Abstract, Preamble, Acknowledgements and Introduction all in Thesis, how to order them? This might be a bit of a complex situation (to explain), so bear with me:

For my Bachelor degree, I am currently carrying out a nature management project. A nature management project normally consists of a management plan but can include other results as well.

As you might have guessed, this is the case for my project. Next to the management plan, I also write a guide and I develop a database. I do this to enable the organization I do this project for to become more autonomous in setting up management plans adapted to their situation and provide a step by step guide to replicate it.

However, my thesis should include all these results. I already decided to put the guide in the Annex. However, the introduction to the thesis is now different than the introduction for the management plan part. That's why I decided to call the introduction to the thesis the preamble, which explains the situation in detail.

-Is this a good idea? Any suggestions?

The abstract is required to be above everything else, so that stays just where it is. And the explanation I put in my Preamble is too long to put in the abstract, because it can be regarded as a introduction to the thesis instead of just the management plan.

I must also include acknowledgements. And I just don't know where to place them.

-Between the Abstract and the Preamble?
-Between the Preamble and the Inroduction?
-Or should I just do the acknowledgements after the references?

(I expect people will tell you to consult with your advisor, and you should, but on the other hand I think most of this question does have a right answer, so I've tried to give it.)

It sounds like you have three main parts to your thesis: the management plan, the guide, and the database. So your thesis should have three main sections (if one of the three is an appendix, that's okay), and there needs to be a single introduction that ties together the entire document. One of the things this introduction should do is explain the organization of the rest of the thesis.

If you want to write a more specific introduction to one of the sections, it should go at the beginning of that section. You can call it "Introduction to Section 2" or whatever. Using the word Preamble confuses the issue, and it also sounds pretentious.


How can I reference an insight taught in Cousera's Lecture? I took a specialization course at Coursera in which I have learned a lot of insights that would be essentially useful while writing my master's degree dissertation. How can I refer to them?
I've already found a paper that does this for another lecture at Coursera but I'm not sure if that is right:

Tieleman, T. and Hinton, G. Lecture 6.5 - RMSProp, COURSERA: Neural Networks for Machine Learning.
Technical report, 2012.

Could I use this same "model"?

A citation like that would be fine, although I wouldn't include 'Technical Report'.  Some citation styles have formats for lectures or other presentations.

However, the Coursera lecture may not be the best thing to cite.

Does the instructor communicate the insight in writing somewhere? For example, in a paper or in published lecture notes for an in-person course?
Does the instructor provide a source for the insights? In which case you may want to cite that. The source may be indicated in supplementary readings or lecture notes.
Do you need to cite it? When in doubt, you should always cite, but you often don't need to cite things that you would ordinarily learn in a class on the subject. The line for this one is pretty fuzzy and nuanced, though, and it depends on how cutting-edge the insight is.

I would not let the ephemerality of Coursera stop you from citing it, but if you can find a better citation you should use it. It is better to cite something that disappears than to not cite.


D.Eng. or Ph.D. on a degree? My friend is soon to obtain her doctoral degree in applied physics and start postdoc. She is provided by the department a chance to choose what to be displayed on the degree (between D.Eng. and Ph.D., but both in applied physics). She is actually doing purely theoretical physics although the department is named applied physics. She says that she will try to stay in the same academia, but not excluding the possibility of moving out if not going well.

She asked me and it's not quite clear to us what the difference might be and what might be affected in the future.

At different time periods and in different countries / academic cultures, either one or the other was more popular to denote (essentially) the same thing.

I won't go into the historical details (in which I am not too well-versed), but here's an example: In my own Alma Mater, for example, they used to award D.Eng. and D.Sc.'s, and no (?) Ph.D.'s until the 1980s or so, but at some point they switched, and these days everybody gets a Ph.D.

Did this matter to anyone? By and large, no. I've never heard anybody complain about the latter or the former having caused him/her any trouble being recognized. So while it is theoretically possible there will be some kind of issue, it doesn't matter.

My personal opinion is that it's a shame we are losing these discipline-group-specific titles and going with something generic - even if it has older historical roots. So I would go for D.Eng.

Also, if your friend has a signed official letter saying something like

  We can award you with either a Ph.D. or a D.Eng. and we consider them equivalent in your case

then she can use that specific letter with whatever degree she is awarded, if any questions come up.


How to cite an expert's opinion which doesn't have any title? And should I? The opinion is literally a post on his social network account. The post is quite long, so it's able for him to evoke his opinion in detail. It also has good long discussion below. At first, I think just see it as a lecture note, but there is a problem: it doesn't have a title.

What should I do? And should I even do this?

I've read these questions, but all of them have the titles:

How to cite lecture notes? (and should I even do this?)
How would I cite multiple authors from an online forum?

Believe it or not, there are guidelines on citing tweets (Chicago & MLA quoted there, others may be available) and you may be able to take a similar approach. (I like the MLA approach, which is reminiscent of the very old-fashioned approach of naming an untitled document after the "incipit", its first words...)

Alternatively, you could give it a placeholder title - Smith, J. (2015-01-01). [Notes on something]. Social network site. URL - here the URL is the key element to find it and the bracketed element is just for the reader's convenience.

As to "should"... if you would be happy to use this as a useful source had he published it in something unreviewed but with a title (eg a personal blog post), then the absence of a title shouldn't really be the problem...


Applied Math PhD Advisor dilemma I was hoping to get some opinions on my current situation involving leaving one advisor for another.

Background: I am a second year graduate student in applied mathematics and I have passed all my qualifying exams. In my first year, Distinguished Prof. K reached out to me and I began doing research with him. Prof. K is very well known in his sub-field of applied math. In the past year or so, Prof. K has helped me apply for two large fellowship awards (I don't know if I will get them or not yet) and we have met once a week for about 15-20 minutes. My concern is that when we are meeting, Prof. K doesn't doesn't help really at all on the math side of things and he is often distracted by emails/phone calls which interrupt our already short meetings. In short, he has become extremely difficult to work with and I don't feel like I have accomplished much mathematically.

Last semester, I took a class in numerical PDEs from a younger professor, Prof. N, at my university. I really loved the course and reached out to him about doing a research project last October. Prof. N is definitely one of the smartest people I have ever met. We meet once a week for a full hour and he is completely focused on helping me further the mathematics of the project. I asked Prof. N last week if he would be willing to be my advisor and he said he would be happy to. I cannot stress how much better the whole experience has been with Prof N. I really feel like he can help be really successful in my thesis.

A few notes:
- Prof. N and Prof. K are in very different sub-fields of applied math.
- Prof. K doesn't know about my work with Prof. N yet.
- Prof. N has offered to reach out to Prof. K for a joint project if I want.

At this point I am fairly certain that working with Prof. N would be better for me and my career. I really feel like I can be more successful with Prof. N in numerical analysis than I can be with Prof. K. I actually question a bit whether or not I could finish the PhD with Prof K at all because I receive almost no math guidance or help.

Questions:

1) Is the prestige of an advisor super important? Prof. N is definitely a much better advisor for me and, in my opinion, much better at mathematics than Prof. K but Prof N is not as far along in his career. I am wanting to make sure I can get a post doc position after I graduate without a super prestigious advisor.

2) Should I consider the joint project? My first instinct is that I definitely don't want to do that because I want to focus in the area of Prof. N and learn as much as I can from him. Prof K is just really difficult to work with and I am worried that joint collaboration with Prof K will just ruin the currently perfect project I have going with Prof. N. There is also some possible tension between Profs. K and N (all due to Prof K) that I am aware of and don't want to create a problem (I am not even sure if Prof. N is aware of this possible tension). I am sure they could both be professional if we were to collaborate though.

3) I really feel that I need to tell Prof. K about my work with Prof N at this point and I am really struggling with how to do this. My first instinct is to do it in person; however, I struggle to finish thoughts in meetings because of interruptions by Prof K. Because of this, I was considering writing him an email and then talking in person if need be. Either way, I will of course be very grateful and professional in the way I do it.

Thank you very much for your thoughts and input. Please let me know if you have any questions for me.

These things happen with grad students headed to one group deciding at last minute to go to another.  I wouldn't belabor it too much.  Be graceful, sure, but really I wouldn't even feel like you need to explain it or give K a pre-notification before you make your decision.  Same thing happens with job openings, house purchases, etc.  It's just part of life. K is a big wheel...you are a little new fish.  It won't kill him.  Minor annoyance but he will be on to emails and grant committees.  Of course figure out how to play it, but may even be better not to bring it up if you expect unpleasantness (the converse if you think discussion will mollify him.)
Prestige matters, sure.  But being with someone you get along with is much more crucial (don't be miserable for years).  But if you are at a name department, it might not matter much...both are likely strong.  I would just make sure that N is not (1) unlikely to get tenure, (2) giving you too much of a sell job (some is fine, shows he cares...but just try to estimate how dynamic will change after advisor selection).
Personally, I discount handholding and apprenticeship.  Eventually you need to be independent.  But I am realizing math is a lot harder than experimental science in terms of making new work.
I don't understand the use of the definite article "the" joint project. Is there already a proposal in play?  Or do you mean "a"?

I actually might be mildly positive about a joint project in that you have your cake and eat it too...takes care of K with the fellowship letters...especially if you do get funded.  Plus having two bosses can be like having none.  You decide how to spend time with one or the other (gives you some power).  But of course you have to look at the specifics.  But if the "the" means something has already been floated, I might see that as a positive.

Of course if K squawks at joint, then he just gets nothing.  But it is also true that if the joint thing is not working, you can probably even convert it to a solo with one or the other later.  Really I sort of love the option value here!
This is a little bit in contravention to (1), but I am capable of different ideas at same time:  perhaps there is a (gentle) way to play it so that both guys know you are in demand and drive some competition for you.  I inadvertently created this for myself during advisor selection long ago...this can be the case if funding is plush but students limited.


How to cite a course overview note? I am summarizing a course overview note which includes some useful information about digital marketing. The thing is, there's a endnote that clearly says that the course was prepared by professor X and professor Y. However, another endnote says that this 'course overview note' (the note itself) was prepared by professor Z. There are no citations in the note except for further suggested readings and a few explicit ones.

So when I am summarizing the ideas, should I cite them as: (Professor Z 2013) or always refer to (Professor X & Professor Y 2013)? Note that I, obviously, don't have access to the original course material itself.

Edit: Author of the note says: 'while maintaining many concepts and cases, this note provides an alternative structure and view of the set of frameworks to their original course'. However, it isn't clear where his ideas start and end, and where their original ideas do so.

Since the course overview note is credited to Professor Z, that's who I'd cite. But you could include all the authors in the citation itself if you liked, for example:

Professor Z (2013) Title of the Course Notes. Distributed as part of the course materials for DEPT304 Course Title in Fall 2013, a course developed by Professors X and Y at the University of Hishouse. Available online at http://example.org/.

Of course, it would be ideal if you could find a more widely available source for this information; it might be hard for your readers to track down this one course overview note, but if you could find the same information in a textbook or a review article and cite that instead, I think that would make their job a lot easier!


Should I ask for an exam deferral due to my fiance's first conference and first time leaving the country? My fiance's paper was just accepted for a conference that is held out of country during one of my exams and he would really like me to come with him, as it is his first time presenting at a conference and first time leaving the country. When he asked, I told him that I couldn't go because of my exam during the conference time, but multiple people have told me to ask my professor if I can defer my exam.

Is asking worth a try or will I just annoy my professor?

There's nothing wrong with asking, as long as you are polite and willing to take "no" for an answer.


How to respond to PhD offer emails politely So it is the season where PhD offers are doled out (for US universities anyway). I am lucky enough to have received a number of offers via email. These typically comprise of a polite email from a member of faculty, normally the director of postgraduate study (or similar), along with an offer letter attached.

My question is, are replies to these emails expected? I felt compelled to respond with a quick thank you - I wish I could have asked some insightful question about the program but I couldn't reliably find something to ask.

How should one respond to these offers? What about schools that I will not likely attend as I was offered a school I prefer - should I decline at this stage?

If you already know, for sure, which school you are going; simply respond to others by thanking them and telling them that you already chose your school. Something like the following:

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thanks for the offer. However, after extensive consideration, I chose the university X for my Ph.D.

Kind Regards,

Your Name


What is the requirement for submitting a revised workshop paper to a conf in CS? We have published a workshop paper last year. Now, we are planning to submit it to a conference. The conference paper roughly have 50% new materials. Basically, the workshop paper studied a 3.5-year data set while the conf version extends it to 4.5-year. The conf version also has a new data set. We also applied several new analysis methods to the data, obtaining new results.

My question is, is 50% new material enough for a new conference publication? Also, can I reuse the analysis methods in the workshop paper? What about reusing some text?

Thank you very much!

Update: Based on the valuable answers and comments from the community, I think a good approach to handle this is issue is to carefully cite our previous work for any content that is originated from it. Therefore, we make a clear distinction between old stuff and new stuff. But a trick thing is anonymity. We probably can only cite our previous work anonymously in the submission, otherwise the reviewers can easy tell the paper is from us...

We will also consult the conference for more information.

Depends on the specific workshop and conference.

Some workshops (if they are small events at bigger conferences, and if they don't publish the proceedings) don't count as prior publication, so you can use all the material again.

Some workshops are actually more like a regular conference, but use the name workshop.  So you should treat it as prior publication.

I suspect from your question that it is more the former.  I would suggest asking the papers chair for the conference;  if the workshop is related, they are probably familiar with it.


Uploading under peer review manuscript I am applying for an institute and would like to upload my manuscript for a paper which is under peer review onto the Supplemental materials section. The manuscript contains the watermark "For Peer Review Only." Can I upload this version?

It is not uncommon for working papers to be uploaded to academic websites prior to, or during, peer review.  The only possible impediments I can see to this would be if the agreed terms of review of the journal you have submitted to prevent you from doing this (i.e., publishing the draft during review) or if the terms of the institute's website prevent this.  I doubt that either is the case, but if you're not sure, check the terms.


The referee says that I did not attempt to "reject" my model – what does this mean? A referee wrote:

The experimental results tried to confirm but did not attempt to reject the model.

Obviously my null hypothesis is that my model is wrong, and I rejected that hypothesis. What does the referee mean?
Details: the null hypothesis is that the model does not significantly explain the data. So I think if the null hypothesis is not rejected, then my model is not confirmed and not rejected. Confirm a model is much, much harder than not reject a model in statistics.
Did the referee mean that I have to set the null hypothesis as my model is correct and then try to reject that hypothesis?

Of course, it’s hard to be any certain without intimately knowing your work and you have to judge whether the referee’s request is any reasonable, but:
This sounds like a request for Popperian falsifiability: The referee wants you to perform an experiment, analysis, or similar that – given your a priori knowledge – could reject the model.

Obviously my null hypothesis is that my model is wrong […]

I do not find this so obvious. In many cases, a model being wrong does not pose a feasible null hypothesis, because it would have to include every alternative model. There are exceptions to this such as when your claim is that some model has predictive power and you can investigate the null hypothesis that its predictions are as good as chance. But even then, your null hypothesis is something different from “my model is wrong”.

Details: the null hypothesis is that the model does not significantly explain the data.

That does not sound like a null hypothesis. First, the word significant (in the sense of statistical testing) does not make sense within the hypothesis as it is a property of the data with respect to the null hypothesis. Second, what does your null population look like? For any given model, there is an infinity of models that are an even worse description of the data. Are they present in your null population?


Is it possible to write the abstract in more than 2 languages I am almost at the end of writing my Ph.D. thesis. I study in Germany, the language of the work is English and my mother tongue is Turkish. The doctoral study was a result of an international project, in which Turkish cooperation partners have also participated. I want to write the abstract section in 3 languages (English/German/Turkish), as I can reach a wider community thereby.

There is also an emotional part. My Ph.D. thesis is the most important work of my life till now, I want it to have a part in my own language. Is it allowed at all?

Whether it's 'allowed' or not, formally speaking, is exclusively the decision of your institution. However, this is your thesis, and within reasonable parameters you can and should do with it what you feel is right. Adding an abstract in your own language is certainly well within the field of reasonable.

In particular, it's important to note that many universities in Germany actually force you to write an abstract in German even if the thesis is in English (example), so adding an abstract in German is simply part of a standard practice in the country. Adding an abstract in a third language, which only adds value to the thesis without subtracting anything, is not that far from that.

That said, to be safe, you should still check with your institution - the library, or the director of postgraduate studies, or whoever is in charge of thesis submissions - that this is OK. If they say no, then you can still try to negotiate your way around it (leveraging your supervisor and other staff if necessary), but it's unlikely that they'll refuse.


Do "News and Views" articles count as publications? Several journals have short digest articles highlighting specific research publications. One of the best known examples are the Nature News and Views articles.

They describe these articles like this:

  ... short, accessible articles focused on one scientific advance independent of the author's own research. They are almost always commissioned by the editors, but suggestions can be made. News and Views articles generally describe a published research report but sometimes take the form of scientific meeting reports. News and Views articles are personal views by specialists in the discipline, and are not usually peer-reviewed. See each journal's guide to authors for more details.

This is common also in other journals, sometimes they're called "Spotlight articles" or "Research highlights". Whether they are peer-reviewed likely differs, but their common ground is that they discuss and highlight a recent paper in the same journal. They always have doi nr and are citeable.

My questions are

In CVs, do people list them under publications, and if not where do they list them?
What about book reviews?
Do people add these type of articles to ResearchGate and Google Scholar?
Do people in general view them as a positive thing for your academic career or a waste of time?

Articles like this are essentially a form of review article (review articles, likewise, are sometimes peer-reviewed and sometimes not, depending on venue).

Just like other reviews, when they appear in a significant publication venue they can be extremely high-impact. They are part of the scientific dialogue and they get cited, just like other articles. Moreover, even if not peer-reviewed, they are typically by invitation and still with editorial oversight.

As such, I do often see these types of articles listed under publications, on people's publication profiles, and being of value to a person's career.


Issues in self-publishing old work. Recommendations for Necromancy? Main Issue:  What credit should be given (and how should it be given) to the alma mater in publicizing old work?

Background: I entered and left a Ph.D. program in another millenium.  During this time
I produced some results, one group of which was to become my dissertation.  (At one point, my advisor said the equivalent of "you have enough to graduate; write it up".)  However, all that I did distribute during my time as a graduate student was a couple of preprints, one of which later got cited in work of others.  I did not finish the dissertation and did not get the degree (although I did get to attend commencement and walk across the stage).  If it matters, during the time I produced results I got one TA (teaching) grant, and no other funding.

I am considering self-publishing material related to the work I did in grad school.
I have already given presentations on some of the work;  I now plan to submit to ArXiv some of my work done while I was in graduate school; later I may follow up with results based
on this work.

Question 1.  What kind of issues might I encounter in doing so?  Would the University have some recourse to discourage me?

Question 2.  If there are no intellectual property issues involved, what is an acceptable format?  (I was thinking: write a wrapper giving a brief history and introduction, insert my preprint verbatim, and close with acknowledgments and some follow up.  The preprint I distributed does not contain my dissertation, but is a key piece of it.  What would the
acknowledgment section look like?)

Question 3.  If I decide I also want to go back and finish
my degree at that program, (ideally by finishing the remaining requirement of submitting
the finished and approved dissertation, however unlikely that may be), would doing this
self-publishing be contraindicated?  If so, why?

This is in response to Question 1:

The university only cares if some portion of your work is monetizable, i.e. leads to a product that people pay money for.  If not, they would prefer you to publish rather than not; it can only help them.

The real issue is your advisor and collaborators, if any.  They may have a claim on that work.  Before publication you should contact them and discuss possible coauthorship.  Resolve this issue before investing any more of your time; see other posts here for what happens when authorship is not clearly agreed among all participants.


In the Harvard referencing style, is it wrong to put references in footnotes? I have a discussion with my mate about how to reference with the Harvard referencing style.

I would say it is wrong to do the referencing like in the picture below.

My suggestion was that the footnotes was to explantion of synonyms or something like that and all references should be in the end of the paper work, so the reader have all the references in one or two pages, so it's easier to get an overview of all references.

Am I totally wrong?

As your question is directly about Harvard referencing, I believe all Harvard referencing uses in-text citations. Wikipedia supports this understanding.

Yes, you can use footnotes but they are used for clarification or comments, they are not used for referencing as the image in the question has done [therefore the author has cited improperly].

There are several sub-types of Harvard but ALL of them that I am familiar with are in-text, not based on footnotes (except as noted above).


Saw Principal Repeat Key Word from Famous Professor without Citation I was looking at a principal's Message to the School page on her school website, and I noticed that she repeated a key phrase from a TED talk by a noted educator. This principal is using the key phrase in the same way as the TED talk speaker and is echoing the TED talk speaker, but this principal did not mention either the TED talk or the original noted educator who coined and popularized this phrase. Should I inform the TED talk speaker that she is being plagiarized? Is this a case of plagiarism? I mentioned this seeming case of plagiarism to the principal who tersely "thanked me for my viewpoint" and then ignored my comment. Should I just move on?

Really a little more context is needed here but the term one needs to pay attention to here is "educator". This TED educator has coined a phrase with the intention that that phrase and its related concept is passed on and used for the purposes of education. If the phrase relates to a general educational concept then I see no reason for the principal not to utilise it in the way that it is meant to be. If, however, this phrase relates to a specific original idea which links to original research then yes, citations would need to follow. In such a case, I would mention it directly to the principal. However:

I would assume good faith on the part of your principal and that she has seen the video and used the phrase as intended without surreptitiously putting a crimp in her career if rumbled. I think that when one is in any doubt about another colleague's plagiarism, assume a higher motive.

If I were you, I would just leave it, but if it really bugs you, you can casually mention [in person rather than in writing] that you appreciated the Message to the School and you saw a TED video which mentions the same phrase and you agreed with and appreciated its application. This way the principal should feel that her Message was appreciated, and that you are taking time to view sources around the same field. It may also have the effect of making sure that any future cases of possible 'plagiarism' get thought through a little better, cited or credited if necessary.


What are the expectations of bioinformatics Masters students? Country: Looking for answers for US/Canada/UK/Germany, ideally Canada.

Subject: bioinformatics

I am starting a bioinformatics MSc degree in a biology department of my university (no bioinformatics dept exists).

Until this point, I've talked mostly with grad students pursuing biology degrees. The expectations for bio MSc student have been described to me as produce data for 1-2 figures. PhD students are expected to produce good data for an entire paper, i.e. 5-6 figures.

Similarly, what are the expectations for MSc students in bioinformatics?

For masters, is it possible to take an open source tool and build on top of it to solve some issue it has?

Basically there is a tool that has two components A and B. Component A is fine as it is but component B is done poorly - so many people can't really use it. Can I take this tool, scrap a part of it and redo it?

Hopefully I can help - graduated a similar Master's in EU.

At least here, a PhD student is expected to produce 3-4, not 1 paper, so it is reasonable to expect contributions equivalent to one paper from a Master's student. Of course, time is limiting, so students usually finish the actual paper later on (sometimes even during the PhD), but I would suggest working with that goal (i.e. 1 paper) in mind.

Now, as to what constitutes a paper in this field: improving a tool is fine, as long as you provide proof of the improvement. Proof usually comes from simulation studies, or it could be a demo of application using some publicly available data (I assume your tool is somehow connected to data analysis). In my field, this might be one of the best known examples - improving the efficiency of a popular tool from O(n^2) to O(n) is a direct way to Nature Genetics and hundreds of citations.


What should I prepare for a postdoc interview? I am preparing for a postdoc interview. In the invitation e-mail, they send me a paper to read beforehand. My question is that:

What do they expect from me in the interview related to the paper?

Most likely they will ask you to quickly summarise the paper and then discuss strengths and weaknesses.

Usually is more important to get the idea of the paper and present your opinion on it than details.

But nobody can really predict what they will ask. It might also be worth checking if the paper comes from a competing lab or a collaborating lab (EDIT: or the lab itself!).

The most important thing (apart from the paper) is to show that you will be on fire for the proposed research (just to like it is not enough).


What are the benefits of organizing a science conference for a company? I'd like to propose the organization of a conference about mostly research related topics in the IT area (and probably a handful of business related topics as well). As an example, I like the assortment of topics presented during CppCon - I am thinking of a different scale, but something in that vein is my basic idea. I know that there are a lot of different conferences, but to be honest, I couldn't find one that covers the topics I'd like to propose.

I have to convince my upper management that organizing such a conference would be a good idea. As part of my pitch, I'm thinking of discussing pros (and possibly cons) of organizing a conference. Now here is my question - What should I mention as potential benefits a company might have from organizing such a conference?

There are a couple of reasons that companies sponsor major conferences (rather than directly organizing them). First is that they get name recognition among the attendees and also, to a lesser extend, among the public. More important, however, is that they also have an opportunity to meet and interact with leaders in research in which they have an interest.

A company doesn't have to organize the conference to do this, and organizing a new conference may not be the best way as it takes some time for it to be well known enough that those researchers want to attend (or submit papers).

Some companies just do this as fulfillment of what they see as an obligation to the research community on which they depend for both ideas and employees.

Companies, of course, have other ways to reach these researchers, but providing an environment in which some collaboration can be initiated is valuable to some of them.


h-index and patent citation This question arises because I noticed in the past the patent articles in my Google scholar was cited and included in the rank for h-indexing.
Since last year, these citations were removed, only to find out that they are included back.

My question, should citation on the patent article be included for h-indexing ?

Note: They can influence a lot with inclusion and without.

Why not?  Patent article is also your work published so it should be included in h-index and all other indices for that matter.

That being said, this is my opinion, not an expert advice (Thanks to @iayork for pointing it out).  Discussion in the comments.  But the fact that Google Scholar list patents in your profile and their citations are used to calculate h-index, I say it is okay to have patent citations in your h-index.


Is it ok to include an epilogue dedicated to colleagues who passed away in the end of the manuscript? We are writing a dedication in the form of an epilogue to honour our colleagues who recently passed away. Both colleagues have substantially changed our field and we believe they deserve to be honoured in a paper that will be published soon so that the next generation could read it and will always remember them. However, one reviewer wants to remove it and placed in the 'acknowledgement' section. Any advice?

This sort of thing is really up to the editor, not the reviewers. Reviewers are to assess your paper on scientific/academic grounds. The proper position or appropriateness of an epilogue is not really their purview, it's an issue of journal style (though I also don't find it wrong that they commented on it; effectively, they are helping the editor by 'flagging' this for their attention, kind of like is done on StackExchange). To me, the acknowledgment section seems appropriate if it goes anywhere, but I'm not your editor.

If you will be writing a response to the reviewers, thank them for their opinion and inform them you will be consulting with the editor, and do so. The editor could prefer you remove it altogether, place it in the acknowledgment, or suggest you submit a separate entry in some other format, for example to appear as a comment on your paper in the same issue.


What is the purpose of getting good grades once in college? So, I understand good grades in high school, you use your GPA with your application to college. Once your in college, is there any reason, like putting your college GPA on your resume, to get anything greater than a C(unless to fulfill prerequisite grades)?

The other answers give the standard practical reasons why one should aim to get good grades, but I prefer a more idealistic explanation, which is that good grades are not the real goal one should focus on, but rather a side effect. If you focus on the real goal of learning the material at the highest level possible, good grades will follow automatically. So, good grades do have their practical uses, but philosophically speaking, they are just a distraction.


Awaiting editorial office processing for more than 22 days, Is it appropriate to contact? I have recently submitted an article to a tylor & francis journal which uses ScholarOne.

My co-author submitted the article 22 days ago, and since then, the status has remained as "Awaiting Editorial Office Process".

Is it alright that it hasn't been changed for so long?
Should I contact the editor?

How long does the process take normally?

NOTE: thank you for suggesting this page "What does the typical workflow of a journal look like?", I have read this topic. Unfortunately in this paper the average time for "Awaiting Editorial Office Process" was considered to be "A FEW WORK DAYS". My problem is I have waited for 22 days. If anyone have had the same experience, I would really appreciated answering me. Thank You.

Yes, you should. 22 days before the paper is passed on to an editor is out of the ordinary. It's true that it's summer and people might be on holiday, but this is the publisher we're talking about - even if some of them are on holiday, they should have people to cover. Journals don't close shop when the staff are on holiday.

I would contact the publisher. If you know the desk editor's email address that would be the best person to write to; if not, you can use Taylor & Francis's author services contact form.


Is it good to join industry in middle of phd? I am a third year phd student. I got an offer for an industrial job which is very tempting. The salary is competitive and much higher than my phd salary. I already worked there as an intern, so I know the environment. The only problem is that I am involved in multiple projects in my phd. If I leave the group, someone has to take over those tasks, but there is no such a person in our group yet. What is your suggestion?

Taking the job would probably mean permanently leaving academia behind, and giving up the prospects of ever finishing your Ph.D. If you're okay with that (which you might well be), then I think it's fine to take the industry job.

I also recommend trying to figure out what your future job prospects are if you decide to finish your degree (and conversely, what your future job prospects might be if you take this industry job and it doesn't pan out).

The comparison to your PhD salary seems a bit strange unless your circumstances are unusual (e.g. you really need the money now). Whatever you decide, I recommend putting your own future first, and thinking less both about your present salary and about your PhD advisor.


Is it right to ask for a PhD position at a conference? I'll be at a conference next month to present my paper.
I have a Master's degree in Computer Science and now I'm looking for a PhD with scholarship.
Well, is it right, with a common sense and in a polite way, to ask a professor at conference about a PhD position?

It is definitely OK. You should be more like @JeffE suggests "How do I apply?" rather than "Would you accept me for a PhD?".

Conference is a great opportunity to meet and discuss with your potential supervisor. You should try to judge, as much as possible, how easy would it be to work with that person for quite a few years. On the other hand, note that high profile academics are used to get approached by random people and you shouldn't be discouraged to formally apply even if they seem way too busy to have a long chat with you.


How can I justify my skills against the required person specification? I am applying for a faculty position. My academic career so far was very straightforward, which is well reflected in my CV. The job advertisement instructs that applicants should explain how they meet the requirements specified in the job description. One item in almost any faculty job is

strong communication skills

I understand the importance of communication for a faculty position, but what can I say about my communication skills? What sort of evidence can justify my skills?

"Strong communication skills" is included on virtually every faculty job posting because it is an important facet of faculty life.  A professor who can't or won't communicate effectively and respectfully can't work well with others - and academia is not a solitary profession. No department chair wants to run around cleaning up after a faculty member who has sent rude emails, alienated students or done anything else that will trigger a call from HR or the Dean's Office. No search committee wants to hire someone who will become a headache - they are looking for a new colleague. It would be a mistake to assume a well-written cover letter or research agenda is sufficient to demonstrate strong communication skills.

When applying for any job, it's important to highlight your skills and experiences in terms closely aligned to those in the posting.  Think about the types of communication a good faculty colleague and instructor would need: working collaboratively on committees and departmental programs, sharing lab space and other physical/equipment resources, teaching or supervising a wide range of students, engaging with other departments on campus, etc.  Give some thought to your communication style (written, oral, instructional, professional, etc.) and highlight skills that would make you a desirable colleague. Have you served in any leadership roles or on any committees, written or taught as part of a group, mentored students, helped solve a sticky situation, have good teaching evaluations that you can cite (especially those pertaining to your communication with students), etc? Your examples needn't be extensive or even strictly academic (maybe you were an RA or sold insurance as an undergrad or you've worked on a community or advocacy project?) but you've got to demonstrate that you understand the importance of communication in faculty success. It is - even in the sciences!


my professor said she would like to write a recommendation for me and when I told her the deadline, she didn't reply any more Last week, I wrote my professor a email and asked her whether she would like to write a recommendation for me. She seems quite positive and asked when would be the submit time. I replied promote about the deadline would be in two weeks. Since then she didn't reply any more. I asked early this week whether she need extended time to write the reference letter. She still didn't reply. The deadline will be next week. So does the submit time didn't work for her? how can I do now?

Two weeks is very tight; how many letters did you ask her to write?  Was it for multiple schools / grants?

A month's notice, at the minimum, is typical for multiple letters - she seems unwilling / unable to meet those deadlines.  But, try again, and good luck.


How to be a good reviewer when suspecting dubious results or being sent contributions outside my field of expertise? Recently I have been appointed as a reviewer for an IEEE journal in CS. This journal is indexed on Scimago and its ranking is a Q3 journal.

I know that one cannot know all the topics covered in the diverse areas of CS, but as a reviewer, I have been assigned some papers that do not specifically belong to my field of expertise. Even though the journal appears to check the familiarity of the reviewer with the topic before reviewing it, I just feel it is not close enough.

Apart of that sometimes I get some papers in which the practical part or the methodological part is jumped quickly, and for me, it lacks consistency and is rather descriptive; I know the limitations of space, but I believe some authors should put more effort on that section.

Also, how can I know that the results that they present are for real? I have read many cases in which some authors fake their own results or push them to show nice results when in reality is not like that.

What to do in the aforementioned situations?

In any field, once you start reviewing, you're going to see a lot of problematic submissions, because there are a lot of people out there who submit really bad manuscripts. In some cases, the authors are unaware of their problems, while in others they're trying to slip a minimal paper past peer review because they aren't really interested in the science---they just need the publication to graduate or get promoted.

Your job as a reviewer is to make sure that what gets published is credible.  That means that if you don't understand something or don't feel that the evidence presented supports their conclusions, you have a duty to report that as a problem with the manuscript. Depending on the severity of the problem, you might recommend either revision or rejection---and the handling editor will make the actual decision.

You shouldn't, however, demand that authors to do new work just because you think it would be interesting. You also shouldn't expect to know every tiny detail of their methodology.  So, where to draw the line?  Here is how I think about it:

The authors need to provide enough methodological detail that no significant implementation decisions are missing.
The conclusions need to be well-supported by the evidence presented.
The overall thrust of the paper should be interesting to a typical reader of the journal (this one varies highly by journal).

None of this will allow you to detect clever fraud, but not-so-clever faking often leaves a clear trace (data that looks too nice), and cherrypicking of data is usually detectable because the authors present data from very few samples or trials.


Finding google scholar page of a journal Some journals have a google scholar page where you can see how many of their published articles got cited and their h-index.
Example: Scholar page of Advanced Journal of Science and Engineering
How is it possible to find the page for a specific journal (except clicking on the link they sometimes provide themselves on their website)?

The basic principle is that Google Scholar pages are for authors; it is not for journals. This is not always the case that a journal will create a Google Scholar page. If it does, it is posing itself as an author (as commented by @Anonymous Physicist). So, the example that you have given is very unusual.
However, if you are interested in articles from a specific journal, you could use the advanced search option in Google Scholar and enter the journal name in "Return articles published in" textbox (in my example: I am interested in articles published in the Machine Learning Journal).


What to include in an "explanation letter" after being falsely accused of cheating? I am a student at a university in South Africa. 300 out of the 400 students in my class, including me, were recently accused of cheating by receiving a paper before an exam. We were given the letters of suspension for 11 months without valid evidence or proof that we cheated. I did not cheat, and this is really messing up my plans.

My lecturer said that each student will have a chance to write a letter or affidavit to share their side of the story, but he said that winning the case is unlikely. So my question is how to proceed. In particular, what approach should I take in this letter?

Remark: I am NOT a lawyer and following are opinions.
Collective punishment is, to my opinion, lowest anyone can go. The event you describe certainly reminds this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbzJTTDO9f4&t=1s

There are few very inappropriate things here.

1) There must be a case, i.e. disciplinary hearing, for each individual (or for small groups of people if there is evidence that they collabrated in this act)

2)Presumption of guilt. They accuse you of cheating and you are asked to prove you are innocent. This is absurd. Presumption of innocence, i.e. innocent until proven otherwise, is a fundamental legal principle. It is the core of modern legal system.

3) "My lecturer said each student have a chance to write a letter or affidavit to share their side of the story but he said they are a few chances to win this case." They seem to decide what proportion of letters are going to "win" before recieving any. Again, very inappropriate.

What I would suggest, can't stress this enough I am not a lawyer:

1) Try to talk with higher administration about this. Don't skip levels. Communicate your worries including above that you agree. You may say it is unjust. You may say it is unmethodical. You may say this is defamation. Start with mathematics department head. Their answers or actions does not satisfy you try to contact the faculty head. Even that does not do it try to get in touch with the respective vice-president of the university. That probably would be the one in charge of student affairs or education.

2) Consider your legal options. I don't know your country's legal system. There seem to be enough to ask a lawyer if this would count as defamation or damages. If they don't have any evidence against you, they have no justifiable reason to defame you or damage your academic standing. Legal advice should apply to the letter you are considering to submit. If you have access to a lawyer or a law student, you might want to explain what is going on and possibly, at the very least, run the letter by them. Ideally, you would have a lawyer throught this phase and act within his/her advices.

edit: I forgot to point out. They are the sole judge on their accusations. That also is quite absurd.


What are duties for jobs like Professor, Lecturer, Research Scientist, Research Assistant, and Research Fellow in the UK (Oxford)? In Oxford's job website (here and here), I see positions including Professor, University Lecturer, Departmental Lecturer, Research Scientist, Research Assistant, and Research Fellow. What are the differences between the roles/duties and salary between these?

These job titles are discussed in answers to Translating British faculty titles into American equivalents but only in terms of career progression,  without much detail as to roles, duties, and salaries.

It think it does vary from institution to institution. From the perspective of my University (and from my own job hunting in the UK), I would make the following observations. Salary pay points correspond to my University's interpretation of the national HE pay scale http://www.ucu.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=2210.

"research assistant" implies fixed-term contract work on a research project (research only), where the postholder does not hold a PhD (and is not close to completing one), pay point 23.
"research fellow" implies fixed-term contract work on a research project (research only), with the postholder holding a PhD. Pay point 29 as starting salary; pay point 37 for a "senior research fellow", who might also be expected to supervise students and write grant proposals.
"lecturer" implies a permanent contract with the postholder expected to conduct research, teach, and write grant proposals. Pay point 37 starting salary; pay point 44 for a "senior lecturer", as a career progression and probably managing multiple PhD/PostDocs and bringing in more grant money.
"professor" implies a senior academic, probably starting at pay point 51, managing multiple staff and working on large grants.

I'm sure there are exceptions to this, but it does seem about right for the University where I work and the others I have applied to.


Find PI's main publications Nowadays, people in biology make huge collaborations, so of course they're all having loads of publications.

Therefore, I was wondering if there is a way, on Google Scholar or on other sites, to filter for a PI's publications as last author. That would be really helpful!

Thanks in advance

I don't think that it is possible to search author order in Web of Science, Scopus or GS, directly from their web sites. However, if you get access to a database built on e.g. raw WoS data it is possible (author order is preserved there).

In your case the easiest solution is probably to export all publications where your PI is a co-author from e.g. WoS or Scopus and process the data in excel/R/whatever, to extract the last author name in the author string.

In Excel you can e.g. use this on the author field (AU) from a WoS export to get the last author:

=TRIM(RIGHT(SUBSTITUTE(A2,";",REPT(" ",LEN(A2))),LEN(A2)))

This can then be used to filter out the publications with PI as last author, maybe after some more cleaning for e.g. first initial.

Long author strings (which is partially what your question is dealing with, i.e. long author lists) may cause character number overflow though (excel cells can only hold a certain number of characters), so you might want to run e.g. =RIGHT(A1;100) on the AU field first to decrease its size, before running the other function to get the last name.


What are some guidelines and best practices for releasing PR statements and project summary to the general public? What are some guidelines and best practices for PR statements and releasing a project summary to the general public? My first tendency is to always shorten the project summary, reduce the length of sentences and use more "crisp" words. But what else?

Does anyone have any pragmatic/practical/ advice and is there any sort of tool out there aside from the likes of MS Word readability stats that gives you suggestions to what to change?

EDIT:
Came across this tool today which is inspired by XKCD (what is not?):

CAN YOU EXPLAIN A HARD IDEA USING ONLY THE TEN HUNDRED MOST USED WORDS? IT'S NOT VERY EASY. TYPE IN THE BOX TO TRY IT OUT:

http://splasho.com/upgoer5/

There should be something on these lines available to help with simplifying the language for instance (perhaps with 5000 words rather than THE TEN HUNDRED which is very limiting).

Talk to someone at a media relations, public relations, or press office at your university.  Most universities will have folks who work in this area; they are the experts and have a ton of experience, and you should take advantage of them.  They will likely be glad to help.

Here are some tips that I have learned from public relations folks:

Identify your message.  What's the takeaway lesson?  Can you write it in one short sentence, in a form understandable to the average person on the street?  Take a lot of time to craft this carefully.  Then, your entire press release should be centered around supporting this message.
Look for three facts or points that support the message.  Numbers and statistics are very powerful.
Stay on-message!  I cannot emphasize this enough.  Everything you talk about should be focused on your message.  Avoid the temptation for digressions or  tangents.  Yes, you are a witty raconteur and can wax on enthusiastically for hours about your work, but this is not the place for it.  Avoid unnecessary details; give a spare answer that provides just enough for folks to understand the message.
Yes, I know that you and your fellow researchers are fascinated by all of the details of your experimental methodology, the alternative hypotheses you considered and rejected, the details of why your finding is correct, your calculations, and so on.  Sorry, but the average person on the street doesn't care.  Your top priority is to explain your bottom-line finding, why the average person should care, and maybe a teeny bit of something to give some intuition about why your finding is true (enough to make it sound plausible to an average person).
Edit ruthlessly.  You want as many eyes on it as possible, and ideally people who are not involved with your project.  Lean heavily on your press office.
In many universities, the press office will help you draft a press release.  They'll talk to you informally, ask you a bunch of questions, and then work with you to write a press release.  If they're available to do it, grab the opportunity; it can be very helpful.
Brainstorm a list of about 10-20 questions that you expect reporters might ask you.  Next, for each question, draft a candidate answer.    Your answers should be concise (at most a few sentences) and simple; and, the chance to throw in an analogy or fact or figure can help, too.  When you are talking to a reporter on the phone, have this list in front of you. This way, when they ask you a question, you can refer to the list and give your honed, crisp answer -- or at least, you have it to refer to if you need it.  The reporter will never know.
Remember that the purpose of talking to a newspaper reporter is not just to educate them about your project.  It is also to supply them with as many pithy quotes that they can use in their article.  The more quotable you are, the more likely it is that you will be quoted.  They will be listening for those great quotes.  Take the opportunity to brainstorm in advance a few short quotes, and make sure to throw them into every conversation with every journalist.  Read a bunch of newspaper articles in advance so you can see what kinds of statements tend to get quoted.

The public relations folks may also be able to offer media training.  If you can get the chance to take a media training course, take it!  This is especially important if you might be on TV, where you have to make every second count.  There are some powerful but non-obvious techniques that they can teach you.


If a thesis committe member asks for changes in my thesis does that mean I'm not getting a PhD "summa cum laude"? I am a PhD student in Germany. I had a question regarding the summa cum laude mark for my thesis.

To open the examination procedure, I asked three reviewers to read my thesis (my main supervisor and two external reviewers). Now it seems my reviewers evaluated my thesis and they sent their mark to the university. I received a letter form the PhD committee that now the chair of my oral examination will fix a date. Together with this letter, I have received another letter from one of the reviewers. The reviewer asked for some changes in the introduction part of the thesis.

My question is:
If the reviewer requests for changes, does it mean that he did not give the best mark? I know that all three reviewers of the thesis, beside four members of the examination committee, should gave me the same (best) grade to receive the summa cum laude mention.

I can only speak about the German system, but here it is mostly standard that some relatively minor changes (often stylistic) are requested. Usually, that is done after the oral examination / defense and has absolutely no impact on the grade.

  If the reviewer requests for changes, does it mean that he did not
  give the best mark?

You cannot infer anything regarding your final grade from this. You should concentrate on your oral examination since that is more likely to impact your grade (if you botch it). If you are really anxious about the requested changes, ask your advisor informally if the requested changes indicate a lower grade. Your advisor will probably be able to alleviate your concerns easily.

Keep in mind that summa cum laude is a big achievement but ultimately it doesn't matter much for your future career. Your network and your publications are much more important and nobody can take them from you.


Attending conferences as a first-year undergrad I'm a first-year undergraduate student in physics. Since starting my studies I've tried to get involved in research as much as possible. Recently, the team I work with encouraged me to submit an abstract about my current project (which is the first serious one that I've taken on) for an upcoming conference. I did and I got accepted with a poster.

Now my question is: How should I approach this to benefit the most? Or maybe there isn't even a point in me going at all?

I'm under the impression that most of the typical advantages of attending a conference such as networking, or keeping up-to-date with recent advances aren't really applicable to me as I simply lack the necessary knowledge. So far I've only taken a basic mechanics course and I have some working knowledge that I've acquired while working at the lab but nothing beyond that.

Additional information: the conference is obviously not a high-tier one. Judging by previous editions, about 150 attendees are expected, around 1/3-1/2 of that international (this is all in Europe by the way). Travel funding is provided by our department [active participation, in form of a poster, was part of the requirements to get that funding].

"keeping up-to-date with recent advances aren't really applicable to me..."

Not so; that's a myth. Your poster got accepted, and that means you are now part of the "recent advances" in the field.

So, go. Tell people what you are doing. No, people won't flock to your poster and ask for your autograph; however, chances are, someone there will find your work interesting. You might get to talk with people who have done similar work. You might get a few pointers. You might get some affirmation that you're working on an interesting problem.

I went to a conference once where I was just starting out in the field. One of the world's most renowned experts attended my talk. Imagine my surprise when, a year later, my advisor returned from the same conference, he told me that this same expert approached him, and asked, "Where is that student of yours? I really liked his idea..."

You never know what kind of benefit you might get over the course of a few days when everyone there shares expertise in some common interest. Sometimes it's someone who can help you out, or nudge you in the right direction, or motivate you, or challenge you (hopefully in a constructive way), or merely encourage you by nodding their head as you speak, seemingly interested in what you are doing.  Maybe you'll end up with a business card and a contact number of someone who can help you down the road as your research progresses.

Likewise, you stand to learn a lot from them, too. Who knows? Maybe someone will light a spark that will ignite a passion later.

By the way, most people like talking about their own research. So, if you attend a session that interests you, but a lot of it goes over your head, try to sit with that speaker at the lunch table. I'd bet that, more often than not, he wouldn't mind explaining some of the fundamentals to a bright and curious student.

Maybe I'm being overly optimistic, but I'd bet you'll come back a bit more rejuvenated, somewhat more enlightened, and a lot more encouraged.


Is it OK to change mistakes/typos when you are in the minor revision stage of publication? What I mean is to change mistakes/typos other than the proposed changes your reviewers pointed out to you.

As this article is based on a previous thesis (which had a very similar focus, only it was oriented towards a different cultural context) I've noticed a few paragraphs that could use a clean up (for example it would help to clarify that I use a certain term because it is related to the administrative divisions in my country,etc.).

I also noticed a typo on one of the results on the table that got carried over to the abstract. It doesn't change the results or findings or anything, basically it's just a decimal that should be lower.

My question is, would it be OK to change them now? And in case it was should I let the reviewers know I cleaned it up or go through each change, besides the ones they asked me to do, obviously.

Yes, this is completely OK. You are not bound to perpetuate typos from earlier versions just because reviewers did not find them.

It's always good to indicate that typos were cleaned up and similar, though you shouldn't note every single typo. I'd write something like "we corrected typos, especially in section X, and tightened up the prose in paragraph Y" in the answer letter - just to make sure that nobody thinks you are trying to smuggle in larger changes.

Of course, there is a bit of a gray area between small and not-so-small changes. If you want to change something that goes beyond simple spelling errors or awkward prose and starts to change your argument, you should draw the editor's and reviewers' attention to this more explicitly, since they should really sign off on any not completely minor changes at this stage.


Is it a good idea to use Interfolio service for tenure track applications? What do job search committees for tenure track jobs think of applicants using a service like interfolio?  Using such a service, you don't have to bug recommenders for each place you apply and, instead, enter a special email address generated by interfolio on application forms.

Is this a good idea?

Speaking as someone running a faculty search committee, I doubt we'd even notice, as long as your application materials and recommendation letters are properly entered into our own application system.

On the other hand, many faculty recruiting processes (including mine) only request recommendation letters after applications have passed the first round of reviewing.  In that case, I would be a little suspicious of an application that suggested using fdje28dn@interfolio.com instead of name@mit.edu to request a letter from a well-known professor at MIT.


Why some university asks for recomendation letter directly to be sent from the recommender? When I was applying for PhD I was considering Germany, UK, Austria and Switzerland in my search for a position. So far, I found that each university/region has their own policies in application submission process.

For instance, I found that most of the Swiss universities ask for a direct recommendation letter from the recommender and it is not acceptable to submit it as a general one and it is only acceptable if it's sent directly from the recommender's institute email to the target university. In contrast, in Germany where applying now at a higher ranking university than the Swiss one, professors, and universities are more flexible and accepts them as a general one, so no need to be specifically produced for the particular university.

I tried hard to find a place in Swiss universities, but I ended up rejected with no response from my previous professor as it considered time consuming for him, and I don't blame him since general recommendation letter is enough in other universities.

Do universities that ask for such a thing consider them self better than the others and will lead them to better candidates?

The question is, why such universities make it hard for the student who apply for PhD? Is a general recommendation letter (I have 4 letters from different professors) from your previous professors where they indicate positivity about the candidate enough for such a PhD application?

By forcing the letter to be sent directly from the institutional email of the Professor, the university makes sure it is a truthful recommendation and not a modified or faked one. Such practice of faking documents in unfortunately happening in any recruitment environment, not only academia.
Even worse and common practice in academia, my own phd adviser asked me to write my own recommendation letters because he lacked time, and he just signed them.
Such practice as described in your message partially prevent this.


Uncertainty about following academic career I recently got my Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering (2015), and now I am doing a postdoc in Computer Science at a top tier university. I have a decent number of publications (>12) in respectable journals in my field, and an h-index of 5, some awards, travel grants, and so on. While I know numbers don't do justice to a person, unfortunately that's how you rate academics (which I think is part of the problem).

Despite the above, I feel increasingly lost, and not sure whether I want to pursue an academic career. I have been moving around in the world a lot, and combined with the delayed gratification of research, fixed-term contracts, intense competition, etc., I feel like I am burning out.

On the other hand, transitioning to industry scares me, since I have been dwelling in university laboratories for the past 10 years of my life. What if I don't like it there and want to come back? With the "publish or perish" attitude, after a few years of not publishing the doors of academia would be shut for me. Or at least that's my impression.

The result of all the above is a feeling of angst and despair, and wondering whether I have been wasting my time all these years, even though the numbers say the opposite (goddamn numbers!). Taking a break from everything and pursuing some of my hobbies for a while, on the other hand, seems like a decision that could be fruitful.

Sitting on two chairs in never a good idea. (If try nevertheless, you should damn well know what you are doing.) Satisfying the industy and satisfying academic curiosity is not a task for everybody. From the experience of many of my prior colleagues, if you try to do both, you are likely to fail in publishing.

Said that, going to the industry is often a one-way ticket. More often that you would like to hear.

Sorry for discouraging.

On the other hand, if you ran out of ideas in academia, you have to go to the industry.


First year Math PhD student; My problem solving skill has been completely atrophied and continues to decline I'm a first year PhD student in mathematics and I'm in a pretty bad spot.
Over the last year or so of undergrad and first semester of grad school, I've completely atrophied my problem solving skill. At some point I became more comfortable with looking up a solution than trying to solve it myself. At this point my first instinct is to google something instead of trying to solve something. I need to fix this; it's already been affecting my performance and well being across the board. I'm almost instinctually aversive to trying to solve a problem by myself at this point. I feel like I've lost the ability to actually do math. I initially justified it by saying that my interest in math stems from my interest in the theory, and that I'm not particularly interested in problem solving. It's clear now that that was just cognitive dissonance. I need to fix this.
I know what the obvious answer is- don't look stuff up. And try to do problems on my own. Practice, practice, practice.
But I feel like it's not so simple either. I'm doing graduate level math after all. I managed to get into a fairly top level, rigorous program. I have performed well enough in the past that I managed to place ahead of my peers, and am doing relatively advanced courses (after all, I wouldn't have resorted to looking up stuff if it wasn't working well for me, until recently). As such, it seems like I already need a solid, strong problem solving capability in order to deal with my classes, which are quite demanding. So when I'm faced with HW or other problems, I'm unable to solve most of the problems even if I try really hard, because my problem solving skill is just so bad at this point, and I have to resort to looking things up once more. This further worsens my skill and on and on. It's a negative feedback loop. And I'm struggling to break out of it. I wanted advice on how to escape this loop especially. The idea of simply not looking stuff up is sound, but it's hard to follow through when I have only a finite amount of time before I have to stop thinking and submit my answers, or when I simply don't possess the capability anymore to try and solve the problem.
These days the idea of solving a graduate level HW set seems impossible to me, and I'm just incredibly lucky graduate level courses tend not to have exams. It's reached the point where it's threatening my future in my PhD program so I really do need to fix it. Googling my way through life isn't possible (or desirable either). I really am desperate now.
I feel like a lost cause at this point, like the damage has already been done to me, and I can't really fix it without going back to undergrad or something.
I was just hoping for concrete advice and from people who have had similar experiences, and what I should do.
Clarifications:

I am referring to problems/solutions in my graduate courses. The research portion of my PhD has not started yet.
My advisor and I are not particularly close (only interacted a few times so far due to the pandemic), so my awkward attempt to bring it up with him didn't really go anywhere.

I think it’s not a coincidence that the timing of this decline matches up with the pandemic.  A lot of people are really struggling right now, I feel like I can’t do math as well as I could a year ago.  In this post it sounds like you’re being really hard on yourself.  Counterintuitively I think a big part of what might help is being more compassionate with yourself.  It’s ok that you’re struggling, and it’s ok to just not solve some of the problems.  Research math mostly involves failing to solve problems most of the time, so it’s really ok to just not answer some of the questions and get used to that feeling and be kind to yourself because they’re hard problems.  You can always come back to those problems next year.  I guess what I’m saying is that you also want to develop the skill of giving up on a problems as well as the skill of solving them.  The former is perhaps more valuable in research than the latter.


Can a Master student's thesis be kept indefinitely until the advisors have extracted everything the student has to give? Is it legal for advisors in the US to prevent a student from graduating by "suddenly, about a week before deadline, realizing that what the student was doing for the past few semesters is not what the advisors asked for and the student has to redo the project design all over..." . I understand that the advisors might not be satisfied but shouldn't they notice this months ago?

Also, even after graduation, how much long are they, legally, allowed to ask for changes and feedback? Is it normal for professors to threaten the student pre but also post-graduation that they will take actions if the student doesn't do as asked?

I can elaborate if any questions arise but the main issue is that since they are occupied with their own issues (both professional, personal AND a mix of "personal aspirations" agenda interfering with the professional time they are paid to have with their students) and pay no attention to what I'm doing (while I constantly chase them to show them updates but they refuse even to look at my work, they literally closed my laptop's lid one day).

This is not strictly speaking a legal issue. There are generally internal university regulations that govern theses and dissertations, but enforcing them is not something that can be compelled through force of law.

There is normally a limit on the amount of time that can elapse for changes to be demanded, but this is entirely institution-dependent. Usually, though, any such period coincides with the conferral of the degree. At that point, the advisor and committee cannot ask for more changes.

All of that said, someone has committed derilection of duty in advising you. If there was a question about whether or not you were ready to defend, it should have been addressed before you wrote up the entire thesis and scheduled the defense. (It may have been the responsibility of a thesis committee, not the advisor, to make this decision. I don’t know without knowing more about the departmental regulations.)

Right now, I would talk to the other members of the committee, the chair of the graduate studies committee, and the chair of the department to figure out what can be done. This is not a good situation, and if your defense is scheduled for the near future, you may need to postpone it at least temporarily to avoid problems if your advisor is deadset on you redoing everything.


how to find whether this paper is already available or not, if authors just changed the Paper title & author name? I am the editor. I received a paper from some author. I need to check whether that same paper is already published in some other journal or not. For example some authors downloaded a paper from some other journal, they just change the paper title, and author name and they send that paper to us. So in this case how can I find whether this paper is already available or not?

There are several software available for checking plagiarism, which would also fit the problem you are investigating. The journal (actually the publisher) for which I am editor use iThenticate. I am not in a position to compare the numerous software and services around, some free, some commercial. However, a simple check that can easily be made is to to a Google search on bits of text. I have personally used this to check on similarities between manuscripts and earlier published articles to check on the degree of overlap and it works fine. It will give you a first indication at which stage you can decide on continuing with a more advanced analysis.

See also answers in What is the easiest way to check for plagiarism in student essay papers?


Difference between special issues and regular ones What the difference between special issues and regular ones from scientific journal publication point of view?

Different journal may put different meaning into "special issue" It could mean that papers have been invited around a certain theme, it could mean papers come from a workshop or symposia, or that the journal have decided to gather papers around a specific topic for some reason. The point is that a special issue differs from a regular issue in that the papers constitute a collection around a theme or coming from a specific group of authors or event. Such issues can either be a decision by the journal or a request from a group of scientists to publish around "their" proposed theme. There may be additional cases but these are the ones I am familiar with within my field.


Must you attend a conference to attend/present at an affiliated event? Specifically, I'm in the field of Computer Science, where conferences (such as EuroS&P) have lots of cool affiliated events, some of which have proceedings and some which do not.

I am more interested in the affiliated events than the conference itself, and was wanting to submit a paper to one of the workshops and an extended abstract to another -- I am working rather than a student at the moment, and so funding for the conference itself will be hard to come by (in addition to the cost of taking time off work). The affiliated events are held over the weekend, and I was wondering:

Is it possible to attend/be published at only affiliated events and skip the conference?
Is this a commonly done thing or, if it were to happen, should I keep quiet about it?

Thanks!

Is it possible to attend/be published at only affiliated events and skip the conference?

This depends a bit on the conference, but in most cases, the relationship between a "main" conference and its satellites and workshops seems to be like this:

Nobody really cares whether you actually attend the main conference, and there is no reason to be quiet about this. However, some conferences require you to register (I.e., pay) for the main conference in addition to any satellite events, even if you have no intention of attending. So you should keep this, probably significant, additional costs in mind.
Satellite conferences often have their own proceedings, so it is definitely possible to be published only at the satellite, for whatever that is worth. Associated workshops often publish their proceedings in a companion volume of the main conference. I am not sure whether you would consider this "be published at the main conference", or why this would matter for you.

That being said, the best persons to answer this for you reliably are the organizers of either the main event, or of the satellite events you wish to attend.


Is it ethical/legal to use the University's resources for a personal project? I am currently pursuing a PhD at Technion (Israel). My area of study lies in computational fluid dynamics (CFD), which involves high performance computing. My research requires me to develop/use complex code on large clusters (hundreds of CPUs) made available for me by my university.

I have a few projects (which might one day be monetized) on which I am working on my personal time. One of them involves using code very similar to that I am already using for my research. Is it OK (from an ethical standpoint) for me to use my university's resources (both solvers and actual hardware) for my own projects? Note that I always make sure that these projects do not affect my research, and only work on them once I am ahead of schedule.

Would it be legal for me to do so in the United States? Or can the University be entitled to a piece of the company if it found out I had been using their resources for my projects? Note that the Israeli law system is also based on common law, so I am interested in knowing if it would be legal in the US.

Note that about 70% of the cluster's processors are never used since we are currently understaffed. Also, my own solver would use at most 10% of those unused processors.

It's unethical to use your university's hardware resources and then not share with them the eventual proceeds of that research. If the work you do were to produce papers, then they would share in the reputational advantage for employing you and being affiliated with your work. If it would produce a patent or a product, then employment rules at my university in the US would have us split ownership and royalties. At the very least, the university bought the equipment, paid the power bill, and paid someone to administer it. Ethically they deserve to benefit, too.

Now, I have no idea what the laws of Israel or the regulations of your university have to say about this, so you should check before you do anything.

When it comes to software (the solvers in your question), things may be different. If the software is open source under a usual license, you may generally use it for any purpose you like. Open source licenses typically do not regulate use at all, and only cover redistribution. If the software is not open source, then, in the US at least, regulation of use is generally left to the copyright holder. Any permissions that you have to use that software flow through some sort of explicit (written down) or implicit license. If someone at your university gave you software owned by the university and told you to use it for your project, then generally speaking you may use it in the course of your employment as directed by your supervisor. You probably cannot use such software for a side project without permission from the copyright holder.

Your employment agreement, contract, or university regulations will govern whether or not personal projects somehow become property of the university, shared property, or are kept entirely separate due to your use of university resources. Most universities actually want their researchers to pursue interesting ideas, but if you use their property, they want a cut of the resulting profits or an ownership interest in any intellectual property. In the US, the Bayh-Dole Act guarantees that inventions made through federally funded research can be owned by the grantee rather than the US government, and most universities pursue this ownership. I don't know if Israel has an equivalent law.

The ethics here are pretty clear to me. Don't use other people's property to make a profit without sharing the profit with them. The laws and regulations are local, so ask your boss, administration, etc. about the local rules.


Should I drop my paper after finding a recent very similar paper? I have been working on a research paper to apply a technique X to solve certain problem Y. The field is in computer science. Approximately some months ago I started to check it up if there was something similar to my proposal, but I did not find anything at all.

A couple of weeks ago and when I have already finished the tests for my proposal, I decided to check it up again. In my new search, I found an article that was published about two years ago and when I read it, I saw that it was very close to the idea on which I have been working. The differences were very subtle, I was using a simplified version, data was collected in a different manner, and other tiny differences. If we talk in percentages, the differences would be like 20 % between my article and the one I found.

The reasons that I did not find this article in my first search were that it was published in a not so well known journal, and while it has been cited before, it were only self-citations and there was no strong relation between the article and the citing ones.

So what I can do in this situation? I have not based my work on this paper, but I know that I must cite it like a related work. Should I drop my paper or present it and see what the reviewers have to say about it? I would not like to be pointed as a case of plagiarism because of the similarities.

First of all, you are absolutely right that you need to cite the paper. Citations should not be to "previous work you based your work on" but to "the state of the art" - whether or not you explicitly based your work on a previous article. The reader should be able to place your work in the context of what is already known on a topic.

Second, giving any advice will be hard for us, since we don't know the specific situation. If all you add to this previous article is a simpler design and collecting data in a different manner, then your paper likely does not offer a publication-worthy contribution to the state of the art.

Your best bet is likely to rework your paper heavily. Identify weaknesses or open questions remaining in the previous article and address these. Then you can build on the previous article and expand upon it, and you will have a genuine contribution.

Of course, this will be a lot of work, and much of what you already did may turn out to be wasted effort. That sort of thing unfortunately happens in academia. You will need to analyze your specific situation to find out how much you can salvage.

The positive side is that you have found someone who can meaningfully review your work. And if, as you write, their work has so far mainly been self-cited, they will appreciate some external attention on it, so if you get them to review your paper, you may have a sympathy bonus. Alternatively, you could even contact the authors of the earlier paper and see whether they would be interested in collaborating with you.


How valuable are poster presentations for new Ph.D. student? I have submitted my first paper in a very top conference, but the paper was accepted in the poster section instead. I am ok with that, as the reviews were very helpful.

However, is it interesting to travel (it is far from my workplace) to do a poster presentation? I have never done such a presentation as I just finished my first Ph.D. year, but I believe it would be interesting to meet people and have some feedbacks. I am just afraid that people will go through the poster and not ask questions, so the work would have been done for "nothing". I still hesitate because the conference is very good in my field.

Thanks for your feedback.

It depends on how well the poster session is organized, and on the culture in your discipline (do people show up, do they engage with the people next to the poster or just do the pro forma lap past all posters and leave again, etc.). So there is no single answer to this question.

However, I come from a discipline that puts little value on poster presentations, and I disagree. For me the poster presentations are the ones that have been most productive. In a poster session there is much more room for me to interact with the participants, while in a presentation it is me talking followed by one or two questions. It is the interaction (questions) from the audience that tells me if my argument is clear, if I made any mistakes, if there are some interesting angles I have missed, if there is another group that does interesting complementary work, etc. etc. So I have received a lot more interesting feedback from poster presentation than from oral presentations. Also, if a part of my argument is unclear, it typically takes a bit of back and forth to pin down where the exact problem is. In a oral presentation there is typically little room for that, but such a conversation is perfectly natural for a poster presentation.

So my suggestion is to ask someone who has attended that conference before whether the poster session was half-way decent (not 7 in the morning on the day after the conference diner, 20 minutes walk from the main venue, parallel to lunch which was served on another location, or other disasters). If there are no disasters, then a poster presentation is probably well worth it.


Is it rude to request a book chapter from the academic who wrote it if you don't want to buy the entire textbook? The title says it all. I want to read a book chapter from a prominent Oxbridge researcher, but I don't want to shell out the cash for the entire textbook in which it's published. Is it rude to contact the professor who wrote the chapter and request an electronic version? It's for my own research purposes.

Before writing to the author, you should try to find the chapter in other ways:

Is it available online?  You should make sure it's not in any obvious place (e.g., the author's home page or university web site) or findable by a web search.
Do you have library access?  Even if the library doesn't have the book, they can very likely get it through interlibrary loan.
Do you have friends, colleagues, or teachers who might have the book?

It's a little rude to bother the author to ask for a copy if you could reasonably get one another way.  However, if the book is unaffordable for you and you have no other options, then there's nothing wrong with asking the author.  I'd phrase it as a question, to avoid sounding too demanding.  The key thing to keep in mind is that you're asking for something unusual, just in case the author has an electronic copy they'd be willing to share (but haven't put on their web site).  It's also worth including a sentence about things like your lack of library access.  You may not get a copy, but it's worth a try.


Can a conference listed as CORE 'A' have an acceptance rate of 60%? My university follows the conference ranking as per CORE. Specifically, the department (Computer Science) encourages the faculty members and the research students to submit to either CORE 'A' or CORE 'A*' conference (It must not be below CORE 'B', in the worst case).

However, I have a general conscience that the acceptance rate of a conference and the quality of the conference are highly related (Does a low acceptance rate imply quality?). Further, conference acceptance rate does influence the final decision on the number of quality papers to be selected for final proceedings (How does the acceptance rate affect papers decisions?).

We have an article and we were planning to submit to a conference ranked as CORE 'A', but it has an acceptance rate of as high as 60% (sometimes more than 61%). However, the conference is quite old (26 years to be precise). So, presently, we are confused whether should we submit the article to the conference and have following recurring questions in mind.

Can my department reject our conference funding because of this high acceptance rate?
Should we rather argue about the quality of the conference based on their ranking system as per CORE? (What if the department refute?)
Should we step back from submitting here? (But then, there is no better conference in the field in this year. We have to soak our paper for at least 7-8 months more.)

Acceptance rate has some correlation to conference quality, but I think it's far from being the most meaningful metric, and it isn't very informative in isolation.

There can be top-tier conferences that have the same, or even higher, acceptance rate than second-tier conferences. The reason is that people know how demanding they are, so they don't even bother to submit papers that they know will be very likely rejected, while the second-tier conference might get more submissions as people have higher hopes of getting their papers accepted.

I personally think CORE is rather trustworthy (at least as far as rankings go), as in my particular subfield it's accurate. But this may depend on each subfield. If you want more evidence for the quality (or lack of) of that conference, this website aggregates three different conference rankings. And if you prefer something more quantitative, there are the Google Scholar h5-index rankings, although they should be taken with a grain of salt because this metric is very influenced by size (number of articles published per year).


Final check for dissertation; what are some common bugs? I am currently in the process of completing my dissertation.
I am a big fan of unit tests, so I would like to implement a procedure that corrects my writing ( or removes bugs so to speak.)

A few examples:

check spelling of all text
do all figures have a description that is up to date with the picture
search for "like" and replace it with "as" or a better sounding word
has every head and subhead one or two sentences of introduction
are the figures at the right place in the pdf?

I am looking for a lot more of these "Bugs" that I was unfortunate enough to introduce into a text and found them only at the last-minute check. What else are common bugs that need to be eliminated?

This doesn't cover everything you want, by any means, but it is an attempt to automate similar things:

http://matt.might.net/articles/shell-scripts-for-passive-voice-weasel-words-duplicates/

You could probably accomplish some of what you want with similar scripts.  Some of the checks you wish to do are easily scripted as long as your thesis file(s) are plain text.  If you're using Word, automation will be more challenging.


How to find all of the responses to a published research paper? While searching through various journals with my library's on-line journal search tools, I have occasionally found short articles which are simply comments on other published papers. These short articles might have various kinds of comments, but generally describe why the first paper's research or theories are flawed. In addition, sometimes I have found replies from the original author of the first paper, responding to these comments, for e.g., to clarify the meaning or perhaps to give further support to their original arguments.

Do such exchanges generally only occur within the same journal, i.e. the responses are published in the same journal, or can these occur across journals?
Are there any special tools to assist with locating all of these "replies"?

First, it may depend on your field, but at least in mine (physics and chemistry), it is rare for papers to generate comments or replies, and really extraordinary for a paper to be followed by multiple comments. (The editor usually lets the original authors reply to the comment, however.)

Some publishers provide links to the comments and replies on the webpage for the original paper. Otherwise, you can locate those comments using the following criteria:

they are published in the same journal, or in a preprint server (like arxiv)
their title includes “comment on” or “reply to” (or other such publisher-dependent prefix that you need to identify)

Finally, you should get the list of all newer papers citing the original paper, and check them out. If you're investigating a paper in depth, you’ll do that anyway :)