he did so - albeit a few hours later.

However, I forgot to make the necessary change for one of the lab files, for which I was docked 3 points (out of 20).

The professor has thus far refused to give me those points back.
Assuming the evidence I have of the professor's oversight and of my same-day submission of the lab satisfies the standard of evidence at the department/university level for a grade dispute/appeal, should I appeal the grade or just let it go?

If you have already submitted the request for a regrade to the TA and instructor, then, for now, you've already done everything you can do at this time.

The real question here is how much this will matter at the end of the semester. Unless those points will take you across a "transition" point where the letter grade will change, it doesn't matter in the long run whether you get those points or not. So, ultimately, the need to fight for them depends on what weight those three points have. If the total basis is 1000 points, you're arguing about 0.3% of the total grade, and it's not likely to make a difference this year. But if it's 100 total, those 3 points become 3 percent of the total, and it's much more likely to matter.


Is it possible to apply for a post doc (and get a post doc) while struggling with the health issues (a life-threatening illness: cancer) I struggle with the exact question (or at least will have to face it near in the future) that was asked here: Do I need to mention having survived a life-threatening illness when applying for a new academic position?

When I was a kid, I had a cancer. Now I work at the university as a research assistant and I'm on my way to a PhD. After finishing my PhD, I would love to apply for a post doc, preferably in Sweden, Iceland or Norway (but my advisor suggests US or Australia, so I'm not sure where exactly I'm going to go).

There is a serious possibility that I will have a reoccurrence  in few years (talked with my oncologist many many times about it), or will not have, nobody could tell that, but there is a strong possibility.

At my current university (middle Europe) it was not a problem, I wasn't obliged to mention it to anybody, however, I informed my employer about my illness. My previous condition is almost not relevant today, however, I do have days when I do not feel good and just want to rest and sleep (but have to go to the University anyway, and of course, I go).

So, with my condition, is it possible to find a university and apply to post doc or not? And another, not less important: do I need to mention about my health when applying for a post doc position?

Serious health problems can strike anybody at any time.  You know that you have a much higher than background risk of having your condition return, but you also have a pretty good chance of getting into a serious traffic accident or having a parent come down with a serious illness or getting hit by major depression or any of the myriad other ways that your ability to do your work can become impaired.  No sane organization expects its employees to be in a protective bubble where bad things cannot happen to them.

If you can do your work effectively now, and don't have a known crisis expected in the near future, then the only sensible thing to do is to carry on with life.  You don't need to inform potential employers, any more than you would need to tell them that you might get into a traffic accident because you commute.  As noted in the comments, though, you definitely do need to make sure you have good access to health care that will cover your condition if it recurs.