How to deal with an advisor who wants a "friendlier" relationship with me than I do? I work as an assistant at a university in Australia. I joined the team consisting of my current advisor and his two PhD students. The other group members are men and they have a co-worker-like relationship with him. At first it was good, my advisor was very helpful (I have worked there about ten months and I published two papers with him, both in journals with a high impact factor). But when we started to get to know each other better, it unfortunately changed. I am a young woman and am afraid that he wants me to become romantically involved with him.

I try to keep this relationship work-only, as it’s the most healthy way, in my opinion, but sometimes my advisor seems to think differently. Here are some of the things that have made me think my advisor wants a romantic relationship with me:

He comes to my room very often with no research-related reason and wants to talk, talk, talk about everything but work.
Once, when I was busy working, he came to my room and asked if he could take a photo of me. I felt ashamed and did know what to say and then finally, he took the photo.
Sometimes I think he is mad at me that I want to keep this relationship work-only, and then does not answer my emails about our research.
He is very careful with all this, says those things only when we're together. A while ago I heard that his PhD student suggested to him that he spends too much time with me. He laughed and said it's not his business, and that we are working hard on some novel research method.

My advisor has powerful connections here at the university and I'm afraid no one is able to do anything about it. I’m only interested in having a professional relationship with him. However, I’m afraid that if I don’t agree to be his “very close friend,” he will try to kick me out of the university.

I can not move to a different city because of some family issues and can not change my advisor since he is the only person at the university who works on the research I’m interested in. What can I do?

I don't know if a meeting at which you "set the agenda" would be particularly helpful at this stage. It might make him feel "attacked", put him on the defensive, and he may retaliate against you in response. (I'm not suggesting that he would try to get you kicked out of the university or the department; there are many, many other small and large ways an advisor can make things difficult for a student. You already suggested that when he's mad at you, he deliberately ignores you emails, for example.)

I strongly disagree with the advice to flaunt a (real or fake) relationship, to let your advisor know you're unavailable. I've seen people try this, and in my experience, when applied to someone who does not respect boundaries, the outcome is often that then he starts asking you a whole lot of very uncomfortable questions about your boyfriend and the relationship.

Also, he's probably doing this because he enjoys it (flirting, the chase, whatever), not because he wants an actual committed relationship. So I'm not convinced that he would be dissuaded by your unavailability.

Instead, I suggest you start using a variation on the following phrase to respond when he does something that makes you uncomfortable:

  I don't want this. This makes me really uncomfortable.

As in,

  I don't want you to take my photo. Please don't ask again, it makes me really uncomfortable.

or

  I don't want to talk about my personal life with you. It makes me really uncomfortable.

etc.

And, if he persists in whatever is making you uncomfortable,

  I need to go (get a cup of coffee/make a phone call/talk to another student before he leaves for the day/make some photocopies/etc.)

then remove yourself from the situation.

I recommend practicing saying these words on your own, until they feel natural. This will help you feel less flustered when a situation comes up.

I also concur with StrongBad's suggestion:

  I would suggest the OP writes down every time she tells the advisor he made her feel uncomfortable. She should also keep track of times he makes her feel uncomfortable in which she was uncomfortable telling him he made her feel uncomfortable.

and I would add, also make a note of who else (if anyone) was there at the time.

This will help in two ways:

You'll be able to tell if the situation is getting better or worse with time.
If you do need to escalate at some point, you'll have some documentation.


As a postgrad student, is it appropriate not to add my supervisor's name on publication? Let me summarize the complicated state of affairs, as follows:

This summer, I was cooperating with the other team in a spin off project, we decided to publish the results, so I prepared the paper.

In the authorship, I added my supervisor's name. I think it is usual because I am his student and whatever I've learned came from him.

But when the other team's supervisor saw this, he asked me to drop my supervisor's name from the list. I sense that this is not only because he is not involved in the project, but also because of some political issues.

Dropping my supervisor's name makes me feel bad, like betraying him.

Since you haven't explicitly mentioned which academic discipline this concerns, and as EnergyNumbers mentioned in the comment, different disciplines may have different conventions, I'll answer in terms of my discipline, (Theoretical) Physics. I would be horrified if it so turns out that things are any different in any other scientific discipline (at least).

Whenever an article gets submitted for publication, one has to''accept'' a declaration that all those people who made significant contributions were (at least) offered co-authorship. If they decline to be an author, that's a different story. As PVAL mentioned above in a comment, it is academic dishonesty if someone is sitting in the author list without having contributed anything significant to the investigation. Even if you discount the ''politics'', as you mentioned, the other team is frowning because your supervisor is ''not involved in the project''. If that means that he only offered occasional advice, perhaps born out of his experience with doing similar things, (''have you tried ...'' variety), then the right place for him is in the acknowledgements section. Just mention, ''we thank [his name] for helpful discussion/ inputs ...'' etc. But if it means that you want to include his name only because ''what I learned came from him'', I'm afraid I have to point out that authorship is not a Christmas card. (By the same token, why not include your parents, or your spouse, or your high school teachers - you owe a lot to them also :P). It is WRONG to include any person who didn't contribute TO THE INVESTIGATION, howsoever highly regarded he may be in your personal life.

But having said that, here's some seasoned advice - Go and talk to your supervisor in private and explain the situation. Ask him whether or not you should include him in the list, fighting opposition from the other co-authors. It is possible that he may have been in this situation before (whichever side), so he will show you the light. One-to-one dialogues go a long way in resolving these sort of harmless dilemmas.

Besides, that will serve another purpose - you will show him that you ''respect'' him so much that you want to gift him authorship in an investigation that he hasn't contributed to at all :P. (I expect that any sensible man would decline in this situation).


Can I use one job offer to speed up another offer (on my dream job)? My question is all about academic job offers. This is my first time on the job market post PhD, so I'm completely new to this. Here's my dilemma:

I was interviewed for an academic position last month at University A and they made me an offer today, but want me to decide within the next two weeks. The job at University A is ok, and actually pays very well (more than I expected) but is in a location both my spouse (a non-academic) and I greatly dislike. And I am not completely thrilled about the job itself. I think for the most part I'd enjoy it, but there's a lot more "managerial" aspects that I am not particularly interested in.

I found my dream academic job at University B and applied there a couple of weeks ago. University B is in a location that both my spouse and I love, but it would pay less than the job at University A. I am extremely qualified for the position at University B and am confident that my application will stand out. But, they are still taking applications for another week. The problem is that the timelines are really not matching up here.

If I had both offers in hand, I'd take University B, even for less money. I am that much more excited about the position and the location. The problem is, I don't know when University B will really make decisions. I'd like to email or call someone to try to speed things up, but don't really know the correct etiquette in academia.

I guess what I'm asking is this: what's the most appropriate way to call University B and say "I recently applied for this position, and I think I'd be a great fit, but I have another offer in hand. I'd much rather be a part of University B's project, however. When might you know what candidates you are interested in?" I don't want to be rude or sound arrogant, but really think I have a good chance if they can move fast enough.

I recently applied for this position, and I think I'd be a great fit, but I have another offer in hand. I'd much rather be a part of University B's project, however. When might you know what candidates you are interested in?"

That is almost perfect. Instead of asking when they will know, tell them when you need to know by. With two weeks notice it is not clear what they can do, but they probably could tell you if you are ridiculously strong (think an associate professor who is ready to be promoted to full professor applying for an assistant professor position), a reasonable candidate, or not in the running. You may want to talk to the university that made the offer and see if the deadline can be extended.

For an extremely qualified candidate with an application that stands out, and I find that a dubious statement, a university could move you to the top of the short list, interview you, and make an offer in under a week. That said, it is extremely unlikely that a search committee would be so impressed that it decides to move that fast.


Guides for being an independent/freelance researcher? Are there any books on how to be an independent/freelance researcher?

By being an independent/freelance researcher I will assume you mean being a researcher not affilated to academia or working at a research center.

First thing you shall consider is access to research sources. For example in academia you have acess to the university library, journal subscriptions paid by the university, laboratory facilities etc. Same goes for working as a full-time researcher for a national research center or a large corporation.

Additionaly, getting funding for your research(by the government) is harder if you are an independent researcher and easier if you are at university or a corporation.

In my opinion the best case would be to fund a company which offers products/services related to your type of research (e.g if your research interests are in statistics you would consider consulting, software, visualization tools etc.) and invest a percent of your income to your research.

Of course in that case you would not be an "independent" researcher. You would still be affilated to your company, which is acceptable. Every corporation, multi-national or relatively small invests time and money in research.

You may also consider checking the following questions of SE:

Applying for research funding as an independent researcher

Can I work as a freelance researcher?


Preparing for Quals in Math I will be starting graduate school next semester in mathematics and I have no idea how I am going to fare. My goal for this summer and I am slowly making progress is to go over topics in real analysis, topology and algebra. I am also doing an individual study in multivariable calculus which also covers analysis and linear algebra as well. My big question, which is very broad is, how does one prepare for the quals?

See if your department keeps copies of past exams (most do).  If they do, then working the problems on the old exams is by far the best way to study.

You'll begin to notice the types of problems typically asked (there are some classic ones in each area that you should definitely know how to do), the average difficulty of problems, and most importantly help identify areas you need to brush up on.


Listing presentations at a conference side-meeting on a CV? At a recent conference, members of a working group were invited to give quick summaries of their research in a side meeting. Obviously these don't qualify as peer reviewed conference activity, but would it still be appropriate to include such a talk in the "other talks" portion of the CV?

Yes, I don't see why you couldn't include this, as long as it's clearly understood that you didn't present a peer-reviewed paper at that conference.


Stating minor degree on CV At my institution, we are supposed to complete pre-requisite courses required for minor in a particular area and then apply for a minor degree in it. At this point I haven't applied for one, just because I couldn't take up the pre-req courses until now, but I definitely intend to in future. Is it appropriate for me state the minor degree under my current major in my CV if I have not officially started pursuing it?
Follow up question, should I even mention my minor degree at this point if it's not relevant to the research position I'm applying for? I believe that a minor degree rather than the area itself demonstrates students in a positive light of the pursuing what they like.

Minor degrees, are in fact, minor.  They should not be front-and-center like your major.  If the minor degree is totally taking the backseat, both degree-wise and research-wise, I'd maybe have a couple of words on my CV/resume, saying I minored in this and that would be it.  You could say that you intend to pursue a minor in this subject if you haven't officially declared it yet, although again, it's really only a few words on a subject; I personally wouldn't list a minor that I haven't declared yet because in my mind, it could be seen as lying on the CV.
Now if you plan on using your minor to form the basis of future research work, then it may be worth listing/talking about on your CV.  BUT ... if it's part of your research interests anyway, the majority of the talking about that should be done via your statement of purpose or recommendations, or maybe even any research you've done that may be related to that minor.
So in summary, you could say (intended) minor in this, removing the "intended" part afterwards when you actually declare it, but overall on a resume/CV it's only a couple of extra words and maybe only a big deal if you're applying for a relevant position; if not, you should have other things to talk about that are more related to what you're applying to anyway.
Hope this helps.


A professional reference letter for pure math graduate school I'm applying for master's degree in mathematics (pure math) at Canadian universities.

I already found two professors to write academic letters for me, but it's hard to find the third one who can write a strong letter.

All schools mentioned on their websites that they require 3 letters with at least two academical references which means the third one could be professional.

I've been working as a math tutor at a community college  in Toronto for past 3 co-op terms. She has supervised me for 2 co-op terms and knows me very well (even more than my professors).

Her position is Learning strategists - math specialist which means her job is to support students' learning and deal with their academic concerns. Before the current job, she earned her master's degree in mathematics and statistics and worked as a lecturer/teaching assistant at a university for 5-7 years and was an instructor at the current college for few years. I don't want to reveal too much about her, but at least I can say she went to/worked at top Canadian universities.

I have built good relationship with her as a co-op student & supervisor and I have some impressive achievements in a college tutor level. So I believe she can write a strong letter for me.

My concern is she doesn't hold PhD. Would committee take her letter seriously? Do you recommend to get a letter from her rather than from a professor who barely knows me?

That is of course always hard to answer, as we don't know you, we don't know what would be written in the letters, we don't know about the person reading your letters. Thus, the answer below is just my personal opinion, it might or might not align with the opinion of the persons in charge of admitting you:

I would go with the letter from your job. Your job is math related, the person writing the letter is working with math daily and she knows you better than the third professor. Thus, you would get a personalized letter instead of the generic "Andrew is a good student and passed my class with an A" that admission boards surely read way too often. Furthermore, it shows that you really enjoy math and not just study it to get a degree. With the right wording, this could show you as a really motivated mathematician; and every professor knows that to do a master's or maybe even a PhD in pure math you need tons of (self)motivation.

I wouldn't worry too much about the fact that she doesn't hold a PhD. On the contrary, she has been allowed to work and lecture at top universities without having one, that tells way more about her than a piece of paper saying that she wrote a thesis at some point in her life.
Oh, and if she already worked at top universities, maybe she also worked at the one you are applying to and has connections there? That would put her letter even above the two from your professors I'd guess.


Will it hurt my grad school chances if I don't mention/contact a particular proffessor-potential guide? I'll be applying to Physics grad school in US in the next cycle. Several of my seniors who have entered grad school have suggested me to mail a professor-potential guide before or immediately after applying and maybe even mention this in my application. However, I am not set with my research topic. I confused between 2 closely related fields and want to explore a bit more once I enter grad school before choosing a potential guide. So I don't to get tied with a group right now.
So, if I don't mention a prof or contact them, will it hurt my chances? Even here in Stack I've seen a post saying contacting professors will help my chances. So, I'm worried about how to proceed. Please give me some suggestions.
I am not from US and hence do not know US grad school system very well. So please do let me know if I'm missing something.

If it's a PhD program, very probably yes.
Most PhDs are earned by working closely with one professor.  In experimental physics, you work in their lab space.  If there is not a professor you can work with during your PhD, then you will not be successful.  Admissions committees want to see that you have identified a small number of faculty who would be suitable for you to work with.
Also, some professors may have funding.  If they want to use the funding to pay you, you will probably be admitted.
We cannot tell you who to approach.


How many times should one proofread their paper before submission? When I did my PhD in mathematics, I would proofread my papers maybe 10 times before submission.  Moving into computer science has changed my attitude, since reviewers frequently ask for major revisions (regardless of how careful I am).  Now also pragmatic matters (e.g. not having enough time before conference deadlines) enters into things.

I'm fairly sure 0 is not an appropriate number of times to proofread one's paper, but I'm not sure how many times suffices.  I don't know what is "normal" when it comes to the number of times one should proofread their paper.

Question: How many times should one proofread their paper before submission?

There is no global constant q such that more than q proofreads are required. It depends on your writing style, the topic, your mood and many many other factors.

A comment though: In my experience, no matter how many times you personally proofread the paper, there are cases where it is not enough and you need a second or a third person to proofread your paper to catch mistakes for which you have a blind spot (i.e., no matter how many times you read you won't be able to catch the subtle mistakes and this is more true if you are not native english speaker or you are younger researcher.)


What is a scopus indexed conference and how to identify the same? What is a scopus indexed conference and how to identify the same?
I want to know what is meant by a conference indexed in scopus?
Its easy to know which journals are indexed in scopus from the scopus homepage.
In my case I want to know if there are any conferences in Mathematics which are scopus indexed?
Does there exist any page like this https://www.scopus.com/sources.uri?
If someone can provide any information, then I would be grateful.

There is no such conference.
Scopus is an indexing database which indexes the publications (journals and conference proceedings). Scopus does not index conferences.
What you are actually asking is: Whether the conference's proceeding is indexed by Scopus?
Many conferences publish their proceedings via popular publications such as Springer, IEEE, ACM, Elsevier. If it is a Springer-publishing proceeding: usually, it is LNCS (Lecture Note in Computer Science) and it's sub-lecture notes such as LNAI. Similarly, there is LNEE (electrical engineering), and many such. These LNXX proceedings are indexed in Scopus.
If it is IEEE, usually the papers will appear in IEEE Xplore (which is Scopus-indexed). Similarly for ACM proceedings, ACM Digital Library.
Elsevier publishes under the name of Procedia Technology or Procedia Engineering and few more. These are indexed in Scopus.
There may be other known publishers such as IOS Press, and many more. In that case, you have to check thoroughly where the conference publishes its proceedings and whether that publication is indexed by Scopus.


Further questions/information on letters of recommendation In virtually every letter of recommendation I've seen, the final line is something to the effect of "Please feel free to contact me if you have any other questions".

But how often is it to actually get contacted? I've never actually received any follow up before, but virtually all the students I write letters for have gotten into the programs of their choice.

Granted, I only tend to write letters for undergraduates applying for scholarships and graduate school (no graduate program for my department) so maybe the likelihood increases for, say, letters written for master's students applying for PhD programs, but I'm curious if this is just happenstance that I've not been contacted or more par the course. (I know we do contact letter writers once we have a short(er) list for job candidates, but I'm thinking here specifically letters written for students who will continue to be students.)

In my experience as a letter writer and as a member of graduate admissions committees, it's very rare for graduate admissions committees to contact a reference.  On the other hand, it's quite common to contact references in hiring situations.


Why do Universities offer a "Double PhD Program"? I just scrolled through the student list of my university and found a person who is a “double PhD candidate”. Since I have never heard of that, I tried to find some information. The best link that I found is “Joint-PhDs: A Guide” at Find a PhD.

However, the only explanation given is that,

  [...] universities offering double degrees rather than jointly-awarded degrees is often practical in nature, for example one country’s legislation does not allow joint-degrees.

I expected something like research in two research areas by one person. But giving two PhDs because of legislation seems odd to me. Can someone tell me more about this?

I think the site where you found the information was pretty crystal clear:

  Joint-PhDs are doctorates which are done at two degree-awarding institutions. This type of doctorate, also called split-site PhDs, does not mean that you are simply supervised by one supervisor in one university with another advising you on an informal basis. Joint-PhDs mean that you are fully registered in two universities, having to comply with admission requirements and assessment regulations at both institutions and that it will result either in two PhD degrees (double PhD) or one jointly-awarded PhD (one diploma with the two university logos). The reason universities offering double degrees rather than jointly-awarded degrees is often practical in nature, for example one countrys [sic] legislation does not allow joint-degrees.

I'm not sure which part of this is unclear. Often it's easier for two institutions to each grant a PhD (i.e., double PhD) than it is for them to create a hybrid entity that would grant a singular degree or for the creation of the institutional apparatus and coordination necessary for a joint degree program.


How to import the citation of arxiv papers to Mendeley that could produce the accurate citation format? I am using Mendeley to save my reference. And I find it seems that Mendeley does know the format of arxiv format.

I find many papers use a format like this:

Andrew Howard, Mark Sandler, Grace Chu, Liang-Chieh Chen, Bo Chen, Mingxing Tan, Weijun
Wang, Yukun Zhu, Ruoming Pang, Vijay Vasudevan, et al. Searching for mobilenetv3. arXiv
preprint arXiv:1905.02244, 2019.

Here is the link for the paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/1905.02244

I wonder how can I get it to Mendeley?

Thanks.

For this kind of problems usually, I go to the Google Scholar and search the paper and from the results section, you can click on the cite button as shown in the picture and download the citation in any one of the formats. This downloaded file can be dragged and dropped to Mendeley.


Is translating my own work to use it in my PhD thesis plagiarism? Strictly speaking, is translating to english my own published work written in my mothertongue in a non-peer reviewed journal to put it as a part of my PhD thesis plagiarism ?

This will depend on your institution's rules and your situation, but here are some general points

You can usually use any (and only) work you have performed as part of your PhD studies* to satisfy your thesis requirements (previous work you've done, other than as part of your PhD, is typically included as if you were referring to the literature). Non-standard programmes, such as professional doctorates and DSc qualifications, may have different rules on this.
You will need to be mindful of whether you're allowed to copy word-for-word. In the UK, for instance, you can use results from your publications in your thesis, but you have to restructure the text.** In other countries, thesis-by-publication is more common, and a direct translation may be permissible.
I strongly recommend appropriate references to/mentions of your existing publications - this could take the form of a page at the front entitled "publications arising from this work".
You will need to be aware that direct reuse could create copyright issues, if you intend to put your thesis online or republish it. You will need to investigate the copyright status of your publications if you intend to do this. This answer explains how to acquire rights, if needed. This answer covers some copyright considerations in more detail.

*The meaning of this is a bit of a grey area. But this usually means performed during your time of registration, towards your registered project, at or under the auspices of the institution(s) you are registered with/official project sponsors.

**This is a consequence of both academic regulations often precluding thesis by publication and the different requirements of a thesis and a few independent papers - in particular, the requirement that a thesis forms a coherent whole, and a typical need for more context and detail in a thesis, vs conciseness in a paper.


How long is too long for a personal statement for undergrad research application? Many REUs (Research Experiences for Undergraduates) require a personal statement or related essay as part of the application. I am wondering, how long is too long? My essay is right now 1000 words (but it could be ~1300), and my worry is that the people reading it will lose interest in an essay that long.

It's worth noting that the personal and research statements for the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship are restricted to two pages each. So if you're writing more than that for a REU, you're probably writing too much.


Can I allow my personal life to influence where I do my PhD? I am about to become a Ph.D student in mathematics. I am having some doubts about where I should do my Ph.D and I would appreciate some advice, or anything really.

I could do research with a very competent professor that is internationally well-known and is also very interested in me succeeding, having helped me with much already. He is also a really kind person. The area he is working in is one of the most fascinating areas in all of mathematics to me. However, it is in a different city from where I live now. As I live now, I have a really good apartment and a girlfriend too who lives here. She would be OK if I moved, although a bit sad. I am afraid of moving to a new city, and more than that, also somewhat scared that if I am not as good as my advisor belives me to be, it will all go terribly wrong.
I could do research where I live. However, the advisors are not as competent as he is, nor as interested in me (so far, I am not their student yet). Further, the areas are not as fascinating (although very fascinating!). I could continue with living my life as of now.

So, what should I think about regarding these choices when it comes to making a future career? I am a bit vague here, since I want general advice to think about.

So I'm just some random stranger on the internet, but you asked for advice, so here it is.  Given only the information in your post, I think you have a difficult choice ahead of you:

Move or propose.

From a strictly professional standpoint, you make a very strong argument for moving.  Having a more competent and more supportive advisor, and working in a field that excites you more, will have a tremendous impact on your several-decades-long mathematics career.    As Dan C writes elsewhere, if you want to do math for a living, you should enroll in the strongest PhD program you can.  (I'm assuming here that you actually want a career in mathematics; otherwise, getting a PhD in mathematics is kind of stupid.)

From a personal standpoint, you make a much weaker case for staying put.  It's just another city; you'll be fine.  You can always find another apartment.  Do not listen to the Impostor Syndrome; everyone is afraid that they're not good enough.  Your girlfriend is OK with your moving.  There's some possibility that your current relationship won't survive the move, but the fact that you call her your girlfriend, and not your wife or even fiancée, suggests that you don't really think of the relationship as permanent anyway.

Yeah, I know, that's harsh.  And maybe I'm totally off-base.  Maybe your current relationship really is more important to you than the rest of your professional life.  If that's true, tell her so.

Who knows?  Maybe you can do both!

But whatever you decide, don't base your decision on fear.  Instead, ask yourself: What do you really want?  What really matters to you?  Fear of change and Impostor Syndrome are completely natural, and far more common than most people think, but they're just voices in your head.  Letting them control your decisions is not healthy.  You have people in your life who believe in you, who support you, who want you to succeed and be happy, and who know you far better than Some Random Stranger on the Internet—listen to them!


How to ask someone to collaborate on a joint paper? So far I have worked on papers by myself and have been the sole author in all of them. There is one project that I am interested in and have been working on it for a while with no significant progress. It seems, I'm  definitely going to need some fresh thoughts. In our department there is absolutely no one interested in that subject.
My question is how exactly am I supposed to ask someone to collaborate with me on a joint paper?
In case it matters, I work in field of Mathematics.

I'm not a mathematician, and in my field sole-authored papers are unusual, so my answer might not be entirely relevant, but for what it's worth:

You don't usually ask someone to collaborate on a paper because you are stuck. Either the collaboration arises naturally through a joint project, or you ask someone to join your paper because they have some specific expertise or experience that you think can add to what is already going to constitute a good, publishable paper. In the latter case, I have had success by sending an email briefly outlining the goals of the paper, its importance, and the timeline on which I intend to have the paper completed. I finish the email by stating what I think they could add to the paper and asking them if they are interested in a co-authorship on this basis. I might already have a draft of the paper ready, and if so, I will attach it so that they can see that I am serious and the paper has a good prospect of timely completion.

Also: a bit of flattery doesn't go astray. Refer to "your important work on..." or "your extensive experience in..." among the reasons for approaching them.

If in fact, you are not approaching someone to collaborate because of something specific that they can add to an already solid paper, but merely looking for someone to help with a work in progress, I suggest approaching someone at a junior level who already knows you, and asking for help.


How do I check whether I retained copyright for a figure in a paper from ten years ago? I have been contacted by a student who wants to reproduce a figure from a paper of mine in Phil Trans R Soc B (this one, in case it's pertinent) in their thesis. The paper itself is apparently not under a CCAL (I normally choose this option if it is available, but it looks like it wasn't for this one), and I can't find any record of the copyright agreement at the time - the manuscript was submitted about ten years ago.

The journal has a link to the Copyright Clearance Centre for requesting permission for reuse; I ran the form myself and it seems that the student can pay a fee to get permission from the journal to reproduce my figure. That is not my question.

My question is, how to I check whether I transferred copyright for the figure at the time? If I didn't I can presumably just send him the submission version of the figure.

I tried searching the Royal Soc website but it seems surprisingly difficult to find this (which I have noticed before with Elsevier; I think they'd rather we assume they always get the copyright).

Related: How to legally re-use images in paper and still continue to use and distribute them in slides? (but this is about a situation where the copyright transfer status is known).

Unless the paper is open access, the publisher usually holds the copyright. This can be seen in the imprint on the first page of the paper. If it says "(c) the publisher" then the publisher holds the copyright, while if it says "(c) the authors" then it's the authors who do.

In the case of your paper though, the Royal Society's plagiarism, copyright and intellectual property page says

  Authors of non open-access papers retain the copyright, but grant the Royal Society the exclusive right to edit, adapt, translate, publish, reproduce, distribute and display the article in printed, electronic or any other medium and format.

I'm no lawyer, but I take this to mean that while you cannot distribute the paper in its final form, you can distribute a single figure.


Is there a pre-print server for building physics papers? I recently submitted a pre-print (about heating control algorithms for buildings) to arXiv.org, under General Physics, but it was rejected as being off-topic for that server.

I tried to find a pre-print server specialising in Building Physics research but couldn't find any. Wikipedia doesn't list anything.

Is there a pre-print server that is suitable for that kind of publication?

No, there isn't yet a pre-print server for building physics, although some people have successfully smuggled such papers onto arxiv.

Furthermore, there aren't really any heavyweight open-access building-physics journals, and established journals in the field haven't been quick to embrace open-access.

There is the option of producing internal working papers and circulating it without publication, to get some of the benefits of pre-print, without risking a publisher's refusal. However, it's not easy to reach a very broad audience this way, nor a new audience.

Building-physics papers do often span multiple subjects - we often cross-over, for example into health, for example, when we look at condensation and mould, radon, or dust mites; so there might be other pre-print archives that we can use.

And, although it's a completely different thing, there's always the possibility to air early thoughts on the building-physics tags on the Physics and Sustainability Stack Exchanges, which can be a way to get a bit of an airing, and reach a different audience to that reached by circulation of working papers.


Is it acceptable to hide your affiliation in research paper? I am a Ph.D. student enrolled in one of the top universities. I was working on a research problem. And, it turns out that my results are not of as high quality as one would expect from a student from my university. I am planning to submit the paper to a low-tier conference and if submitted, this would bring a bad name to my university. Therefore, I do not want to mention my affiliation in my research paper. Is is acceptable to do so?

By "not good quality results" I mean that "just so-so work", that is done well but not seemingly very interesting right now.

You're trying to solve the wrong problem: either your work is a decent contribution and then it's worth publishing with your affiliation, or it's not and then it shouldn't be published at all (and anyway it's likely to get rejected in respectable venues).
So the real problem here is whether this work is a decent contribution. However you might not be able to make the call yourself:

You are a PhD student so you might not have enough experience to judge, and especially to judge your own work.
You also seem to assume that researchers in your university never produce any mediocre work, although this is very unlikely even for a top university.
The fact that you talk so negatively about your work might be a sign of impostor syndrom, a bias which frequently affects researchers (and not only them). The competitive environment of a top institution is a fertile ground for this kind of psychological bias.

But the solution is very simple: you just ask your PhD advisor their advice. It's precisely their job to teach you what is a decent contribution and what is not. If they tell you not to submit the work, then it's not even worth submitting. If they tell you to submit, then it was actually better than you thought and it means that you should revise your criteria.
You can even ask them about your idea to submit without the affiliation if you want. But be aware that they might laugh at the idea, it's not something academics do anywhere.


Surname change during PhD I am in my second year of my PhD and am about to get married. I plan to take on my husband's name with my name and not keep my maiden name. But I have two publications already. What can I do so that I can associate my publications even after my surname change. Also, if I keep on publishing with my maiden name and use my husband's surname socially, and also change my surname in passport, won't there be a conflict when I apply for visa to attend conferences due to the two different surnames?

You should also consider registering for an identifier, such as ORCID or Researcherid. This way you can have an additional layer that relates your profile with your work. It is used in many submission websites and it is becoming quite common for funding agencies to require such a profile when submitting applications as well.


Editor's delay in reviewing manuscript I have submitted my paper in a journal of Springer on 09 August 2016. The status of my paper as on 22 December 2016 is still “with editor”.

I have sent many reminder mail to the editor and they finally replied with:

  Your paper is presently being reviewed by the Editorial Board and will be sent to the chosen reviewer for a formal report. Please be assured that your submitted paper is under process. We will keep in communication with you.

Please guide me how to proceed now. Is this is normal time period (more than four months) for an editor to review the paper?

This can happen. There are journals where such decisions are made in meetings, and there is a substantial time between meetings. After all, editors typically have real jobs beside being editors. I am not saying that this is an efficient way of doing things, but it happens. In practice, if I sent a paper out I don't expect a decision within a year.

As to what to do about it, don't sent multiple messages to the editor. They have enough to do as is. If they are professional, they will just ignore your duplicate messages.


Is it bad to withdraw a manuscript one day after it has been submitted? I submitted it yesterday, after sending it to a repository. Then, a colleague gave a quick read and found some narrative issues, i.e., our abstract seems to be claiming something we did not do and we did not give much importance for some classical results in our introduction. He pointed out that any reviewer who knows those classical results will raise a red flag when reading our paper. So, I want to withdraw it, if possible, change the text and re-submit it to the same journal. How bad it is to do that?
Just another question:

How bad it is to simply e-mail the editor asking for a chance of re-submission due to some issues with the paper itself?

It is a mathematics journal and the status is currently "with editor".
Thanks in advance!

I am a co-editor of an interdisciplinary journal (social sciences/humanities). I would rather an author withdraw and get the piece into shape than for us to either read it and have to desk reject, or to send to reviewers and they flag it. It's mildly embarrassing but like so many things in academia (and life), you will care more than they will care – it is trivial for me to return a paper to an author.
If the editorial management system allows you to withdraw the paper, even better.


How to prevent too many students from making appointments to meet with you when you put "Office Hours: ..., or by appointment" on the syllabus? In the past I have included the following statement on my syllabus:

  Office Hours: Mon 1-2pm, Weds 3-5pm, or by appointment

However, I am beginning to get too many requests for appointments. Appointments are really inefficient. They waste both of our time trying to schedule them, and with multiple appointments per week in addition to office hours, even holding them takes a lot of time away from research. How do you accommodate students who can't make your office hours without devoting too much time to this task?

I thought about setting up a class message board where they can ask each other and answer each other's questions - anonymously if they wish - (I can also answer questions on the message board) and put on the syllabus "All content related questions should be posed in class, on the message board or in office hours. I do not reply to questions about content via email. Please schedule an appointment to meet with me if you are having difficulty getting a question answered after trying the above options"

Some Background: I'm a graduate student lecturer. I teach 2 sections of calculus, so about 60 students. Since classes are small (~30), there are about 10 lecturers (some are faculty and some are grad students with masters degrees) and we all have office hours. Mine tend to be very crowded, about 5-10 students showing up (some from other sections). I tell my students to go to other instructor's office hours, but they say they aren't as helpful.

What an interesting problem to have. When I saw the title, I thought, "This must be hypothetical, because this problem never, ever occurs." But I was wrong.

Anyway, I don't know how to deal with having too many students try to schedule office hours, because I have never had that problem, even when teaching 60 students.

I do, however, employ the message board tactic that you mentioned, which probably helps cut down on office hours (and dramatically reduces the number of emails I get). I suggest the free (and extremely slick) service Piazza. Students can collaboratively (wiki-style) answer each others' questions, and instructors can edit everything in sight, as well as create their own answers. When posting questions, students can also appear anonymous to their classmates, but not to the instructor, which eliminates any embarrassment they might feel.

tl;dr: Try Piazza.


What can be done when my assignment's requirements has been so vague that it is jeopardising the grade that can be achieved? An assignment spec was released but it was poorly written and vague to the point where the requirements of the software system is unclear. As a final year undergraduate this unit counts a lot to my overall grade. After numerous emails, phone calls and face-to-face discussions with: other students, lecturer, other lecturers and head of the course, they clarified the assignment with 2 weeks to go (was supposed to allegedly take 4-6 weeks which would have been a struggle anyway). The other parties all agreed that the spec was poorly written and interpreted it wrongly themselves.

I have been working on the solution but I am worried I cannot implement it to the standard of a 1st (70%+). The institution seems reluctant to offer an extension to the deadline and I don't know what else can be done. It is a sponsored degree so I study part time and work full time, so there is very little gap to pull all-nighters or power through whilst keeping a professional front for 9 hours a day.

Is there anything me and fellow students can urge the university to do, or anything our employers (sponsors) can do to encourage action?

I am not versed in software writing assignment but there are a few things I can think of:

Submit your work with a memo, detailing how each of the assumptions was made to the assignment components that were not clearly specified. If you're so keen, list a couple alternatives you have thought about, with pros and cons, and why you made that choice. I have seen students sometimes do that in written tests and exams, and I often considered their point of view a bit differently.
For all the communications, if you have paper trail, keep the paper trail. If not, at the very least, have a log of meeting and discussion, jot down all main points. Any conversation about this project from now on, if possible, should have a paper trail, and if it's a face-to-face meeting, follow up with an e-mail detailing the main points covered in the meeting. If all go south, having this record to demonstrate i) your due diligence to clarify, and ii) the lack of clarity among the teaching staff would help you make the case if you decided to complain or grieve.

Good luck!


Co-author submitted new data post-review without my (first author) consent I am the first author of a manuscript that was recently "accepted in principle". The submission, peer review and revisions of this manuscript happened after I left the laboratory of the corresponding author where I was a postdoc. I was actively involved in the revisions (by email)and guided the graduate student who did the revisions. Following peer review and revisions, the corresponding author wanted to include data (obtained by the graduate student) which I did not approve of. This data was then not included in the revised manuscript or the rebuttal letter. After we received the "accepted in principle" email, the corresponding author again informed me that he wanted to include this data. I objected again. But it appears that he has submitted this data (which was not part of the peer review and has not been seen by the reviewers) without my consent. I would like to write to the editors of the journal asking them to stall the publication of this manuscript since I did not consent to the content and since it includes unreviewed data. Am I correct in doing so?

Update from the OP:

I have an update on my issue and would appreciate more inputs. I made more attempts to convince the lead author to not include this data, but he did not agree. I finally contacted the journal editor. She sent a rather timid email to the lead author saying very clearly that it was okay to add in data after peer review since manuscripts are not "frozen" after they are accepted in principle. She said she was willing to include this data if it strengthened the manuscript and asked the lead author to contact all co-authors and obtain their consent before the final submission.

The lead author is still refusing to change his decision. He told me that he will easily get all other co-authors to consent to this. In which case, he said that it will appear that I am trying to suppress useful data. I feel bullied here since I cannot match up to his seniority and his relations with the co-authors. He has so far not provided any clear scientific reason for including this data.

Any guesses on what decision the journal will take if both I and the lead author continue to disagree, and I am the only one not giving consent?

Dogmatically speaking, your co-authors clearly acted unethically. You claim to have made clear that you oppose including this data, and they did anyway. Independently of whether it is ok to add more data at the proof stage, all co-authors need to sign off on a paper or changes that are being made, and you did not.

That being said, there is always a pragmatic angle to these arguments. As much as we would like otherwise, miscommunications and differences of opinion happen in collaborations, so there will often be aspects that one or more of the co-authors are not fully on board with (and papers get published anyway). As such, you need to decide for yourself how important this issue is to you:

Is this issue important enough to you to go into a, potentially lengthy, argument with your co-authors and the journal editor (who may not be thrilled to be sucked into what is effectively an internal quarrel between you and your collaborators)?
Is this issue important enough to permanently sour the relationship with your co-authors?
Is this issue important enough to just not have the paper published?

Only you know the answer to this questions, but if the root of the problem really is that your co-authors wish to include data that "does not contribute to the story of the paper" then the answer may easily be "no" if you think about it calmly.


Admission for a PhD position in a Sweden university I am a first year BSc student in pure mathematics. I like to continue my PhD studies in Sweden, directly after BSc or otherwise after having MSc. Unfortunately, not only free education for international MSc students has been stopped several years ago but also the living cost in Sweden is very very high. Only leaves PhD studies as a final choice as they pay for tuition fees and living expenditures.

I have heard that the only way to get a PhD admission (with scholarship) in a some university in Sweden is to do MSc in some Sweden university so that the professors will 'know' you; in other words, contrary to US or Canada, they prefer to know students in their classes than reading about them from the recommendation letters sent from other countries.

A friend of mine, planted this wishful idea in my mind that if I accomplish (much?) more in my BSc time that PhD students do required for their graduation (i.e. good published papers), along with other things [recommendation letters, GPA, etc] so it may make me more appealing candidate than a person whose professor knows him/her personally. [Q.1] Is this true? And if so, [Q.2] how much 'better' than minimum-required-papers-to-be-published-for-a-PhD-to-be-graduated I need to do? Is there any measure for 'better' papers at all and what are they?

PS I am sure a person who solves Riemann H, attaining an academic position let alone PhD is trivial; so obviously sky is the limit. I am wondering about the minimum of "impressive results" in research (capability to be a productive researcher) one needs to do for a guaranteed PhD position which should be achievable during 3-4 years time that I have.

You heard wrong. You 1) don't need to know Swedish professors personally to be admitted (although it helps of course), and 2) you don't need to have achieved more than what PhD students need to graduate. About #1, it's the same as elsewhere. If you know the professor personally - and there are ways to do this other than studying in Sweden, you can for example email them or speak to them at conferences - then that's good because they have firsthand knowledge of you. For the same reason if your recommendation letters are written by people who the professor knows personally, that's also helpful. But you don't have to have these personal contacts, and having them doesn't guarantee admission; they're only helpful. As for #2, if it is ever true, you'd be an exceptionally qualified applicant.

Finally about the PS: applicants with a BS degree typically have taken a lot of courses, and have some research experience. That could for example include a final-year project (also known as an Honours project in some places), summer research programs, or various internships. If these leads to published papers then so much the better, although it often does not. What really matters out of these projects is that you've worked directly with a more senior academic who'll become one of your recommendation letter writers. Impress her, and you'll have a much stronger application.


Is there a way to get rid of "enhanced pdf"s? It has become increasedly more common that when I try to access an article from the publisher's website I get redirected to a sort of online reader instead of a plain old pdf file to download. Elsevier calls it enhanced reader, Wiley enhanced pdf, and Springer luckily has not caught on yet.

I don't like this approach and prefer to download the 'un-enhanced' pdf file to read or save it locally (but I will spare you the soapboxing).

Is there a way to circumvent this system and automatically rewrite links to point to the true pdf file instead? I am thinking to something like a browser extension or a Greasemonkey script, if it exists. If it worked on the websites of the major publishers it would already be a time saver on the long run.

The userscript Publication Auto PDF seems to do the job.
It does not rewrite the pdf link, but downloads the pdf directly when one visits the abstract page, so it saves even one more click.
It works under a browser extension that runs userscripts (Greasemonkey / Tampermonkey / Violentmonkey / Firemonkey).


How do I turn down an internship offer by a professor because I have a better offer in a corporate research lab? I applied to several corporate research labs for internships. Seeing no progress on my application, I emailed a professor in a top university asking for an internship. He was impressed by my work and agreed to accept me. Now I got an offer from a top corporate lab in my area of research. How do I politely decline the professor's offer, given that I might want to do a PhD with him in future?

Just send her/him a polite e-mail saying that although you were/are very much looking forward to working with her/him, you are taking another offer right now, but wish to stay in touch:

Dear Prof. X, I am very much looking forward to working with you.  However, at this time I have also received a placement offer at company Y, and I will go there.  I hope we can work together in the future.
Best regards,
Firstname  Lastname.

Or something similar.  If you are polite and honest, you should be fine.


Is it possible to finish PhD quicker than formally possible? I said to my supervisor that I would like to finish my PhD very quickly. He said that formally I can submit my thesis 2 years after starting my degree at earliest, but that I am doing very well and it should be possible.

I verified the institutional requirements and indeed I cannot submit my PhD thesis in less than 2 years. However, I would like to submit the thesis in 1 year and 3 months. But I would like to ask you if this could somehow be possible and if yes, then how and what I should do.

I could talk to my supervisor in person about this, but the problem is that he would find it hard to believe me that much and thus he would be reluctant to help me or what is even worse, I may hurt the relationship with my supervisor. I have been doing my doctoral degree for 9 months in mathematics and some big parts are coming together, yet still there is a lot of work.
I believe that I could finish it in 6 months, but my supervisor would believe me only if he saw everything completed. The problem is that by then it would be too late for me.

Edit: I study in the UK. If I can finish my PhD thesis earlier, and then move to a preferred place for a postdoc, I do not see a reason to delay. I need to know now if I can finish early, so that I could apply for the scholarships supporting my postdoctoral visit. The scholarships I am going to apply require that I start within certain dates and can be applied for only at specific times during the year twice or once a year.

I have fulfilled all the credit requirements already and meet my supervisor every week while formally it is required only once a month.

The specific rule is:

In some cases the graduate board may allow you to submit your thesis early, before the end of your standard period of study. A Postgraduate Research Tutor can only recommend this if:
(a) the thesis is complete and ready for submission and
(b) has been read by your supervisor in its entirety. Your supervisor must confirm in writing that they have read your thesis and that their view is that it is ready to be examined.

The earliest date you can submit your PhD thesis is at the end of 2 calendar years of full-time study.

I don't understand what you want; do you want us to contact your supervisor for you?  We can't find some magic exception in the rules for you.  Either you need to suck it up and accept this won't happen, or you need talk to your supervisor and convince them that this is a good idea.

Let me just add that this sounds like a terrible idea to me.  UK Ph.D.'s are way too short anyways; rushing through one will just throw you out into the cold hard reality of the job market totally underprepared.  You don't seem to have thought about the "If" in "If I can finish my PhD thesis earlier, and then move to a preferred place for a postdoc, I do not see a reason to delay." or thought about what happens at the end of your postdoc.  If you are really finished with your thesis at the end of 15 months, then it's not as though you'll twiddle your thumbs for the next several months; you'll have an incredibly valuable chance to start some other projects, and get a bit of a head start before heading into your postdoc.  That's time you'll never get back, and which you want to strain your relationship with your advisor in your rush to throw away.


How does the statement of purpose of students help professors to write letters of recommendation for graduate school application in U.S.? Usually, professors need to see students' statement of purpose before they write letters of recommendation for them. However,

(1) The most important part of LoRs is the comparison of the applicant with their classmates/peer, which is normally not shown in the statement of purpose.

(2) Professors often talk about students' strengths in LoRs, but they are not supposed to use the strengths mentioned(or boasted of) in the students' statement of purpose when the strengths are unknown to professors before they see the statement of purpose.

(3) Professors may want to know students' experiences, interests and plans for future. But such things are already mentioned in students' statement of purpose and they don't have to repeat them again in the letters of recommendation(professors are not supposed to know students experiences, interests and plans for future better than students themselves, right?).

So my question is, given (1), (2) and (3), why do professors need to look at students' statement of purpose at all when they write LoRs for them? How does the statement of purpose help professors to write letters of recommendation?

The statement of purpose is helpful to me in writing a letter of recommendation for a student because I can say things in the letter that relate to the specific plans that the student has beyond the more general plan of entering a graduate program.

For example, a student might ask me to write a letter of recommendation for admission to a PhD program in applied mathematics at University X.  Knowing that the student plans to specialize in a subfield (say computational optimization) gives me the chance to write into the letter that the student is well prepared for graduate study in this area because of (whatever factors might be relevant, including specific courses taken, programming languages the student knows, etc.)  Those same experiences might not be relevant if the student wants to work in a different subfield.

Another reason for me to want to see the student's statement of purpose is so that I can provide helpful advice to the student.  Many students are naive and prepare draft statements that won't help and might actually hurt their chances of admission.  If I've read the draft statement I can suggest changes.  If it's really bad, then I might decide that I'm unwilling to write a recommendation letter for the student because it would reflect badly on me.

Ultimately it really doesn't matter why the recommender wants to see your statement- you're not in any position to demand a letter of recommendation, so you should provide whatever information the requestor asks you for.


"Academic time": why is 110 minutes called two hours? I found an exam online from the MIT that states:

  You have two hours (academic time, 110 minutes) to complete the exam.

What is this academic time unit and where does it come from?

The 10 minute interval given here seems to be common in the US, while in Europe 15 minutes is also in widespread use, but some universities also use 5 minutes.

It is to solve a rather practical scheduling problem: If one lecture ends on the hour sharp, and the next begins on the hour, you would have only zero time to walk an often non-zero distance to get to your next lesson/lecture/exam/whatever, requiring asymptotically infinite velocity to cover that distance - a theoretical and practical impossibility.

In order to solve this, European universities invented the so called "academic quarter", which is in use at some universities until today. It means that events start 15 minutes after their scheduled time.

The abbreviations c.t. (for cum tempore, en. "with time"), which means 15 minutes after the scheduled time and s.t. (sine tempore, en. "without time") which means exactly at the scheduled time stem from this. In some European universities (especially german), times are assumed to be c.t. unless stated otherwise.

Berkeley calls this 10-minute interval "Berkeley time", and MIT seems to prefer "academic time", although I have never seen it been used with intervals, only with instants in time so far.

There are many variations of this scheme, and many universities have their custom practices. Some start at the hour sharp and end five/ten/fifteen minutes early, some start five/ten/fifteen minutes after the hour and end sharp, and at some universites lectures both start five/ten/fifteen minutes late and end five/ten/fifteen minutes early, and maybe some universities use even other schemes (a comment refers to seven past the hour).
At my university, the academic quarter is used both at the start and end, since our campus is rather large and for some locations, you actually need almost 30 minutes when walking, and 20 when talking public transport in between those locations.

From personal experience, universities tend to move away from using c.t. times, and rather list actual (s.t.) start times on official resources/documents (e.g. 10:15 as start for a lecture), while students and professors would still refer to those lectures by their time slot (in this case 10 o'clock lecture) and make use of whatever length their university uses as "academic quarter" in colloquial speech.

(Addition from comments):
At some universities, the academic quarter is also used as the time students have to wait for the lecturer. If the lecturer is late, but does not arrive within the academic quarter without any more information, students may assume the lecture is cancelled and can leave without the fear of missing any material.
(I recommend not leaving without being sure this is policy at your own university as well)


What to do when being responsible for data protection in your lab, yet advice is ignored? I work in a lab where we conduct research on data acquire from human subjects. As we investigate the effects of different diseases and the related treatments, the data is highly sensitive in regards to data protection.

Most of the lab members work with Windows 10 and I am supposed to set up additional Windows 10 PCs. I have serious concerns about this as Windows 10 is known for sharing much data with Microsoft, e.g. every file which is related to a software crash may or may not be send to Microsoft and thereby unintentionally sharing sensitive health related information with Microsoft.

When mentioning these issues, they are usually waved aside with arguments like "nobody else cares about that" or "this would slow down our work". In general is there very little interest in data protection and the associated risks.

I know the risk of a data leak actually having a effect is rather small, yet I'd like to know how to back myself up in this situation. Should things for whatever reason go sour, I'd like to be on the safe side.

I am in a PhD position actually hired for doing research. Yet due to my background in computer science, I am 'officially' responsible for everything related in our lab to electronic data processing.

There is a trove of documents from Microsoft with advice on GDPR compliance, such as "Windows and the GDPR: Information for IT Administrators and Decision Makers" and has a pretty thorough explanation of what data moves where.

According to the document itself, it takes 17 minutes to read.  I think you'll feel better after you've done so.

There's a lot of paranoia about Microsoft, some of it possibly justified, but the hard fact is that MS cannot afford to ignore the GDPR or, in the U.S., HIPAA.

I did read the answer in Information Security SE, and did not find it helpful; the quotation from MS has to do with disclosure of data as required by law or legal process.


Are good writers are good theoreticans? I am Ph.D student works in theoretical computer science (algebra). I will be graduating next year. I have been able to publish 2 paper currently writing a paper. Idea's are comming into my mind these days, and also I start writing as soon as possible. I try to write the things as early as possible. The problem from which I am suffering most is "writing skill", as the feedback I have from my collegue I have good idea's but writing is not that much good even after two months of writing ( I have written many drafts). Note that in those two months in which I were writing the draft of the paper, I was also working on some other problems.

I know that my writing is not great, but I have heard that good writers are good theoreticians. I may have very good idea but I may not be that much good writer and due to this thing I may not be much successful, Please help

Question : Are good writers are good theoreticians?

Since you started studying computer science, has anyone spent significant time teaching you how to write? Of your whole time learning, what proportion was spent learning computer science, and what proportion spent learning writing skills?

If your answers to these questions are what I expect them to be, then you need to put time into learning to write. It is a skill, not a gift. It can be taught, and it can be learnt. (I should know. I spent five years studying pure mathematics at undergraduate and postgraduate level without ever writing more than about three consecutive words. When I first attempted to enter my chosen profession, which required a written examination, I failed.) I subsequently put a lot of effort into learning how to write. People in my profession, which is very much based on use of words, tell me that my writing is very good.

For me, the career enhancing book was Barbara Minto's "The Pyramid Principle" that makes the case that clarity of thought leads to clarity of thinking. The logical approach she takes appealed to me as a mathematician, and maybe that might appeal to you as a computer scientist. But there are lots of books.

I suggest it is not helpful to comfort yourself with such thoughts as 'good theoreticians are never good writers, and vice versa'. If you are bright enough to be good at computer science then you are bright enough to learn how to be a competent writer.


What is feasibility analysis in thesis proposal? I'm undergraduate student majoring in software engineering, right now I'm preparing my thesis proposal which indicates that one of the chapters should be about "contents and feasibility analysis of the research", I get the content part but what confuses me is the feasibility analysis.
Because the topic I'm doing is defect analysis for a website developed by our college, and I don't have any idea about how a feasibility study about this specific topic could be carried out.
I tried listing some case studies that can be somehow relatable to my defect analysis topic, but I'm not sure whether this is a good approach or not.
Any insights would be appreciated, thanks.

Feasibility is about whether the research can, in fact, be successfully completed with the time and other resources available. In an undergraduate course, a study requiring three years is infeasible.
If the research suggests building something, feasibility also involves whether it is possible to build such a thing given costs, and even, potentially, the laws of physics.
Another way to look at it for such a course is to ask, is this project actually do-able in the timeframe required. And if the answer comes up no, then you need to rescale or otherwise modify the proposal.


Teaching Assistantships and research I'm working as a TA now, and I've found that I'm spending an inordinate amount of time on my TA-ship. Is this normal? Furthermore, is this expected? I'm worried that my research career will suffer because of my lack of research productivity.

I suppose it depends on the factors that are causing you to spend more time teaching than you think you should. You should talk to (1) the other TAs and (2) the course leader/director. Find out what is expected and what others are doing.

If you are a relatively new graduate student, then I think it's normal to spend more time teaching and preparing for your teaching. As you start teaching the same courses repeatedly, the time you have to spend in preparation will decrease.

If you think of the time you are teaching as working on a craft that you will use for the rest of your career, then it is time well spent.


Is there an affordable way for non-students to subscribe to multi-journals/archives? As a student I had free access to thousands of scholarly articles through my universities in databases/archives such as JSTOR, EBSCOhost, Google Scholar, Econlit, PubMed, etc, etc.

With no subscription, glancing at the full text of any 1 article costs anywhere from $20 to $60.

For any one project or paper I'd use at least five to ten papers and I'd skim over the full text of many more. For a meta-analysis of the literature, I'd go over dozens and perhaps even over a hundred papers.

As a non-student the cost is extremely prohibitive to continue reading past the free abstracts. I don't want to pirate the papers or give up reading them, but I can't find any reasonable alternatives.

Does anyone know of any monthly subscription I could sign up for to give me student-like/institutional access to papers?

  Note:
  A community wiki answer has been added to this question to provide a list of solutions to the problem.

Many papers are freely available on authors' websites, and preprint servers (use search engine to find those).
Write to the authors, asking for copies. Majority of academics are happy when their work is read, and will send you a copy.
Your public library might subscribe to more than you suspect. Check it out. When I was a student in a community college, my local public library subscribed to JSTOR for example.
Become a student or an academic again :-)


Is "scribe" a pejorative or a neutral term? In the US, instructors sometimes ask one or two students to take notes for a given lecture, in view of releasing the lecture notes later on for the rest of the class. Such students are sometimes called "scribes". Is "scribe" a pejorative or a neutral term? If pejorative, is there any neutral or positive term? (I am asking as in French "scribe" can sound somewhat derogatory)

In all of the academic usages with which I am familiar, scribe is almost entirely a neutral term.

  Every student must act as a scribe for at least one lecture this term.

The one exception to this requires further elaboration to indicate that what one is doing is merely "reproductive" instead of "synthetic":

  He slavishly acted a scribe copying down the professor's words without understanding them.

However, such usage is generally written and somewhat formal (see how far you have to go to put it into a negative context).


Is it plagiarism to copy-paste part of a figure from a cited work? I'm in the process of reviewing a journal submission and noticed that one of the figures is composed of a cropped out piece of a figure from another work. The authors don't cite the figure as coming from this work but do cite the other work elsewhere in the manuscript. Would this constitute as plagiarism?

Yes, copying an image from another work without crediting that work is plagiarism. You may want to contact the editor and ask him how to proceed.


Substantial changes to manuscript in the revision process Is this acceptable to revise a manuscript more than what reviewers suggested? In fact, due to some issue, the authors may find out that there are some issues even reviewers could not address, so they decided to extend the revision border.

P.s. What about imposing changes so that affect the title, abstract and a large portion of  manuscript. In an advise to a friend of mine, I warned him of doing so because it results in a new paper not a standard revised version. Nonetheless, I told him that is the case of such comprehensive revision he should carefully explain reasons behind that decision. Can such rational explanation convince the reviewers to consider another round of review?

You appear to be asking about making substantial unrequested changes to a manuscript after review. If it's because you have realised that the paper can be improved, without making it a totally different paper, then this may be a reasonable thing to do - but ultimately the judge must be the journal's editor.

What is vitally important is that you talk with the editor about it, and are clear about the scope of the changes. It sounds as though the changes are big enough that, if made after review, they should probably trigger another review. The editor may agree with you that the changes are worth doing and that it is worth waiting for another review - or they may not be prepared to do this, in which case you will have to decide whether to leave it as-is or to withdraw and start the process again.
Either way, it's likely to involve a substantial delay in publication of your manuscript.


Mental Health and Reading Papers I am a first year PhD student, and since starting, I’ve had worsening mental health problems which I have tried to deal with to no avail. I ended up failing quite a few things in the second term earlier this year and am on a very very fine ledge with the exam board.
One of the biggest factors upsetting me during this time is my inability to read a paper. It’s incredibly important to read as many papers as I can in my field, and I find so many excellent and relevant ones, but once settling down to read them, I just don’t. My brain refuses to take in the words. It causes me a lot of pain and sadness and makes my mental health worse. I found that I am self sabotaging myself on an extreme scale especially when I need to have read it by a certain time, but I just don’t. I focus really hard on objects on my desk and end up breaking down and taking a long time to settle myself down.
I have spoken long ago to the universities mental health services and the counsellor was very vague and seemed to skirt my immediate problems instead offering suggestions that didn’t really help. I don’t understand what is happening to me so I don’t know how to speak to colleagues or advisors. I’m just a poorly performing student right now who doesn’t seem to know what’s going on in their field.
I don’t know what I am suffering from, but I feel like I’m slowly drowning in despair. I am on here to ask for advice. This website has helped me a lot.

In a graduate student's life (or any person's, for that matter), going through a mental health crisis is very common nowadays. Things have been worsened due to this pandemic (but, that is not the point of discussion here).
Instead of focusing on "why" part of your question (i.e. why are you feeling this or that?), I would suggest a few things:

Do regular exercise: Exercise is something that always brings back the mood. Start with small sit-ups, jogging some miles, pushups and you will see that you sweat. When you sweat heavily, your mood tries to come back.

Go somewhere and cry if you have to This is a bizarre suggestion but this one always removes so many things from our conscious mind. So many things start to matter that wasn't.

Eat good food Eating is most important. I am sure, you must be feeling like there is a knot in your stomach, but, force yourself to eat at least 4 times. Avoid coffee or tea or any drinks that affect mood.

Create a study environment You must create an ambient environment that you love to stay in. You like sitting there like there is peace.

Just sit and relax Just "sitting" is a problem for many. Sitting without doing anything has been big stuff now given the emergence of AI and technologies. We are always with something in our hand. But, try to sit "yourself". Let all thoughts come, that's ok. It will vanish, or find its route to go away.

Writing helps Writing stuff or even drawing, scribbling do help the mood. Nothing needs to be meaningful. Just random also helps e.g. An ant talked to me today and said my stomach is full. I was delighted to listen to him. He was indeed full with sugary paste.

Remember this is not the end of the world Nothing is the end. You may feel like not good enough, but, that is okay. Nobody is perfect or good at anything. People become good at things eventually. Takes time. Perserverence and focus is the key. Just remember that no matter what, this is not the end that can end things.

You mean something in this world You are here for something. May be just to "live". Just live as you wish. If you have to read a paper for that, why not?

Read slow and small Read slow and small amount every time you sit to read. Not to think anything other than that small amount. Try to bath that, sleep with that, eat that, and run that. Then you will see things are getting back to normal.

Remember to call friends for a meetup Just try catching up with friends and families for small random talks. Not necessarily stuff related to yourself, but, sometimes nonsense also helps.

Last but not least:

Piling up research papers creates guilt If you are not reading at all and just piling up papers starts adding extra burden on the head and you start feeling guilty about it. That you are not doing anything for this, you can't do it. So, when you pick a paper, make it a commitment to finish it up. At least read the abstract and conclusion of any paper that you pick. That is enough.


Is an American University Professor allowed to share grades with the class? I am in a bad situation with a professor. He shared my grades and my classmates grades with the class. He had our names and everything put up on a projector!!!!  He even scrolled through it slowly so we could find our name and see what we are getting in the class... It was like everything...I was horrified. Basically he took all of his classes and put them into one file and then put that on a overhead projector to show us our grades. I think he did this for each of his classes... All of our names, etc... are in there too... so we can see who got what for all of his classes.

there have been lots of problems... he is very forgetful and makes a lot of mistakes in grading. Students catch him all the time... and he fixes the stuff but we have to catch him. I don't want to go on about this, but mostly sharing our grades with the class...

I'm sorry if this is confusing. I'm very flustered!!! English is also not my best language.

I don't know what I am supposed to do. Is this okay? I felt very uncomfortable and upset when this happened. I thought my grades were private?

Thnx for help!!

edit

The proposed duplicate is a different situation with a favorable outcome. Additionally it was something he could stop. This has already happened and IDK what to do.

This is a clear violation of FERPA. Bring this up to your department head or a dean of your college.

To prevent this from happening, any identifying information should have been removed. Your name (and if were there, a student ID number) should have been redacted.

As this has already happened, I would promptly report it to the appropriate campus administration.


How does earning a Masters in Iceland differ from the US? I'm a US citizen with an BA from a US university but I have been looking at the University of Iceland for a Master's in Environment and Natural Resources while scoping US schools as well.

I know generally what topics I'd want to research such as sustainable agriculture, resource management, water management, or policy, but I have no clue what to do when it comes to projects yet. Would these be issues for applying to a program in Iceland? Is it also normal to email professors in Iceland asking to work with them? That doesn't seem to be as much of a thing in Europe as it is in the US for a Master's.

In Europe, to be admitted to a Master's program, there are normally quite formal requirements.  In particular, you need a Bachelor in a to-be-defined field.  If your Bachelor is from another university, or in your case even another country, someone will have to approve its equivalence.  That's usually not the professor's role (though their support might help to convince the relevant offices of the relevance of your background).

I would recommend to first contact the University's International Office, introduce to them what Bachelor you have from what university, to ask them what the procedure would be for you to enroll in the Master course.

In Europe, a Master degree is typically one or two years including course work and a small (~6 months) research project.  You don't need to decide on the research project at time of enrollment, rather when you are already enrolled you can contact professors with ideas, or the professors may suggest ideas already.  Details vary.


What license to choose for a model which we will freely distribute? My research team has developed a model, analyzed data, and generated results. We are currently in the process of publishing the results -- the article is in review -- and we are preparing to make our model available (we're talking with the publisher about whether to include it as a supplementary material with the journal).

Regardless, we will retain rights to distribute the model on our own websites. We believe in the principle of free software and want to make this model generally and freely available but request that those who use it cite the paper in which we introduce the model.

Our question is which license -- I know of GNU and Creative Commons, among others -- is best suited to this goal? Is there a answer to this question?

The site http://choosealicense.com/ will probably be helpful to you. The front page of the site offers a simple choice in fairly plain language:

I want it simple and permissive. The MIT License is a permissive license that is short and to the point. It lets people do anything they want with your code as long as they provide attribution back to you and don’t hold you liable. jQuery and Rails use the MIT License.

I’m concerned about patents. The Apache License is a permissive license similar to the MIT License, but also provides an express grant of patent rights from contributors to users. Apache, SVN, and NuGet use the Apache License.

I care about sharing improvements. The GPL (V2 or V3) is a copyleft license that requires anyone who distributes your code or a derivative work to make the source available under the same terms. V3 is similar to V2, but further restricts use in hardware that forbids software alterations. Linux, Git, and WordPress use the GPL.

The site also has a more in-depth page giving more choices, and more detail about the differences between licenses.
I would strongly advise that you don't use a Creative Commons license for your code. Creative Commons themselves caution against this:

We recommend against using Creative Commons licenses for software. Instead, we strongly encourage you to use one of the very good software licenses which are already available. We recommend considering licenses made available by the Free Software Foundation or listed as “open source” by the Open Source Initiative.

More detail in their FAQ.
Personally I use the GPL (version 3) for most of the code I release. For very small programs -- roughly speaking, anything shorter than the license text of the GPL itself -- I tend to use the MIT license. This is partly because I'm less concerned about the fate of such small code snippets, and partly because it feels a little silly to have more license than code in a release.
As a side note -- although you haven't mentioned this possibility -- please resist any temptation to invent a new license, unless you have a really compelling reason. License proliferation is a big problem, and your code will be less useful if people have to pay a lawyer to determine whether your license is legally compatible with some other software they're trying to use in conjunction with yours. In general, I would suggest picking one of the "big three" mentioned above unless you have specific reasons against this.
Edit: I just saw your comment about the appropriateness of using a GNU license for Matlab code. There is no problem here: there is no concept of "contamination" between the license of your code and the license of the language it's written in. In fact, it would be hard to implement such a restriction, because languages as such don't have licenses: only their implementations do. Many programming languages have both closed-source and open-source implementations -- this includes Matlab, although Octave, the GPL implementation of the language, is not 100% compatible with the original version. However, for Matlab specifically, you might want to consider the BSD license, because it's the only one permitted on MATLAB central. (If you never intend to share your code on MATLAB central, this is less of a problem.)


Splitting a paper into two papers? Before I decide to post this question I did google it, and there are at least two similar questions on Academia with very good and informative suggestions. Since the situation and my concerns are slightly different than the existing ones, I hope it's ok to ask a similar question.

I was writing a paper in pure math (while the situation of the existing questions is that the author already submitted his paper and was asked to split the paper into two). Initially the things in my mind is to prove two theorems using the same method, so it does make sense to put the results in one paper. However, when I was working on the paper I found that I need to modify/extend/generalize the existing background setting which requires some work. Let's say the two theorems I have in mind are in field A and the background setting is in field B. Field A and B are different but closely related. I have papers in these two fields, but I would say I work on field A more often than in field B.

I am not sure if I should put all the results in one paper or in two separate papers. The reasons are

according to the answers to the similar questions posted on Academia, if I put it in one paper it could be difficult to find referee(s). I would say there are less than 20 people specializing in both of these two fields.
however, if I put it into two papers, I anticipate the motivation of the paper about modifying/extending/generalizing the existing background setting, although requires some work, may be underestimated (no matter how hard I try to promote it).
based on the questions posted on Academia, if I put it into one paper then there is a good chance that I would be asked to separate the paper or even a rejection.

One interesting thing is no matter I write one or two papers, the number of suitable journals does not increase nor decrease drastically. But if I put it into two papers, I would possibly submit these papers to different journals.

I would not fully disagree if you think I worry too much, and tell me I should just go ahead in either way and see what will happen. Anyway, any suggestion is welcome.

It is unclear to me how you intent to split the papers.

If both theorems are in field A, there seems to be no need to split them.
Having the theorems in one paper, and the background in another, seems illogical.

From what I read, it seems to me it should be one paper.

If however you have in mind a reasonable way to split the result into two cohesive and self-contained papers, please clarify so we can better understand the situation.


Should I change my undergraduate thesis topic because of travel issues? I'm in the 7th semester (of 10) in History and I've been doing some work on my thesis. I have most of what I need to begin. My planned topic is about how viticulture developed in California in the twentieth century and how it influenced viticulture in the rest of the world especially since the 60's.

I already have a lot of knowledge of wine as I'm a certified sommelier. My visa to the US was rejected (I'm from Mexico), and the universities that have partnerships with mine aren't in California. As I wanted to collect oral histories, this is a major issue.

My friend suggested that I change my topic to viticulture in New Zealand but I have to change completely the approach, and I have very little knowledge of NZ history. I don't have a supervisor yet. Some professors have told me that I should focus on Mexico, but almost everyone here does regional history and I'd like to change that, as well as taking an extra challenge of having a bilingual thesis.

So, what do you think? I have to take this decision this semester to avoid getting stuck with bureaucracy for a long time. I'm eager to read your opinions!

Some thoughts:

Can you collect oral histories without travelling to the US? For example, you can do interviews through Skype or work with a research assistant to collect some of the oral histories for you?
Why are you fixated on collecting oral histories? It seems to me that, in this case, the research question may be answered through some other means of data collection. For example, document analysis may be an alternative.
It seems to me like your equating travel (or at least presence in a country) with the feasibility of your research question. I'm not sure that's appropriate. What would you do if you can't get to NZ, say because of visa or cost issues? Select a third country? What happens if you can't get into that country? Select a fourth?
Why are you intent on a bilingual thesis? There are a number of great South American wine manufacturers -- Chile, for example -- where you might apply the same basic research question.

Good luck!


Publishing a paper in my own workshop I'm co-organizing a workshop in conjunction of a leading conference. Since the topic is quite close to my work I'm considering to submit my own paper to the workshop.
Given the fact that I'm serving as one of the workshop chairs (and the review process is single-blind)- Is it ok to submit my own paper there?

Yes, you can submit, but if you are concerned about fairness, as seems obviously true since you are asking, then you may need to leave all reviewing to others.
You might, however, also consult the wider conference committee to see if they have any reservations or suggestions.
But such workshops are intended for a relatively small group of very interested people, of whom you are one. And it is hard, in such groups, to guarantee that no reviewer knows the author.
If you are, however, a very senior academic, you might also consider not submitting and leaving the floor open to the less experienced.


How to write an email to your Masters advisor asking for PhD position? I recently finished my Masters in Urban Planning in Belgium (Bachelor in Architecture) and I am looking into continuing for a PhD in the same university with the same professor who supervised my Masters thesis. I am, however, a bit lost on how formal or informal the email should be. He recently sent me positive comments about my thesis paper and I feel he would be a good supervisor for extending my research with the Phd. Can anyone offer some advise on how I the email structure should be?

Thank you!

I've recently been in the position where my MSc thesis supervisor informed me about a possible PhD topic and suggested to apply. From this experience I would say that having an open discussion is best - of course depending on your relationship with the supervisor. You should present your case for wanting to pursue further study (this also helps to decide for yourself) possibly first by e-mail, however nothing beats a discussion in person. Academics are generally quite busy, so writing a long, serious e-mail is not the best approach. Adding a familiar face to your conversation will work better!

First bases:
Are you aware of PhD opportunities at the university/with your supervisor? Can you address a specific project of his/of the department that you are interested in?

The great deciders:
Ultimately, a PhD is dependent on available funding. If your potential supervisor or you can secure funding for the proposed project (or best case - funding is already available), then you can apply for the position without a doubt. Of course, when a position has been funded usually the department will advertise to the world at large at which point other candidates will also be considered.

In any case - good luck!


Should the presented points by different referees within the LoRs be convergent or divergent? Assume a graduate applicant, has who informed two faculty members as referees, for presentation of the acquired Letters of Recommendation.

Every referee mentions some points about the applicant, based on the acquired acquaintance with him/her.

There are two possibilities:

Both referees talk about the same points regarding the applicant, approximately.
For example, both assert that he is egregious. (The ideas are overlapped and the points are converging.) In this case:

In this case, one could conclude that as two people has asserted the same points, so the applicant would be supposed to possess that property.

Referees' points are completely different in a compared manner. As an instance, the first one talk about the applicant's innovation in research and the other one indicates his/her temper to help the others. (The ideas are far from together and the points are diverging.)

Therefore, one could realize more diverse ideas about the applicant's personality.

Now, in view of the admission committee, which of the above mentioned scenario would be more effective and profitable for the applicant?!...

With due attention to the applied consulting with some experienced faculty members my final conclusion is that a mixture of the convergence and the divergence better be taken into account within the LoRs.

In other words, the investigator of the LoR is not eager to read all repetitive points about the applicant within the different LoRs, neither be distracted by the bombardment of the many non-overlapping points from different referees, will which not lead a coherent imagination from the applicant.