Is getting an oral recommendation from a professor who has known me since childhood a conflict of interest during graduate admissions? My parents know a Professor A who knows another Professor B. Professor A has known me since I was a child. I applied for a Ph.D. position in Professor B's group and got admitted. Before admission, Professor A recommended me to Professor B orally but without writing a formal recommendation letter. I used the recommendation letters from other professors I really worked with.
Now, a Ph.D. student in our group learnt about this (my bad, I exposed this myself) and says I was cheating. And he just told everybody because of jealousy. I think I was fairly exploiting my personal network and also I don't know how much the oral recommendation was taken into account during admission. I also don't know what Professor A said to B. Whether he even really said something about me is a mystery to me. But I am totally qualified to get this position on my own.
Now many different versions of this rumor have come out. This is not the expected start of my Ph.D. life. I thought that everybody in my group might be friendly. But really, was I cheating during the admission? I might think about transferring to another group after all this.

I suspect @Buffy is right, that you did not do anything wrong. However, you did receive an advantage you did not earn because of who your parents are and who do they know. I suspect that that advantage is much more subtle and much more substantive than the oral recommendations (compare your experience with this answer Does politics and perception play a role in higher education? )
In short, you were lucky, and it is not moraly wrong to be lucky. However, it is understandable (not right, but understandable) that people who had to earn their position the hard way require extra evidence before they are willing to accept you as an equal. It is your challenge to deal with this situation gracefully. Demonstrate your competence, as Buffy suggested, but also learn how priviledged you are, and how challenging university can be for those who do not come from a middle class or higher background. A nice place to start is here: https://www.asanet.org/sites/default/files/attach/journals/feb15asrfeature_0.pdf


What is "Honorary Lecturer" in the UK universities? I was browsing some UK universities, and I was surprised by the number of 'Honorary Lecturers'. I understand a 'honorary professor' position, normally given to an outstanding scientist outside the academia, but I wonder how a junior academic position (like lecturer) can be given with honorary title.

First, I thought it can be a political figure or something like than rather that someone with scientific achievements, but suprisingly, I found it is VERY popular to fall in this category.

For example, 10% of faculty members in UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences holds the positions of 'honorary lecturer', 'honorary senior lecturer', 'honorary reader', or 'honorary research associate'.

In this link they explain the subject in detail
In general regarding honorary academic titles for non-employees it is written:

  To recognise the association, the College may confer an honorary academic title on a non-employee during the period of their association.... The title to be conferred will depend on the level of distinction and qualification of the candidate.

And specifically with regard to "honorary lecturer":

  Honorary Lecturer: Must continue in teaching, research or joint industry/academic activity to an appropriately high level


Is preparing for a lawsuit a valid reason to defer an exam? An employer owes me wages and I have not been able to get them to comply without escalating matters. As a result, I have been preparing to take them to court, but I have an exam for my masters that I have not been able to focus on at all due to the substantial stress and uncertainty caused by dealing with this employer.

Does a UK university accept defering an exam due to legal matters as a vaild reason for deferrement especially when the missing payment comes at a time when it is really needed?

Your original title seemed to imply you are talking about an ordered court appearance, which could be scheduled in conflict with an exam, in which case you should reschedule one or the other. If the court would refuse to reschedule, you would have fairly good reason to request the exam be delayed (I cannot answer the legal question of whether a school would be required to do so for that reason).

However, the body of your question makes it clear that you are just stressed out over a long time period. People are stressed out about all sorts of things. Other people in your program may have sick children or other family members, may deal with chronic illness themselves, may have to balance an additional job with their schoolwork, may have relationship problems, etc. Sometimes these issues are disruptive enough that a school may agree to give some lenience, and in some cases of disability or illness they may be required to, but for the most part you are expected to simply deal with them as part of life.

I can't know your specific situation, but being owed wages does not sound like it rises to the level of interruption that would require deferring an exam. You could consider asking, but this would probably be a favor rather than something you have a right to, so ask carefully if you must.


problem with online class I am a student at my local community college taking prenursing classes. my professor for A&P II requires a 360 camera while taking all the tests online on response. I have two small kids who I take care of solely because my husband has to do multiple jobs to keep us alive. we also live in a very small space and I can't have any privacy for tests or a calm environment. last year fall was my first semester and I had instances where I had to do an exam while feeding the baby or have them play next to me while I do my assignments. I was lucky on instances that something happened while taking tests and had to attend to kids immediately because the professor was understanding and would allow me to finish the exam.
I feel embarrassed about having to explain my living situation to my professor. I have tried to avoid anything that would make me have a virtual meeting and this camera issue make me think if I should stop school for now or reach out if I can get help
what should I do in my situation? any advice will be appreciated.
NB: I'm a new immigrant and I have no support here not even anyone to help me think through this process

I can understand your embarrassment, but you may have to overcome it and just ask for an accommodation. A reasonable person should agree.
But many colleges and universities have some sort of office of student assistance for making such requests and passing them on. If that is available it would free you from having to discuss your situation over and over. See if that is a possibility.
And, for what it is worth, I find such requirements to be offensive. Instructors need to find a better way to evaluate students than to intrude on their homes and families. Few students have the capability of setting up a secure testing space and finding others to manage their children, etc.


How do I respond to a review report provided as an annotated PDF? Often, one gets a notification email with, typically 2 to 5, review reports compiled together and one would respond to each of these reviews with a list of "quote/response" items (if needed, referring to the revised manuscript) in form of a response letter. Now, facing the case of both an email with review reports and a commented PDF basically replacing/extending one of the reports, how would I pragmatically write the response letter? Should I respond to the PDF-based review ...

by copying each of the PDF comments into the main response letter, add a reference to the commented PDF, and add my response item?
with another commented PDF (i.e. my comments would be next to the reviewer's comments and, if needed, refer to the revised manuscript) and refer to this PDF in the corresponding section of the main response letter?

The first solution sounds more coherent to me while the second solution may be more easily usable by editors or reviewers. Apart from that more general guidance, I haven't found anything. This might be a bit of a trivial question but I appreciate any suggestions about best practices.

As one of the people who writes reviews in the form of annotated PDF files + a summary review, I think I'm in a good position to answer this question :-)

At least in my case, annotations in the PDF are often of relatively small points. I expect you to address all points raised in annotations, but you don't have to prove it to me by mentioning them individually in your response. Many will be typos/grammar annotations, some about missing axis labels, etc. In your written response, just mention somewhere that all of the points raised in annotations in the PDF that are not specifically addressed in your response have been taken care of -- that's enough for me, and likely the editor.

That leaves maybe ten longer comments in the margins of the PDF. If you think that they are worth addressing individually, copy the text into your response and add your reply. That should be easy enough to do.


What time of the year do government agencies in the United States typically hand out funding? Are there any specific seasons, months, weeks which have shown to be the time at which the majority of funding is handed out by Government agencies in the US? Are there any reliable studies that have answered questions around this topic in the past?

The agencies I'm familiar with (NIH) have published review cycles, and list not only the submission dates, but the approximate dates of first disbursement. Failing this, an email to a program coordinator will probably get you the info you need.  Also, many institutions have grants coordinators whose job it is to know exactly this information (since it accounts for a large proportion of a departments' income). See if you have access to one


Dropping Out Means You're BlackListed Would students who drop out before they take any exam be blacklisted by the (prestigious) university?

Especially if those students have shown a resentment and a disagreement with the arrangement of the academic program they're enrolled in.

Or is it normal to be contacted by the university inciting the student to apply again?

Would students who drop out before they take any exam be blacklisted by the (prestigious) university?

No.  Students drop out of a class or school frequently.  If it was recent - then you are likely still "admitted" and can register next term.

  Or is it normal to be contacted by the university inciting the student to apply again?

I'm not sure they'll ask you to come back - they might, but it is up to you do work on getting back in.

I suggest checking your status on-line, or talk to someone in the registrar's office.
While a very prestigious school has a thousand students lined up behind you to take your place, it is likely that if they admitted you in the first place, they'll be happy to keep you.  If you do it again, then they might think less of you.


Habilitation in Germany as a nonresident I am a young scholar about to complete my PhD. in Finance from an Asian country. I am interested to know whether it is possible to pursue Habilitation from Germany (or any other European country) while working as an Assitant Professor in my home country. I have the following subqueries:

Is it possible to do the Habilitation similar to a traditional part-time individual doctorate while working in the industry which provides a lot of flexibility?
I also came to know that Habilitation can be completed through a series of good publications in a specific field. Is this route possible while not working in Germany or any other European country?
Are publications during Postdoctoral Fellowships in Germany or any other European country (with funding usually lasting for 2/3 years) considered for Habilitation through cumulative publications route?

Although I want to pursue habilitation for its own sake, I am  also interested in permanent posts as a Professor in Germany. Apart from Habilitation, one way is to work as a Junior Professor, which is temporary in nature( usually lasting for 6 years). In my home country, it is much easier to get a permanent post as a Professor, usually promoted from Assistant Professor rank (also permanent in nature). Thanks

I think you have a few misconceptions about what a habilitation is.

To answer your first question: Yes, you can apply for a habilitation as an external candidate; just like a doctorate, this procedure is formally totally independent from your employment status. (But just like for a doctorate, it is much harder to get them to take you on if you are an external candidate.)

For your second and third question: This is very much field (and university) dependent; some will accept a stapled thesis (i.e., just submitting a list of published papers written after your doctorate), others require you to actually write a book. In any case, it is irrelevant where you wrote these.

However, the main part of the habilitation is to obtain the venia docendi -- the right to teach at this specific university. This means:

You must demonstrate to the committee your ability to teach at university level; again, it wildly differs how you need to do so -- some places will accept student evaluations of classes you taught elsewhere, others require you to give an example lecture in front of the full faculty (which, needless to say, can be rather a tough gauntlet). The easiest way is to already have a habilitation at a different university. (This is called Umhabilitieren.)
More importantly, if you are not interested to teach at this university (and even more importantly, they are not interested to have you teach), the university will not confer a habilitation on you. (To put it bluntly, universities take a dim view of "degree collectors" who are only in it for the title.)

So, no, a crucial part of the habilitation can not be done remotely.

Since you wrote you are also interested in a full professor position in Germany: You are correct that a habilitation is a formal requirement for obtaining a full professor position is Germany, but the hiring committee can consider other accomplishments as equivalent. The most frequent one now is a positive evaluation as a junior professor, but another possibility is a tenured position at a university in your home country. In any case, your accomplishments in research (and getting grants) will be a much more critical part of getting a position.


How to leave a collaborator after being offered to join a new group? How does one leave one collaborative group for another, prior to the start of the research? This relates to switching project teams for graduate course work, switching research labs, or basically dropping any collaboration. How does one do so politely?

My specific situation:

I have been asked today by one of the best teams to join their group for our major University project. However, I have promised my friend 2 months ago that I will join his team.

How can I join the better team without jeopardizing my relationship with my friend?

First make sure that this is what you want. This is a very important thing to do. Being in a better team is a chance, but also a burden. They will expect you to cooperate at a certain level, which means: stress, lots of work and being on time. If you think that's worth the result and that you are willing to dive into that, then do it.

If your friend is a good friend he/she will understand. I'd suggest to invite your friend for an activity that both of you enjoy a lot, then bring up the topic. Make it clear to your friend that you value the relationship and how difficult it is for you to take that decision, but also can't put down the chance. Ask him/her what he/she would do in your position to get your friend to see it with your eyes.

True friendship will survive that. And if not, then knowing that you took the right decision will help you getting over it.


NSF mathematics postdoctoral fellowship: how to indicate U.S. citizenship status I'm currently preparing to submit my NSF mathematics postdoctoral fellowship application, with deadline tomorrow on October 17. You must be a U.S. citizen (or permanent resident, etc.) to apply. There is a line on the application to indicate this:

  CITIZENSHIP (check one)
  __ US Citizen or National ___ Permanent Resident ___Foreign National(give country: )

In what I believe to be the relevant part of the application (the page Application Form), there is a field which reads:

  I. Citizenship status:      Do not wish to provide

without any way to modify this.

There is an advisory listed on the NSF Fastlane main page, dated Oct. 1, which reads:

  The Mathematical Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowships solicitation (NSF 16-558) requires proposers to indicate U.S. citizenship status; however, the ability to update this information is no longer functional. Proposals that are not compliant with solicitation requirements may be returned without review. Please email rgov@nsf.gov or contact the FastLane Help Desk at 1-800-673-6188.

This is rather cryptic. It seems to say that me not being able to update citizenship status on the application is in fact what everybody is experiencing. On the other hand, it also seems to indicate that nevertheless it is important to indicate U.S. citizenship status, and that my application may be rejected immediately without this information.

I'd naturally prefer not to have my application rejected for technicalities. Is anyone else going through the same issue right now? If so, what is the right way to address it? Is there a way to update citizenship status? Or is this matter inconsequential?

This may be too late, but I ran into the same issue when applying for an NSF PRFB biology postdoc fellowship. They sent an email saying to provide your country of citizenship on like K (usually reserved for foreign nationals). I sent an email to follow up that all's good, and they said I did it correctly. Hope this helps someone!

Here's a screenshot of the NSF application:


can my paper be excluded from the conference proceedings after attending and presenting? I received a very weird email from an international conference committee, stating that their society (who organised the conference) reviewed the content of my paper and finally decided to exclude it from publication in the proceedings because my ideas did not reflect the society ideas and methods.

This is after they accepted the final edit of my conference paper, about 8 months after the end of a 10 day, very expensive conference. The book they are publishing is not a selection of papers, but the only proceedings which records the facts, topics that were discussed and people that were at the conference.

The paper topics were determined when the initial abstracts were submitted. There were no conditions specified at the time of registration, therefore, as for other general international conferences, registration, acceptance and oral presentation means being part of the proceedings, if not otherwise explicitly specified.

Can my paper and thus the record of my attendance and presentation be excluded from the conference proceedings? Can they discrimate against authors based on the society's views?

I find your arguments very compelling and persuasive (except the one about “generating money losses”, which I think is not really the point, and isn’t something I’d advise you to focus on, although it’s understandable that having incurred great expense to attend the conference would add to your sense of outrage). If the conference website, correspondence with the organizers, and other official conference materials led you, and would lead a reasonable person, to believe that your paper will be published in the conference proceedings, then it seems pretty clear-cut that the organizers are guilty of a serious misrepresentation, and, under normal, circumstances, their behavior would be completely unacceptable.

The only explanation I can think of that would make for a legitimate reason to exclude your paper from the proceedings would be if they discovered that your paper is outright fraudulent or involved some serious unethical behavior on your part. Just saying your paper “does not reflect the society ideas and methods” isn’t nearly enough of a justification to make such a drastic move sound acceptable. (But I assume there are additional details that would shed more light on what’s going on here, although they may not change my conclusion.)

As for what you can do, it’s hard to say without more background details about your field, the people involved, what they find wrong with your paper, your professional status, etc. But certainly I think it would be quite reasonable on your part to raise a fuss and complain about this seemingly unfair treatment, and ask for the decision to be changed.  Some people you might want to involve could be your department chair, other colleagues you are on friendly terms with, your advisor (if you have one), people you know who attended the conference, the chair of the organizing committee, and the publisher in charge of the proceedings volume. I think it’s quite possible that once this decision is scrutinized by enough reasonable people with some sway, you will see justice done.

Good luck! Hope you get this sorted out.


Etiquette for discussing authorships, expectations, etc. with potential advisors Assuming that one has begun a PhD program at a university which allows a student to choose an advisor after his/her first year in the program and the student has narrowed down on a couple of potential advisors, once a student has established contact with his potential advisor,

At what point do you discuss things like authorship, expectations and other such details? First meet, second meet or otherwise?

Think of your first meeting as a mutual interview. The adviser wants to know if you are worth spending time and money on. You need to ask questions to determine if the adviser is worth spending years of your life on.

Good topics for the first meeting are:

The adviser's expectations of you (including hours worked per week, number of papers to publish before graduating, etc.)
Your expectations of your adviser (Do you get vacation time? How long does it take your students to graduate? How much grant funding do you have? What earns me authorship on papers? etc.)
Your potential project (What are the long-term goals? What are the short-term objectives? Have other students worked on this project before?)
What preparations do you need to make? (Should you take a particular course? Should you read certain papers or books?)

You should also try to get candid answers to these questions from the students who already work for your potential adviser.


Is it possible to attend graduate school in pure math after undergrad in CSE? I am a Bangladeshi student studying CSE in the best university of my country. At the beginning of my second year in my university, an interest towards pure math grew in my mind. But my university does not offer courses in Abstract algebra, Real Analysis, Topology, Complex Analysis, Algebraic geometry, etc. I have seen this related post, but the advice there doesn't help me because there is no computer scientist in my university whose research interests lie between CS and Pure Math.

I met a few of my professors to discuss about my situation. Some of them asked me to study math by myself and also to try to study a paper by mathematicians under whom I want to work, then to write a paper which demonstrates I understand all (at least most of) the things written in the paper, and later send it to them asking if they are interested in taking me as student. They also asked me to get prepared for Math GRE. But is it possible to switch to pure math if I do so? If not, how I can go to a pure math grad school?

As Dave mentioned, what you want to do will be very challenging.  One possibility would be to change to a different university that offers the math classes you mentioned.  However, I will assume that switching schools is not an option for you.  If you are very dedicated to this goal, here is one possible route.

finish your current studies in CSE
get a job in a town with a university that offers the math classes you desire
start taking one class each semester as a non-degree student.  I don't know about policies elsewhere, but many school in the United States have less strict admission requirements for non-degree students.  Your goals for these classes should be two-fold. (1) Learn the material as well as you can.  Your understanding of this material will be important for both getting into and succeeding in graduate school.  (2) Impress your professors with both your ability and your desire.  When you eventually apply to a masters program, you will ask some of these professors for letters of recommendation.
apply to a masters program in mathematics.  Ask for letters of recommendation from both your current professors in your CSE program and from those who know you from the math classes you take after you finish your BS.
as you near the finish of your masters (where you have worked hard to prove yourself) apply to PhD programs

I know this is a long-term plan, but with hard work and dedication you could make it work.  Here is another question Advice - MS in mathematics to increase competitiveness for PhD programs? that you may find to be helpful.


Affiliation on a paper - moving to a place where I actually did the work Me and a person from University X wrote a (pure mathematics) paper together. Most of the work on this paper happened when I was visiting University X during last summer (they were kind enough to provide a room for me and invite me to give a seminar). It is also worth mentioning that X is located where I come from, so given that I can be quite mobile in my work, I would probably be spending most of the summer there in any case. I am currently a PhD student at University Y, located abroad, and I'm just about to finish my degree. Once this happens, I am going to sign a contract with X (the paperwork is waiting until I graduate).

Now that the paper is finished, I wonder what affiliation it would be ethical of me to mention on the paper. It goes without saying that I should mention Y - that's where my position is at the moment, they are the people giving me funding. However, I would also be happy to mention X - there are various reasons why I would want that, some more valid than other. Would it be right of me to do so?

The way this is usually handled is that you list University Y as your affiliation, and in the acknowledgements of the paper, include a sentence that says something like:

  Much of this paper was written while the second author was visiting University X; he would like to thank the X Department of Mathematics for their hospitality and support.

If you end up doing significant further work on the paper after you start your job at X (e.g. major revisions in response to peer review), then you could list both universities as your affiliation.


How to ask for approval letter from dean? I've studied in this college for Diploma and have now proceeded to the Bachelor's Degree. I am facing some problem that may cause me to extend my course.

The system of the faculty is like this: When you want to take certain subject, you need to pass all the prerequisite subject for that subject in the previous semester. This is reasonable by far. The prerequisite subjects are listed on the booklet sent to us during the faculty briefing.

But up until recently (my second last semester), I was told by the faculty staff that I cannot take my FYP (Final Year Project) because I did not finish all my prerequisite subjects. I was shocked and I showed her that the booklet of faculty briefing didn't state that at anywhere. She told me that this information is stated on a separate website specially for FYP. The problem is, I didn't have a single clue about the website before I went to take it. How was I suppose to know this information in the past semester?

There is no post about this information in the college official bulletin board website, and I didn't even receive a single email about this. The staff told me that I should be alert with all that kind of information.

I tried to appeal to the dean, wanted to talk about my issue face to face. But the staff stopped me and didn't allow me to talk with the dean. The reason they give is that dean has no time for me. They suggested me to write a formal letter and wait for dean's reply.

I have submitted my formal letter, but the due date for the registration of FYP is few days later. If they do not reply me for this issue, I cannot take my FYP in this semester. If this happen, I will have to wait another year just to take the single subject for two semesters (FYP part 1 and 2), and my graduation will have to delayed for one whole year. I don't want to extend my course because of this reason.

They do have a course structure for us to follow, but it didn't force us to take exactly same as the course structure, so we can plan our course before every semester. I didn't follow it because I need to handle harder subject in the earlier semester so that I can focus on my FYP in the later semester.

What should I do and try, so that I will not have to extend my course? I have also tried emailing to the dean about this problem.

I don't know anything about your university or its normal practices, so this is only tentative.

If your university has any sort of office for student advocacy, go to them with your concerns. Hidden rules aren't appropriate in any situation, though they may be permitted - unfortunately.

In case there is no such office, go to any professor that you trust and who knows you well, and ask him/her to be your advocate. The dean will certainly offer a bit of time to a professor that they won't to you. You are asking for an exception to the "rules". Make sure that you have a basis for the exception (you have the needed knowledge to proceed) and not just that the rule is unfair if it is hidden.

Unfortunately, you are possibly making people uncomfortable and when that happens they sometimes behave badly. The more confrontational you make it, the worse it may get, so be aware of the risks.


What is the perception of foreign Universities (Non UK) in the US for prospective academic positions (Postdoc/Tenure)? First of all, I know that your work speaks for you, and if you have really good papers, you have better chances, but just bear with me, and for the sake of argument lets assume that your research is only one of the points to consider.

I did my undergrad in what could be considered the best University in my Country (Mexico)and got a Magna Cum Laude.

And then, I did my Graduate studies in the University of Tokyo publishing a couple of Journal Papers (I'm really pushing for that 3rd one!)

This question is directed to people in the US, since I'm looking to find a permanent position.

What is the perception Universities in the US have of foreign Universities? I happen to know that UK Universities like Cambridge and Oxford have no problem (for obvious reasons), but a professor friend of mine told me that other Universities are just not that well known. And having a degree from the Hawaii University was better than having a degree from Tokyo University. (As a side note, he is a professor at Haw Univ, and he wanted me to apply over there)

I just want to know how true or false this is, and realistically speaking how hard/easy is to get a position as a postdoc and eventually a full time professor if you are not from a US univ.

For example, do I have the same chances as someone who graduated from a top University (your Ivy leagues, Public Ivy League, MIT, Stanford, etc) or do I least have the same chances as middle range Universities?

As a side note, I have a postdoc in the UCLA lined up, so I guess that'll boost my chances a bit.

I don't think there's as much of a perception problem with foreign universities as you might think. I'd say the majority of postdoctoral associates are international, and most of them have not gone to universities as well known as Oxford and Cambridge. More likely than not, forging personal connections with the advisor you want to work for as a postdoc will matter much more than the university.

That said, individual professors may have a bias toward hiring people from "known" schools, because the risk factor associated with hiring them is presumably much lower than someone from a school they've never heard of. Such a bias is of course understandable, but it also means that they could lose out on some potentially promising candidates as a result.


How does score normalization among different graders work? In my university, in a class with several hundred students, there are teaching assistants who are assigned a small fraction of the students for assignments which they grade. I have heard that they normalize scores among these teaching assistants to make it fair. How does that work?

There are many possible systems and so it varies with each situation. One is to use some statistical analysis, which can actually be unfair. It needs to make an assumption, probably that each group of students is a fair sample, which it isn't.

Another is to have someone look at a sample question from different graders and make adjustments.

One method that I've seen used on final exams is to have each grader grade one question from everyone in the course. So that each student is graded by several people.

Another possible method is to have each paper graded twice.

You can probably come up with more possibilities.

Some of these might be combined with advising the graders who seem to be too easy or too hard.

Most of them probably start out with grading rubrics for each question that graders are supposed to adhere to.

For your own situation, you need to inquire locally. There may be someone in the department who is responsible for all TAs and who coordinates these things.

I'll also note that doing nothing at all to normalize scores is also a possibility. In fact, when different professors teach small sections of the same course (no common lectures), it is likely to be the case.


Is it appropriate for a professor to give the same exam to two different classes 2 weeks apart? Is it appropriate for a professor to give an exam to section A and then give the same exact exam to section B 2 weeks later?

Would this be a proper argument towards the professor and/or university to either curve or do something about the grades of the two sections?

It's an engineering course with the same prof in both sections.

(note: in the original version sections A and B are called "the English section" and "the French section", respectively, but these names have been edited out because they seem to be a red herring.)

I deduce that one section is taught in French and another section is taught in English? The tests should be given in the language that the class is taught in. However, if there is reason to believe that all students are fluent in one language (e.g. English), it is debatable whether the language of the exam is actually of consequence.

Does your university require all students to be competent in English (or in French)? I guess it could be argued that students who only speak English should not be required to take a test in French.

Seeing as this is an engineering course, it would seem that there would not be a significant advantage to students who attend the French section versus the English section.


How common is it to switch to a tenure-track position from a non-tenure-track position in the same institution? I am looking for answers from the perspective of U.S. institutions.  At some institutions (e.g., mine), a faculty member is allowed to switch tracks at the institution once in their career at that institution.  For example, a person who was hired as a non-tenure track research assistant professor can petition or apply to be a tenure-track assistant professor.  The process is a bit vague, but it happened to someone at my institution recently, which got me thinking about the question.

The person--let's call him Dr. X--started out as a research assistant professor in Department Y on Well-Funded Project Z.  Due to administrative...restructuring, which dissolved Department Y, all of the professors in Department Y had to choose a new department in the School, and all of the professors working on Well-Funded Project Z ended up moving to Department A.

I am curious whether this is a common occurrence.  I was casually talking to another, more senior professor (who also involved in Well-Funded Project Z), when it was revealed to me that our institution allows professors to change tracks once in their career.  I was wondering if others had seen something similar at their institutions, and related to that, is it ever a good idea to ask when interviewing for a non-tenure-track position whether there is a possibility of switching to a tenure-track position down the road or what the institution's policy is surrounding switching tracks?

Like many things in academia, the answer will likely depend upon the institution.  In most, I would think that a non-tenure-track and a tenure-track position are actually different positions.  You aren't just changing a title, but you are leaving one job and starting another (at the same institution). I would imagine that most do not have official rules about the number of times you can change jobs, although there may be unofficial scuttlebutt to the contrary.  This should be outlined in the faculty handbook/guide.

  Is it ever a good idea to ask when interviewing for a non-tenure-track position whether there is a possibility of switching to a tenure-track position down the road or what the institution's policy is surrounding switching tracks?

If you are interested in a tenure-track position, I think this is a very important question to be asking, and is not viewed negatively by any reasonable person. The chair or hiring committee should be able to let you know about this possibility.


What are the arguments for and against Open Access? As a relative newbie in academia, I understand that there is a rather controversial debate raging about the benefits and negatives of Open Access policies.  Is it possible to summarize some of the arguments for and against Open Access?

While there's a great deal of complexity in the arguments, the primary arguments basically boil down to a very simple core of inclusion vs. cost.

For open access: Science should be available to all people, including the large number of people who don't have the personal or institutional resources to pay lots of money to buy access to articles.

Against open access: editing and publishing quality materials requires significant resources, and these have to be paid for somehow. If readers don't pay, then somebody else has to (often, but not always the authors or article), and it's not clear if these alternatives will end up making a bigger barrier for low-resource scientists. Moreover, a stable business model hasn't yet been established, and in the meantime lots of scammers have been attracted, who are putting out piles of trash and giving open access a bad name.

There's a lot more here, as noted in the comments, but this is a pretty concise starting point for understanding the arguments for and against.


Viability: Physics undergrad to Neuroscience/Psychology PhD? I'm currently an undergraduate physics major entering my senior year in Fall 2017. However, I've had a change of interests and I wish to pursue something along the lines of psychology or neuroscience for graduate school. I've only had the scantest formal psychology education, but I do have a 4.0/4.0 overall GPA in my favor (as a different major, but I've also consistently done well in my humanities electives).

How viable is such a transition from the point of view of a potential PhD advisor in these two fields? I know that there is cross-pollination across fields such as physics and engineering, but do PhD programs in neuroscience, for example, offer similar leeway?

PS: I should also mention that I'm an international student studying in the US, and I would also want to do a PhD strictly within the US.

According to this UC Berkley site physics is an appropriate background as long as you meet some additional requirements.
http://neuroscience.berkeley.edu/ph-d-program/how-to-apply/


A journal published my paper without finalizing the proofs -- is this normal? The title says it all.  The journal published my paper without sending me the final proofs beforehand.  I didn't even find out that the paper had been finally published from the journal; I found out from an ORCID update.  With other journals, I always got a final look to make sure the edits were done correctly, but that step was missing here.

Is this normal?  I'm quite perturbed, because the copy-editors had made lots of inappropriate edits, and I wanted to double check that they had fixed everything before the paper went live.

The publisher is Wiley (which I don't have experience with).

Is this normal? I'm quite perturbed, because the copy-editors had made lots of inappropriate edits, and I wanted to double check that they had fixed everything before the paper went live.

I'm a journal editor (Taylor & Francis) and have edited special issues (Springer), so in my experience this is not normal in the slightest. Even though it is an "Early View" article, this is a standard part of the publishing pipeline, and we'd expect those to be the finished version (just waiting for the formal assignment of a volume/issue number as space opens up).

If this happened to me, I would be disappointed.

You should e-mail the handling editor who you corresponded with.

My guess is that something has happened in the interplay between editorial staff and the back-office Wiley people, and I would guess that the handling editor would be just as disappointed and surprised as you. You want these edits to happen as quickly as possible, as once the DOI is minted and its an "early view" article - as you know - people will be getting their Google Scholar alerts etc. and beginning to read and cite the piece.


Can a related paper cover the non-thesis master disadvantages for applying for a PhD? I am a MS student in computer science. I have the opportunity to work on the area A than I don't enjoy so much and the adviser is not helpful, but I guess that I will publish good papers if I work on that.

On the other hand, these days I spoke with a prof. Not in our university to suggest me a problem to work as independent research in the field B that I love so much. I guess that I am able to publish good papers in this new field too.

So I don't know if it is good to change my M.Sc. to non-thesis and pursue the independent research?

I should mention that regardless of my choice about my MS thesis I want to apply in the the field B for the universities in US.

Edit: Maybe it is good to mention that my bachelor record is good enough that if I had a little research on B in my bachelor It was possible for me to apply for direct PhD in B.

Edit2(clarification):
I am not inside US.I am from Asia actually.

I would recommend the independent research avenue because I always believe you should do the things you enjoy most. It shows strong interest in your future field and you will be better equipped to get your love for the field across when applying for a PhD/other.

Things to consider when making the final decision are:

How much the non-thesis masters is valued in the US compared to the thesis one?
The availability of the supervising Professor B
Your certainty in applying for field B.
The requirements wrt the masters listed on the websites of the universities you will apply to.
The genuine likelihood of publications in your independent research into B
How much you dislike supervisor and topic A.


Background section for research statement It is my understanding that the main sections in a research statement should address the following three main points: 1) research interests and skills; 2) past (and present, if any) research; 3) agenda for the future research. However, when I sat to write my research statement today, I started with a background section, where I briefly (half of a page) described how I have developed an interest for research and science from my high school years till Ph.D. program period. I think that it is a natural way to set the stage for the further discussion, which also allows for a smooth transition to my "Past Research" section, where I describe my dissertation research.

Question: does the background section make sense and is it beneficial to use such structure?

Note. In addition to "Background" and "Past Research", my research statement also contains "Present Research" and "Future Research" sections. Since currently (after recent graduation) I am busy performing a job search for postdoctoral and junior faculty positions, I just noted that in the "Present Research" section, adding that I am also doing preliminary planning of converting my dissertation into several research papers or book chapter as well as converting corresponding software into R packages. The total length of my research statement as of now is 2.5 pages (without references).

No, I don't think this is a good idea.

A similar issue arises with the "statement of purpose" essay for grad school applications: students often want to include stories about early experiences that were influential in their education.  But there seems to be a consensus among academics who actually read those applications that this is not helpful.  See for example this answer by aeismail.

So if this sort of thing would be unhelpful for a statement of purpose (which is intended to contain at least some amount of introspection) that goes double for a research statement (which really is not).

The people reading your research statement are trying to evaluate your potential to be a successful researcher.  They want to know:

what you work on
evidence that it is a worthwhile field (publishable, interesting to other researchers, likely to attract funding support, etc)
your research accomplishments to date
what you plan to do in the present and future
why they should believe your plan is likely to be successful.

Stories about how you got to where you are don't really add to any of these points, and I don't see how they are likely to convince someone of your potential to be a successful researcher now.  Maybe if you were conducting high-quality, publishable research as a high school student, and it has some connection to your current research program, you could mention it.  But even that is weak evidence at best: everyone in academia knows of young prodigies who went on to do nothing of note.  Who you were and what you did 10 years ago is irrelevant; concentrate on who you are and what you are doing now.

It is reasonable to have a "Background" section in a research statement.  But it should give background on your research, not on you.


How might changing topic affect a career in academia? I am curious whether it is common working on different subjects in an area throughout an academic career. I think life is long enough to work on different and interesting subjects, but how common is that?

Particularly, let's consider area as computer science. Topic X and topic Y are not totally unrelated, but it is hard to find people who list X and Y together under his/her interests. For my situation X is software engineering and Y is computer architecture/embedded systems. How might pursuing masters on a topic X and applying to PhD on topic Y look like?

If you do a masters thesis on topic X and topic X is not too far from topic Y, for example, if they are both computer science topics, and your academic record is good and your background is sufficient to make the transition, then I don't see any problem making the change at this level. You can catch up on whatever knowledge you need while learning about and researching topic Y. This will not look bad. After you obtain your PhD, people will be less interested in your masters.

Changing later in your career is also possible, though a little more difficult.

One positive point about being able to demonstrate that you can change topic is to show that you are not a one trick pony, meaning that you are able to apply yourself at the highest level to different areas.

Indeed, as interests in the field shifts and technology changes and new topics open up, it will often actually be necessary to change topics in order to survive in the field. If people (or just you) lose interest in a topic, then you need to be able to change.

But it is also good to demonstrate that you can commit to one line of research. Apart from the advantages this gives you, such as having a deep knowledge of a specialised topic, it demonstrates your commitment and can be used to show that you have and follow a research strategy.


How to cite a figure that has been already modified from another source? I am wondering how to cite a figure that has already been modified from another source. Normally one should get the original figure from the original source, but there are cases when that is not possible or difficult.

Let's say that we find a figure A in source 1.
Figure A is a modified version of figure B from another source 2.

So in source 1 figure A it says in its figure text:

  ...modified after [2].

Also I am wondering how to cite correctly when I want to modify the already modified figure? Saying modified after again seems quite silly:

  modified after [1] which is modified after [2].

In addition one should include "with permission", but the following sounds wrong since it appears as if we have gotten "permission to modify":

  modified with permission from [1].

This last example raises the question: does one have to ask for permission to modify a figure in addition to reproducing. Some organizations explicitly tell that no figures may be modified.

So my guess is that it should be formulated as:

  reused with permission and modified after [1].

But this last I can't remember having seen any example of in actual academic papers. What would be the correct approach here?

"Reused with permission and modified after [1]." sounds good to me. It will also depend on copyright, which some journals require specifying in the figure caption. Whether the copyright allows re-use and modification is of course key.


Should I apply for a PhD position with required programming skills which I do not have? I did my master's thesis last month and have seen one excellent PhD position in my field. The title and the project description was very close to my master's thesis. My master's thesis relates to one of those standards which is very new, and I can guess the number of peoples which work on it are few -- especially those persons which did or are doing a master thesis in that field.

On the other side I got my degrees with honours -- both bachelors and masters. So I have good situation for that PhD position.

One of the requirements is strong programming ability, which I do not have. I am not so good in programming. (By the way in just 6 months, I can improve that). Also the place is top five (or maybe one) rank with high salary. I do not know whether I should apply for that position or not? I afraid my bad programming skill have a bad effect on advisor's decision about me.

What I should do?

A part of requirements is

  ... very good programming skills and experience....

which I do not have.

Also the professor is number one person in that field and kind person. So that is one of the most important opportunities in my life. I do not have those skills which are required to apply to the programme. But by that time, I will improve my weak points.

I am not sure I agree with Enthusiastic Student. There are two points to consider here:

Do they really need a strong programmer, or is this just something that they traditionally write into their position announcements without giving it much thought? Frankly, in industry like in academia, job descriptions are often given much less thought than people seem to assume. In my old group, we basically had one boilerplate job requirements text which was used for all kinds of positions. This included pretty much the cited text, but we certainly had PhD students that were not good programmers and they still (sometimes) did ok.
Can you learn to program sufficiently, either before starting or at least within acceptable time frame after starting? This largely depends on how good a programmer they really need, how much you currently suck at programming, and whether you learn to program quickly or not (programming, specifically, seems to be one of those skills that comes much more easily to some than to others).

To figure both things out, you should get in touch with the professor or one of his students to get a feel for what their stance on these issues is. For some position, you really need to be an excellent programmer, and for those, there is indeed no point in applying. For others, being able to hack together a workable prototype in reasonable time is sufficient, and most people should be able to learn that. When contacting them, be diplomatic and don't tell them outright that you are bad at programming. Get a feel for what you are really supposed to do, and decide for yourself whether you will be able to do it or learn to do it quickly. Then decide whether to apply.


How is grading by curve fair at all? Are there any arguments in favor of it? Per definition, grading by a curve usually means that the students are assigned grades based on the statistical distribution of the test/exam results. No matter what, say 20% of students will always fail, and only say 10% will get a perfect mark.
I see a number of serious problems with this, and I fail to see anything in favor. In my view, for a fair system, the following are necessary; and neither are fulfilled by grading by curve:

A test/exam should have clear and absolute rules and requirements. Here, the students do not know what are the exact requirements to get the result they desire, as the point limits are, obviously, only known after the test/exam.
The grade of the test should directly correspond to how much of the course material did the student learn and understand. The fact that the same ratio of comprehended material can give an A in one year, then a C in the next year,  tells that the requirements of the course itself are also very unclear.
Similarly, the grade should directly and absolutely reflect the knowledge of the student. An A+ should worth the same every time in the same test. But here, the grade only reflects the student's knowledge relative to class members. It can't be correlated to the amount of learned knowledge.
The grade should only be influenced by factors under the direct influence of the student. Here, the mark depends on factors like how "bright" are the other students, how much effort they put into preparation, and even on whether they cheated. Hence, the student's mark is influenced by circumstances completely outside of his control, and unrelated to his knowledge.
No matter the collective results, a given number of students will always inevitably fail. If almost everyone is a genius, there will be the same number of failures as if everyone did poorly. Good students may fail, and bad students may pass. In a similar way as the point before, a student shouldn't be faced with the negative, possibly serious, consequences of failing, just because by chance there were a lot of very bright students in the class.
Also, it creates and encourages an unhealthy and harmful class dynamic. Ideally, the students help each other in preparation. If an otherwise smart student doesn't understand some part and is roadblocked, others would explain. If a student missed a class due to valid reasons, classmates help to give and explain the missed material. But learning by curve creates an artificial race situation, where the students are actively harming themselves by helping others. Decimating the collective amount of obtained knowledge, this goes against the very spirit of education.

All these problems, and I'm struggling to come up with any argument in favor of grading by curve. In fact, I see only two cases where it may be used, and both of them are a fault of administration:

The department expects an exact number of students to pass the course. This is against the spirit of education IMO. If a student is good enough, he should pass. If not, he shouldn't. Regardless of others.
The responsible teacher failed to set exact, absolute, and clear requirements, and/or is lazy or unable to do so. Because of his fault, the students are exposed to an unfair grading system.

Am I missing something here? Are there any objective arguments in favour of grading by curve, and what are these? If not, or they are weak, what are the reasons it's still used, apparently widely?

My firm belief and policy is that a student's grade should depend on their own efforts and nothing else. In that case, curving the class is actually just wrong.
But my grading policy is pretty different from most. First, I use (used, actually, as I'm retired) cumulative grading. Every student task was assigned a point value and those added to, say, 1000. If you did a 100 point task, you might get 90 points based on assessments of quality. The breaks between grades were defined, say 900 to earn an A.
Second, I permitted rework if a student earned less than they expected to earn, but rework only got you back part of the lost marks. Therefore, I didn't get complaints about strict grading. "If you want more points on this, do a better job of it". This also allowed me to encourage students to do better work and rethink poor assumptions.
Third, I assumed that I wasn't perfect and that I occasionally was overly strict, so a student never missed a final grade by what I considered an infinitesimal amount. 899 points didn't mean a B.
When I came time to assign final grades, I'd look at the earned distribution and make a decision whether that represented what I thought they had actually learned and I might adjust all grades upwards (only upwards) a few points if I thought that, at that point I'd been too strict along the way.
I had the reputation of being very demanding, and I was, both in the quantity and difficult of work. But I was just a bit less strict than my reputation. Students after the last class were never disappointed when they saw their final grade. They were able to compute it along the way, and they might learn that they did a bit better than their expectations.

No student should suffer in a class simply because, just by chance, there are a number of genius level other students.
Curving, is, I think, an admission of failure of the admissions system itself, which tries to predict that admitted students will be successful. If the system is set up so that some are guaranteed to fail then something is extremely wrong.
Expecting that the distribution from one year to another should be the same in an individual course is also foolish. The students aren't randomly selected from a known distribution in large enough numbers (for a single class) that statistical assumptions have any validity. Some years the students just work harder than in others. Some years they have to deal with things (pandemics, say) that make their work much more difficult.
Grade individuals, based on their performance. Make it possible that the performance can be good or can improve. Don't assume that the students in your class don't really need to be there. Be a teacher, not a grader.

Also see this question and my answer there.

Note: To make rework possible and not overly burdensome on the grader, students turned in work on paper. For rework they also turned in (in a folder) all of the previous versions that had been commented by the grader. They also highlighted, in the new work, changes to the most recent version. It was easy and quick to see if additional points should be awarded and easy to mark up the latest document with suggestions, etc.
This may not scale beyond 30 students per grader, I realize. I know that at 40, scale starts to be an issue.


Why do you need to study a subject at a university level to teach it at a high school? If you want to teach mathematics at a high school for example, then why do you need to study it at a university? You will learn new stuff, but you won't teach anything of that at a high school.

On one hand, when I myself was in high school I was wondering about the same thing - especially that I learnt the whole high school material (in maths and physics, I mean) in the first year, so felt that I could have taught as well as a teacher. But indeed, as pointed out by Xander Henderson and Massimo Ortolano, only at the university (in fact, only during my PhD studies; well, in fact only as a post doc; well, in fact... hm, you get the idea) I learnt the bigger picture.

So, studies are so that if a student asks "what will I need the quadratic equation for?" you could give a better answer than "because it will be on the test".

What is a better answer in this case is a whole different issue. I have lots of friends who indeed, once they finished high school, never solved a quadratic equation again. But on the other hand, they also didn't need the knowledge about Hamlet, genetics, WW II history, etc., in everyday life. That doesn't mean that they, we, you shouldn't learn about those things. I have lots of knowledge that I don't need in my life - but I enjoy obtaining it, possessing and connecting it with other areas.


What are the important factors to consider when choosing a Master topic? I am a computer science, master student. As I am nearing the end of my studies, I am starting to weight my options for the final "thing", the Master thesis. I already had 2-3 meetings with some Professors offering master topics. The more I think on this topic, the more I get confused.

One of the topics is not really within the area of my interests, or close to something that I would like to work in the future, but the Professor is really nice and quality, I have had good cooperation with him earlier before. And I think that I can further learn from him.

One of the other options, is much interesting, however I feel as if I am afraid of it. I don't have much experience in the exact field which the master thesis covers. The professor just arrived in out university and I have not taken any of his lectures.

The final option, is one that I feel more comfortable. It might be from a topic that I have worked on for the last 12 months, so I can get into it really fast.

Considering these information and the fact that in the future I want to have the possibility of continuing Phd studies, maybe not directly after the master studies, but sometimes eventually, which one of the thesis should I choose?

Should I go for the most worldly-renown professor, or for one of the others. Which parameters should I bear in mind when making the decision? I have thought about the quality of the professor, the effort that the topic requires, the potential of having a good adviser (on whom I can rely) etc.

I am sure, here are people much experienced than me who can tell what are the important things to consider when making such a choice.

It seems seems that deep inside, I am being influenced by the grading as well. Is the grade of a thesis more important than the topic itself?

I know the question might feel as offtopic, but I really need help.

Thanks

EDIT 1: Just wanted to add a couple of questions in here; To what extent the grades influence future job & Phd applications?

One thing to keep uppermost in your mind - the topic of your Master's thesis is not necessarily the one that you have to pursue in later research, such as part of a PhD.

The point of a Master's thesis is to demonstrate your ability to do research. Opinions might vary on whether it is a reasonable expectation that the research that you do for a Master's thesis has to be world-class and leads to one or more publications. In my view, it would be nice, but it isn't a requirement.

What you need to get out of your Master's thesis is a strong demonstration that you are capable of academic research. You decision on which supervisor and topic to choose should be guided by this driver.

Pursuing a research topic merely because the professor is world-renown may be misguided. What happens if you don't strike up a good working relationship and your research falters because of it? Will your professor's reputation outweigh a mediocre research effort?

Your drive and interest in a research topic are strong factors of whether you will succeed. The motivation should come from you - most of the time - to address your research topic. Again, if you aren't particularly interested in the topic, you are going to find it hard to keep going at it when - and it is a matter of when - the going gets tough.

I reiterate that at the end of your Master's thesis, you want to demonstrate your research ability. You are still learning the skills and craft of research, and for that reason, you want to seek teachers who are skilled at teaching how to research. Is it necessarily true that the best practitioners of science research are the best teachers of how to do research? Sometimes true, sometimes not.


Dealing with unpleasant people in conferences My current strategy when seeing unpleasant, toxic academics in conferences is to ignore them, but I'm wondering if people have other suggestions.
When I was a grad student, I spent a few months at a research institution. I was in the computer room trying to print something, but it wasn't printing. Then a senior academic (mathematician) came in and I told him that the printer wasn't working. It turned out that he just wanted to make a photocopy, and that was fine. He told me, "It's working." Then he proceeded to get very angry and said, "You're lying! You're a liar!" I wanted to explain that it was the printer that wasn't working, but he interrupted and continued to call me a liar and stormed out.
Well! I continued my work but in later talks at the conference he would be quite nasty. For example, he would sit next to someone and tell them, "I want to sit here, not over there" referring to me. This was a senior mathematician who spoke at the ICM at some point in the 1970s.
I just ignored him but the whole situation was unpleasant and over something very petty. What is the correct protocol for dealing with people like this?

Unpleasant people? If you are convinced that you did not do anything to deserve their castigation (and from your story, it sounds like you didn't), purse your lips, raise a slight Spock brow, wait a second, and go/look somewhere else. Nothing shows your opinion about them more clearly than this wordless sequence. They will be seething, but you have better things to do.
If you can not avoid interacting with them, be unwaveringly polite, but distant. You may even exaggerate the politeness by using "Sir" etc. This increases distance.
It's not your job to educate someone who failed to learn basic manners at school. Their manners are not your responsibility.
If they stalk you at a conference, indifference is another strategy. Non-reactivity is boring and they will look for a more reactive victim.
Of course, many conferences have these code-of-conduct declarations now and you could try to invoke them, but I have no idea how effective that is in a case like yours.
Personally, I distrust the effectiveness of formalized rules of behaviour for anything but really egregious and obvious breaches of conduct, and even then I am not sure they really work, unless you belong to a well-delineated group that is seen as requiring special protection. But, your mileage may vary.


How to condense a 2 page statement of purpose to 500 words? I have a well written statement of purpose that is about 2 pages in length, single spaced and 12 point font, which were the requirements of a few programs that I applied to. One of them, however, needs a statement that is only 500 words maximum. Any suggestions for effectively condensing this to 500 words and still having it be a solid statement of purpose? Having the same issue with my diversity statement as well.

Print it
Highlight the key sentences ('claims')
Write a bullet list from these sentences
Delete those that are redundant or unimportant
Extend each bullet point to a short paragraph by adding supporting statements to each key sentence
If you run out of space, combine key sentences into broader statements or use less supporting statements


Does an academic paper need graphics? I recently received feedback for a university-intern seminar paper where the reviewer implicitly stated, that every academic paper needs graphics.
The paper was in the field of computer science.
I am aware, that graphics can contribute towards understanding an issue, however, for this specific topic I stood before the issue that

Graphics I would have liked to use are copyright-protected, thus no option
I am a bad drawer
There seemed no fitting option to add computer-aided drawings such like diagrams (in terms of content, I do know how to use Latex)

Therefore, I concluded that I would not include any graphics in my work.
I have encountered several papers on the internet, that also included no graphics. Plus, naturally, mathematical papers would often also not need graphics depending on the topic, with computer science being an applied case of mathematics.
Are graphics in academic papers a real requirement or should I consider the feedback as a subjective need?

In (sufficiently) theoretical fields, such as theoretical computer science, parts of theoretical physics, or mathematics, it is completely fine to publish a paper without graphics.
Whether in the case of your specific paper, topic, or field graphics would have helped is a different question, and essentially impossible to answer here with the information given. On the other hand, if it is a field where papers with no graphics are reasonably common, there should be not a big issue in convincing the editor that graphics are unnecessary.
Note that similar arguments could be applied to other things, like examples, applications, etc.: Nice to have, they likely don't hurt, but not needed in sufficiently abstract fields of research.


How to split two papers that Google Scholar incorrectly thinks are the same paper? For some reason I don't understand, Google Scholar thinks two of my papers are the same, despite different titles, co-authors, and publication years. When I click on one ("Resonant absorption as mode conversion?") it lists 27 versions, most of which are the completely different paper ("Three Dimensional MHD Wave Propagation and Conversion to Alfvén Waves near the Solar Surface. I"). It therefore combines the citations for the two. How can I split them? I even tried deleting both papers and adding them manually from scratch, but without success.

By now there is an option when editing the merged GoogleScholar article's version as shown in the example below. The option is called "Unmerge this article and add it to my profile as a separate entry."


What do you do when you are asked to perform an official review for a journal of a manuscript written by your supervisor? I was just handed a paper for review (official review request by an editor of a journal) written by my current supervisor (the guy with the grant). I have not been involved in this work, and I don't feel inclined to dish out any free goodwill on behalf of him being my supervisor.

I'm well qualified to review it, and I think I would do a good job of it, but I'm worried that this constitutes a conflict of interest, and that I should decline. What is common practice around reviewing co-workers' papers?

If this is an informal request for internal review -- definitely go ahead. It is common practice to have close associates review work, and your thoughtful comments will gain you respect.

If this is a formal invitation from a journal -- it is a clear conflict of interest.  It probably should never have been sent to you, quite honestly.  This is not to say you couldn't provide an unbiased, thoughtful review, but to an outsider this would really be questionable. I suggest you take the high road, decline the invitation, and send a letter to the action editor reminding him of your close association.


At what point does my practical software project become an academic research project? I am a working software developer getting a MS in Computer Science. I've really enjoyed the courses -- but I have never done any academic research. Now I have an idea for a graphics-driven iOS application that I would like to build for my upcoming year-long thesis. (It's a variation on a particle simulator). The other students in my program have told me that a thesis is about generating a paper on a new technique or unsolved problem -- not building a polished program or application. They say that the code can simply be a proof of concept or prototype.

With that said, how should I approach building this particle simulator and pitching it to my advisor? Should I focus on underlying structures that would allow me to render complex physics-based graphics efficiently? Is there a name for that area of CS research?  Are there papers in a certain area that I would want to start reading?

How should I approach building this particle simulator and pitching it to my advisor?

That depends on your goals. Your advisor should be able to advise you how to approach building this particle simulator. But in short it depends on the goals.

If you want to get funding to do the project, then state how that is going to be useful and profitable for the one paying.

If you want to make research with that, then state how is that research and why it is interesting research that will produce interesting publications.

You may have some other goals not included in these two. Your advisor may also have different goals. Whatever the goals are, try to plan to do whatever is useful for your goals and try to explain to your advisor how what you plan to do is useful for his or her goals.

Should I focus on underlying structures that would allow me to render complex physics-based graphics efficiently?

IMHO algorithms are going to be more interesting than structures specially when using parallelism, everybody loves parallelism nowadays. In any case try to check this [1] and possibly this [2].

Is there a name for that area of CS research?

Apparently that is computational physics, but simulation may work well too.

Are there papers in a certain area that I would want to start reading?

Yes, to find more papers you can:

take the first reference I provided (and possibly the second) this is your set S of all sources.
check the citations in S, add interesting ones to S.
check who cited the references in S (you can try google scholar and other services for that), add the interesting ones to S.
check other papers from the authors of the references in S, add interesting ones to S.
search (e.g. google scholar) for related terms that appear on the papers in S if you think they should be explored further, add interesting references to S.
you have now a lot of references to read, try not to read all of them, check the abstracts and summaries, try to prioritise what to read and how detailed the reading process should be. If you need more, return to 2.

At what point does my practical software project become an academic research project?

When you do something new and interesting from a scientific point of view, basically when you face challenges and provide solutions that are worth publishing, because reading about those solutions saves time to people working on similar problems.

E.g. If the solution is very specific (e.g. an implementation in a programming language) then reading about it may be a waste of time for people not using that language. An algorithm in pseudocode will be useful to anyone working on a similar problem if the problem is hard/big enough and searching, finding, reading, understanding and implemented what a paper says pays off in the end. Keep in mind that evaluation is a fundamental aspect in research, either empirically or formally (proof instead of evaluation then).


Changing an experiment due to preliminary data I'm writing a paper comparing the performance of 2 algorithms (lets call them A and B). A performs better than B, however preliminary data suggested a way to significantly improve the performance of B. I made the changes to B and sure enough now B outperforms A. I've verified that it's not just a fluke of the specific inputs I was testing against, making the changes to B leads to consistently better performance.

What is the best way to write these findings up? It feels an awful lot like cherry picking to me (especially since I didn't know when I started that I could improve B and for all I know there are improvements to A that could make it better than the improved B)

But despite its questionable origins the modified algorithm does perform the task faster and I want to include that information in my paper.

What is the best approach to take?
Call the modified version Algorithm C and just add it to the paper?
Add this information to the appendix?
Something else?

Consider this:
What question is your paper trying to answer?

This is the real question to consider. If I were writing a paper about average milk production of cows and my question was "How much milk does the average cow produce in a year?" and then I only selected the 10 best cows, then I am really answering the question "How much milk do the 10 best cows in my selection produce in a year?".

If your paper's aim is to compare two or three algorithms, then there's no problem. If you write a paper about A and B, it's no different from writing a paper about A and C or A, B, and C. How you arrived at the algorithms does not change question you are answering.


Does citation refer to paper or authors? I imagine this question is asked before, but I could not find the answer.

This is the example sentence that got me wondering:

  Gneiting and Ranjan (2013) generalize/generalizes these findings and state/states that ...

Should I plural verbs (generalize, state), as if I am referring to the authors, or should I use singular verbs (generalizes,states) as if I am referring to the paper itself?

I guess there is no definitive answer, but I would use "state". From what I learned from my supervisor, the citation should not interfere with the original sentence. And the sentence is "Gneiting and Ranjan generalize these findings and state that..."
(My supervisor also disapproved of it when someone used "[XY] stated that ... ".)

Also, I can't remember ever seeing it the other way.

Just make sure that you have the same form for "generalizes" as well ;)


In the EU, how much protection do I have if I report an assault on myself by my department head? I had a very ugly incident at my corrupt institute (I live in E. EU). In short, I was assaulted by one of the department's heads during my own group meeting on my own grant for daring to "back talk" after he had abusively terminated that meeting. Him, and my own department's head had sabotaged my projects by sidetracking the people working on them, threatening them, and, lately, by denying access to shared research facilities which they don't really use.

As this behavior has been tolerated by the director (who is the ultimate god there), I expect things only to get worse. I'm seriously considering whistleblowing as my only option, as my reports of the incidents are merely CYA actions since they've gone unnoticed so far.

I might be out on my ass by next week for the "lese-majeste" of this week. If I do whistleblow, is there a way within EU to protect myself and my research group? I doubt I'll get any understanding in my own country.

Update: I'm not fired, they just found a nice and sneaky way to dissolve my research group. Funnily enough, no one is on my side, including the people who witnessed the incident.

If the matter has escalated to a physical assault then you have the option to contact the police.  For lesser issues concerning corruption or maladministration of public resources, you should consider searching for the closest equivalent of an ombudsman for your university sector.  In public industries with an ombudsman it is usual to be able to make a report of maladministration or corruption, and there are protections for whistle-blowers who file reports on these matters.  Specific rules vary according to the laws of the country and the specific industry ombudsman, so you should first check to find the appropriate ombudsman and check the protections for whistle-blowers that apply in your case.  If you have a lot invested it is probably also a good idea to speak to a lawyer to get advice on the available reporting mechanisms and legal protections.


Harvard reference list for citing disjoint passages from the same text I'm writing something in which I want to cite page 50 of Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times at one point, and page 83 of the same text at another point. This is no problem for in-text citations, since I say "(Kline, M. 1972, p. 50)" when I want to cite page 50, and "(Kline, M. 1972, p. 83)" when I want to cite page 83. However, it presents an issue in the reference list, since I want to indicate the pages I have used from each text in the reference list. I could write

"Kline, M. (1972). Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 50 - 83.",

but that would imply that I have used every page from page 50 to page 83, which is not true and I do not want to be implied. I could also create two references for the same text, one citing page 50 and other page 83, but I don't know if this is the proper thing to do. I want to be able to write something like

"Kline, M. (1972). Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 50, p.83.",

but again I don't know if this is the proper thing to do. How do I cite disjoint passages from the same text without implying that I have used everything between them?

How do I cite disjoint passages from the same text without implying that I have used everything between them?

In the reference list, write:

Kline, M. (1972). Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times. New York:
Oxford University Press.

I.e., omit page numbers. In the main body, write (Kline, M. 1972, p. 50) and (Kline, M. 1972, p. 83), as you already have. In some disciplines, you can also write (Kline, M. 1972, p. 50) followed by (ibid, p. 50), when no other citations appear inbetween.


Is it fine to send a message to the author of a paper if I don't understand something and want to clarify it? I'm a Physics Ph.D. student and I have been studying one paper and had some doubt in one point. More specifically the author defines a concept in a way which is a little bit different from other texts I've read before and I'm failing to understand why it is the same thing. I believe I would benefit from understanding this correctly.

More specifically to the situation, the paper has been posted on arXiv and is really some lecture notes which were latter transformed into a book. The author also says to email any questions or corrections to his email in the first page.

Considering this situation (that it is really some lecture notes later transformed into a book and that the author says to email any questions to his email) is it considered ok to ask it?
More generally, if it is really some paper published in some journal, and if there is nothing written saying that "any questions should be sent to that email", is it still ok to ask of the author in case of any doubts?
My main issue is that I fear if the author might consider my doubt something "too basic". Is that really a problem?

By all means ask. A person who goes through the trouble of writing up lecture notes, is almost certainly a person who would be happy to answer.

As someone who receives a lot of questions from PhD students myself, here are a couple of pointers for how to phrase your question. This could be obvious to you, but I know for sure that it is not obvious for everybody.

If you have a local supervisor, it makes sense to ask them first - maybe it is a trivial question.
Read the paper first, and use the notation from that paper when you can.
Cut to the chase as quickly as possible. Don't explain their paper back to them in the mail, they know what they wrote.


Supervisor in German Universities I have sent many emails to lecturers within the nuclear field and at different German universities for the sake of supervision. I have attached my CV and complete detailed PhD proposal related to nuclear engineering. I already have a PhD in laser engineering and would like to develop my knowledge in application of high power lasers in nuclear reactors.

Unfortunately I did not receive any reply, even negative ones. I have re-checked my PhD proposal and reviewed my email text, where both seem very good and professional.

I will be very grateful if you could advise me regarding this issue and how can I get German supervisor for the sake of admission requirements.

A "cold" request sent to a faculty member—sent when there is either no announced opening for a position or no established cycle for admissions—is unlikely to generate a response. This is because of the sheer amount of email that German professors can receive, particularly if they run large research groups. (In many cases, the public email address may not be directly handled by the professor but be filtered by an administrative assistant.) In that case, there's not much you can do.

Your best bet is to look for groups that have announcements for open positions and apply to those. In such cases, you may get a response, but even then there is a possibility you might not hear anything back. It's basically saying "no" without sending a rejection email.


Academics with ADHD or autism: What workplace accommodations have helped you? Folks,

I have ADHD, and I'm considering a career in academia after I get my PhD. I am about to defend my dissertation proposal, and I expect to defend by May 2020.

Part of the standard package of accommodations for students with ADHD is extended time on tests, but I have never needed this. I can complete tests fine. And it won't be relevant when I'm a faculty member, anyway. I'm more interested in this: for those of you who have ADHD or autism who are academics, what specific workplace accommodations have you requested? These can include formal or informal accommodations. Hearsay (i.e. I know a colleague with ADHD, and she has XYZ) is fine. Autism included as this condition also affects executive function, albeit in different ways.

Inattention and making mistakes while creating Excel tables has been a problem before. In an academic job, I would work with my colleagues and any students I'm supervising to check any tables I'm putting out - not to mention I'd probably be the one checking any tables my students put out. I've been able to automate a lot of the table writing through statistical software, which really cuts down on cut and paste errors. If I were in the private sector, one of my accommodations would need to be something along the lines of needing to work with others to check my work.

Alternatively, per @Elizabeth Henning's question, I'd also be interested to know if anyone was offered accommodations that aren't actually helpful, and what accommodations those are. Perhaps those answers will be informative to the community.

The site is warning me that the question I'm asking appears subjective and is likely to be closed. A lot of the questions here involve some degree of subjectivity, so I find the rule to be very ill-defined. But, so I don't get the question closed, please limit this to discrete workplace accommodations that you have received, or that you have heard of others receiving.

Some related posts on StackExchange that don't address this specific question:

What specific techniques can help someone facing mental health problems (depression, anxiety, ADHD) have a productive academic career?

What type of workplace accommodations are departments required to make for a mentally unhealthy faculty member?

This is a very difficult question to answer because people with ADHD/LD aren't treated very well in higher education in general, so (anecdotally) they seem to be extremely underrepresented among both academics and grad students. Even though ADHD/LD people make up at least 10% of the population, there doesn't seem to be much interest in diversifying faculty to include them, or in consulting with them about how to help better serve the needs of ADHD/LD students.

Plus, there's a worse problem of fundamentally misunderstanding ADHD/LD and thinking that a few minor changes is the same thing as "accommodation." You often hear ADHD/LD described as having "attention problems" or "learning problems" (as someone on ASE did here). But in the case of ADHD, the underlying issue is actually difficulty regulating attention, which results in differences in how attention gets used. And in the case of LD, the underlying issue is difficulty processing certain information formats. In both cases, there is a significant mismatch between natural strengths/preferences and the way neurotypicals are expected to do things. (I am not autistic, but I have heard that ASD people are in a similar situation.)

The standard accommodations you mention are the product of what I call the "test in the envelope" mentality, which is as far as 99% of academics get in their understanding of ADHD/LD. It's a horrible accommodation because it sends the message that having ADHD/LD basically means that you're just like everyone else but slower. Needless to say, that creates a lot of false negative assumptions and stereotypes, especially in a career where being smart is prized above everything else.

In other words, in the current academic environment of widespread ignorance and unwillingness to really deal with people with learning/attention differences, ADHD/LD accommodations are nearly always reactive rather than inclusive: the person with ADHD/LD has something "wrong" with them, so they posture as "needing help," for example by asking someone else check their Excel tables. This raises the question of whether it's necessary to work with Excel tables at all if it's a task that you know is going to be problematic. Is there some completely different approach that is better suited to your learning differences? What should universities be doing to provide an inclusive environment for that, rather than going small potatoes with Excel proofreading?

So at this rather benighted point in time, it might be more on-point to reframe your question as: What are examples of nonessential expectations that are typical in academia, but which put ADHD/LD people at an unfair disadvantage?


University students and staff think my son is rich. Is there a possibility of altering this mentality? My son is in his second year at a UK univ. It guarantees accommodation just for first...students rent privately themselves. It discretions other year.  For privacy, I won't say his degree. We live in Canada. Given vacations, he's in the UK for just 7 months.  We thought extended stay hotel is best. First, waste money to lease a flat 12 months! Second, stupid buy appliances and furniture, then sell them at loss when he finishes.

Anyways, his univ. requires address and he put extended-stay hotel. Someone leaked because many instructors ask him if he's staying in a hotel, but he never told them! Some students overheard and now many think he's Crazy Rich Asian! LMAO! He tried to explain we are not rich and extended stay hotel comes out cheaper. But no use!

Can he do anything to change this mentality of students and staff?
Is extended-stay hotel this un-ordinary for academics and students?
Don't visit academicians that visit just 6 months' stay there?

Can he do anything to change this mentality of students and staff?

Moving out won't help now that the voice has spread. Looking stingy in ordinary expenses will further stereotype you into a Scrooge Mc Duck type, so do not try to overcompensate by saving pennies. Just live a normal life. Do not drive to campus in a Lamborghini or a taxi, but do not reuse tea bags.

I am afraid it will take time and personal interaction to fix this and get across one's real personalities. Stereotypes exist exactly because they are easy to form.

On the bright side, as far as stereotypes go, it's not a particularly bad one.

  Is extended-stay hotel this un-ordinary for academics and students?

For students, in my experience it is quite unusual. In many universities there are student dorms, of course, but they are aimed especially as students and they are a different thing.

For academics, it is more common; see below.

  Don't visit academicians that visit just 6 months' stay there?

Yes. 1-6 month visits are very tricky to arrange from the logistics point of view: too long for a hotel, too short to make renting an apartment convenient. This kind of furnished accommodation is a godsend.

Nowadays these visits are reasonably common, but it is not unheard of that some academics, especially older ones, never went to one or hosted a long-term visitor. You basically need a semester free from teaching to do it, and once you have a family a long trip is a lot more tricky to arrange.

For this reason I would suggest you not to worry about faculty; things will fix themselves, and most faculty at least tries to be objective and not let these stereotypes influence them. For your own social life, convincing students that you are not Paris Hilton is your #1 priority. How to do it is is off-topic here though. As another stereotype says, we academics are not so competent about social interaction. :) So treat also my first paragraphs with a pinch of salt.

I would suggest you to head over at [interpersonal.se].


"no derivatives" clause for CC licensing I’m wondering about whether it might hurt to use the "no derivatives" clause when licensing a scientific article under a Creative Commons license. My impression is that nobody ever creates "derivative works" in academia, that would simply be considered as plagiarism.

A related question is the usefulness of the "share alike" clause. Note for instance that the arXiv proposes both CC BY and CC BY-SA. What is the difference? Are there any derivative works of an article that would not be plagiarism?

I’m only talking about an article, for instance a theorem and a proof in mathematics, not about any kind of computer code which one may want to reuse.

It is correct that it is very unlikely anyone is going to hack out chunks of a scientific paper and reuse them in another scientific paper - that would be plagarism, and very unsubtle plagarism at that. However, that's really not the main goal of allowing derivative works. (Plagarism tends to ignore copyright anyway, so worrying you've 'given permission' for it is a bit of a red herring...)

These are things that are (probably or potentially) considered derivatives in the meaning of that clause:

Edited or annotated extracts for teaching purposes
Translations of the whole or part of the paper into another language
Modifications of images and diagrams for reuse in other work (or in writing about your work)

Any of these, if done with appropriate permission and attribution, would not constitute plagarism - and all are fairly useful things to allow.

Some of these may be more useful in certain circumstances than others, of course.

There are also some complexities around databse licensing; depending on the jurisdiction, reusing material from a dataset could always be considered an adaptation. CC explicitly recommend against using ND clauses for datasets for this purpose. If your paper contains data tables, this aspect may be worth considering.


Economic Reviews/Journals for High School students I am a 10th grader and I am looking for a journal/review to publish my paper in the subject of macroeconomics. Is anyone aware of any journal/review that would allow me as a highschooler to publish such a piece?

This is possible. And any journal, in theory, will accept your work. However, I think you should seek out some feedback from an economist in the related area. Also, it is an unfortunate reality that econ journals are very 'clubby'.

As an aside -- i am a PhD student studying macroeconimics. If you want to try and provide some idea of what you're doing, I can try to give you advice about journals etc. And feel free to be however vauge you think you need to be to protect your idea.


What is the standard way to include math equations in a CS research paper? I am currently working on a research paper in Computer Science which involves quite a few math equations. I am using MS Word currently to write the paper. I haven't yet included the equations. I am planning to send it to a journal.

I have a previously published paper in IEEE Digital Xplore for which I used LibreOffice Writer in Ubuntu to specify the equations and the content. I thought it wouldn't matter what platform I used because I would later convert the document into PDF format. But in the actual paper available on the website, the equations all look pixelated and downright illegible.

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7518940/

My question is, what is the standard way of specifying equations for a research paper? Should I convert the whole document to LaTex and specify equations there? If so, should I look up on the particular journal format to use before including the content?

If you can write in latex, you should write on it versus word. The latex is specially designed to work with technical documents with a lot of mathematical equations.

Also, you can write math equations in word using built-in equation editor of Microsoft word or MathType as a better alternative than built-in ones.
See this link for word equation for equation writing in Word with better configuration.

Technically the MathType produces equations with higher equality than Word built-in and I recommend it to use as a macro on Word.

About writing in Latex and then revert to Word, it wouldn't be recommended and will be reduced the quality of equations (due to reversion complexities and equation editors' of Word difficulties).