Proposing collaboration to an invited speaker? I am organising a conference. This will take place in 6 months time. One of the invited speakers works on a topic that is highly related to my research interests. I would like to propose a specific collaboration to this professor, but I feel that the fact that I invited him to the conference (I am paying for his accommodation, expenses ...) may induce some pressure to accept my invitation to collaborate.

I wonder whether I should just wait after the conference to tell him about this project or if it is OK to tell him now? The reason I want to tell him now is that I would not like to wait for another 6 months to start this project.

I don't see any ethical dilemma here unless you threaten to retract his invitation. Don't even hint at it. You liked his work enough to invite him to speak, you should feel free to invite him to collaborate. If he declines, thank him for considering it and tell him you're looking forward to his talk this summer. If he shows interest in collaborating, keep the email conversation going, set up a phone call, etc, etc, and see where it goes. You might be able to use his visit to get some real work done (write a paper, write some code, write a grant, etc) if you're already agreed to collaborate. Don't waste your time between now and then.


Ownership of environmental samples (or other material) analyzed during a PhD I am a PhD student researching environmental science in Europe. As such, I have received hundreds of environmental samples, including water, sediment etc. over the past year and a half, the extensive work with which has let to two peer-reviewed publications. However, I am still struggling to understand who actually owns these samples - is it the faculty, my supervisor, myself, or the party that sent the sub-samples in the first place? My question is basically - what can I do with the samples without looking at potentially serious issues. More specifically:

1) If there is considerable disagreement between myself and my supervisor as to which analyses are to be carried out on said samples, from a strictly legal standpoint, am I free to carry out the analyses I want to, and which I am sure will benefit my thesis, even though my supervisor disagrees with my approach. There is more than enough material to carry out both mine and my supervisor's methodology.

2) Can I sub-sample and share some of these samples with other institutions or individuals for the purposes of possible (not documented or otherwise agreed upon) collaboration? Again, I strongly suspect my supervisor will not be happy with this, but would it be considered illegal or as academic/other misconduct. Obviously, my supervisor would know and probably be a co-author on any ensuing publications (if any).

What are the possible repercussions of the above? Could I be expelled from the program, or my PhD revoked after the fact? I could not find any discussion on such topics, and instead kept coming across the usual "fabrication, falsification and plagiarism"-related discussions, hence my questions!

Since you ask for legality, you need to consult a lawyer for an answer. Everything expressed here is my personal opinion based on my experience as a researcher. It is not legal advise.

You say, you received the sample based on a collaboration of your university with the sample supplier. This probably means, you acted as a representative of the university when receiving them, because you wouldn't have received the samples if you were not affiliated to the university. From this it follows that the university owns the samples. This is also reinforced by the samples being processed with university resources.

I wouldn't do anything with these samples against the university's or my supervisor's wishes.

However, if you have disagreements about this with your supervisor, you should try to solve this conflict or even find someone who can mediate the dispute. A compromise that makes both of you happy might be achievable.


What to do about past errors or inconsistencies in assignments I graded? I was a grader for my university couple of years ago. I'm also a PhD student. Out of the five semesters I graded..I got a "not fit for rehire" 3 times.
I was not responsive, didn't cater to the needs of the students properly, and occasionally would lose assignments submitted to me. I could not handle the logistics of taking in 100+ assignments(sometimes per week). Most importantly, I was thoroughly inconsistent with grading- I could not follow a proper rubric to the bone. Most often I'd have to make a rubric myself, even in really odd grading situations like having to grade students' notes as either 0 or 1(depending on whether they were relevant to the classroom, etc). I would grade the papers, but often I'd find myself grading differently towards the end of the pile as opposed to when I started grading.
Part of the reason this happened was due to my ADHD+OCD combination of mental disorders, but I am tired of citing that to my professors and also myself. The reason I was fired so many times was not due to Grading incompetence, but because I was late to deadlines, would miss TA meetings, and because of reasons like having to leave town before I could finish grading.
The grading incompetence is something only I know. If I think about how many students got, say, a C+ instead of a B- because of MY negligence and irresponsibility, I start feeling like the worst human being on planet earth.
I have considered confessing to my Professors about this, but have never been brave enough to do it. All my semesters of being a TA are long over, grades collected and put up on the students' transcripts. I have somehow managed to get an RA position but have been struggling very badly since the past year mentally due to all this.
I am posting here because I just want some possible solutions. Do I confess, and get terminated from my PhD-most importantly is it technically possible to roll back grades like that en masse? Should I quit graduate school myself? I don't intend to ever be in academia after I get my degree..but I don't feel like I can take that amount of psychological burden and keep feeling worthy of a PhD. What would you do if you were in a similar situation, hypothetically?

I could not follow a proper rubric to the bone.

That's not unusual.  Following a rubric is indeed difficult, even for people who have had many years of experience in teaching.  And the rubrics supplied by professors to TAs are often not very good.

Most often I'd have to make a rubric myself,

That's a good thing - you found something that helped you get your work done in a more consistent manner.

often I'd find myself grading differently towards the end of the pile as opposed to when I started grading.

This happens to everybody.  It's not desirable, and we try to find ways to avoid it, but a certain amount of inconsistency is inevitable when grading is done by humans.

Do I confess, and get terminated from my PhD

Nothing you've described sounds like cause to terminate a grad student from a PhD program.  TA performance is usually evaluated independently from academic performance, and staying in a graduate program is based on the latter.  The only exceptions I would expect would be something that went beyond poor performance into the realm of blatant dishonesty: taking bribes from students, etc.
If you were to "confess", I think the likely reaction would be something like "Well yeah, it was clear you weren't doing a very good job as a TA, and that's why we're not hiring you as a TA anymore.  So that's the end of that. Why are we still talking about this?"

is it technically possible to roll back grades like that en masse?

It would depend on your university's rules, but it's probably unlikely.  The standards for changing grades are usually if there was a clerical error (e.g. incorrect addition of scores) or "arbitrary and capricious" grading (e.g. grades that had absolutely nothing to do with the course material).  Just being somewhat inconsistent wouldn't rise to that level.  Moreover, there's usually a limited time period in which this is possible at all - after a year or so, the students' original assignments have usually been discarded and it isn't possible to regrade their work even if one wanted to.

If I think about how many students got,say, a C+ instead of a B- because of MY negligence and irresponsibility, I start feeling like the worst human being on planet earth.

So, a few students have a GPA that's 0.01 points lower than it otherwise would have been.  It's not exactly on par with mass murder.

Should I quit graduate school myself?

I certainly do not see any cause for that.

What would you do if you were in a similar situation,hypothetically?

If I found that I wasn't able to meet the standards of a job, and I didn't feel able or willing to put in the effort to get better - I would try to find a way not to have to do that job anymore.  And that's exactly what you have done, by finding a source of support that doesn't require you to work as a TA.  Again, problem solved.


Paper by different authors published same method as a previous paper My colleagues and I published a new method in a journal last year. A week ago, another group published a nearly-identical method in the same journal. The approach is the same, just with different notation.

I believe this was not malicious on the part of the other group and probably was simply due to a lack of a literature search. Are there any actions we should take?

I would contact the authors first, pointing them to your paper and simply asking if they are familiar with it, and indicating – with no judging/accusing comments! – that their approach is similar to your published work. Then two things might happen:

They will contact the editor and he will handle it; either they will have bad luck and his decision will be to reject the paper, or simply there will be a "note added in proof". In the latter case, you'll gain a citation, too.
They will neglect your e-mail, either not answering at all, or giving some vague excuses that you might feel don't lead anywhere. In such cases, write directly to the editor of the journal, pointing him to your article and emphasizing the similarities between the two and that yours was published long before their submission (and maybe noting also that your two groups haven't collaborated).

An option might be to also write a short comment (I guess 1 page will be enough) to be posted on arXiv, just so that the community knows. But first contact the authors, then the editor (if necessary) – in the end it's his decision what to do with the submitted paper. I think there's only a slight chance that in the end you won't be satisfied with how the thing was handled – at least you will know to think twice before submitting to this journal again, and the community will be warned by your comment on arXiv. But don't jump too far ahead, first see how the situation will be dealt with.


mentioning my country situation in motivation letter to demonstrate dedication for learning I'm located in Syria and I'm writing a motivation letter to be used in applications for master of computer science scholarships.
Would it be useful  to mention how I managed to succeed with my studies despite all the awful things that happened in my country and my city ?

Yes, you should mention these issues.  Your situation is unusual, and it's helpful if the application puts everything in context for the admissions committee.  I don't know whether it will help your chances of admission, but if there are deficiencies in your application it might explain why you could not fix them, and in any case it certainly won't hurt your chances.


References that are not literature or qualified sources The Duale Hochschule has published this guideline (German) (this question might be specific to the studies in Germany) and it does quite a good job explaining how literature shall be cited and put into a bibliography.

Now, in the evaluation sheet for the paper and thesis, literature research is mainly judged by its academic character, i.e. it should be primary sources, qualified links etc. I'm fine with that as well. My students should try to find and understand primary literature.

However, here's a caveat: the studies is Informatics. When they implement an application, the students use software libraries. Personally, I'd like to know the sources of those libraries, because some of them are not unique by their name.

I can understand that the students don't want to put them into bibliography, because they might not be scientific or academic, they are just a tool. However, there are sentences like

  To get around problem X, I use library Y.

IMHO, such decisions are ok, they don't require special research. Other researchers may simply use a tool ("hammer") to solve a problem without thinking much about it as well. Not mentioning such a library fix would leave others in a situation where the paper is not helpful.

How to deal with that situation and why?

Should the software libraries

be part of the bibliography,
get their separate list of "software" references,
just be mentioned in a footnote when the library name first occurs,
not be mentioned at all
...

As a computer scientist, I often encounter this as well. I have seen three main approaches used, in decreasing order of preference

Cite the paper about the software, if one exists: academic software is often the subject of papers, and the authors very much appreciate those citations, often explicitly requesting them in the software documentation.
Cite the software as a miscellaneous reference: most citation styles will have an explicit recommended means for doing so, (e.g., this post on APA software citations)
The first time the software is mentioned, put a link to the software in a footnote or parentheses.

The earlier ones are better for the authors of the software, but I have sometimes had journals refuse to allow me to give a proper citation.


Dealing with unsupervised research as novice researcher I am currently working on a research project at a non-academic institution as part of a summer internship. They've brought me in to work on a topic that is somewhat within my area of study. However, there is nobody here who shares my field. There are other folks with related expertise, but it's not quite similar enough to be of help (at least not at this stage in the research). Furthermore, my work involves data that is quite different than what I'm used to working with. It's enough to say that the data requires different analysis techniques than what I'm used to--to the extent that the application of this research is whole sub-field in its own right.

I'm obviously reading papers to familiarize myself with this sub-field, and I've also reached out for direction from colleagues who have plenty of experience in this area. The real problem stems from the lack of an experienced adviser/supervisor who can help direct the project. As much as I'd love to be capable of doing this solo (and this will probably be a good trial-by-fire learning experience), I'm concerned that I'm still too novice of a researcher to go it alone.

I'm not throwing this project away, so what are some steps I can take to make progress despite this limited supervision?

Networking would be my run-to. I'm sure you can find someone that knows enough on the topic to help guide you.

I had a research paper that I had to do for my programming degree and I had to research programming for different platforms, in my case, web flash games in comparison to mobile game development.

I knew nothing about the software, code language, or how the 2 different platforms varied in the game industry so instead of just reading other papers, textbooks, and videos I went on to website where these games were found and left comments asking for the Devs to contact me, I contact the site owners themselves about getting into contact with one of their Devs, and I even posted an ad on Craigslist (I did actually find someone that taught courses in the subject though Craigslist and he was the best source I found).

You really just need to ask around and it's easier to find people than you may think as long as you put effort into it.


When will the authors be listed alphabetically? Recently, I noticed that some of the papers actually had their author names listed in the alphabetical order.

Say Mr. Smith contributed more than Mr. Black. Then without noticing the tiny footnote, one will simply take Mr. Black as the first author.

I am wondering whether there exists some certain such scenarios where the authors have to be listed as such. Will it be unfair for the first-author-should-be?

Update:

I am talking about EECS field. I see most of the papers list the authors according to the contributions. But only occasionally, I see alphabetically-listed authors.

In mathematics authors are almost always listed in alphabetical order. This works, among other reasons, because work groups are organized less by a lab structure so you get more rhetoric of equality between all authors.


How to write a research proposal for a PhD position where the description of the project is given? I saw an offer for a PhD position where the title and the description of the project was given.

Now, in the form they ask the applicant to write a research proposal which will include 'Why I'm interested in the field/project described in the advertisement; 2. Why and how i wish you complete the project; 3. What makes me suitable for the project in question.?' (maximum 3 pages).

In my university, in one course what I learned was a complete idea how i will do the work and finish that work. But where should I write the reason why i m applying there? I mean, if they need a new proposal then would why they write the project name and description? And how is one supposed to know how the supervisor wants to complete the project?

If the research project description is very specific, think of it as a job application.

The research project is the job advert.

The research proposal you will write up and send out is your cover letter. You ought to demonstrate how you're the best fit for the research project.

Approaching the research supervisor in advance of the application deadline would be good, if their details are given as part of the project description.

One cannot assume that 'the supervisor knows how they want to complete the project'. One supervisor might be very prescriptive, the next supervisor will be very open-minded or loose.


Disclosing peer review results My paper was recently published and I submitted a report to my institution for a promotion. However, the research administrator asked me to provide a copy of peer review of my paper, which was reviewed in double-blind. The purpose was for the "validity" of my paper. This is strange and new to me because I never encountered this before. Is it ethical to disclose peer review from a double blind review outside between the author and the editor?

Additionally to what Buffy wrote, there are many issues arising with predatory journals stating that they are doing peer review when they actually are just pocketing author publishing charges. If you get any peer review from these journals, it is usually just something non-committal ("Nice work!"). So submitting your peer-review will show that actual peer-review took place.
I try to engage with papers I am reviewing, asking lots of questions that pop up. And I correct comma errors, which seem to be so prevalent these days ;)


Caught with my phone during an exam There was about 30 mins left of the exam, everything had been going well so far, I got nervous as there was 1 question I hadn't answered that was worth a few marks, so I made the irresponsible decision to check my phone, the moment I pulled it out is when I got caught, the TA took my student ID and allowed me to continue with the exam. With the guilt of knowing what I had just attempted to do, I submitted my paper instantly after my ID was taken.
I just received an email saying there will be a meeting. What should I expect? (Never done anything like this before)

My advice would be to be honest, not argumentative, and explain exactly what happened.

I pulled the phone out with the intention to cheat.
I did not complete the cheat as I was caught in the attempt.
I turned the paper in immediately after being caught.
I have not habitually cheated.
I will accept whatever disciplinary outcome is assigned.

Maybe write this down and hand it in at the beginning of the meeting.

Accept the sanctions--not with a "crucify me" attitude, but phlegmatically.  Then, go and sin no more.


Is a German Hochschule able to offer a Ph.D.? Can German Hochschule offer a Ph.D.? I know that some of them can't, but does this apply to any hochschule or does it differ from one to another?

One further note to clarify is that using "Ph.D." to denote doctoral degrees in Germany is somewhat nebulous, as many of the doctoral degree-granting institutions in Germany do not award Ph.D.'s. Instead, the range of doctoral degrees is somewhat broader. For instance, the institution where I work offers the Dr. rer. nat. and the Dr.-Ing., but not a Ph.D. In fact, we are not even allowed to use the term "Ph.D." in our advertising of our doctoral degree programs.

So, if you are asking "can German universities award doctoral degrees," Pieter's answer above is correct. However, if you mean literally "can German universities award Ph.D.'s," I'd have to say the answer is essentially "no."


Citing a short story within a collection within another collection Its collections all the way down today.
I am usually pretty sure about my works cited pages, but I just ran into something that has me stumped.
I am citing "Araby" from James Joyce's Dubliners. However, the only copy I have access to right now is the Barns & Nobel Classics edition, which contains both Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
So far, this is what I've come up with:

Joyce, James. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Dubliners.
Barnes & Nobel Classics, 2004.

and

Joyce, James. "Araby." A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and
Dubliners. Barnes & Nobel Classics, 2004. pp. 249-254.

Ignoring my lack of hanging indent, are either of these correct?

How formal your citation must be depends on your audience. Course paper? Thesis? Article for a literary journal?
That citation will allow your reader to find and verify what you have to say.
If what you're writing is scholarly, you might want to find the original publication date, and put (reprinted) in the citation. If it's really scholarly you might have to look at the original somehow.
By the way, the text is available at Project Gutenberg. Adding that url will help your readers even if it's not an official source:
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2814/2814-h/2814-h.htm


Is it possible to publish a paper on a topic about which you already wrote an online article? I am a student and so I have no experience in publishing papers and I do not know much about it. My question: Is it necessary for publishing a paper in a journal, that you never have published something similar on your homepage / blog or on another online project?

I have the feeling that this is not a problem, because the own written online article on the personal blog was never peer-reviewed and publishing papers based on a dissertation does not seem to be a problem. Am I right?

This is perfectly acceptable.  It is, in fact, fairly common to "upgrade" a white-paper, technical note, or other such non-peer-reviewed publication into a peer-reviewed publication.  Two important caveats, however:

The appropriate form for a peer-reviewed publication is generally very different than for a blog post or similar informal format.  You will likely need to almost entirely rewrite the publication in any case.
If the other material is durably available or has been circulated in academic circles previously, however, you should acknowledge this fact and reference the prior publications.  This may be in the form of a citation, or in the cover letter of the article, or both.


Wish to go against my supervisors in the half-yearly review report. Is it suicidal for my PhD? I am funded by the university for my PhD, though I had approached the supervisor myself, particularly because he had decent publications in good journals. I am an international student. I have finished exactly 1.5 years of my PhD and my funding is only for 3 years. I am working on an Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning problem.

I work on a topic which is more academically exciting than of much use to industry. I did not know that before I started my PhD. Let is call this area A. I confess that I was told I will be working on this area. Though I must mention that along with A, B is another topic which was mentioned and I am working on both, though A is where my supervisors "specialize".

Now my problem:
1. A is not really going to get me a job as a respected scientist in industry after my PhD. So I MUST consider A with other ideas from other popular methods -- and I take the burden to prove that my idea is correct.

A has been overused in my group and I am already getting reviews for my paper that it is very similar to other works from this group. I get to believe that I am doing a shadow PhD in previous student's work who has graduated with "flying colors".
I am not a fan of A myself, particularly because it lacks mathematical foundation and my supervisors have no intention of letting me pursue such a direction, nor are they capable of providing me guidance in this area.

I am not looking for an academic career, but wish to be a researcher in industry. So I need to make my research relevant.

Now, when I approach my supervisors (three of them, one of them added by my primary without even asking me, to help him!) telling them that I want to work in B more than A, and also wish to include C in my research I am met with stiff resistance. The argument being this is not relevant to the conferences in A. If presented in a conference of C, people will ask too many questions etc. I would appreciate a proper discussion in being shown that C is not technically useful or viable or something like that.

This clearly is not scientific research. So I am considering raising this issue in my half-monthly report. But this will surely make the supervisors work against me and they would naturally not provide help whenever they are required to. What are your suggestions?

Note: My supervisor has friends in all the journals and conferences he publishes. He does not send a paper to a new conference where he has no friends!

Getting your PhD in good time is probably the most important for your career, so you should focus on that.  It would almost certainly delay you to change topics now, and adding extra subjects "on the side" may also endanger your timely completion of the core work.  And plus, as you are aware, you are highly dependent on the goodwill of your supervisors in this situation.

Assuming a change of topics would introduce a one-year delay in your studies, there are alternative ways you could use that year to build your CV:

Work in a postdoctoral research position on a more "practical" topic.
Work in industry for a year in a lower-level position.

Both of these would likely be more effective for your long-term goal than switching topics now.  And, in both cases you would be paid and wouldn't have to worry about your funding running out.  Of course, you would have to find such a job, but I still think it is lower risk than trying to change topics now against the will of your supervisors.

Also, your fears about not being able to get a job because the topic is too theoretical may be unwarranted. Generally, most of the specific things you do in a job are learned on the job.  Employers will look at your education for:

Evidence of your ability to learn and succeed.  Simply completing your PhD (and doing it well) demonstrates this.
A good theoretical background in the field.  Working even on an impractical "Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning problem" should show this.

In short, focus on doing an excellent job with your current PhD topic; there are still logical steps from there to your goal.


What is the real maximum score of subject math GRE scores currently? I know that every subject GRE test has the maximum score 990 and the maximum percentile 99. However, upon looking some data on the ETS website, I found that the math subject GRE score starts from 920. Also, I heard that somebody got score 930 and percentile 99. What is the truth? What is the maximum math subject GRE score?

I'm not a mathematician and not involved with this test; all I know is what I read on the internet. If anyone can confirm that they've seen someone get a perfect score in the last few years, that'd be great.

The maximum score is (almost certainly) 990. I assume you were looking at this, which shows that any scores 920 and above are in the 99th percentile; that is, only 1% of test takers score 920 or above. This does not (necessarily) imply that scores above 920 are impossible.

From the GRE website:

  Every Subject Test yields a total score on a 200 to 990 score scale, in 10-point increments. Note that each of the individual test scales occupies only a portion of the 200 to 990 score range.

The second sentence is a little vague, and in principle could imply that the top few scores are "not used." What we know for sure is that since 200-990 in 10-point increments is 80 possible scores, and there are only 66 questions, there will be at least 14 values that are not used. Since they said the scale is from 200 to 990, it would make little sense to "not use" the top few scores...but it's possible.

One wrinkle: there is also this practice test in which a 66/66 only gets you a 910. But, I don't think we can necessarily extrapolate from that; it may just be that the practice test is easier than the current test.


Applying for a PhD before or after finishing master's I'm currently working towards a master's in mathematics, and I would like to continue with a PhD. I have good grades and I'm aiming at something equivalent to a first class honours, at a highly ranked university in maths.

The problem with applying for a PhD now (starting next fall) is that I have barely begun work on my thesis, and therefore wouldn't be able to get a reference from my advisor (at least not one that would describe my work on my thesis, the closest thing I'll have to research, and the crowning project of my master degree). I could try to solicit a couple of half-baked references now, send preliminary transcripts and detail my plan for my master thesis, but I feel my application would be much more convincing if I submit it after I get my degree. My transcript would be a complete diploma, and my references would be able to speak to the whole of my work, including the last (and most important) part.

Although this is what I'm inclined to do, it would inevitably result in losing a year. I would be ok with that: I could try to find a job/internship somewhere, prepare my applications with more time on my hands (including prepping for possible interviews) and maybe even work on a couple of independent research projects. However I'm afraid that time spent away from academia might be a big minus for my application, considering that if accepted, I would be starting my PhD at the age of 26, pushing 27 (and although this might not show up explicitly, it would be abundantly clear from my cv). I see that most of my class mates are applying before finishing their master, and I'm therefore also worried that my taking the extra year might be perceived as an unfair advantage to other applicants.

I'm also worried that submitting applications twice might also not work, since being rejected in this round might play against me next time.

I would be very grateful for any suggestions! Thank you :)

As you already noticed, almost everyone applies during the last year of their master's. No one wants you to feel compelled to take a gap year between your master's and PhD. Since almost everyone is in the same boat as you, they will have a similar level of recommendations. This is expected! Your thesis supervisor should still be able to say some nice things about your research aptitude and potential. Apply now!


Should I withdraw a submission? I worked on a paper in computer science (CS) from half a year approximately, so I decided to send it to the JUCS journal. They kindly informed me that they were not able to find enough reviewers for my article and so I decided to send it somewhere else. After that, I sent it to another journal that covers general topics in CS, but it got rejected. The justification was because they said the article lacked of the necessary algorithmic formalism but the problem is that only one reviewer sent out their comments after almost six months. I thought my paper was almost forgotten, because when I wrote to the editor I never got an answer.

After this rejection I submitted my work to a conference, and it finally got accepted. The recommendations were to proofread the paper, and well just to add more references. I consider that is valuable to mention that the journals and this conference are indexed in Scopus.

The problem that I have is that I found that there is a top ACM conference in this field. So, I do not know if I should withdraw my paper from the conference that already accepted it and re-submit it for this new conference. The reason for doing this is because I am very curious about what would be the feedback of the reviewers in this conference. I know that maybe it will get rejected, because I saw that the submissions come mostly from well renowned universities such as MIT or Stanford.

Bottom line, what should I do in this situation? Any advice? Should I just present my research into the conference that already accepted it, and after that to send it for comments to a professor in this area?

Thanks

This is clearly a judgement call and I can only offer opinion. But if you withdraw from the conference at which it was accepted you won't be able to resubmit there if you are rejected by the other. This narrows your future options for this paper.

I'd therefore suggest that you stay with what you have (a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush).

But this is just one paper. Write more papers and expand your knowledge about good places to submit them. One paper is just one paper. It isn't your entire career.


How to have productive meetings with Ph.D supervisor I am a Ph.D. student in theoretical computer science. I meet my research supervisor once a week for around 2 hours. I prepare some of my research and try to present in front of him. I always try to make a list of theorems and claims given in the paper to discuss with him in a certain flow but most of the time he starts asking questions and then we go in other directions (which is okay from a research point of view). Due to this, it sometimes takes 2 months to read a single paper.  I always try to follow my designed plan but it rarely works. Also, I don't feel satisfied most of the time because many times I am only able to discuss 50-60 percent of what I have planned. Please help.

Speaking from experience, both as a student and as a Phd supervisor in theoretical computer science. The meetings with your supervisor serve many purposes. To narrow the scope a little bit, let me only discuss the type of meetings you mention - where you read a research paper and discuss it to a high level of detail with your advisor.

In TCS (and maths, I would assume), the primary goals of having the student read a paper and present it to the supervisor are:

So that the student learns the contents of the paper, especially the main technical tools used and developed in the paper, to a degree where the student can recognize a setting where these tools can be applied, and apply the tools in relevant settings. Because this is research the tools will have to be modified at least slightly every time they are applied. Hence, in order for the endeavor (reading the paper) to be any useful at all the student needs to achieve a very deep understanding of the paper she is reading.
So that the student learns to read, understand, and present (and eventually write) technical proofs. This is a big one - it is incredibly important that whenever you feel that you understand a proof, that you are able to present it at various levels of detail. On one end you should be able to give a “big picture” view of what the Lemma statement actually means, what it gives you, why it should be true, and why this is a non-trivial statement. It is equally important that when probed, you are able to re-create to full detail a presentation of the proof. By full detail I really mean full detail - are you saying “let x be an element of S” you better have proved that S is non-empty first. Are you invoking Lemma 3.5? You have to point to precisely which objects you are applying Lemma 3.5 to, why these objects satisfy the premise of Lemma 3.5, and which objects this invocation of Lemma 3.5 generates for you to use further in the proof.

The level of understanding that I describe above is really the only level that will be useful for you in your research. It also takes a lot of work to get there, this goes way beyond the level of understanding you need to get A’s in your classes. For this reason it is perfectly normal to take 2 months to read a 10 page paper. This is also a great cause of misunderstandings and frustration between students and advisors (the student thinks “I already know this to a level where I would ace an exam on this paper”, while the advisor thinks “the student has no idea what is going on”).

I can not speak for your advisor, but in such discussions with students I often ask follow up questions in order for the student to herself come to the realization that she needs to understand this or that part of the proof better.

Also, professors are not gods. In fact, for me, the vast majority of follow up questions that I ask is because I am struggling with understanding what it is the student is talking about, and I’m trying desperately to figure out whether I missed something obvious, or whether the student is talking nonsense. Doing this (for 2 hours) is mentally exhausting to the point of the infeasible. For this reason the conversation will often naturally after an hour or so shift to lighter topics.

I can’t actually know whether any of the above applies to you, but I do find that the above is a pretty common problem. Let me end with some pieces of advice (much of which has already been said in other answers).

Talk to your supervisor about this. This might well not bring about the change you are looking for, but you will better understand each other’s motivations, frustrations, etc.
If you are worried about your productivity, show initiative. Ask your supervisor about what are the next natural papers to read, with or without discussing these papers with her. Then read them, to the best of your abilities. Ask your supervisor for research questions, and think about them. Talk to your fellow students, and initiate research projects with them. Remember that in the last year or two of your Phd. you should be able to complete a research project from A to Z without any help from your supervisor at all. This involves obtaining the relevant background, asking feasible and interesting research questions and answering them. The best way of getting there is to try to do this as much as possible from day 1 of your Phd studies, and then using your supervisor to help you with your weakenesses. As an example, when I was a student I had no problems with solving problems, but had no idea how to find relevant research questions, and so I would lean on my supervisor and collaborators for this to a large degree. For you there might be another aspect of research that you will need extra support for, and that is what supervisors are for!


Is printed the same as published? Many teachers at my university have produced custom course books for their students. These books contain all original content, written by the teacher, and tailored specifically for the course and students. The school does publish a trade journal, but to provide the lowest costs available, and perhaps to keep things simple, the school administrators always simply takes the teachers' course books to the school's print center, photocopies them in the necessary numbers, and staples the pages together with a cheap construction paper cover. I am currently preparing some custom textbooks for my own courses.

If these books are prepared in this same way by the university, is it considered “published”?
How might such a work be presented in an academic CV?

"Published" is a vague word, since for example you can even self-publish a book.

Ideally, a published book will have been carefully selected and edited, widely distributed, archived in many libraries, etc.  How close it comes to this ideal varies, of course.

I don't know whether what you are describing would meet a formal definition of publication, but I'd be careful about how you describe it.

For example, if your book has an ISBN, is labeled with a publisher like "X University Press", and is publicly offered for sale (perhaps only through the university's website and university bookstore), then I would consider it published, even if only on a small scale.  (It may be cheap, but there's no requirement that a published book must have gilded pages.)  However, that sounds unlikely to be true in the case you've described.

Instead, you could describe it in other ways:

If anyone who wants a copy can buy one by getting in touch with your department, then you could describe it as a "book distributed by the Department of ... at University X".

If your book is not offered for sale to anyone except students in the course, then you might describe it as a "book prepared as course materials for ... at University X".

You might also want to specify something like the number of pages, to help distinguish between a lengthy book and shorter lecture notes.


Can a professor alter the syllabus when calculating a final course grade? A professor for my one course didn't calculate an attendance and participation grade into my final grade but it was worth 20 percent in the syllabus.

I would argue that an instructor has the right to deviate from the syllabus's method if it does not unfairly penalize any student.

I had this happen recently when I told a class that the weighting of the final exam was different from how it was calculated on the syllabus. Because the change benefited everyone in the class, except for one student who was right in the middle of a grade range (and was only disadvantaged by about 1 point out of 1000), and therefore was not hurt by the change, I kept the more beneficial weighting.


What rights do students in the U.S. have re gender pronouns? What federally protected legal rights does a transgender student in the U.S. have re gender pronouns used in referring to the student?

This question was inspired by the recent discussion of gender pronouns at Academia Meta.

I think another answer here is misleading, so I am writing to clarify what federally protected rights transgender students in the U.S. can reasonably expect at this time.

As things currently stand:

The federal government is not allowed to pursue Title IX investigations that interpret Title IX's sex discrimination prohibition to include discrimination based on gender identity.
The Department of Justice and Department of Education have rescinded guidance (issued by the previous administration) that instructed schools to treat discrimination based on gender identity as a Title IX issue.
The U.S. Supreme Court may indicate later this year whether Title IX protections apply to transgender students who face discrimination based on gender identity.

Previous federal guidance in the Dear Colleague letter of May 2016 considered discrimination based on gender identity to be sex-based discrimination. According to this interpretation, Title IX protections would then apply to transgender students who are subject to discrimination because of their gender identity.  This would certainly not have required school employees to use gender-neutral language as a general rule, but that letter did support e.g.

a student's right to ask school employees and contractors to use pronouns consistent with their gender identity,
the school's Title IX responsibility to mitigate (to the degree that they can) the harassment of students due to gender identity. There is legal precedent (see footnote 9 in the document linked above) to suggest that persistent misgendering can be considered sex-based harassment if it is severe or pervasive: "Persistent failure to use the employee’s correct name and pronoun may constitute unlawful, sex-based harassment if such conduct is either severe or pervasive enough to create a hostile work environment"

However, this interpretation - that Title IX protections apply to gender identity - was challenged in the courts in Texas v United States. An August 2016 injunction bars the federal government from enforcing the interpretation of Title IX put forth in the Dear Colleague letter:

  Defendants are enjoined from enforcing the Guidelines against Plaintiffs and their respective schools, school boards, and other public, educationally-based institutions. Further, while this injunction remains in place, Defendants are enjoined from initiating, continuing, or concluding any investigation based on Defendants’ interpretation that the definition of sex includes gender identity in Title IX’s prohibition against discrimination on the basis of sex.

The U.S. Department of Justice indicated an intent to appeal that Texas decision, and in November 2016, asked for a partial stay on the injunction, arguing that the injunction should only apply to the states involved in the lawsuit. A hearing on that motion for a partial stay would have taken place in February 2017. However, the new administration's Department of Justice withdrew that motion just before the scheduled hearing, noting that the "parties are currently considering how best to proceed in this appeal."  Shortly afterwards, the Department of Justice and Department of Education issued a new Dear Colleague letter withdrawing the guidance in the May 2016 letter.

Meanwhile, in March 2017 the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a related case, in which they may decide whether Title IX protections apply to gender identity. This case, too, is complicated by the withdrawal of the May 2016 letter, a move that has been communicated to the court.


Are many new math results first published in monographs? Are many new math results first published in monographs (not in articles)?

Research monographs in mathematics certainly exist, but they aren't the standard form of publication.  They are generally not as prestigious as papers in strong mainstream journals, they may be less widely read, and they may be viewed as being less carefully refereed.  Some important work in mathematics has first been published in monograph form, but I wouldn't recommend it unless you have a very good reason (for example, extremely long proofs, or lots of valuable material that would be harder to understand or appreciate out of context).

There are some journals that publish extremely long papers in monograph form, such as Memoirs of the American Mathematical Society.  If you want to publish a research monograph in mathematics, a series like this is a reasonable place for it, while a stand-alone book is riskier.


Self-plagiarism of thesis for public report I am writing a non-academic report based on the research I did for my PhD thesis. The report is a condition of the funding that supported my research. It is non-academic and will be published publicly.

Much of the work in the thesis has also been published or is under review as journal articles or conference papers. This has been declared in the thesis in line with the guidelines of my institution. The thesis is awaiting a few final revisions so has not yet been submitted.

My questions are about reproducing the work in the report:

1) Where the public report includes results from the papers, the papers have been referenced in the normal way, and any direct quotations identified as such. Should I ALSO cite the thesis in these cases? (My initial view is that this would be unnecessary.)

2) There are sections of the report, particularly in the introduction and conclusion, that could be written by cutting and pasting paragraphs from the thesis, with some editing to maintain the flow, etc. Obviously, in an academic publication, this would be self-plagiarism, but is this an issue for a non-academic report? Would this be considered self-plagiarism? Could it be covered by a general citation ("Some of this report is reproduced from (Author, Thesis Title....)" or "Some passages have been quoted verbatim from the following source.....")? Or do I need to rewrite / paraphrase these paragraphs?

3) Neither the report nor thesis have yet been published. It is likely that the report will be published before the thesis is published, and possible that the report is published before the thesis is submitted. Would I therefore need to cite the report in the thesis, to avoid self-plagiarism in the thesis?

Almost all questions about plagiarism come down to the question of what expectation of originality the documents carry.

In particular, a funding report doesn’t carry the same expectation of originality that either a journal paper or a thesis would.  It’s very common, and legitimate, for a funding report to consist (partly or entirely) of material re-used from other presentations of the work.  (At least, this is the norm in my experience in maths and theoretical CS; I can’t speak for all fields or all funding bodies, of course.)

So it should be absolutely fine to re-use material from the thesis or paper in the report; and I’d feel it’s fine to use a blanket attribution like “some parts of [or “much of”] this report are based on [or “taken from”] the corresponding thesis (Smith 2020) and paper (Smith and Jones 2019).”

  It is likely that the report will be published before the thesis is published, and possible that the report is published before the thesis is submitted. Would I therefor need to cite the report in the thesis, to avoid self-plagiarism in the thesis?

It certainly doesn’t hurt to do this.  But it’s common, and understood, that the chronology of publication may not match the chronology of production, so there’s no need to make it sound like it detracts from the originality of the thesis.  It can be given as an aside, and phrased as e.g. “The report (Smith 2019) contains material excerpted from this thesis”, or similar.  Conversely, the report can and should still cite the thesis in this case, listing it as “(in preparation)”, “(to appear)”, or similar.


Appropriate response to misattributed title? There are many questions here on how to address someone by their title or current status.

What should one do in the case they are addressed by a title they do not have?

Some example of this:

A student submitting a paper and the editor emailing using the Professor/Dr. title.
A PhD in a research lab (not university) being invited for a talk and a letter stating "Dear Professor..."
A researcher (non PhD) being referred to as Dr.

If this is too broad, the question can be edited to just one situation.

In this type of case, should one reply and directly address the title?

The standard answer to such issues is to ignore. By and large, these situations arise because the editor etc. did not care to look up the recipient's real title. There is no malicious intent, actually there is likely no intent at all other than trying to use a catch-all title that the editor assumes will not offend anybody (typically Dr. or Prof.). No harm is done by not rectifying this error, and indeed spending more than a short chuckle on this is too much effort.

(also, being addressed by the wrong title is, at least for me, so common that I mostly stopped noticing it)


One of the multiple submitted paper is published and others are withdrawn I have written one paper on mathematics and submitted it to 5 journals concurrently. Four of them accepted the paper and one asked to send the paper in their required format.

The paper contains one theorem and two applications. There was two argument gaps in the proof of the theorem. Only one journal caught that.

I have communicated with that journal and updated the paper throughout as below:

Changed the proof of the theorem entirely ,i.e. an alternative proof is provided, there is no similarity between the two proofs of the theorem.
Remove one of the applications and add a new application of that theorem.
Changed the way of applying of the theorem for the other application i.e firstly there was case distinction for the application, but later I removed the case distinction.

this paper is published in that journal and I have transferred the copyright agreement form to them and withdrawn the paper from other journals stating personal reasons. I am an amateur mathematician and I'm not pursuing any Phd degree.

Now my question is that what are the impacts may fall on the published paper in that journal as I have withdrawn all other manuscripts and they don't have the copy right agreement also, so is there any chances to claim the published article by them or they can force the editor of the journal which published the paper to retract the paper ?

Whatever you do in the future: do not submit the same manuscript to multiple (not even two) journals.

If you have managed to get the manuscript accepted in one journal you need to immediately withdraw all others. You state you have given "personal reasons" whereas in reality you should have provided a serious excuse to the journals for wasting their time.

If you have withdrawn all other manuscripts there should not be any further impact on the one accepted for publication. You should learn from the experience and perhaps acquaint yourself better with the publication process so as to avoid mistakes such as these again. If repeated, it may affect you adversely by gaining a bad reputation or possibly being "banned" from certain journals by their editors. So most negative impacts, if any, will fall on you.


What's the etiquette for a short visit to a US university department by a faculty member from another university? In May, I'll be visiting a department at Columbia University in the US for a few days. What's the etiquette on visiting (answers relevant to US in general are welcome, to prevent this question getting too localised)?

I'd like to spend some time with quite a few of the researchers, and compare notes on ongoing work. I'll read their recent publications in advance. Should I be inviting staff out for a coffee and a chat; or dinner; or a talk in the lab?

Context: I'm a faculty researcher, and would be looking to spend a bit of time with postdoc researchers, and those professors whose jobs are primarily research, rather than admin or teaching.

I think you are the person who would be invited out to lunch, dinner etc. as you are the guest :) ! However, there is nothing wrong with inviting your opposite number to talk in an informal setting. The only consideration is that you know the lay of the land!

Depending on how many days you would be spending at the US university, you might want to make a strategy on conversations and prospective collaborations.

I am assuming you would have results to show and tell and with a punchline at that. That generally helps.


How to deal with arrogant e-mail of a student I have sent the solutions of some assignments to the students of my class.

One of my students sent me a message that reads as follows (not greeting or anything, no closing, just the following):

  The proposed solution of Exercise X is obviously wrong because of reason blah blah. An appropriate solution to your exercise would be such and such.

Now, the student in essence is actually correct: there is a slight error (but it does not alter the essence of the solution). It is just a small wording issue that might raise some confusion (but the calculations are clear).

What troubles me is the attitude, which I found kind of offensive (but I might be wrong).

Is it appropriate a student to behave like that? What would be the right approach to deal with this student?

I answered as politely as I could that the student is right, thanked the student for spotting it, and updated the solution manual. But I feel that the student would create similar issues and make similar comments if some typos are found in subsequent notes.

Note: The actual problem might be that the student might start bad-mouthing me to other students/professors and this might negatively influence other students in believing that I am doing a bad job and consequently this could be reflected on my teaching evaluations (given also that I try to get tenured). Maybe I am paranoid (hope so!), but in relatively small classes where everyone knows each other, the power of bad-mouthing can be great. I want a way to (a) avoid confrontation and (b) make it clear that these issues are completely minor (they are) and not worthy of such aggressive (which they might not be, but I do not want to take chances) messages.

How to deal with this?

Dear [student],

Thank you for pointing this out.

[1 or 2 more sentences of explanation]

Sincerely, [your name].

  What troubles me is the attitude, which I found it kind of offensive (but I might be wrong).

Maybe the email is offensive, or maybe the student just wrote an email from their phone. Maybe they are actively trying to be a jerk, or maybe they just don't know how to behave properly. Maybe they are just trying to be a troll. In all those cases, I have found the best way is just to not engage and write a neutral response that does not comment on the perceived rudeness.

If it's just a regular student writing an email from the phone, this does not create a conflict out of thin air.
If it's a jerk or troll, this does little to satisfy their hunger for drama.
If it's a student without manners, well, you are not their parent - don't make it your job to educate them on proper email etiquette.

What I certainly would not recommend is "inviting" them into your office for some sort of explanation, just for writing a factually correct but unfriendly email. You are, again, at worst creating a conflict where there is none, and at best spending significant energy trying to educate a fellow adult on basics of etiquette.

  But I feel that the student would create same issues in case some typo is found in the subsequent notes and make similar comments.

So what? If they have a real concern, address them. If they make things up to feel important, either ignore the email or tell them that you do not see the issue.


Journal editor made bad edits to my (accepted) paper - how do I respond? Earlier this year I had a paper accepted to a well-recognized journal in a particular (humanities) subfield. I finally received proofs of the article, and was (more than a bit) upset at the edits. A lot of the changes were at the sentence level: phrasing, punctuation, word choice.

These edits often 1) obscured my intended meaning (e.g. turned ONE grammatically correct sentence into TWO sentences that, because of the addition of a weird transition phrase, no longer says what I intended), and/or 2) over-simplified or diminished the prose (e.g. adding "to be" constructions, adding awkward and unnecessary "ultimately"s, "for example," etc.).

So, how should I respond? Ultimately, I'd like to have 95% of the changes reversed. I would be mortified to publish the piece in its current state.

I've published several times and never had this issue - usually edits are small (more proofreading than anything). Because I was sent PDFs, the process of sending back my "corrections" will be arduous (on some pages every sentence now needs fixing). I don't want to alienate the journal or the staff member who made the edits.

I finally received proofs of the article, and was (more than a bit) upset at the edits.

How to respond?  Do not respond while upset.  Wait until you can respond in a calm way.

This is a perfectly normal occurrence.  Remember the journal relies on getting your work for free in order to get subscription fees to pay its expenses.  They need you more than you need them.  Do not hesitate to ask for anything that will help your publication improve.


What PHD program to choose if my bachelor degree is in Business and Master degree in Computer Science I have my Bachelor's degree in Business and Marketing and my Master's degree in Computer and information Science.

This year I have applied to 3 different universities in Germany for taking another Master degree in Computer Science and have been told that my bachelor's degree does not correspond to the one I am applying and have been rejected for those 3 universities with the same reason

Next year I am planning to apply for PHD program and would like to have advise from experts, some people say there are specific PHD programs which require both Business and Computer Science degrees. I was wondering if anyone could give some resources where I could find best matching universities for my case.

Thanks in advance :)

Doing a PhD is an investment of energies, efforts and time. Choosing it on the base of national legal constraints/requirements is a big mistake, in my opinion. You should choose your PhD according to what you want to study.

My experience is that in UK we don't have such strict checks on your degrees. I am a PhD student in Computer Science and I work everyday with epidemiologists, biologists, statisticians, mathematicians, logicians and also people with business degrees. Cross-disciplinary PhDs here are well considered.

Focus on what you would like to study. Do you want to go deep in business (maybe using your computer science skills) or do you prefer to contribute, hopefully, to computer science? Which one do you feel suits more you? You can start filtering universities, schools and countries only after you find the answers to those questions.

Good luck. ;)


How to refer to descriptive information of variables as exogenous variables I am writing the methodology section of my paper in management and one of the models I use takes descriptive statistics, such as min, max, mean, std, of entities as its input (classification model). However, I do not know how to refer to such input academically.

The way I have written it is:

  Our exogenous variables consisted of the descriptive information of
  main variables and item pool characteristics. It allowed us not only
  to rely on item side characteristics, but also on their
  relative location in the environment space and relations to one
  another.

How acceptable or academic is this? Should I explicitly refer to min max std etc. too? Or it is already clear to a reader

This may depend on the field, but to me the phrase "the descriptive information of main variables and item pool characteristics" is utterly unclear. If you don't want to spell out the full set of descriptive statistical operators you use, consider including something like: "Our exogenous variables encompass [...] summary statistics over the main variables".

However, in the interest of reproducibility, I would personally prefer to spell out the full set. Right now, it is unclear to me how far you stretch up the set {min, max, mean, std}. There are so many things that could be included here: median, interquartile range, skewness, kurtosis, higher-order moments, etcetera. It's best to be explicit about your setup.


What should a student look for in an undergraduate thesis supervisor? I am an undergraduate student (not in maths) looking for a topic and supervisor for my thesis.
What criteria should I use to judge whether a project/supervisor combination will make for a good thesis and productive experience? I don't plan on going into academia (although this may change) and thus would like to get something tangible if possible (ie. a paper) out of the experience (although preferably not at significant cost to learning)
Conversely, what are red flags/pitfalls I should look out for and how do I avoid them?
This question is extremely similar to this one, although is more general than just math. I'm hoping for some general advice, but if really needed, I'm double majoring in Computer Science and Economics

I would recommend you to take to things into consideration:
First, find a topic that you are interested in and motivated to work on. And then, try to find profs in your department that work on topics similar to what you plan to work on.
Second, try to figure out how you would like to work (and this is very important).
If you feel confident working more independently, the supervisor won't play a significant role there. If you feel that you need closer guidance, try to find a supervisor that is willing to do that.
Now, it is important to note that you will likely have to compromise some of your needs. It is possible that there won't be many professors willing to supervise you on a topic you want rather than what they want and will recommend you to join his projects/topics. On the other hand, you may find someone willing to supervise you on the topic you choose but won't provide you with close support.
Back in my undergrad thesis, I had a topic I really wanted to work with and only had one prof on the field to supervise me. I had very minimal supervision.
Was it the way I wished? No. I could've gone farther if we had worked closely and if I had had someone to discuss with or to push me.
Was it worthwhile? Definitely! This has brought me independence, which prepared me for many of the challenges I had throughout my masters and Ph.D.


Why do journals need styles? Fairly high on my list of "I want those hours of my life back" is time spent wrangling my LaTeX to compile correctly with the style files provided by journal publishers, and subsequently dealing with copyeditors who introduce errors while making my papers conform to "house style".

Back when the primary medium of a journal was a print publication, I suppose maybe it made some sense for all the papers in one journal to look the same. But nowadays I acquire nearly all papers electronically, and I assume the same is true for many people. Is there any good reason for journals to continue to insist on a house style?

To be clear, I certainly understand that some minimal requirements are necessary. For instance, a journal that has a print version will certainly want consistency in font, font size and margins, to ensure a fair comparison of the lengths of different papers. And I recognize that copyeditors serve a useful function in general. But I don't see why a journal needs to require that I use their custom .cls file that is (for instance) incompatible with standard packages like amsthm, numbers equations as (1) (2) (3) rather than the more useful (1.3) (3.2) (5.3), or requires enumerated lists to be labeled 1.2.3 instead of (i)(ii)(iii).

I recognize that this sounds like a rant.  But I really intend it as an honest question.  I can think of at least three possible kinds of answer:

There is a good reason that I'm unaware of.
There is a bad reason that I'm unaware of (e.g. somehow it makes the publishers more money).
It's just inertia, leftover from older days of print journals.

I would really like to know which of those is the case, and if (1) or (2) then what the reason is.

There are several reasons:

Publishers want their papers distinguishable. Everyone1 knows Elsevier by the logo and font.
Consistency itself is a good goal, to an extent.
It means you easier meet certain quality standards. (If I could, I would show you things people submitted as final versions for publication.)
I'm afraid that if you let people do what they wish, it would be seriously disasterous. (I speak from a Copy Editor/Typesetter experience.)
I would not call it inertia, from my point of view, journals are typography and typography is art, and art should be done artfully, no matter we live in a crazy fast-cooked world.

Last but not least, note that AMS does not require you to comply with everything, I published a paper where some enumerations are numeral and some are alphabetic.

1Almost.


Can an improvement to an existing implementation be publishable? My master thesis is an improvement of a code. I gave this code about one year and half ago from the author of the one paper.

After working on his code, I improve the result. but my implementation is not a lot. My added part to his code is less than 300 lines.

The base paper was published on 2013 in the journal with impact factor 2 .

My question is "improvements works" have the ability to send to a journal? Or when you can send your work to journal which you should develop the whole things.

By the way the issue which I am working on is one of the new standard.

For purposes of publishability, it doesn't really matter whether your implementation was built from scratch or from an existing codebase, or how many new lines of code it required.

What matters is whether your results contribute some new knowledge to the field....

... which we can't evaluate for you here. You need to read the literature and the previous work, and identify what you're contributing that's new. (It's not measured in lines of code.)


Are Japanese professors responsible for their students' behavior outside the university? The question How should I approach a Tokyo University professor to join their lab? has an answer by RoboKaren saying:

For professors in Japan, taking on students is a tremendous
responsibility and burden. Unlike in the United States or Europe,
professors are responsible for even the extracurricular activities of
students (i.e., getting arrested; showing up drunk and groping
someone; having an apartment so messy that the landlord complains,
etc.). They are also responsible for the student's career after they
graduate.

This sounds very interesting as I have never heard such things about any other country before.
So, I want to ask:

What happens/could happen to a Japanese professor if their student has e.g. a messy apartment?

Is there something similar for undergraduate students (who, I suppose, do not have a professor in the sense above)? Is the university somehow responsible for them?

Where is this responsibility stated? Is it e.g. in the law, or is it rather some non-official convention that everybody follows, or something in between?

Are Japanese professors responsible for their students' behavior outside the university? Legally perhaps not (I'm no expert), but culturally, yes.

What happens/could happen to a Japanese professor if their student has e.g. a messy apartment?

The professor gets disgraced. It's like being the father of someone who later goes on to become a serial killer. Nothing directly happens to you, but it's still going to be very unpleasant. Did you fail as a father? Even if you think you didn't, perhaps your neighbours will think you did.

Is there something similar for undergraduate students (who, I suppose, do not have a professor in the sense above)? Is the university somehow responsible for them?

Yes, if they are being directly supervised by the professor.

Where is this responsibility stated? Is it e.g. in the law, or is it rather some non-official convention that everybody follows, or something in between?

It's a social expectation, similar to how in many societies children are expected to take care of their parents in their old age.
Check out what happened to stem cell scientist Yoshiki Sasai in 2014: his student faked data, leading to a scientific misconduct probe. Prof. Sasai was cleared of misconduct, but he felt deeply ashamed and later committed suicide. Granted, this was an academic issue, but it illustrates what Japan's expectations of their teachers are.
Edit: for a non-academic situations:

Probably the strangest tasks (in the eyes of Western teachers) are things like guarding the campus and ordering the fuel oil. They are also partly responsible for their students outside school. Japanese students have to follow several rules in their leisure time: they are not allowed to smoke and to drink alcohol, to go to discos or to have a job by the side. In case of disregarding these rules, the teacher is obliged to inform the parents or even to make home visits (cf. SCHÜMER 1999, p. 34). As one can see from all this, the tasks of a Japanese teacher go far beyond giving lessons.


What are the available non-academic careers to a newly-minted PhD in theoretical condensed matter physics? Prior to completing my PhD degree, I used to hear, rather very often, that working in finance is the most non-academic viable career option for newly-minted PhDs in theoretical physics. But, now that I am actively searching for such jobs (any job, to be precise), it appears that employers in finance expect qualifications that practically all newly graduates like me lack. I might be wrong on this, but I don't know of anyone using SAS or R in their PhD research in theoretical physics. So, I was wondering what else is out there available to a newly graduated PhD with mostly a pen-and-paper background in theoretical condensed matter physics.

Regarding Finance, perhaps you should instead look for Quantitative/Mathematical Finance (quant) jobs. I think non-mathematical finance jobs do require different skills (though I don't imagine them being more difficult than QF jobs).
Many physicists become quants. You may want to try looking up Emanuel Derman to see his books if you might be interested in reading them and the Wiki pages on mathematical finance to see what kind of math is involved.
I am a grad student of QF now and we are learning SAS, R, Brownian motion and Feynman-Kac theorem. (at least the latter 2 are) Basic for you (theoretical) Physics people, I presume?
Edit: Regarding the mathemagician's comment, I've read some job openings for quants. There's no specific mention of having a degree in QF. They are just looking for master's/PhD's in quantitative disciplines. I recall one mentioning master's in Math, Physics or Engineering as a prerequisite.
Finance is relatively easy to learn. You don't need a QF degree to be a quant. Try checking out Hull's Options, Futures and Other Derivatives or Bjork's Arbitrage Theory in Continuous Time, but please be patient with the cute math you may see.
Other sites to check out are the quant stackexchange (save it from beta please) and quantstart.com
Edit 1: Regarding guest's answer, why don't you work a technology company or something?
Edit 2: teaching highschool/secondary school?
My knowledge of Physics is only up to Vector Calculus (or Partial Differential Equations if you want) and basic Analytical Physics so that's all I got haha


How do I re-plot my results against existing results? I need to compare my results with other result, so I need to re-plot the other author's results against my results.

For example I want use this fig as a way of comparing results

so is there any way to do that or any software can do that?

There are two ways to about this. The first is to contact the authors of the paper containing th graphs and ask if they can supply the data. Otherwise you can search for digitizing software on the web. I have one (open source) that comes to mind Engauge Digitizer but that is not the only one by far.


A current PhD applicant in a dilemma between current lab and other programs Some of my backgrounds: Currently a master's student in a good but not top school. Now in a research group that could have been more productive. I am applying for PhD programs in this round of application (applying in 2020 and entering in 2021).
I talked with my current advisor and told him that I need a LoRec from him for my PhD application. I told him that I still haven't fixed my list of schools, which is true because I am still balancing my choices. He hinted me between his lines that he is interested in transferring me to his PhD student. He also suggested (in a very refined way) that he has enough fund to support me through the whole PhD program so I don't probably have to fulfill TA at all. His words were specifically made super easy and obvious for an ESL student to interpret: I can choose to continue to stay at his lab, or go somewhere else. This puts me at a dilemma:
The bad thing about it is that I do want to reach higher. I want to try and see if I can get into any of the top programs, because the ranking of my current program is a little bit low, and also my current advisor has a group that's not producing a lot of papers in past few years. The group members are all nice people, but I am worried that staying in the current group will not be the best investment I can make out of my next 6~ years.
The good thing about it is that accepting this "oral offer" at least gets me secured. I do have a very competitive GRE, GPA, and (I guess) quite strong letters, but this still doesn't ensure me or guarantee me about anything- I may be rejected by all the programs that I want to go, and the possibility of this is not low. If I just tell my professor that, yes, I want to stay, then of course I don't have to go through all these risks.
I can't really lie to my current advisor as if I am devoting to his lab while sneakily applying to others - On the one hand, I am really bad at telling lies. For real. I can barely lie on how much money I am earning even. On the other hand, one of my LoRec is from him, so once I give him the list of schools that he should send his letter to, particularly all of which are obviously better than my current school, then he'll know what's happening of course.
Is there any way to talk with my professor so that not only can I secure my potential position at this lab, but I can also apply to other schools with his letters, without making any negative impact either on him or on my application? I have no friend to talk with about this issue [they think I should find a job and start to earn a life]. I feel like I am being a greedy naughty bad student, but I don't have any idea how I should choose or what I should do. Any suggestion?

I would suggest that you be as open and honest with your current supervisor as you can. No surprises, no evasion. Tell him your list of schools. Tell him you want to aim as high as you possibly can. From your current A+ school, possibly to an A++ school.
I have known some students in your position. A student who excels under a professor makes the prof look very good. If that student goes on to one of the very tip-top schools after working with the prof, the prof's reputation grows. Maybe he is sad to see you go, but he should also be glad to see somebody he taught go on to Big Things.


What should a reply to a peer review look like? Recently I have received a peer-review letter on my article. While preparing an answer I've found that I have no idea what I should include in the answer.

There is multiple "idea" notes and few language issue mentioned.

It's my first peer-review, so it would be very useful to have some idea how to compose a good reviewer reply.

Generally, the best way to respond is with a detailed rundown, discussing every point that the referee raised in turn.  (This may be unnecessary if there are only a handful of minor changes asked for, but it doesn't hurt even then.)

What I generally do is to start with a two or three sentence introduction, stating that I have made all the changes that the referee suggests.  If there were changes that I was unwilling to make, I just say that I have made most of the changes but that I feel that one or more of the referee's requests were not appropriate.

Then I begin a point-by-point analysis of what the referee said and how I have responded.  Usually, I address the points in the same order as the referee raised them in their report, but not always.  (Sometimes there may be just one major revision that was requested, and I want to discuss that first, before the minor points, even though the referee did not order things the same way.)  It's often a good idea to quote directly what the referee said in the report and then follow up with an explanation of the changes that have been made.

Sometimes, just stating that the change has been made is sufficient.  This is typically all that's needed for linguistic problems.  If the editor and referee may have trouble finding a change, you can point out where it is.  If the changes are more substantive, it's a good idea to give a summary of what the changes were.  These don't need to be long, but the should point out the main significance of the changes.

If there were changes that you were unwilling to make, you must carefully explain why.  If you think the referee was wrong, this should be pointed out very tactfully.  A good referee will recognize their error if they really made one.  If there are matters of opinion, it may be trickier to convince editor and referee that things are really better your way.  It is also important that you make it clear that you are reasonable about making changes.  If you refuse to make anything but the most trivial corrections in response to a referee's report, that makes you look stubborn and probably unreasonable.


Could research data fall under the Freedom of Information Act? When I refer to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) I mean either the federal act or similarly implemented state laws. Clearly the validity of such requests would have to be limited to institutions which have received government aid in at least some way. In addition, there is the argument that such data could be considered a trade secret, as is the case in Mississippi.

However, the case in Mississippi is meant to protect findings themselves rather than raw data. In addition, there are many cases in which the data itself could be considered to have been public information to begin with, as is the case in archaeological excavation.

Some institutions already have an open data policy, such as PLOS, which requires all data relevant to a paper to be published:

  PLOS strongly believes that, to best foster scientific progress, the underlying data from an article should be made freely available for researchers to use, wherever this is legal and ethical. Data availability allows validation, replication, reanalysis, new analysis, reinterpretation, or inclusion into meta-analyses, facilitates reproducibility of research and extends the value of the investment made in funding scientific research. Thus, PLOS believes that ensuring access to the underlying data should be an intrinsic part of the scientific publishing process. Furthermore, by getting data into the right place on publication we can reduce the burden on authors in unearthing old data, retaining old hard drives and answering email requests.

This is, at least in part, a purpose of FOIA: verification of claims. So based on the letter of the law, would such a FOIA request be considered valid and assuming the institution simply rejects the request, would there be legal recourse?

The original Freedom of Information Act applied only to information in the possession of government agencies. That means that the release of reports and proposals submitted to the funding agency could be compelled under the FOIA. But it did not apply to data from the research, if in possession of the PI and not the funding agency (as is typically the case).

A later amendment (Shelby amendment) expanded the FOIA to apply to some federally funded research data in the possession of a non-profit institution, as follows:

The release of "research data relating to published research findings produced under an award that were used by the Federal Government in developing an agency action that has the force and effect of law" may be compelled under the FOIA, if
the data is not "trade secrets, commercial information, materials
necessary to be held confidential by a researcher until they are published, or similar information which is protected under law."

Also, the requestor may be charged a "reasonable fee equaling the full
incremental cost of the agency, the recipient, and applicable subrecipients."

So the general answer to your question is that in most cases, the FOIA does not compel the release of data from federally funded research.

Regarding state law, it seems from the appendix to this report mentioned in another answer that at least one state does have an open records statute that may apply to research data produced by employees of the state university system:

  "Measuring Reproducibility in Computer Systems Research." Christian Collberg, Todd Proebsting, Gina Moraila, Akash Shankaran, Zuoming Shi, Alex M Warren. March 21, 2014.


Is it appropriate for a PhD candidate to publish a book? I have had an idea for a year or two to write a book relating to the research I do. My specific field (in the mathematical sciences) is somewhat niche and no book currently exists that aggregates the big results into one place. Currently, all of the research is spread across multiple papers, journals and conferences.

I want to write a book about this topic so that future researchers can access basic definitions and results without having to hunt down individual papers. I don't want to write the book for fame/fortune since I recognize it would never be popular with more general audiences. I want to write it to improve my knowledge of the topic, to create a useful resource for others and (getting personal) to fulfill my dream of writing a book.

I have some original research on the topic and most of my current work revolves around the topic as well. But I've heard many people say that PhD candidates should focus on research instead of other pursuits like book-writing. Should I pursue this, or should I focus on research and leave the book for the future?

I think it's a very good idea to develop files/manuscript collecting important standard results in one place. To go to the additional trouble (which is much more than one might imagine) of publishing a book with that content, apart from vanity presses, would not be worthwhile for a young academic. Indeed, unless you can do a for-some-reason amazing job of organizing things, since you're not an established expert, have (presumably) no name-recognition, etc., good publishers would not see much reason to publish your book.

But you can assemble a PDF document and put it on-line. And you can revise it as you mature into your subject. Revision is much harder with physical books, or even official "e-books", because many publishers (especially better ones with an established base and style) re-typeset everything into their house style... so correcting typos is not a matter of correcting them in the TeX source, re-typesetting, and re-posting online. :)

EDIT: to clarify the last sentence: Yes, TeX is the current professional standard for mathematicians composing technical documents. It's a mark-up language created by Don Knuth, and donated to the community, in the late 1980s. (There are also WYSISWYG editors.) The older process of typesetting from TeX source documents created a "DVI file", device-independent file, from which postscript files were usually created, although there were DVI readers also. Nowadays, the usual output is PDFs. Further, although years ago it would take several minutes to re-run the typesetting after making changes in the TeX source, nowadays re-typesetting a 30-page document takes an imperceptible time, perhaps a second or two at most. And there are of course various ways of packaging the re-typesetting (as well as creating the TeX source file) in IDEs and so on.


How to reuse a figure from a patent? Is it free to reuse? I recently came across a journal article that included and referenced a figure (photograph) from a US patent. I found the patent, and I would like to use the same figure, and I'm wondering who the copyright holder is. Might it be free to use since the patent itself is public, or do I need to ask around until I find the copyright holder?

It depends on how the figure is being used.  If it is for non-commercial purposes -- e.g., in a scientific journal to support a study -- then it will likely fall under the 'fair use' provision.  If it is for commercial purposes, such as a book that you are seeking to publish, then it is likely considered commercial purposes, and you will need to work out the permissions.

http://patentdocs.typepad.com/files/memo-on-use-of-npl.pdf


How much effort does it take to record video courses? MIT's OpenCourseWare has many video courses. They are very helpful, but compared to the majority of MIT  curriculum they're only a small part. So, how much effort does it take to record video courses?

I'm in the middle of recording lectures for a class now, and I'm doing all the work (recording/processing/uploading) myself.  Luckily, I like doing the technical part of it, because it is rather time intensive.  I've also taught a course that had dedicated software to take care of the entire process (BB Collaborate).  I'd walk into class, log into the system, push "Record" and lo-and-behold the videos (with everything I had on my computer desktop at the time) were uploaded to the site a few hours after class (and were available live to the students who wanted to watch and participate remotely).  So, the effort varies depending on what situation you are in at your school.

If you have no supporting system (like BB Collaborate), plan on at least an hour or so per class of your time (not to mention render and upload time, which can take many hours depending on the length of your class and your Internet bandwidth), and this is once you get everything figured out.  Oh, and that doesn't include editing bells and whistles; I basically put raw class footage online and take as little time as I can for post-processing and editing.

For a self-built system, you'll need a number of things:

A decent Camcorder ($200-300 will get you one)
Flash based media ($25 for a 32GB card)
A tripod ($25)
A remote microphone ($150 for a decent one)
Video editing software (I started with iMovie on my Mac ($15) and have since graduated to Final Cut Pro X ($300) and Compressor ($50).  I assume you already have a computer, but you'll need that, too ($500-1500).)
External hard drive with a fast connection (Firewire or USB 3, $100 for 1TB).  This isn't strictly necessary, but you'll find that you may run out of disk space quickly without one.
A YouTube account (free), with a relatively fast internet connection (I'm currently faced with a molasses-slow upload speed in Djibouti, Africa, so that hasn't been fun).  Make sure you verify your YouTube account so you can upload videos longer than 15 minutes.

Once you get the equipment (total cost ~$1000 without the computer), you'll need to learn how to use everything.  You have to remember to record all your lectures, and plan on spending five minutes or so setting everything up before class, unless you have your own classroom.  I simply focus the camcorder on the board and me, with a bit of room on the sides for me to move around.  If you want panning and zooming, you'll have to rely on someone else to do it.

Getting up to speed with the editing software can take time, especially if you haven't done it before.  You could spend months editing a 1-hour class, but as I say, if you keep it bare-bones you can get the editing down to an hour or so of your time, including setting up all the steps to upload to YouTube.  I record all my videos at 1080p, but I upload to YouTube at 480p because of my slow connection (and my students have the same slow connection).  I find that the board is difficult to read, even though the camera is only 10 feet away -- I also upload my slideshows and try to write big!

Bottom line: either convince your school to invest in a professional system so you don't have to do much work yourself, or plan on spending a good bit of time (and money, if your school won't pay for it--I bought everything out of my own pocket, but as I say, I'm enjoying it) to learn the setup and edit/upload videos.


Is it ok to post an abstract of a conference paper... which I will be presenting in a conference scheduled 3 months from now... on ResearchGate? The conference is scheduled on February 2021.  So far, I am not aware of any proceeding in which the abstract to my conference paper will be published.  Would that land me in trouble if I posted my work as conference paper on ResearchGate but will only place the abstract?

Ultimately, only the conference organisers can tell you whether posting the abstract is acceptable, but it is very unlikely that they would object. It's now fairly normal for academics to have their own websites on which they post the abstracts of all their papers, presentations etc, with links to the published versions. I have never heard of a publisher or conference organiser objecting to the posting of abstracts (rather than full papers) in this way, but academia is a diverse environment and it's always possible that there is an exception out there.
Some of the big conference organisers have published policies on this (the IEEE policy is an example), so if the conference is organised by a large organisation then it may be worth searching online. Otherwise, just email the conference organisers.
One other thing to find out is whether you can post the submitted version of the whole conference paper on a pre-print server or your own website. Doing this makes your work more accessible to a wider audience, and is allowed by many large conference organisers (see the IEEE policy linked above, for example). If you're not familiar with the benefits of pre-prints or the process for posting one, there is a useful guide in Nature Index.


Where to find literature on Cosmology, Astrophysics and Astroparticle Physics? Where can I find archived, as well as updated literature on Cosmology, Astrophysics and Astroparticle Physics?

The most comprehensive source of literature in astronomy, astrophysics and cosmology is NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)


Getting a job and quitting PhD at university in UK I am going to be straightforward in here. I am currently doing PhD at university in UK within the field of power electronics. However my previous background was related to general Energy Engineering (i had some modules in electrical engineering, however majority was related to thermodynamics, heat transfer, some chemistry, fuels, combustion), thus I had a lot problems in adjusting to the topic (systems modelling, Matlab Simulink, signal processing) and I am still not feeling confident in this field. But straight after graduation I did not have many options and one of my module leaders told me about available PhD position at the same university, where I did my master. I started by the end of November 2017. I participated in a few, very professional progress meetings and all the time I felt lack of confidence in power electronics' field. Thus it was full (extremely) of stress. Since then relations with my supervisor become very cold, however I got some friendships with my office colleagues (but I have a lot of problems talking about my research project being aware that I can easily make a mistake and say sth stupid). Suddenly (like 3 months) ago I noticed Graduate Scheme job offer in the building close to department and I made an application. It's not a typical job as the 'company' is on the campus and project is research-based but with normal salary. I was rejected after assessment day, but suddenly (yesterday) i got an offer. They asked me whether I am still interested, I said yes - waiting for formal contract etc.

I am aware that many people regret decision about withdrawing from their PhDs as it become difficult to come back. But this job is not a typical office one, it's in the lab with manufacturing, processing etc. and even description said that can lead to PhD. What would you do? I am ware that some tough decision will be in front of me - asking university to withdraw me from PhD program, but I know that I will not get better offer than this, maybe ever. Other question - how long time before I have to inform university about withdrawal?

You say "no one needs to know about my PhD drop as my official graduation took place in 2018" but surely your CV would indicate that your Master's finished in 2017.

Anyway: I can't advise you on whether it is a good idea or not to drop your PhD for industry, since that is a very personal decision. However, I would note that in most UK universities that I know of (and almost certainly in a Russell Group university), the first year of a PhD has a kind of "probationary" status, at the end of which a student would be upgraded to "confirmed" status if all parties are satisfied with the student's progress. Therefore, withdrawing/transferring within the first 10-12 months is a bit easier and less problematic than doing it after 12 months; if the people in your department are sufficiently mature and professional, then they should accept that you have genuine reasons for your change of path.

You also ask how long you have to inform the university of your withdrawal. I would say that you should talk to someone ASAP - if you are not confident doing this with your supervisor, you should try to find the "Postgraduate Tutor" or similar person for your department, or even approach someone in the Faculty of Science. They can advise about practical matters such as terminating your registration as a student - universities nowadays have to be more machine-like in dealing with changes of registration.

BTW, you don't specify if there would be any issues about e.g. immigration status. I am assuming that there are no such issues, since the people who offered you the job should have discussed this with you; but if you are on any kind of visa or study permit then withdrawing from the PhD would affect this, and you would need to talk with the prospective employers about what to do.


Major changes needed to paper "in press" I recently submitted a paper in a decent journal (published by Elsevier) and it got accepted after 6 months. The referee asked for minor modifications which I did. The final version was accepted for publication and is now in press. However when I received the final version of the paper to check before it is published I discovered a small loophole in one of the proofs. Upon working on it for many days it seems to be un-fixable. The only way out was to add an extra regularity condition to the theorem which "waters down" the result. My question is what procedure will be adopted by the journal to resolve this? And can my paper be rejected at this stage?

Well, you have to fix it, don't you? Talk to the editor.

Yes, the paper may indeed be rejected, but we cannot know this.

As a reviewer, I have found subtle holes in papers, and really it would have been unwise for the authors to submit without taking care of filling the holes (which they thought they could do, but turned out was impossible, as counterexamples were published later).

TL;DR: Better a watered-down, correct result than a wrong one.