As an independent/non-affiliated researcher, what would I replace a logo with on a business card? I'm currently not affiliated with any academic institution; but - I still get around, interact and need some business cards.

The thing is, without any institutional information, a card tends to look kind of empty if it just has your name, address, email, and phone (and maybe your website).

Also, having an institute/company logo gives the business card a basic color scheme to work with, and anchors to position elements "against".

What would be a useful replacement - content-wise or design-wise - for an institute/company logo?

I have seen plenty of business cards, even for real businesses that do not use logos and graphics and just contain text. However, some are distinctive by the use of coloured card, and other features.

I have also seen personal cards that contain a photo in place of an icon or logo. Really useful to assist contact to remember who the card came from.

Its all about design and function really.


How do free speech protections of permanent positions in the UK/Europe/Canada comparable with those of tenure in the US? I believe Tenure offers strong protections for speech in the United States (and I think Canada as well).  As I understand, the UK and Europe don't have "tenure" but have something very similar, where a position is made permanent, typically after a 5-year review (as with tenure).
However, it seems that these permanent positions do not have quite as much job security as tenure provides in the US, based on answers to this question: What is the difference between permanent faculty positions in the UK and tenured faculty positions in the US/Canada?.
My question is specifically about the free speech protections of tenure.  Are similar protections common in Europe/UK/Canada?
EtA: I was conflating academic freedom and free speech, as noted by other users.  However, I've also found this article that says: "In cases brought by professors in North Carolina and Washington, federal courts have given greater free speech protection to college faculty than ordinary government employees would enjoy."  Note that this only applies to public universities.

Tenure does not protect free speech, but academic freedoms
Professors can be fired for free speech issues separately.  Tenure in the U.S. system means you've completed a tenure package and been awarded tenure by a panel of tenured professors.
Tenure isn't a free pass to do whatever you want.  It just means as long as you continue doing your job (teaching + research), you won't be fired.  Not getting tenure usually means leaving the university.
There are A LOT of advantages to Tenure (see this question).  It generally means your job is secure, and you have much more freedom to research things others might see as silly or moonshot ideas that may not pan-out for a while.
Free speech isn't protected by tenure.  The university may be more tolerant of a tenured professor stating an unpopular view, but that has nothing to do with academic freedom.  A quick google search will show you if a tenured professor causes enough problems they will be fired.
relevant XKCD

EDIT in response to comments
It's uncommon to fire a tenured professor, but it does happen.  Usually after repeated warnings or obvious abuse of power.
Selman Akbulut was fired from MSU for refusing to teach an undergrad class.
Rick Mehta was fired for controversial statements.
Denis Rancourt was fired for teaching his political views instead of physics.
All were found in a few minutes using Google.


Supervisor insists on writing a manuscript, yet procrastinates on writing for years So my supervisor insisted on writing a manuscript himself (because he wants to submit the paper to a better journal), but constantly procrastinated on the task for one and a half years despite repeated reminders from me. The drafting of the manuscript was completed eventually and submitted to a journal, but I can't help feeling that this situation has caused me to lose a tremendous amount of trust in my supervisor. This stems from the repeated broken promises by him to complete drafting the manuscript after attending to whatever unrelated tasks he deemed a higher priority at that time. And as I said, this went on for 1.5 years until I started to lose my patience and complained to the dean. This loss of trust is also a major cause of a further breakdown in the relationship with my supervisor down the line (e.g. me pestering him on other tasks incessantly etc.,) among other problems.

This is in the past and I will be graduating soon so it is now too late to change anything. But I now wonder if I should have acted any differently? Is it not that big of a deal for a supervisor to delay something for so long? I was concerned with being scooped, the delay affecting my cv post graduation, and other potential complications that may arise from such a delay. Did I make a mountain out of a molehill? If not, maybe I should have requested for a change of supervisor before things had gotten out of hand. At that time, I thought a change of supervisor was a huge decision but I now realize that the alternate path that I have treaded has become the death knell of my future academic career.

Edit: I had actually prepared a draft manuscript way back before my supervisor decided and insisted on writing the manuscript himself because he wanted to submit to a better journal (believing his writing skills to be better, which may or may not be true but that is unimportant; for what it's worth, I have sole-authored publications before so my writing skills are at least satisfactory).

Edit 2: The degree in question is a PhD but the publication was only just submitted on the eve of the submission of my thesis (~2 months before).

In my opinion, if your career is dependent on publication, which is most often true in academic settings, one should just "keep on writing" regardless of conditions.

Due the time the superviser delayed the writing, if you would have parallely kept on updating the manuscript, two things would have happened.

Supervisor does not write:
You would have your updated manuscript as a factual proof that you can manage to writ the manuscript by yourself. May be then supervisor may back down and allow you to writ the manuscript. This would be a very helpful exercise for you because writing is arguably the most important and challenging skill in academia. You would get an opportunity to improve your skills further through practice. In future, that would indeed would help in your career.
Supervisor does write:
Your parallel updating of manuscript would only accelerate the writing process. The supervisor may probably feel a sense of competition (!) and may do write the manuscript.

Both cases would have been eventually beneficial for your career. So I would say just "keep on writing".


Should a journal ever reveal the name of an anonymous reviewer? Recently, the single-blind peer-review process failed to appropriately deal with highly sexist comments. An anonymous reviewer provided a sexist review and the Academic Editor forwarded it on. They have since blacklisted the reviewer and asked the Academic Editor to step down. While I think that blind peer review provides useful protection for reviewers, are Academic Editors generally provided anonymity? Further, is there any precedence for when a journal should reveal the name of a reviewer?

While I think that blind peer review provides useful protection for reviewers, are Academic Editors generally provided anonymity?

In my experience this is rare but not unheard of.  For example, the PNAS submission guidelines specify that the editor handling the paper will remain anonymous until the paper is accepted.  Presumably this is meant to protect editors from retribution over a rejected paper.  I'm not convinced this is necessary, but the existence of these policies indicates that someone must care.

  Further, is there any precedence for when a journal should reveal the name of a reviewer?

I'm not aware of any policy that allows journals to reveal the name of a reviewer without the reviewer's consent.  It could be reasonable in a case like this, but I wouldn't want to be in charge of writing a policy delineating when it is or isn't allowed.


What to do with wrong results in talks? Suppose one is giving a talk about one's work (in pure mathematics), and another researcher(s) in one's field has published a paper claiming to be an improvement or generalisation of one's result, but one either believe this other paper is wrong, or that it is a trivial consequence of one's own result. Should one:

state this other result in one's talk with no comment
mention the other result with mild doubts (e.g. say 'so-and-so claims this, but I haven't had time to look at the paper properly')
mention the other result and state clearly that one thinks it's wrong/trivial
don't mention it at all / ignore it.

One doesn't know whether the author(s) of the other paper will be at this conference.

Edit: Assume a list of speakers is available but not of participants, so one knows the other researcher is not speaking, but doesn't know if they will be in the audience of one's talk.

I either believe this other paper is wrong, or that it is a trivial consequence of my own result

Let me be blunt, if it's wrong and a trivial consequence of your own result, then your result is wrong too. Make up your mind: which is it? Wrong and trivial are not synonymous. The answer differs depending on which applies.

If you believe that the result is wrong.

If you want to publicly humiliate the other researcher, then you can say during your talk that the other researcher's result is wrong. You will not make any friends and will not impress anyone by doing this.
Otherwise, your first course of action is to talk about it with the other researcher in private. Have you even considered that you misunderstood something? Most people are reasonable, and if the result is truly wrong, then you will know how to act based on your discussion. Otherwise, this is a whole can of worms, and the answer depends on a ton of factors.
If for some reason you have not had time to talk with the other researcher, then I would not mention the result at all, and elude the question if asked about it during the talk. If you really don't want to elude it, say that you are aware of a possible contradiction between your paper and the other one and that you are looking into it. (See, that's called tact.) I would also take the opportunity of having the other researcher in the same room to talk about it after the talk, in private.

If you believe the result is a "trivial" consequence of your work.

If you want to insult the other researcher in public, then say that the other word is a "trivial consequence" of your own work during your talk. You will not make any friends and will not impress anyone by doing this.
Or you can simply not mention it at all. If asked, you can say that it's nice to see other people being interested in your own work and finding applications.


What do I do if no one admits me to a PhD position? I am from a relatively unknown university in an European country. I am one of the best performing students in my department and have won academic prizes and published several papers, which pretty much no one else does here before the PhD level.

I will be applying to good universities in other countries. However, I am worried that no one will admit me. If such thing would happen, how should I proceed to get a PhD at a widely recognized university?

I have thought to enroll on some summer courses organized by the universities I am applying to, to get in contact with people from there. What else could I try to do? Participating to conferences might be option as well, but it is difficult to get to talk to the people I would like to work with.

To be more precise, the awards are really large (4x my monthly salary), and the publications in mid-tier venues (impact factors in 2-3 range).

I think that everyone who is applying for PhD programs should consider their backup options. Admissions are not a guaranteed thing (unless you have a truly exceptional record), and even if you get in many people decide that a PhD is not right for them partway through. Identifying a backup plan is an important insurance policy to have.

This is especially important if you are applying during your last year of undergrad. If your applications don't go as well as you hoped, finding a job or other opportunity starting in April can be an impossible task.

If you are sure that you would still want to get a PhD even after a disappointing application round, make sure to research 1- to 2-year opportunities that can strengthen your resume. Research jobs, RA positions, masters programs, some industry positions, etc. are all things to look at, though availability may depend on your field and situation. If possible, you should also ask your adviser if they know of any opportunities or can put you in contact with anyone who might.

Depending on the culture/positions, I would even consider applying to some along-side graduate school applications if you are unsure how they will go. I worked at a PhD stepping-stone-type job for a couple of years before applying, and we regularly interviewed applicants who were also applying to PhD programs. Many places won't be so understanding, so be careful with this, but we were fine with that situation.


I left off a detail in the results section of a manuscript that's been accepted. How do I remedy this? In a manuscript recently accepted to a journal, I just realized I neglected to mention that I centered a variable for an analysis. How crucial is this detail to correct, and what's the best way to go about doing it?

I can't speak to the specifics of the correction you need to make, but in general, I would think that you make the change as you revise it for the final version, and note the change in the cover letter to the editor.  If it is something significant enough that it could affect the decision to accept, the editor might send it back to reviewers to confirm.


Authorship and reputation for British/Australian academic systems I have recently been offered a position for a "postdoc" (fixed term level A position) in Australia.

In the British/Australian (and European) academic systems, career progression is very different from the United States, as outlined in this answer.

In my field (a subset of engineering) we have an authorship order for publications based on contribution level, with the last author being the PI/Advisor of the lab (receiving a lot of credit in the process).

In the British/Australian systems, there is an expectation to informally supervise a few students for post docs. I have been informed that I will be expected to help supervise or actually supervise students and perhaps obtain my own funding as well. In the US most post docs in my field exclusively focus on research, and nearly always get first author.

Additionally, if I'm moved to a B and/or C level academic (sort of like assistant and associate professor respectively here in the US) this supervision and funding responsibility will increase. This part is similar to the United States for a tenure track associate professor.

The difference between the US and the UK/AUS systems is that at the B academic level, I still would not be a professor, and I would have a PI above me. This brings up the authorship question...

Given the different structure between the two systems, does the UK/AUS system dilute the competitiveness and career advancement of junior academics in the UK/AUS system, especially if they intend to migrate back to the US academic system?

The reason that I ask is because in the US, once you are an assistant professor, you will get last author on any papers produced by your lab, but in the UK/AUS system, there may be a professor in charge of junior academics (assistant and associate professor equivalents) who would instead receive last author. This then dilutes the rating of the junior academics among their peers, because they become a middle author instead of the last author.

If this isn't the actual practice, please correct me.

Academics in Australia are usually on temporary contracts or on continuing contracts. Levels, however, don't directly relate to job permanency in Australia. For example, it's possible for an experienced postdoc (temporary, employed on PI's grant) to be paid at level B (starting rate is typically level A; step 6) and it's also possible for an academic to be appointed at level B for a continuing position (similar to tenure track). Although some level Bs will be on continuing positions, it's also possible for an academic at level C to not have a continuing appointment (e.g. a Future Fellow whose dept. has not committed to support him/her after the fellowship runs out). Yet they are still at level C because that is the appropriate level for their career stage (i.e. IF they had a permanent position, they would be appointed at level C). Most of these people, however, can leverage such a fellowship into a continuing position and start their own lab. This is similar to starting a tenure track position in the USA.

I think it's best to think of levels as representing career stage not the type of job (i.e. the level does not determine whether an academic is on a temporary or permanent contract, especially at levels A/B). You don't rise through the levels from a temporary contract to a permanent position - you must separately apply for a continuing position. This is analogous to how postdocs must apply for tenure track positions in the USA.

With regards to authorship, I think this is very group dependent. Typically postdocs run their own research and get first author while also supervising honours/PhD students and getting a second/middle author paper for that work. The way you describe this in your question (postdocs getting middle author papers but few/no first author papers) does not fit with my experience in Australia but it might occur in some groups. You could, however, find groups like this anywhere in the world. This is something you need to discuss with your potential advisor.

Note: this post has been heavily edited from the initial version to address questions in the comments.


How can I get all my papers under the same Scopus profile? I have recently searched my publications in Scopus and I have found that they are all scattered around. The reason behind that maybe is because I have a compound last name. The situation has gone pretty weird also in one of my papers, where they have put one of my last names to another author that I do not even know.

The question that I have is how I can make to put all my papers under a same profile, and also delete that "ghost" author from one of my papers.

As Federico indicates, the contact form (“Ask a question”) has a field for suggesting correction to the index:

You can directly send them the papers in question:

  Please attach a copy of the missing or incorrect document, this is essential for us to verify the changes and make the corrections.

While I don't have any direct experience with Scopus in that area, they are generally serious and I think they will act on your request. I have once contact another index provider (Web of Science) with a correction, and they updated the data within a week.


Re-apply to a PhD position that is re-posted after being rejected? My application to a specific PhD position was rejected. I was informed about it last week and I wasn't even invited to an interview. The information was a standard email telling me that "despite your evident qualifications, there were better candidates". Now, I see that the institution re-posted a job ad for the exact same position, and only changed the starting date to a later one.

I'm a bit puzzled by this situation and don't know what to do:

Should I re-write a better motivation letter and apply again, or does the early rejection means I have no chances at all?
Should I contact the thesis supervisor and ask him what could improve my chances, like this answer to a similar situation suggests?
Or should I wait a bit, get other experiences as research staff/assistant or something similar and apply for another position later?

My biggest worry is that I might appear too "pushy" and that my future applications in this institution will be automatically rejected, even if I have more experience. On the other hand, having a feedback from the supervisor could be useful for future applications.

I am aware that similar questions have bee posted already, like this one. However, my situation is slightly different, as I would apply to the same position without any new experience (against what is advised there). The cultural setting is German-speaking Europe.

First of all, can you be sure it is exactly the same position? The same professor might have just gotten another grant which can fund another PhD position; it is then possible that they announced the second position with an (almost) identical ad. If that is the case, you can still have a chance of being accepted if you apply. If not and it's indeed the same position, it'll be much more difficult.

If it's a second position with the same professor, it means that the search for a suitable candidate starts anew. Being rejected with the previous application then isn't really a problem—it just means there was at least one candidate better than you. With a new hiring process, the selection starts from a beginning and it can happen that you'll be the best candidate this time. If, on the other hand, it's the same position, none of the candidates was a good fit for the job; and that doesn't change now unless you can change a part of your application (like your cover letter).

In my opinion, you cannot go wrong by sending a brief, polite email to the professor and asking about the new ad and potentially for a short feedback on your application. The worst that can happen is that you'll get no response at all, and then it's probably not a good idea to apply.


Do professors need to use up their grant money in a fixed period of time? Just curious, do professors need to use up their grant money in a fixed period of time?

Or can they reuse the left over amount for other projects?

What are the incentives for them to use grant money as opposed to "saving" them?

Thanks.

That depends on where the money comes from, but in general yes, they should use it. Just like everywhere else, budgets are tight. And if the money is not fully used in a year, the funder might assume that this professor can do well with less money, so the next year the funds are decreased. I witnessed a case a few years back where a professor decided it was time to get a fancy notebook for conferences in mid December, because there was still money left...

Another possibility is that some other institute/chair/professor puts his hands on the money if the professor does not keep a tight eye on it. I myself got asked once to "please move to this office for a few months, as if we don't occupy it, it will get redistributed to another institute and we will then never get it back".
Same might go for teaching assignments, e.g. a math chair teaching basic calculus to engineers, economics,... might be a source of income fought for.

These are of course only examples and there might be cases where saving it is possible (so feel free to wait for more answers), but from these experiences I am fairly certain that using the money is the better choice.


How undergraduate research area affects Ph.D. admission chances? I would like to do a Ph.D. in CS and I will start doing research as an undergraduate student soon, and I will be applying next year (December 2014) at good (say top 15) US universities. My problem is that I have interest in many areas and I don't know which one to choose. At first, I thought that would like to do research in Machine Learning, but then I realized that there are many undergraduate students doing research in that area so it will be more difficult for me to get in a good school by having research experience at that area, as I am not coming from a highly ranked program.

In addition I am an international student, currently studying Computer Engineering and not Computer Science and this may affect my application as well. So I am thinking about doing research in another area that may be a little less competitive and choose my field of interest (it may be the same) after I got into graduate school.

So my question is:

Will it be better to choose something that is less competitive (that still interests me) as a research area for my undergraduate thesis?

Put simply: No.

Your undergraduate thesis work need not have any connection with your graduate research. Certainly, staying in the same area lets you have more of a "running start," but there's always the chance that you find a new research project as a graduate student that grabs your attention and doesn't let go.

So don't worry too much about doing research work in a less competitive area unless you want to do that research anyway. It's better to do work that excites and motivates you, because the end product will almost certainly be better than taking a project that doesn't.


Should I still submit a manuscript to a journal if a member of the editorial board is advancing a competing theory that is incompatible with my work? I have completed (my first) manuscript, which falls well within the scope of a particular journal.

However, a member of that journal's editorial board (or, to be precise, the editor's student) is aggressively advancing a model that, if valid, would essentially negate much of my work. At this time, the evidence for both competing models remains circumstantial, with the bulk of publications (but not quite a consensus) currently favouring my approach.

Of the individuals on that journal's editorial board, this editor works in the subdiscipline closest to mine, so my concern is that this person would be, from the journal's perspective, the most logical choice for my submission.

Is my unease over the possibility of editorial bias warranted?

What would be the most appropriate course of action in this case?

(Another potentially relevant note/complication: The work in which the editor is advancing this competing model is unpublished, and I am aware of it only because of word from colleagues. I received substantial evidence that the unpublished work exists; this is not based on hearsay. I note this because it makes it impossible to point out the potential for bias or a competing interest by referring to the extant corpus of literature.)

Many journals will allow you to suggest a handling editor, and pretty much every journal will allow you to specify reviewers that you believe should not review your paper due to conflict of interest.  This is an appropriate situation to invoke these options.

Depending on the particular forms the journal uses for submission, the right place to put an explanation of your concern may be either the submission forms or the cover letter.  You do not need to go into much detail, simply saying:

  "Editor X's student is working on a competing model, so I am concerned about bias."

If you are dealing with an honorable journal, that should be enough: this is an entirely normal and reasonable concern you should not have to back this up with published evidence (people understand that scientists talk, pre-publication), nor do you need to denigrate the character of Editor X in any way.  They have many editors for a reason, and many possible reviewers they can draw from as well, and every good scientist understands that it's usually better to be safe than sorry when it comes to dealing with conflict of interest concerns.


Help! Professor/Advisor Refuses to Publish Any of His Students' Research I'll be finishing a PhD in physics in about five weeks.  I've worked hard, have done a lot of research, and have written 3 papers for publication.  But my professor refuses to take any action towards publishing anything I have written, and he has not published any of his grad students' papers in more than three years.  He keeps telling me that he'll give me feedback on my work and that he will submit the papers, and we set a deadline to get everything submitted , but then the deadline comes and goes with no progress on his part, and when I ask him about it he says he was too busy to look at the papers and doesn't have time to talk about it right now.

It is seeming more clear to me that he has no intention of publishing my work, and that he's hoping to shoo me out the door with my degree and hope that I will forget about the papers and stop bothering him about publishing.  The best that I can get from him is that he is obsessed with his reputation among his academic peers, and he seems to not want his name associated with any publications that do not fit a certain image or reputation.  I think that my papers are good and certainly publishable, but he will not even give me feedback nor will he do anything to improve my papers to meet his standards, whatever those standards are.

My blood is really boiling and I'm going to be very upset if my professor continues to fight my efforts to get my work published.  I really would like to see my work published.

What is my recourse here?  Should I use some negotiation tactics to find out why he doesn't want to publish anything new from any students?  Should I suggest that I go ahead and publish without his name on the papers so he doesn't have his "sterling reputation" tarnished?  I have already spoken to the university ombudsman and the grad student counselor and there is not much else they can do.

First, this is not an unusual situation.  What is unusual here is your interpretation of the situation.

When you have a problem with someone's behavior, it is wise to look for incompetence instead of malice.  It's highly likely the professor intended to keep his promises but failed to do so.  You have given us no evidence otherwise.  Professors commonly break promises to submit papers.  Some of them do so over and over without realizing there is a pattern.

Your best strategy here is to politely remind the professor of the missed deadline and press for a new deadline.  Repeat this process as many times as is needed.


What rules exist to get accommodation regarding coursework due to a depression? I am writing this after much consideration, in a hope that I will be able to get practical thoughts to deal with the situation. I have recently been diagnosed with major depression. Although I have never talked about it in public, most of my life so far I was dealing with it without even knowing there is a help out there. Most of the time I will just ignore or pretend that I am feeling nothing. My emotional ups and downs have been a major barrier in my progress. I found myself most of the time pushing myself with extra motivation, but then again it wears off.

Most of my academic life I have been told that I am not consistent. In my high school, I would do very good in one term and then I would do very bad in the next. I was in no category. My teachers thought I am good student but I just simply don't study sometime that's why I am not consistent. But I know the hard truth. Listening to sad songs, feeling sad for simple reasons, getting angry and feeling lonely, I thought all these are internal characteristic of me that I can never overcome. After my high school, with lots of motivation, I was able to get into one of the top-50 colleges in the US. Note that I am an international student. I made that with financial grant and scholarship from that college.

After I came here, I already felt the cultural difference but I was quick enough to blend in. However, my depression was not. I worked hard to sound and speak like native speakers and learned English fluently, although I was still struggling with my emotion. I was even embarrassed to talk to anybody because there are so many talented students in our school from all over the world and I was feeling like an imposter. Then I saw this view on growth mindset by Prof. Carol Dweck and I decided no matter what happens, I will make it to graduation.

I am rising senior now. With all that rickety events in my academic progress, I was still hanging in there and then decided to get expert helps.It was then when I learned about my depression. I just started to take medication. This semester at one point I was so depressed that I did not go to take an exam. I was diagnosed with major depression after that period. Most of my professors were kind and gave me second chances in terms of homework and lab work. However, this particular professor seems not to have any empathy whatsoever. I tried my best to make him understand but he insists that I drop out of the course. And if I drop out then I have to take the course in summer, which will jeopardize my internship offer. Another class next semester follows this class and I must take this class now in order to graduate on time.

I would like to know if there is any rule in academia for students with a mental disability that will help me at this point and also do you have any suggestion for me for making my academic experience much better in general, considering my situation.

There is a structure for dealing with this in the U.S.: a Section 504 Accommodation Plan.  If you get your health status established with the Office for Students with Disabilities (it might have a slightly different title in your school), you won't have to negotiate directly with an individual professor.  That office will do that for you.

Your school should have instructions posted online, and you can also email, phone or visit.  I will warn you that some of these offices are warm and fuzzy and supportive and some are not.  You might do well to start assembling some preliminary documentation before meeting with them.  If you could ask around in your university to find out what others' experience with that office has been, that could be helpful.

You will need medical documentation of your diagnosis, how it affects your ability to function academically, and recommendations for accommodations.  It is often helpful to brainstorm a list of accommodations you think could be helpful, and share it with the medical provider who is going to be your primary documenter.

In the long run, I think it will be helpful if you can build your identity as a student with a disability in a broader way than "student with major depression," and see yourself as part of a larger group of students with many different types of disabilities.  I love this article that documents the beginnings of 504: https://dredf.org/504-sit-in-20th-anniversary/short-history-of-the-504-sit-in/

I have to warn you that in some places it can take a while to get this set up.  Since you are almost done, it could be a frustrating process.  But if you have any interest in grad school, it would be worthwhile, in the long run.


How to answer your boss's question about your impression on the progress of a project that you took part in as a newcomer appropriately? I work in Germany. After a group meeting of 5 about a project that I took part in, my professor asked me how do I think about the project progress. I had the impression that we might not meet the deadline, but I think that as a newcomer, it is not appropriate for me to say so. So I just told him what I am going to do for the project.
Would there be any cultural differences in dealing with this (e.g. Asian country vs. Germany)? (Would the answer be different if I am in a non-academic field?)

Assuming your professor is a reasonable person, there is nothing wrong with truthfully sharing your view of the progress in the project. They wouldn't be asking if they did not think your opinion matters. Of course, if you are concerned about the project progress, you want to stick to the facts and not over-dramatise the situation of the project. It may also be a good idea to come equipped with at least some ideas how to go forward (since this will likely be the follow-up question if you share that the project currently could be in trouble).
I am sure there are cultural differences related to this, but I don't feel qualified to reason about what the correct way of framing this in an Asian country would be. However, the difference between academia and industry (in Germany) isn't very large - in both cases there is an expectation that you politely raise issues as you see them, rather than pretending everything is great until the car hits the wall.
Edit: one important thing I forgot to mention - this is under the assumption that this is more of an internal meeting. If the meeting also includes external people, most importantly representatives of the funding body behind the project, the only correct answer to "how is this project going?" is "great, we are going to achieve all of our goals." Letting whoever pays the bills know that it may be time to pull the plug on the project is unlikely to go over well.


Can a successful, prestigious post-doc make up for a PhD from a mid-ranked university and make you competitive for a tenure-track position? EDIT: Apparently, the longer version below is somewhat off-topic due to the number of personal, non-generalisable factors involved in the decision it describes. I do however believe that the main question of whether a good post-doc can outweigh a "bad" or "modest" PhD is highly general both in its nature (trends in hiring and successful curricula do exist in academia) and interest for current, past and prospective grad students. For this reason, I would sincerely appreciate if fellow users could discriminate between the main question in itself and the additional, somewhat optional description of my personal situation given hereafter before flagging the message as off-topic.

Detailed, horrendously long version below for those brave enough to face a wall of text:

I recently graduated with highest honours from a good, albeit not tier 1 UK university. Like many science students, my dearest (and pretty much only) wish is to become an independent researcher in a good university, preferably in the US. Unfortunately, today's academic market being in the atrocious state we know, entertaining the hope of becoming a PI without a stellar curriculum appears suicidal. And judging from the CV of most of the tenure or tenure-track academics in the top 30 universities, the crucial point in an academic's career appears to be grad school, as over 95% of those I checked hold PhDs from a top-ranked institution in their field. This trend seems even stronger among the younger generation, as pretty much every cases of faculty coming from "lesser" institutions (e.g. U. Delaware or Ann Harbor) have been appointed in the late 80s or earlier, while most recently-filled positions went to CHYMPS alumni. The most terrifying point being that even in mid- or lower-ranked universities, the vast majority of professors also comes from top grad schools.

I have been offered a fully-funded PhD scholarship at a Russel Group University. The subject is exciting, and I was first very happy with this offer. Unfortunately, although the uni ranks 3rd or 4th nationwide as a whole, the department in which I would enroll in very poorly ranked (in the 50 - 75 worldwide bracket at best) and has an abysmal placement record for PhD students. Worst: the project is a coin toss, and has about the same probability of yielding very high-impact results as of yielding nothing at all. However, due to a number of factors (source of the funding, network the research group is a part of, subject of the PhD project), even a moderately successful outcome could position me for a series of very prestigious post-doctoral fellowships, that would take me to leading US universities.

Which leads - finally - to my question: Is it completely insane to contemplate declining this scholarship in order to apply to higher ranked departments? This option would obviously force me to take a gap year (which I could use, to be honest) to get back in synch with the applications calendar. Considering my academic record (3 degrees all obtained with high honours, 4.0 GPA, 2.5 years of research experience, 2 published papers in 5+ impact factor journals, and industrial experience through the potential gap year), I believe I have a decent shot at high ranking programmes both in the US and the UK. This is, however, a big gamble, as I would have absolutely no assurance of finding another PhD of equal or higher quality when taking my decision.

Currently, my decision hangs from the title-question: let's say I take the studentship and (big if here, I know) manage to secure a high-end postdoc position; would that postdoc offset the modest ranking of my grad school and give me a decent shot a tenure-track positions in the US?

To my perception, the later you manage to "hit" a high-status place, the better, actually, because the standard pattern is a slight-but-steady ever-lesser-status trend. That is, typically, and statistically so if only for reasons of the available positions of various sorts, one's PhD institution is probably (and on the average, certainly) the highest-status place one will ever be. In particular, one corollary is that high-status post-docs are not typical sequels to high-status PhDs (even though a reason, if no other, is that there aren't as many such positions!)

On the other hand, a higher-status post-doc than PhD assures nothing. A momentary "surprise improvement", with no permanent "advantage".

The more genuine advantage is that, in the best-case scenarios, the high status is due to good, energetic, communicative, stimulating people who will help you do better for the rest of your life than if you'd been in the company of lethargic, disinterested people... though "status" is imperfectly correlated...

And, further, it does require considerable effort on your part to benefit from the potential of the environment... so it is just as easy to fail/languish in a high-status environment as in a low-status one... Perhaps easier, since things are more intimidating, no easy triumphs, etc. Almost to the point of being misleading. (Hence, the desire of some to be big fish in small ponds, etc.)

So, actually, I'd recommend accepting some risks to be in a more intense environment. If that intensity is attached to status, ok, good, that's a cosmetic virtue that will help you get peoples' attention (on hiring committees) subsequently.


Choosing Artificial Intelligence after MS in Theory Currently I am in an MS program with a research concentration in theoretical/formal computer science (mostly spatial and temporal knowledge representation and reasoning). However, I find myself getting more attracted towards artificial intelligence and robotics. When applying for a PhD do you think my MS research is a good concentration for a PhD research in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics? (I have taken courses that cover both artificial intelligence and robotics during the MS)

As always, it's going to come down to your application and your history.

From the sounds of it, you'll be a very strong candidate based on your theory background -- You just need to find the right school / supervisor that will see how to help you pursue those interests. Look for schools with good AI programs.

Knowing the research focuses at the CS Department in the University of Alberta, I think you'd have a good shot there with a number of supervisors, both in reinforcement learning and in machine learning.

Really though, it's going to come down to a demonstration that you can do the research, via your reference letters, CV, etc.


Etiquette on giving negative feedback on a top mathematician's work I want to ask a more general question that relates to a renowned mathematician’s recent proposed proof of a famous hypothesis, which seems to be widely considered not even close to being correct – that it’s not just not correct, it’s “not even wrong”.

Since now, all the top mathematicians have declined to comment on his proof, seemingly out of respect for the mathematician.

So my general question is: for a well-established mathematician, shouldn’t they be given feedback, even if their work isn’t correct?  Why not give a rejection, so that they are informed?

I would think that a long-time mathematician who has won the top awards in their lifetime can actually handle the criticism – they wouldn’t have become a master at their craft without overcoming a great deal of failures and negativity in their career.  In that sense, it is actually more respectful to tell a researcher when they are wrong.

The person we're talking about has his place in mathematics cemented whatever he says or does in the latter days of his career. The mathematicians who have been asked to comment on the latest claim know this and do not feel the need to tarnish his reputation by commenting publicly on it. Those who know him well may choose to tell him in private what they think, which he may or may not accept.

At its core, this is a very private story about aging and all of its associated effects. It is magnified by the fact that the person in question is a giant in his field and the public nature that comes along with everything he says. But I'm sure all of us with aging parents/friends/loved ones can relate to the fact that there are no easy ways to deal with this; dealing with it in public does not seem the right approach to me.


What are dissertation hours in the scope of degree requirements for PhD? At my school for a PhD I am required to complete a minimum of 72 credit hours of study(around 4 years of study). Of this ~42 are to be course work and ~30 is to be dissertation.

So I know what a dissertation is but not in the context of "30 dissertation hours." For students and professors what has been your experience and what is actually done each semester while you are taking the dissertation hours. Do you go to class or is it a one on one basis with a selected professor or maybe just your adviser. Is there no class/group time, and I just do research into the area I have proposed for my dissertation?

Will be asking my adviser and graduate school dean about this but was also interested in the dynamic that other schools have in this area.

In my PhD program, I was required to register for various research and dissertation related courses to fill the required 9 credit hours to be a full-time student. Those course ranged from 3 to 5 credit hours depending on what I needed. Those courses never met, and I did not receive a letter grade for them. They seemed to have two purposes: 1. existing to fill my schedule after my actual coursework was done (so that I was listed as being enrolled as a full-time student and so that they had something to charge me for), and 2. giving my advisor credit with the department for supervising a research or dissertation student. The mostly seem to be a bureaucratic slight of hand.

Edited to add: I was also paid 20 hours per week to work as a Graduate Research Assistant, but I basically worked about 40-50 hours per week on going to class (until I was done with my required hours) and working on my research. Towards the end, when I was writing my dissertation, it was more. The hours I was officially paid and the credit hours I took, never really aligned with much, except that a 3-credit hour actual course (like "Functional Analysis") met for 3 hours every week.


How to provide an anonymous copy of work online? It may seem odd, but I need to put an anonymous part of my work (an algorithm) online.

Well, it should be available online as I want to refer to it in a single-blind submission (but not as the contributions), and it should be anonymous as I want to introduce it (as the contribution) in another conference submission (with double-blind review). Since the submission deadlines are close to each other I want to handle it like this.

Is there a way to put it online with anonymous author names (arXiv does not allow it) so it could also be searchable via google?

I will remove it or update it with full names after the paper review process is finished.

I added the work to vixra.org which is similar to arxiv but with fewer boundaries. Maybe it does not have the reputation of arxiv, but i used it for anonymous uploading of my work.


Which tools should be used to produce charts in computer science research papers? What are good choices to produce charts in computer science research papers? For example, I think Figure 8 from
Staring into the Abyss: An Evaluation of Concurrency Control with One Thousand Cores (pdf), included below, is great. What tools were used to produce it?

Source: Xiangyao Yu et al., ibid., p. 215.

To add to other answers that will probably suggest some nice, specific software:

Use whatever you are comfortable with. I personally don't think this figure 8 is that special, and I don't even think it has any features that cannot easily be done with something as common as Excel. As also mentioned in some comments: even the potential graphical powerhouse Matlab will produce crappy figures if you use the standard settings. The same for some other "go-to" software packages. But you have to be able to use them.

In almost all of the mentioned software you can adapt (almost) everything, and some default settings look better than others (one of the reasons why Excel has such a bad reputation).

The most important thing is that you decide how a graph should look, and actually make it look like that. Don't settle for default colors / font sizes and line widths! Whatever software you use to get there is your choice.

If you're fluent in MS Office: probably you should just use Excel. If you like to write scripts and use commands instead of clicking everywhere: Matlab might be an option. If spent 3 years getting good at using Graphpad but don't like how the graphs look? Just adapt them to fit your tastes, don't be limited by the default settings.

And when exporting them use the right settings. Many journals accept vector graphics, which will always look better, but the journal has to accept those. Figures also need to be the right size. Everything can look perfect printed 12 cm wide, but when your graph has to fit one column (8.5 cm), the same graph will look too small with unreadable fonts.


Should I quit my PhD? This is a canonical question on this topic as per this Meta post. Due to its nature, it is rather broad and not exemplary for a regular question on this site. Please feel free to improve this question.

By its very nature, a PhD is stressful. If you're coping with other issues at the same time, the stress can become unbearable. Suppose a student is experiencing some of the following while pursuing a PhD, and wondering if they should quit. What tools could help them make the best decision?

worried they're not smart enough
stressed and unhappy
homesick
haven't made any friends, feeling lonely
suffering from a mental health issue such as depression, panic attacks, or bipolar
worried about a family situation (e.g., a sick relative)
worried about money
disagreements with advisor

It's difficult to think clearly and make good decisions when you're stressed. Obviously, we can't tell you whether or not you should leave the PhD programme, but here are some suggestions to help you through this difficult time.

If you have a mental health issue, try to address it before making any big decisions.
Your school will generally have a counsellor to help students. Contact them and make an appointment.
Meditation can help with stress. There may be a meditation club, or free meditation lessons on offer at your school (this is particularly common near exam time).
Think about YOUR goals rather than just trying to please parents/advisors.
Realise that a PhD programme is very different than anything you've likely done before, so don't expect to feel comfortable in it for the first six months or even a year.
Talk to your advisor about the problem. If you don't feel comfortable doing this yet, perhaps visit a counselor first.
Try not to be overwhelmed by the number of problems you're facing. Try to think about each problem in isolation. Imagine all of the problems but one magically disappeared; what could you do to alleviate the remaining problem?
You may be able to take a leave of absence from your studies.
Try doing sports, it helps your focus and your health. In fact, this would be one on the first things to do no matter if you are at PhD or not.


How to tell my supervisor that I have severe phobia of flying? The phobia of flying is discouraging me to travel for conferences, although quite a number of them are very good opportunities for me to "market" the researches of our lab and of mine. Apparently, I can't overcome this phobia even with the help of therapists. I almost passed out due to panic attacks on the airplanes, and after the flights, I always felt too exhausted to do anything for an entire week.

I think it's time to let my supervisor know that I can't to go to any conferences that I have to fly there. How can I do it in the most professional way?

Thanks

Since it doesn't sound like it's likely that you will be able able to work around it in the immediate future, I think you should schedule a meeting and just have the conversation. Explain your phobia, explain the effects, and explain that you have worked with therapists and that the problem is unresolved.

Treat it like any other health or mental health disability that will affect your ability to carry out the tasks graduate students normally do and make it clear that you will attend conferences by train or bus where possible. There are many questions about health and disability on this site and the consensus generally is that if it will impact your performance, you should bring it up with your supervisor and colleagues as soon as possible.  Since this has already become an issue, you should do that now.


Publication Strategy for book manuscript What's the best strategy to submit a book manuscript (on media literacy)? I assume I'd start sending my prospectus to the top publishers in that area (Teachers College?) and then I'd slowly work my way down the "prestige ladder"?

With book proposals most authors submit proposals to several publishers at once and then negotiate with those that are interested in the book project.  There's generally no clause that says "You cannot have submitted this for publication elsewhere."  Although you can submit a completed manuscript along with your proposal, many publishers will just want to see an outline and perhaps a sample chapter or two.  They won't typically review the entire manuscript in the way that a research paper would be reviewed.


Is it ethical to offer a student a job during the final weeks of his thesis if you are partly grading it? Our institute has an open position for a student research assistant where it is hard to find qualified applicants. Currently, I'm supervising a very good student who is in the final weeks of writing down his bachelor's thesis. He has experience with the requirements of the position and I would love to have him as an assistant.

The position would start after he finishes his degree.

However, I'm worried that if I were to offer him the position now, it would put him under undue pressure to accept, since his thesis will also partly be graded by me. Is this a problem?

Edit: Thanks for all your thoughtful input and answers! The thesis will be submitted in about a month, my part of grading it will finish a week after. While the professor could veto a application, I am effectively solely responsible for deciding who to hire as research assistant.

It is perfectly ethical to inform a student that you are currently supervising about open positions, especially if the student is about to complete the thesis and is a good fit to the position.

It is of course not ethical to let the student's action upon this information affect the grading of the thesis. That's for you to take care of, and I guess you were already aware of that.

If you have any concerns about putting pressure onto the student, an alternative way would be to have someone else inform the student about the open position. You write that you supervise the student's thesis, but your institute has the open position.

If that means that someone other than you is directly responsible for the open position, than just ask that person to contact the student about the position. That will probably make the student feel less guilty with respect to you if he or she doesn't apply for the position.


Publishing large papers I recently came across this query on a LinkedIn group. The exact query was:
"Does anyone know if there are journals in image/signal processing, CV or related ares, which have no page limitation and have ok/reasonable reputation? I have a theoretical paper which has 50 page."

Online journals could theoretically have no page limits but they still end up having limits/bounds. Why is it so?

Are there any such journals which allow for publishing of large sized papers?

For a long theory paper in image/signal processing, you could try IEEE Transactions on Information Theory. The papers typically run about 20 pages, but this classic runs 45 pages. Note that the two-column format can condense a one-column draft by 25% or more.

Trans IT is a very well-regarded journal in my field, with regular contributions from math-y engineers, statisticians, and engineer-y mathematicians.  To quote the aims and scope (emphasis mine):

  The IEEE Transactions on Information Theory publishes papers concerned with the transmission, processing, and utilization of information. While the boundaries of acceptable subject matter are intentionally not sharply delimited, its scope currently includes Shannon theory, coding theory and techniques, data compression, sequences, signal processing, detection and estimation, pattern recognition, learning and inference, communications and communication networks, complexity and cryptography, and quantum information theory and coding. IEEE Transactions on Information Theory papers normally contain a strong conceptual and/or analytical contribution.

The "strong conceptual and/or analytical contribution" means theorems and proofs; don't submit here if your paper doesn't have these. I couldn't find any stated page limit, but if your work is unnecessarily long for its contribution, the reviewers will definitely complain.

Another option is the SIAM Journal on Imaging Science.  There is no hard-and-fast page limit there, but the policies do state that "papers exceeding 30 journal pages, excluding the supplementary material, will be reviewed more closely to ensure that the excess is fully justified."

For both of these journals, expect a very rigorous review cycle.  I suspect that, unless the results are earth-shattering, you will still hear complaints about the length.


What is the proper way to deal self plagiarism? Couple of months ago i've checked plagiarism of one of my research work in turnitin.
I've reused the same research work in order enhancement it. When i checked new assignment again in turnitin with different class ID it shows similarity index from old one. I've changed my university and as per its rule it can not accept new assignment with such similarity index.
How can i deal with this issue?

I'll assume you're wondering why your similarity level is still high.

With most courses, it is up to the professor. You might have a professor that would allow you to do something like this, but it's incredibly unlikely.

When assignments are submitted to TurnItIn, they are stored in an external database that your school unlikely has access to. This is something maintained by the company. This is why your originality checks appeared to remain the same despite transferring institutions. You might have some benefit to this, as your professor's "common sense" is pretty important when using something like TurnItIn; they'll basically have to review it and talk to you about it. However, if it's not random bits and bobs like citations and bibliographies, you might not be in such good graces.

As for what you can do about this, very little. Talk to your professor about re-using the old assignment. They're going to need to know about it regardless. However, my two-cents are that you shouldn't have bothered reusing an old assignment; most professors simply do not accept work that was done for a different course, regardless if it was your work or not. None of mine ever have, from recent memory.


How far should I develop the main ideas in my paper before publishing it? Note: this question was already asked at MathOverflow but deemed off-topic. I think this is a better place to post it.

The purpose of a research paper is to present new results in a given field. But how far should an author go in developing his results? Since the discovery of a single new theorem could affect a variety of other fields/subfields, should the author go a step further by dedicating one or more sections of the paper to discussing several implications of the paper's main result?

Or should the paper "draw the line" once the main results have been established, and let other authors derive its implications in further publications?

One idea per paper, from my experience on AI and related formal work. Implications are typically left for the last part of the conclusions. Look at a typical paper in the area you want to publish in and see how far they go with those implications.

You can write a separate (mathematical) paper on implications across areas. It is not unusual to publish concerning the same idea in multiple fields. This - could be - salami slicing but it can also be extremely useful to practitioners in those fields.

For example, the seminal paper "On the acceptability of arguments and its fundamental role in nonmonotonic reasoning, logic programming and n-person games" by Dung took formal argumentation, gave it an abstract graph-theoretic conceptualisation and semantics, and then showed morphisms between previously separate areas.

If the implications you look into would change the title of your paper or the introduction to include words such as "role" or "link" or "morphism" then that may be a different paper.


Minor revision- Editor implied to do the experiment, however a rebut would clarify the issue We recently received comments from the reviewers after revision. Comments were positive, one reviewer asked us to do an experiment. EES status says its minor revision, editor's email do not say it's a minor revision and he insists we do this experiments. Ending the email, he writes we would be glad to reconsider the revised ms. Though the reason given by the reviewer to do the experiment can be rebutted, it's more of clarification issue.

Should we rebut or do the experiment; Also, does the minor revision mean it's a in principle acceptance?

Answer: Contact the editor and ask if they would consider a rebuttal.

Reason: Had a very similar situation: one of three reviewers wanted an extra experiment and the editor indicated we needed to consider running another experiment. We contacted the editor and asked if they would be willing in principle to consider a rebuttal rather than running an extra experiment. They said that they would consider it but would give us no guarantees other than that. We were successful: the reviewer backed down.


Will withdrawing from a graduate program, affect my future admissions applications? I am in an MS program at a big university in the US, where I pay my own tuition.

I am not happy with the quality of education I am getting at this university.

I am thinking that after this quarter is complete, that I want to officially withdraw from the program and go somewhere else. I think I can get much better education and for much less cost as well.

My question is: Will this affect me in any way for future admission to other schools? I am an A student, and I'll be withdrawing after the quarter is over, not in the middle.

Will the transcript contain some negative marker in it because I did not complete the MS program?  Has anyone been through this and found any negative effect when not completing a program?

Your transcript will very likely have a notation that shows you withdrew from the program; to claim that you are still enrolled when you are not would be dishonest (if either you or the university said so!).

And yes, this will be something that you will need to explain to schools to which you apply in the future. Just saying "it's not good enough for me" is a bad reason to withdraw from the program, because it suggests a "diva-like" attitude that is not particularly desirable (in just about any circumstances). If you're responsible for paying your tuition, and found you could no longer afford it, that would be a more tolerable reason.

But you will need to explain this, and it can definitely have an impact on the decision of future admissions committees.


Should I make my code and data avaiable online when the article is not accepted yet? We have received a set of reviews for an article that we had submitted to a journal. The decision by the journal editor is a Major Revision. That means, there is a possibility that the article could still be rejected.

Two of the reviewers (out of 3) have commented that the data and code to be made available publicly. Sharing of code and data is a very common practice in computer science conferences; it is not very common for journals.

I have the following confusions:

Should I make my data and code public straightaway?
Should I mention in the response letter that "Our code and data will be made available at this link after the article is accepted"?

(There is a relevant question here that looks it from the reviewers' perspective.)

Ultimately, it's up to you. I do not really see a reason to keep your data and code private, but you may very well have a valid reason to do so. Hence, I cannot answer the question what you should do.

If I were in your position, I would do the following. I would include a link in the manuscript to the data and code, and write that at this link you make the data and code available for reviewing purposes. The reviewers can then access it all so that they can fairly review your paper, code, and data, but if they behave responsibly, none of it should leak to the wider world. I would add a footnote specifying that the code and data will be made available to the public upon paper acceptance.


Do I have to request permission from a website to use an image that they use to promote their product on their site? I am currently checking proofs for a Springer article. The editor has asked us to provide permission details for all figures.

One of the figures is a screenshot from a software product, as found in the front page of the product's website. We use it to exemplify typical interfaces found in these types of products, and cite the site that it was taken from. With a bit of work we could re-generate the same image by downloading the product (its free, but supported by a for-profit company) and adding in sample data.

Since the screenshot is promotional material by the company, must I contact the company to request permission to use it in our paper, given that attribution is already correct, or can I already claim fair use due to its status as "promotional"? Re-creating the screenshot would also rely on fair use, according to this answer.

It doesn't matter if the material is promotional or not. It doesn't matter if the material is freely available or not. What matters is copyright. You have to ask if you want to use copyrighted material.

On a different note, the company may really be unhappy if you use a screenshot which might be of bad quality (at least it's a pixel image) instead of a high quality, tailor made (possibly vector graphics) image for that purpose.


Determining the scope of a Master's Thesis I am a student of comparative politics currently considering what specific topic I want for my Master's Thesis. On the basis of the choice, the university will allocate an appropriate professor - given that they understand the choice of course. However, the boundaries for topics are mainly limited by the field and the length; 80-100 pages. As such, I am unsure how wide or narrow I should aim to be with the thesis.

I have a general idea for the topic, and a fairly good understanding of the field, but the length is an abstract I find hard to deal with. Basically, how much should I limit myself in the scope and use of selected theory and empirical content?

Of course, this varies between universities and fields, but some general guidelines on determining how to go about determining what can reasonably be achieved with a year of writing for a Master's Thesis would be appreciated.

I'm not sure if this applies to all subject domains, but in computer science, most of the Master's Theses that I have seen were quite broad.  They gave an overview of the subject and a more detailed analysis of whatever subtopic the author chose to cover.

Most of them had little empirical content.  From what I can tell, the goal is to analyze a few works related to one's topic and formulate several salient questions that could be addressed in the future.

To reiterate, a master's thesis differs from a PhD dissertation in that the goal is not to provide novel content, but to show that one has a good understanding of the material, is comfortable with analyzing current or previous research, and that one has the ability to come up with new, exciting ideas to build upon said research.

To determine what is reasonable, you should consult with an advisor, I do not think that you can answer this question without already having some sort of topic in mind.  On that note, if possible, I think that providing insights is far more important than reviewing topics that most people in the field are already familiar with.  So, if you have enough content, you could easily cut some of the overview and concentrate more on your ideas, which if good, would look more impressive.

With respect to "selected theory" vs "empirical content," I think that's entirely up to you.  Whatever serves your thesis better is what I would incorporate into it.  This probably seems like a very hand-wavy answer, but it really does depend on exactly what questions/issues that you're attempting to address.  I may be wrong, but I doubt that there's any sort of formula that dictates how much of either you should use.


does my affiliation affect the decision of accepting my paper in a journal Many times, you receive comments such as:I am unable to accept your manuscript for publication in "Journal name" The reason for this decision is that in its current state, the level of English throughout your manuscript does not meet the journal's required standard.
The work was revised thoughtfully and reach reviewing stage in higher impact journal but was not accepted because of scientific disagreement.

You seem to be asking if it is possible that due to your affiliation, your paper is rejected for bogus reasons.

While this cannot be ruled out with certainty, such cases should be very rare in reputable journals. Reviewers are advised to only take the scientific content and the clarity of the presentation into account.

It is quite common that a presentation that is quite hard to follow makes the reviewer unable to assess the scientific contribution. This is because the reviewer shouldn't guess what is meant to make her/his judgment. If a central part is unclear, then this precludes the reviewer from supporting acceptance. If a follow-up submission is made with an improved presentation,  only then, the reviewers can check the scientific content properly and recommend to accept or reject the paper. Getting the improved version rejected (again) is not a sign of discrimination, but rather one should see the first try as a paper draft that has not actually been reviewed due to lack of clarity.

Note that many scientific communities are close-knit, so if an author needlessly does not adhere to the standards of the community in terms of the type of experimental evaluation, the arguments used, or the questions being answered, then this can also lead to little interest by the journal to accept a paper.


Why do universities offer full fund positions to international student? Many top universities in north America accept international ph.d. students and pay their tuitions, insurnace and other funds. To get visa, international students should convince the officer that they will go back to their home countries. I am wondering why universities should accept international students and what are the benefits for universities and the destionation universities?

Universities use Ph.D. students as teaching or research assistants. Essentially they are hiring you, with education being a part of payment.
Moreover, if a Ph.D. student becomes a famous or at least succefull scientist, it is very good for image of a university.


PI wants to add a new author who I think doesn't deserve to be added I have worked with a professor on a project where I produced some results from running experiments and analysing the data, now the professor is asking a new student to redo my experiments with the promise of adding the student's name to the publication we already submitted to a conference and is currently under review.

I wasn't told of the reason why a new student was brought to the project but if I have to guess it would be to validate the results.

I feel that the new student shouldn't be added as an author as he is repeating what I have already done. Is my feeling correct/justified? Should I approach the professor with this concern? Or should I keep it to myself?

I understand what you are going through. Your best shot is to discuss this with your advisor! But, you need to consider the following;

I do not know your field (although you have used computer-scinece as a tag), but in some fields, conference papers are not that important. I'm not saying that adding a new author should be fine! All what I'm saying that as long as your name is 1st, or 2nd author, you should be fine. (Personally, I would not be fine if the new guy's name came before mine in this specific scenario). If conference papers are weighted heavily in your field (i.e., computer science), that is a different story and you may need to talk to your advisor for clarifications.
It also depends on the topic, if the topic is specific (i.e., cutting edge technology) rather than general (i.e., literature review), then adding an additional author may cause irritation on your part and this need to be addressed with the advisor (again).
You do not know the whole story! What is the point of adding a new guy? Why redo your experiments? If it is due to funding/proposal/politics, you need to consider the bigger picture.
In general, you need to learn to cooperate! The sooner the better. You do not end up working with the people you like or the same people over and over again! My advisor would make two students work on a topic that is remotely related to both of them just to teach them how to cooperate. Then, he publishes two papers (where he switches the students names between 1st and 2nd). For instance, one paper would be on an experimental approach to solve a problem where student A is the first author. the 2nd paper will be on analytical/numerical approach to be validated against the experimental work where student B is the first author.

P.S.
When I discussed collaboration in point 4, I do not mean that your advisor should add somebody in a paper you have been working on for sometime (or has an outcome of your direct research/thesis). But, rather for "networking", "motivation", "learning" and "brainstorming" aspects.


Is the journal indexing by SCOPUS meaningless? A journal that I want to submit my manuscript is SCOPUS and WoS indexed (Q3, impact factor: 1.89, SJR 0.264, Fee: around 1000$). But my Professor said SCOPUS indexed journals are MEANINGLESS!(two months ago he said SCOPUS indexed journals are also OKAY).

He prefers SCI-indexed journal which is Q3, impact factor:0.7, SJR:0.224, Fee: around 250-300$. I understand, maybe SCI index is a little bit higher than SCOPUS but if you scale SCOPUS(IF:1.89) and SCI(IF:0.7).

Which one is better to publish in?

Scopus is quality-curated, i.e. getting indexed by it is not meaningless.

However, it is not as selective as the Science Citation Index, which remains the gold standard.

Therefore you are better off publishing in a SCI-indexed journal if you can. Arguing with your professor is unlikely to be a good idea in any case - they have much more experience than you and will have a better idea where to send your manuscript.


What software license allows me to have GPL for academic use and paid use by industry for my open-source project? I have spend many years during my PhD developing a code base and decided to open-source the code when I finished. It's currently under GPL. The code is used by many different research group around the world, and that was my goal; to provide a useful tool for the research community.

Recently I have been contacted by a company that wants to use the software. My intention was always to charge a fee for industrial use of the code. On the website, it says something to the effect of "GPL for academic use", "please contact me for industrial licensing".

Firstly, do you think this is reasonable approach? Personally, I don't think that industry should get a free ride from my publicly funded research code.

Secondly, what are reasonable terms, pricing and software license for an "industrial license"?

Your license is not the GPL if you add additional restrictions, and your restrictions may turn out to be incompatible with the GPL in subtle ways. Consult an IP attorney.

Fortunately for you, even if your code is GPL, many companies might not want to use it because they might worry about it infecting their product. So, you might be able to charge them for a proprietary licensed version. That being said, if your work came in under a US grant from the NSF or similar agency, its terms may require you to open source the work period. Additionally, your university is likely to have an Office of Technology Commercialization or similar body that is responsible for software licensing to industry. At mine, the Board of Regents retains the rights to all software and commercially licenses it with the "inventor" getting half and the university getting half, typically, unless it is open sourced.

You should check with your university and the grant terms that funded your work. Corporations are typically tax payers in their local jurisdictions, so it's not necessarily wrong for them to benefit much as another researcher would from your work (i.e., for free).


How do you search arXiv by sub-subject? How do you search arXiv by sub-subject?

For example, underneath the subject Computer Science, you have the subject 'Artificial Intelligence', and under the subject Quantitative Finance, you have the subject 'Computational Finance'.

How do I search for papers specifically within these subjects? Clicking on the subjects only brings up recent submissions, but I want all of them.

You can use the Advanced Search for this, specifically the 'All fields' option in the dropdown menu. Set that value to the abbreviation/code for the subcategory, e.g. cs.ai or q-fin.CP for your examples. These seem unique enough to not pick up many false positives, and will (unless you specify otherwise) also pick up crosslisted papers. Refine the query as desired.


“Awaiting EE Decision” in Manuscript Central – what does it mean? I submitted my paper to a journal twelve days ago. In Manuscript Central, there were some changes of the paper’s status during the first two days, and as far as I can remember, these were Awaiting ADM Processing and Awaiting technical editor selection. At the third day, I saw Awaiting EE Decision which is still there.

From some previous posts I assume that such decision status is normally shown for a paper that is already reviewed by peers. Given that, it’s been only twelve days since my submission and the paper has not been sent out for peer-review yet, what could be the possible implications of the status? Just a bit curious and worried as well.

OK I must also point out before you read the rest of the answer that the Editorial decision has not come yet and this is likely the Editorial decision after minor processing (sorting, subject headings, keyword checks(maybe/maybe not)) and a Technical editor shortlisting it for further review when the editor decides on how to proceed (EE decision)

This is now Obviously the Editorial Decision. He can send it for review if it is a blind peer to peer review journal or reject it outright. Thus the EE decision would be completed by the editor or designated person after going through the paper and deciding if he has to send it to a reviewer, if he has reviewers for the subject matter, if he can return directly to the author for modifications/rewrites or if he wants to accept it for publication(unlikely without a blind peer to peer review.


Information in my Thesis incorrectly represented in another publication Recently I came across a publication that referenced my PhD Thesis in a literature survey. The citing is correct, however, the information that they sited is incredibly erroneous. In a table, they claimed that my thesis (in Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting) reported values that it simply did not. The only information apparently from my thesis is reported in a table (Table 3) and nowhere else.

This is the publication in question.

Given the journal and publisher, is it worthwhile to attempt to contact the authors to fix the error?

No, there really isn't any value in you trying to pursue a correction here, given how sloppy the presentation of the articles is, and how poorly presented the linked article in particular appears to be.

Basically, it would be much ado about nothing; very few people, as the commenters have pointed out, will try to take the published work seriously; even fewer will bother to check the references and dig through them to figure out that they've apparently been grossly mischaracterized by the authors of the paper in question. So, I don't think there's any besmirching of your scientific reputation to worry about.

Moreover, trying to go after these authors or the publisher to make them make changes will most likely prove equally fruitless. There is no quality control or standards involved with the production of the articles, so it seems unlikely that any request for an editorial correction would be honored in a timely manner (or at all).


Refereeing a lazy, but correct paper When refereeing a paper, I often have objections to the work that do not rise to the level of using the coercive powers of a referee to delay or reject the work. For instance, I find myself wanting to write: "If I were you, I would be embarrassed to publish a paper with [such unclear writing/such a silly comparison to experiment/so few parameters studied/incredibly ugly figures]."*

If the paper is not wrong or incoherent, just lazy or badly written, I don't feel justified in rejecting the paper or requiring a revision. I also don't want to invest hours of time acting as a language editor or graphic designer for figures.

Is there a politer way to express this sentiment and encourage the authors to improve their own work? Or should I simply take on good faith that the authors have done the work to the standards they are willing to publish, and that these may differ from my own?

*note: this is distinct from the case where the paper is so unclear that you can't tell whether their work is correct or not - where I think rejection is appropriate. I'm also assuming that this is not a terribly selective journal - in fact, it could be a journal like PLOS ONE, which explicitly says that importance to the field is not a relevant criterion.

Note: I've edited this to address a couple of points made by answers, and to focus away from the writing part, which has been answered in the past. Bad writing is one aspect of this question, but general author laziness is the larger one.

I think there are two important factors here:

Reviewers are typically the closest subject experts a journal can locate.
Most journals have (or want) a target audience that is considerably broader than the expert reviewers they enlist. Think of the industrial practitioners, novice grad students, and other interested non-experts.

If it takes you a lot of effort to parse and understand a paper as the related expert, it seems entirely plausible that a non-expert would not follow the paper at all. Particularly if the poor exposition is so bad that you can only follow the train of thought because you as an expert can fix errors in your head or make logical leaps, then it's definitely beyond the scope of the general reader.
Both are valid complaints that could lead to a rejection of a paper, depending on the particulars of the work and the venue.

There are other avenues to address these problems than simply rejecting the paper. If the work otherwise is adequate, you might say so but tell the editor that the work does not meet the language standard for this journal and let them handle it. Some journals have a notion of "conditional acceptance" or "shepherding" where an agreement is worked out between the authors and editors that certain items must be addressed or revised prior to publication (however, they need someone to oversee such papers, so you might be volunteering for the role if you suggest it!).

Nobody wants a rejection, but most authors do want their work to be read and appreciated by others. Addressing these issues is a short term frustration for authors but a long-term win in terms of the visibility and impact of their work.


How to present data in a paper in terms of style I have previously been involved in a course, where we (the students) were supposed to use a specific style, when presenting our graphical data. By style I mean the size/color of legends, thickness of datapoints, layout of the figure, etc....

Does similar guidelines exist when publishing data in a peer-reviewed journal? Or is it entirely up to me to decide, how it should look?

The purpose of any style when presenting graphics should aim at making the information as easy to read and comprehend as possible. I do not think any journals would provide specific style recommendaions except provide information on, for example, the thinnest posible lines, smallest possible font sizes to be reproduced in printing, color models etc.

I think it is important to think about how you present data in any scientific or professional communication. It will be largely up to you to make decisions on the material you visualize. My recommendation is to look at the book The Visual Display Of Quantitative Information by Edward Tufte and then to learn by example. This book, in my opinion, like no other, provides a good basis for understanding graphic display of data. Look at what others do and critically evaluate how successful those attempts are.


Is it okay to record audio for a lecture? Sometimes the Professor will say things quickly, or say things before I can write them down. It would be of great benefit if I could record audio for the course, but I am not sure the legal guidelines around doing so.

The legal issues involved will, of course, depend on what legal jurisdiction you are asking about. However, there are some common factors that can be considered.

In the UK many institutions take the interpretation of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) that teaching staff cannot prevent students making private recordings (Audio or Video) of any teaching activity. The reasoning is that students are entitled to keep their condition confidential (as it may be a private medical matter) but also must be permitted to receive the appropriate adjustment for their condition. It would be expected, as a courtesy, that the student would inform the staff concerned that recording was taking place, but that this could not be enforced. (*)

Conversely, the Intellectual Property (IP) of the class and the material contained therein would be held by the University and the individual teacher to varying degrees. The recording could not be published or used for any means other than private study as this would then violate the rights of the owner of the IP.

Many aspects of disability discrimination, privacy and intellectual property legislation is common across many EU states, but there are variations in practice. I can imagine how these different statutes might interact in (say) the US, but I suspect it might vary from state to state and not always be a federal matter, and so I decline to speculate.

(*) I have responsibilities for assisting academic staff understand these issues in my department...


How an extremely competitive, but non-accredited "regionally" program will be perceived in a phd applicant application? I am applying to a PhD program in law (business law) at a top university in the U.S. I got my master of law from an equivalent institution in the U.S.
I found an online-based MBA (master of business administration) program,
and I got accepted to the program.
According to their published data they are extremely competitive with an acceptance rate of only 7%. Majority of their students are graduates of reputable institution [ Harvard,Yale, LSE..etc.]. However, they are only accredited by the Distance Education Accreditation Commission (DEAC).
Since I study business law, I thought that it would be a good idea to reflect on that in my SOP and CV. (I am not applying to a business school. I am applying to a law school, but I just thought it is nice to nail down the technical aspect of business since my proposed research have some parts in business).
I am not sure how this would be perceived? should I put it in my CV and SOP as MBA or just point out that I am taking a program in business (just like you would reflect MOOCS or independent courses in your CV).

I would simply mention that you were accepted to a highly selective program, providing the name.  Hopefully, the institution is well-enough known that you need not go any further.  As for the Distance Education Accreditation Commission, it is sufficiently recognized by the major US agencies (e.g., US Department of Ed and Council for Higher Education Accreditation so I think you are sufficiently covered.


How do I specify my affiliation/contact information when I changed institutions and fields? I am in a situation similar to that of this question where I did some work with a former employer, I changed fields, and now something related to that work is in the process of being published.  Initial submission of the work was during my time with my former employer, but revisions are happening after leaving.  The paper is a single author paper.  Based on the responses to that question, it seems like I should be using my former employer as my affiliation, but I have a few difference in my situation that I would like to clarify.

The work in question is a discussion paper which was solicited from me by a journal.  As such, I gained the expertise necessary to write the paper working for my former employer, but the paper itself was written in my personal time so neither organization directly funded any of the work in the paper.  However I would not have been requested to write the paper if not for my work with my former employer.
If I do decide to use my former employer as my affiliation, what should my contact email be?  I would rather not use a personal email, but I don't have access to the work email from my former employer, and it seems weird for my affiliation to be Company A, but my email to be me@CompanyB.com.

In case it affects your response, the paper is in the field of quantitative forecasting and specifically on the use of machine learning for forecasting, which is what I did for my former employer.  I now work using machine learning for video processing on medical devices.

If you have the opportunity to be clear (that is, some limited online form doesn't prevent it) explain the transition "Jon Barker, formerly of Acme Corp, now with Zypppy Inc. JB@Zypppy.com". Or something similar.

The reason for the email is so that people can contact you, so use the current one even if it seems weird. Using an obsolete mail does no one any good.

If the former employer/institution contributed funds to the project it is usually good etiquette to indicate that you were associated with them then. But for identification purposes, your current affiliation is more valuable. But if it is a paper with multiple authors, some still at Acme, then it is less important to list an old affiliation (my opinion only).

There may even be reasons that you must not imply an affiliation that no longer exists, but that is fairly rare. If you can only give a single affiliation, it is probably best in most cases to list your current one. I suspect such a rule has many possible exceptions, but I'd suggest thinking about why you think you have an exceptional case.


Bad advisor + a research area that interesets me or an active advisor + research topic that doesn't interest me? I'm a beginning Master's student in Mathematics, I'm passionate about Mathematical Analysis and want to have my Master's thesis on some topic in Mathematical Analysis. Problem is, in my Department, the professors who work in this area are very few and they have a bad reputation. On the other hand, professors who work in Computational Mathematics and Numerical Optimization are more active in research and have a good reputation. I can't really decide whether is it more important to choose a potential supervisor and learn from him the elements of research in a research topic I'm not interested in or should I take the risk and stick to the topic I'm passionate about?. If I chose the research area which I'm passionate about there's a huge probability that my supervisor will not offer any guidance at all or even any interest in reading my thesis.
I understand that the question is rather subjective as it depends on the personality of the student in the end. However, I'm looking forward to hearing other's analysis on the situation and if anyone had a similar experience or a challenge like this and how did they end up doing?

Thank you all for your time reading my post.

I'm going to assume that by "bad reputation" that you don't mean that they actively impede and harass students. Avoid such advisors like the plague - which they are. The following only refers to situations in which "bad" means that they aren't very active in the field and are without much of a publication record.

If you really can't move to a more compatible place, then ask yourself how self directed are you and how much drive do you have to get it done on your own? If you have an advisor in analysis (my original field, actually) who is a decent person who will respond to your questions and concerns, even while not providing a lot of guidance, then you could probably be successful. It would be good training, actually, for an academic career, which you eventually need to be able to carry on by yourself. But it would take a lot of reading to find a good problem.

However, if you aren't that self directed and need a lot of guidance, then it might be best to choose an advisor from a related subfield if you can find one who will give you the external direction you need. It is a tradeoff, as are many things in life.

But study for Master's degree isn't forever. A lot of it is coursework most places and it isn't usually necessary to specialize so completely that you can't still keep a bit of generality in your program. (Yes, there are places in which that isn't true and where specialization is all, but not everywhere.)

Another option, if you have a good, compatible advisor, is to also seek advice on some aspects of your study via the internet from authors who write in your field. International collaboration is feasible now where it wasn't in the past.

My suggestion, then, is that the human qualities of an advisor, and a willingness to help you can be as important as an international reputation in the field.

But when/if it comes time to study for a doctorate, pick a place where you get more support for your field.

Note that this advice would be much less valuable for a doctoral advisor. There, the student probably needs more guidance.


Research paper about an enhancement to algorithm A question that has been bothering me for so long about research work is, what level of work can be called research and is worthy of publishing in a research paper?

Let's say I am working with JPEG compression, if I make some may be a little enhancement in the algorithm for the compression, can it be given the title of research.

So my question is:

If I make a little enhancement or added a little new stuff to an already existing work, can it be called a research and can I write a research paper for it?

The question I would ask is: "Are there people working in this area who would learn something interesting and useful from what you've done?"  If the answer is yes then your paper makes a contribution and so is potentially publishable. At that point you could consider some secondary questions, e.g.:

Length of the paper: this should be commensurate with the extent of the contribution (i.e., how much someone would learn) -- a small contribution merits a short paper.
Venue of publication: some place (conference, journal, forum) typically accessed by the people who would learn the most from your paper.  For example, a theory journal would not be the right place for systems-oriented paper about the guts of a compiler.


Etiquette in difficult situation with colleague A former colleague of mine who I thought that I knew quite well has recently become verbally abusive towards me because I would not leave my current job  to work with him in his lab on different project at another university.

Looking back on our interactions I now see that he was manipulating me much of the time and was angry that his latest effort was unsuccessful. I am concerned that because I have refused his request he will try and ruin my reputation (he made some veiled threats that I won't go into and implied I owed him because he "mentored" me).

To make matters worse, I had agreed to collaborate on some things with him before his behaviour became obvious to me.

Is it appropriate to simply avoid/ refuse all contact with this person or will this make things worse (especially with the collaboration dilemma)?

How would you deal with this? I do not feel that I have done anything wrong and that his reaction was very bizarre.

Threatening is always manipulation. Usually there is talk than walk behind it.

it is not option to conform to his threatening behavior, and you certainly do not want to work with such a person. You owe nothing to that person if verbally abused you. So you should minimize interaction with such a person. Can you pull out from those collaborations?

There might be anti-discrimination institutions that -could- be helpful, depending on circumstances.