Is it okay to copy somebody else's words and sentences? So I am writing my master's thesis, and am reading a lot of papers. I usually do a lot of 'backtracking' (meaning, read one paper, then look at who they cited and go read those papers).

Doing this, I have found that a lot of authors straight-up copy words and sentences from some of the papers they cite. I don't mean a full paragraph or anything of that sorts, it's almost never more than a sentence, but it does happen a lot.

This is particularly annoying when I read a sentence in one paper and think hmm, that isn't entirely clear and could be expanded upon further, and then I track down the similar concept in another paper to see if there's more info there, but I then find the exact same sentence written there, with no further context provided.

For example, currently I am reading a paper which states

  The alternating coefficients of the method may mean that in practice, the theorem does not hold.

I'm not quite sure what they mean by this (why are the coefficients alternating? And why does that impact the validity of the theorem?? Does the theorem not take into account the alternating coefficients???), so I look at a paper they cite that talked about this theorem a bit more, and that paper has the exact same sentence (with no further context).

This makes me think that not only was

the sentence (in the non-original paper) copied straight from the original paper without using quotation marks

but also that

the author of the non-original paper doesn't actually fully understand the meaning of that sentence (just like I don't), and hence, since they don't understand it, they can't write it in their own words, and hence just copied it verbatim.

Am I reading too much into things, or is this behavior common, and if so, what is the proper etiquette concerning what this is acceptable or not?

As I'm sure you know it isn't correct to just copy things from others. However, there are a couple of additional considerations.

Something is really plagiarism only if it is copied without citation. Then, the author is claiming the work of others as their own. The safest way to avoid this is to use quotes, as you suggest, but certainly to cite.

However, if some of the work you find is old, it is also possible that the standards have changed a bit over time and are now a bit more rigid. Citation and being clear about who originated ideas is the important thing, not, specifically, the punctuation.

But another consideration, especially in fields such as mathematics is that there may be only one way to write some given idea in words. So, in a calculus textbook, for example, the definition of the derivative is nearly identical to every other calculus text on the planet. This sort of thing has actually been discussed in courts, as I understand it.

But for your own work, be as clear as you can be. Cite anything you use and clearly mark what is being quoted using some reasonable typographical convention. Of course you also need to worry about copyright infringement, but that is a different issue. The sloppiness of others shouldn't bleed over into your own work.

The question of copying without understanding is a deeper problem. I won't comment on that.


Can the publication conference choice affect one's admission to a new academic job? Sometimes, I have been noticing some postdoc open position announcements that, besides the usual prerequisites (PhD, an excellent CV, programming skills, etc.), asked the candidates to have publications in the most important conferences in the field.

For example:

  [...] Candidates need to hold an earned Ph.D. (or be near completion)
  in computer science or in a related field with good programming skills
  in C/C++/Java/Matlab. Successful candidates are expected to be
  self-motivated and have a good publication record (at least have one
  paper accepted by premier conferences or journals like KDD, NIPS,
  ICML, IJCAI, AAAI, SIGMOD, VLDB, ICDE, TKDE, TKDD, etc.) and good
  command of English. [...]

I was quite surprised to read announcements like this (if one made an excellent research, who cares where it has been published?).

Are cases like these rare or quite common?
To get hired for an academic position (like postdoc for example), is it so important to publish in top-level conferences?

Is the conference fame considered more important than the paper scientific relevance for a hiring process?

I can't comment on whether the practice of explicitly pointing out that publishing in top conferences makes a stronger record is common, although I suspect it is taken for granted rather than spelled out.  But, from the perspective of a hiring committee, being published in a top conference generally indicates that

The research is excellent.
The work has been peer reviewed by other top researchers in the field.

Both of these indicators will give a hiring committee a better feel for a candidate's potential for future top quality work.

By publishing in a lesser conference or journal and without those indicators, a closer reading of the publication would be necessary to make a better judgement.

To comment on your question about whether the conference is more important than the work: for most people, I would assume (and hope) the work itself is more important.  But the reality is that hiring committees need to differentiate candidates, and judging by conference/journal quality is one way to accomplish that goal.  Additionally, trying to read all candidates' papers, and then trying to judge the worth of the research without necessarily being an expert in the sub-fields themselves, would probably be futile at worst, and frustrating at best.

Finally, strong letters in support of the candidate are probably almost as important as the research itself, especially if the letters point in particular to example publications that demonstrate outstanding work.


Advantages of attending a conference I am a co-author in a paper. How can attending a conference be beneficial to career and resume since I am not sure whether to attend it.

Unless you are presenting a paper at a conference, there isn't much advantage for your résumé. From a professional and educational perspective, however, conferences can be very informative, for the reasons Peter outlines.

I would go a little bit further than Peter, however, and recommend that, if possible, you try to attend multiple conferences per year, particularly if you are relatively early on in your career. At least one should be a relatively large meeting, where you can make many contacts in your general field; and one, if possible, should be a smaller meeting or workshop, where you can interact with your peers in your specific field. That way, you get the benefits of learning about the overall field—which is important for networking and job-finding, as well as the close-up exposure to work related to your own.


How can I tell who would be interested in my research? I'm a math postdoc. On MathJobs they sometimes ask if there are any "faculty contacts," which are people I've met or who otherwise have interest in my work. But sometimes I don't know who the faculty are, I've never met them at a conference, etc.  My feeling is that if I work on something that none of the faculty are particularly interested in, that will sink my application. In other words, I think I need to get someone on the faculty to be enthusiastic about my application. But to do that I have to say something like, "What I'm doing is related to the work of [insert name of faculty member]..."

Actually some of the job descriptions explicitly say that they prefer candidates that match the interests of the department. Why would a department hire candidate X, who works in some out of left field area, when they can hire candidate Y, who works on something that interests faculty there?

It seems that it is not enough to just do good research to stand out. I have to persuade the faculty that I should be hired over everyone else.

First of all:

In other words, I think I need to get someone on the faculty to be enthusiastic about my application.
It seems that it is not enough to just do good research to stand out. I have to persuade the faculty that I should be hired over everyone else.

Yes. That is literally the definition of a job interview. If you get the job, then nobody else will. So you do have to convince the deciding people that you should be hired before over anyone else. You do not earn magic job-points when you do good research that you can cash in at your local university to get a free job. You have to convince the hiring people that you should be hired. I do not understand why you would state this as if this were some terrible hidden secret about academia. It works like this everywhere. I'm sorry to be so blunt, but you are going to have real problems getting a job if you keep this attitude.

But sometimes I don't know who the faculty are, I've never met them at a conference, etc. My feeling is that if I work on something that none of the faculty are particularly interested in, that will sink my application.

The onus is on you to get yourself informed about who the professors at that institution are. Why are you applying there at all? There must be a reason. If this is a personal reason rather than an academic one (e.g. "it's my hometown", "my fiancée works in this city", "I like the beach"...) then this will definitely be a hindrance unless you can find a way to turn this into a positive.
Not knowing anybody at the institution will not necessarily "sink" your application. But it will handicap you, for sure. They don't want to a complete stranger that will do research that doesn't interest them. They would much rather hire someone to whom they can at the very least talk to about research.

Actually some of the job descriptions explicitly say that they prefer candidates that match the interests of the department. Why would a department hire candidate X, who works in some out of left field area, when they can hire candidate Y, who works on something that interests faculty there?

Why indeed? If even you cannot answer this question, there is a real problem.


My PhD supervisor is against external collaboration. What should I do? My PhD supervisor discourages me from initiating a collaboration with people outside of our group. He never explicitly told me that I could not do it, but I can realize it from his reactions (e.g., digressing the conversation, asking me to wait for now, or suggesting me to talk to someone in the group first) whenever I bring up a discussion about the possibility of external collaboration.
The fact is that my research topic is relatively new and is different from what other people are doing in our group, so none of the group members (including my supervisor) can actually help me, and I have to go all the way through my research on my own.
I was wondering how I can settle this? One time I also tried to discuss this issue via email. I sent him an email saying that I prefer to collaborate with researcher X from university Y for these reasons, but he never replied to me.
Any suggestions are very welcome.

Since you wrote that you are funded by a project, I'd like to mention one possibility, without knowing whether that's really the reason or not.
Project funding, especially for more applied funding schemes (e.g., EU Horizon 2020), typically come with obligations, such as reporting, or having to work on certain problems that were promised to be worked on in the funding proposal. This is possibly a reason for why you are working on a topic that neither your advisor nor other group members can help you with: because it has been promised in the proposal for some reason.
Now as you mention your best bet to get support is by collaborating with externals. Scientifically fruitful collaboration is often quite dynamic: the actual research question addressed may change a bit during the collaboration, and in particular it may move away from what was promised in the proposal. From a scientific point of view, this is how great ideas are developed, but you end up getting results that your advisor (grant holder) does not know how to sell as fulfilling the obligation that comes with the project funding. Also, you may end up getting results that your advisor may be unable to use as a proof of competency for future funding proposals, which is important to maintain the flow of funding.
Both of these would be problematic for your advisor, which is why he/she may be unwilling to give up control over what you are doing by letting you collaborate with someone not under his/her control. Also, once a collaboration has been started, if would be problematic for your advisor to ask you to end the collaboration if he/she later gets the impression that the focus of the collaboration is not what he/she needs or wants - at that point your potential collaboration partner already invested time, which has to be respected.


How cite sources of 100-years-old analytical technique in a theory section? In my master’s thesis in inorganic characterization, I have a theory chapter about X-ray (powder) diffraction. This technique is almost 100 years old, and have been described in a vast number of books, articles, and web-pages.

I could easily take any book about X-ray diffraction and just cite that book, but I don’t want to keep citing the same book every four sentences for basic knowledge. So I was thinking that something like the following might be suited:

  The principles of X-ray diffraction are described in a number of books [1-4], articles [5-9], and web-pages [10-13]. The theory presented in this section is just a brief summary of what one might encounter in published works, such as those cited above.

This way I give some sources of the principles of X-ray diffraction, and I explain that what I present could be found in the cited sources. Thus, I don’t need to cite anything in-text, and the reading is easier.

Is this approach acceptable?

The real question is whether you need to cite anything at all.  In your field, if this information is considered undergraduate-level material that every practitioner should be familiar with, then you can simply assume that all readers will be able to reference their favorite textbook if they care, and launch right into the relevant review.

If you are speaking to an audience that may not be so familiar, however, you definitely do need to cite.  You don't need to put in lots of citations, however: you can simply say that this is well-established information and give one citation to a good textbook:

  The principles of X-ray diffraction are well-known (see, e.g., [textbook]).

For example, when I am writing to a computer science audience and need to say something about the NP-completeness of constraint satisfaction, I would probably not include a citation, since this is such a foundational concept to the field at this point.  When I write to a biology audience about the same problem, however, I explicitly note that these are long-established facts and include citations to basic textbooks.


Compiling ethical standards for coauthorship across academic fields and regions One of the hot-button issues on this site is standards for coauthorship, especially variants of the question "Must I automatically include my thesis advisor as a coauthor on all my papers?"

Since these questions (sensibly) come up again and again, I thought it would be useful to have a collection of links to various ethical standards for coauthorship.  To the best of my knowledge, these standards will apply only to one particular academic field and/or to one geographic region.  For instance, most of my colleagues would point to this statement by the American Mathematical Society.  It applies (explicitly) to mathematics and (implicitly, I think) to mathematics done in the US and by Americans.

I was thinking of a community-wiki question where each answer posts a link to ethical standards in some academic field(s) and geographic region(s).  To make the answers better, I would ask that respondents:

Quote in their answer the passages most relevant to coauthorship.
Please avoid "alphabet soup".  Above I wrote "American Mathematical Society" rather than "AMS": mathematicians will know what AMS means, but most other academics presumably won't.  Some other answers here refer to things like "BMJ": I certainly didn't know what that was.
(Ideally) Give commentary as to whether/how the standards in their answer differ from those posted in other answers.

The more comprehensive the list we can compile, the more authoritatively we can point future questioners to this list and tell them what is or is not an ethical practice.

This is excerpted from the Ethical Guidelines of the American Mathematical Society:

  I. MATHEMATICAL RESEARCH AND ITS PRESENTATION

  The public reputation for honesty and integrity of the mathematical
  community and of the Society is its collective treasure and its
  publication record is its legacy.

  The knowing presentation of another person's mathematical discovery as
  one's own constitutes plagiarism and is a serious violation of
  professional ethics. Plagiarism may occur for any type of work,
  whether written or oral and whether published or not.

  The correct attribution of mathematical results is essential, both
  because it encourages creativity, by benefiting the creator whose
  career may depend on the recognition of the work and because it
  informs the community of when, where, and sometimes how original ideas
  entered into the chain of mathematical thought. To that end,
  mathematicians have certain responsibilities, which include the
  following:

  To endeavor to be knowledgeable in their field, especially about work
  related to their research;

  To give appropriate credit, even to unpublished materials and
  announced results (because the knowledge that something is true or
  false is valuable, however it is obtained);
        To publish full details of results that are announced without unreasonable delay, because claiming a result in advance of its having
  been achieved with reasonable certainty injures the community by
  restraining those working toward the same goal;

  To use no language that suppresses or improperly detracts from the
  work of others;

  To correct in a timely way or to withdraw work that is erroneous.

  A claim of independence may not be based on ignorance of widely
  disseminated results. On appropriate occasions, it may be desirable to
  offer or accept joint authorship when independent researchers find
  that they have produced identical results. All the authors listed
  for a paper, however, must have made a significant contribution to its
  content, and all who have made such a contribution must be offered the
  opportunity to be listed as an author. Because the free exchange of
  ideas necessary to promote research is possible only when every
  individual's contribution is properly recognized, the Society will not
  knowingly publish anything that violates this principle, and it will
  seek to expose egregious violations anywhere in the mathematical
  community.

[Emphasis added.]


Listing courses to be completed along with past courses A question on a research program application states the following: "Please list a few courses you took that will be relevant for the [RESEARCH PROGRAM]". (They also ask for grades) A transcript with 1st semester grades is being submitted, but the deadline for application is March 1st, meaning that although 2nd semester courses will not be finished, I will be well into them.

With this in mind, should I include 2nd semester courses too (obviously without grades), or just 1st semester? I do not know where else on the application I can indicate that I am currently taking those courses (unless my transcript as of March 1 has courses in progress).

I apologize if this question is silly, as it is essentially an interpretation of a question.

It is normal to list things that you are in the middle of, eg when you apply for a job you include your current job. The key point is that you must be careful to make it clear you have not completed the courses. Sometimes the form will make that essentially impossible, but requiring, say, a completion date that's in the past. In that case it's perhaps best to contact the people you are applying to and ask their advice.


How do I get a professor at a different institution to read my essay draft? I would like to send a draft of mine to a specific professor. I would be very interested in his comments, however, I am not a student at the moment, so I am not at his institution nor at any other.

Is there any way for me to send him my draft in an email and introduce myself, without sounding rude & incredibly in love with myself? I believe that asking s.o. to read a 5.000 - 10.000 word essay is maybe a bit much? I have no idea how to phrase this or not come across as very demanding and arrogant and I am incredibly concerned.

This is a classic example of what’s been dubbed the “XY problem.” You have some actual problem to which you’ve decided that emailing this professor is the solution and you’re asking about your solution.  But I’m quite confident that getting a professor at another school to read a draft of an essay is not the correct solution to any problem.  You should not be emailing your draft to a professor at another school and no advice we can give on how to email this person is going to make your plan work.  Instead, you should ask a new question about your actual problem.  What kind of essay is this? What kind of problems are you having with writing it?  What kind of help are you looking for?


How to cite class notes in a paper? In a paper, I have used a very classic method, whose details I found in certain class notes, found googling the name of the method itself.

I would like to cite these class notes (something like "this method has been implemented as explained in [class notes]") , but I have no idea if this is common or if I should find a different (more official) source.
What should I do?

If you cannot find the material in a more "official" source, such as a peer-reviewed journal or conference paper, then you should check with the publisher on how to cite the lecture notes directly.

If allowed, the exact way to cite the lecture notes will depend on the citation guidelines where you are submitting. For example, in IEEE citation format, I am aware of a couple of acceptable citation formats for citing lecture content.

This IEEE citation example is taken from here:

  S. Maw. Engg 251. Class Lecture, Topic: “Speed skating.” ICT 224, Faculty of Engineering, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Oct. 31, 2003.

This example is taken from here:

  S. Bhanndahar. ECE 4321. Class Lecture, Topic: “Bluetooth can’t help you.”
  School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, Jan. 9, 2008.

It is interesting to note that a quick check of the official IEEE Citation Reference does not mention the correct format for citing class/lecture notes. So you may need to dig around a bit to find the correct format for wherever it is you are submitting.


How can I collect popular questions from my students? This is a question about moving my courses online. I'm aware of the FAQ posted on this site to help these issues, but haven't seen my specific question addressed there. I also asked a version of this question on softwarerecs.stackexchange a few days ago that has not received any attention.

I'm teaching three different math courses. The students will be working on exercises assigned from the textbooks and also on exercises written by me. I am planning on posting videos of my lectures at the beginning of each week and treating normal "class time" as office hours via the zoom service. I can record and post these office hours in case any students miss them or would like to use them as a reference.

I imagine that many students will have questions about the same exercises. I'd like to be able to do some sort of triage on these questions. I'm curious if there is any online platform that would allow me to:

Collect questions from my students.
Allow students to "upvote" questions to measure popularity.

Such a tool would allow me to gauge where the students are struggling as a group. As far as I can tell, tools like google forms and surveymonkey do not have these features.

Does anyone have ideas?

At one time I had a lot of success running a private wiki for my courses. Students could edit pages as is typical for wikis. I could distribute material, etc. But the advantage was that the wiki lived on from year to year, building up a resource.

There are a lot of servers, though they require a bit of management. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wiki_software. Work with the university's IT department to deploy one of them, perhaps. There may be security concerns they can help keep track of.

But a simple email list server that subscribes students and course staff gives a way for students to ask questions at any time. And an answer you give to one student will be seen by all. This can help you avoid repeat questions from individuals.

There is more at this link than you ask about here, but notice at least the advice about short videos rather than full lecture videos.


Are Polish PhD compatible with Germany and UK? I have two questions in this regard:

If someone completes a PhD in Poland, would it be considered on par with a German or British PhD?
Can a Polish-PhD holder enter academia in Germany or UK?

All the mentioned countries are members of the Bologna process: http://www.ehea.info/pid34250/members.html

Bologna process unifies the structure of higher education to levels of bachelor, master and doctoral degrees; see e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bologna_Process. As far as I know, doctoral degrees from the various countries are generally accepted in the others, but I could not find a clear statement to the effect.


Should I use what the professor says to me in the email as a material to write in the SOP? So a professor agree to accept me to his lab. I guess that I should write this down on my SOP to increase my chance. The question is: should I use what he said as a material to write in my SOP?

Below is my draft:

  I have contacted him, and within an hour I got his reply: “You would be a terrific addition to our group!”. He said that I'm “correct that more insight is needed on the relation between A and B”. The lab is currently working to formulate a C theory. He sent me a paper he wrote with his student, XYZ, to illustrate one of the approaches. I have suggested some ways to expand the work during my discussions with the professor.

One feedback for this:

  Very awkward. I'd delete. At the very least rephrase. It feels like a brain dump. He already knows you'd a be a great addition, no need to state it here...It's also a bit presumptuous to me that you're so comfortable critique a professor and such. Could be another bias of mine?

I'm speechless. This is the only paragraph that will make me stand out from the others, yet it is presumptuous? Is this the culture problem or is it just me? I can't see why this is presumptuous.

Yes, you should delete that. It doesn't add value. You should mention that you were accepted and what you plan to do, but there is no need to include the following smalltalk. Getting the Prof to say "You would be a terrific addition to our group!" is politeness not an achievement in itself. An achievement would be if he said that after you worked there for a month.

Also, I don't think that is the only thing that makes you stand out. The Prof surely has reasons why he accepted you, he doesn't accept at random. Maybe you could ask him what led to that decision.

How is the following:

Professor X wholeheartedly accepted me to work on the relation between
A and B, which will help to formulate C theory. I very much look forward
to work on this topic because ...


Phd interview question Just wondering if anyone has ever been asked this question during a PhD interview: If you get a place without funding, would you be able/willing to self-fund?

My interviewer said that it was compulsory to ask this question.

Short answer: Yes.

Slightly longer answer:
Some programs that aren't able to guarantee fully funding their students often ask this question just in case they run across some issues with securing funding from the school. Some programs ask this question during the interview but from my experience, most ask during the application process. For me personally, the question usually asked how much money I would be able to take out of my own pocket to pay for tuition (I always just wrote "0").

Since I'm not on the faculty of whatever program you applied to, I can't speak for your program, but they may take your answer into consideration for whether to accept you into the program or not.


Is it difficult to be fully funded for PhD in STEM field in US? I have reached out to some professors for my research interest.  I am wondering whether it is difficult to be fully funded for my PhD program in civil engineering.
Is it appropriate to ask the professors whether I will be fully funded for my PhD?

Yes it is appropriate to ask, both for the program and the individual professors. Hopefully you ask other important and research-related questions at the same time, but funding is not a taboo topic for a prospective student, and it should be one of the keys to your decision if you are accepted to multiple programs.

Many programs (in STEM in general, can't speak to civil engineering in particular) offer fully-funded programs (tuition+a stipend) for PhDs (less often for masters), but there may be limits (for example you may be guaranteed for only 5-6 years, and if it takes longer you might still get funding just not guaranteed), and you almost certainly won't be free to do whatever you want: you may be required to teach ("TA") whether you want to or not, you may be required to join a lab that has funding available ("RA"), even if that lab was not your first choice otherwise, or you might have to do other work for another lab/group that isn't directly related to your research (as an RA or PA). Fellowships or traineeships are directly funding YOU and are the best source of funding but are often competitive and may cover only a short period of time.

"Fully funded" could include ANY combination of the above, so you should ask questions about the types of funding and not just a guarantee. Current students are also a great resource.


How do I cite an image from wikicommons in my thesis? I want to use some images from the wikicommons in my thesis, some images state that 'Attribution is not legally required', but I understand that if I don't cite an image it's as if I'm claiming it as my own.

Let's say I want to use the google logo: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Google_2015_logo.svg

This is the attribution mentioned:
By Google Inc. [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Do I just put that attribution under the image in the thesis?

Thank you!

Even if its in the public domain its always good to cite where you get your information from, be that data, images, or whatever, even if its public domain
When I use images that are governed by a license (including public domain, and "fair use") I identify

the source,
the original author/photographer/painter/etc, and
the specific license that governs its reuse.

Using thorough and accurate citations ensures that you've done everything that needed to give proper credit where credit is due.
It also allows the reader to verify that what you cite is really at the source you give, and is licensed for the use to which you put it.
It doesn't hurt to include in the source, links to the actual source, and to the license (say as defined by Wikipedia, or the specific source you used.


Is promotion from staff scientist to professor possible? (Considering job offer in US) I am a researcher making its way (very slowly) to professor in Europe. After several years of effort and relocations, I have now my own research program and have earned a promotion to supervise PhD students and postdocs. In around three years, I will be applying for full professor positions, hopefully.

Now, I have recently received an offer from a very famous professor in the US who wants to move in the direction of my research field. It is a permanent position as staff scientist (director) in their group with a close to decent salary. It is clear that with them things will move faster and the impact will be high.

I am ambitious and still want to lead my own group and succeed as a PI in the future (even if I have certain age now). If I accept this position in the US, will I be still be considered for promotions as professor in the American system? Thank you in advance!

Probably you will not be considered for promotion to professor.  But you could still apply for position of professor, either there or at other institutions.  (It may be considered bad form to start applying for other positions right away; wait a few years.  And by then your "famous professor" may be willing to write a letter of recommendation for you.)


Include School Technical Project in CV for Grad Application I am applying for Electrical engineering field graduate studies recently. In my school, I have done several technical projects. (I have already participated in some research project and put them under the section "research experience").

The question is that, grad schools are often looking for research potential, but my technical projects are usually too about technical implementation (such as building a small magnetic control car). I am wondering if it is suitable to put them in my CV for grad school application?

If a project is related to your field of study, and if the supervisor(s) of the project is writing a letter of recommendation for you, by all means include it. If you simply did the project, but nobody else mentions it (in a supporting letter, for example), you might still include it, depending on how significant you feel the project was.


Automation on google scholar alerts I would like to follow articles that cite several researchers in my field.
I created a google scholar alert on those researchers, however, I'm getting around 70 emails per week and most of them contain duplications (if the same article cites two of the researchers, I'll get two emails).

I would be happy to hear about a way to filter the duplication. Some possible approaches:

A way to export those alerts into google spreadsheet automatically.
A way to parse those emails using python or other tools.
A different tool that gives a list of recent papers that relate to those researchers (e.g., using Zotero or Mendeley)

(Parseur.com did not work for those emails, for some reason).

Many thanks!

I've been using Google Scholar Alerts for the paper discovery for a while now and faced a very similar issue.

Here is a scholar-alert-digest script that I wrote to aggregate all unread messages in a Markdown report .

Hope this helps!


Is there a benefit to registering digital identification via both ORCID and ResearcherID? This question is in continuation to the discussion from about a year ago, concerning researcher digital identification: Why use unique digital researcher ID?.

It appears that researchers, who would like to identify themselves within research community, today have two options: ORCID and ResearcherID. The former relies on open source code and open directory, while the latter is a subsidiary of Thomson Reuters, a for-profit company. It seems to me that ResearcherID is essentially a tool for Thomson Reuters for increasing information flow to their commercial systems Web of Science and Highly Cited Research.

If my observation is correct, then I'm interested about whether it makes sense to register with both directories (fortunately, ResearcherID seem to be compatible with ORCID)?

These two reseacher identifications fill somewhat different purposes, beside the point that one is more open (Orcid) and one more controlled (both with regard to access and data). Below, I've highlighted the main diffences I see:

Orcid provides a way to connect many different types of "outputs" with your profile, both by manually adding information or importing from a number of databases. Beside article publications you can also add posters, presentations, software, grants etc to construct a more full representation of your output, basically a full CV.

ResearcherID is more focused on connecting published journal articles with your profile, and this is mostly geared towards importing data from Thomson's Web of Science. However, since ResearcherID is connected to a citation database it also provides citation metrics in your profile, and in that sense overlaps with a personal Google Scholar page. Orcid does not provide this functionality (at least not yet).

Since the two identification systems contain different types of information (at least for the time being), it can make sense to use them both, and as you've noted an Orcid profile can be linked from a ResearcherID profile. In terms of visibility it is probably also useful to use both, since their user bases are likely to differ. If you do not want to support ResearcherID because it is a closed Thomson Reuters product, Orcid + a Google Scholar citations page would provide basically the same information (but based on a different citation database), but with the drawback of two separate pages/profiles. I can also imagine that used exclusively, ResearcherID will probably be more useful for researchers from STEM fields compared to researchers in the humanities and social sciences, since the cover in Web of Science is known to be poorer in the latter fields.


Mentor says I cannot be first author of my paper because I am an undergraduate I performed some research and submitted it to a congress of biomedical sciences. Many professors told me that my research is very advanced compared to student work and that it could easily be my specialization one day.

I am an undergraduate student (sixth year veterinary science).
My mentor tells me that no journal will accept me as a first author although the entire research is mine. I did everything except the statistics, because by the rules, the mentor must do it. I spent four months on the field, alone, taking samples, and an idea of gifting my own blood, sweat and tears is very painful.

Do you think I should wait for a year or a bit more to publish it as a graduate or should I let them take credits for my work. The research is about horse welfare in my country and it has never been done before. This means a world to me. I want to devote my life to this area and publishing my paper as mine would be only right thing to do, right?
Should I accept publishing the paper with someone else’s name as a first author?

Update

My mentor yesterday late night sent me a message informing me that they (she and her head of the department) discussed my work and agreed that probably I will be named as a first author, since I did all the work.
Thank you all for answers, I wouldn't be so confident on this matter without your advices.

My mentor tells me that no magazines will accept me as a first author

This is clearly wrong. Of course I cannot speak for every journal in your particular subfield, but rejecting papers only because of the academic rank of the first author would be ethically dubious. At the very least, there are some megajournals that do not have such criteria and which should accept your work – given that it is scientifically sound, etc. (Mind that I am not saying that megajournals are your best or only choice; they are just the easiest counter example.)

Moreover, a typical journal won’t even ask for your academic rank and may not bother to investigate it and neither do the peer reviewers. The journal may even practice double-blind peer review, in which the reviewers won’t even know your name and thus probably lack all means of finding out your academic rank.

Finally, while there are some people who judge a work by whether they know the authors (though they shouldn’t), they usually do not look at authorship positions. If somebody is going to be more benign to your work because your mentor’s name is on it, they will likely not care whether they are the first or last author.

  by the rules, mentor must to [the statistics]

There are certainly no universal rules for this. Where did this come from?

Anyway, your problems rather are these:

Doing the statistics almost certainly qualifies your mentor for authorship, so he must agree on all publishing decisions. (The opposite also applies.) Even if you re-do the statistics, it will be difficult to argue that you did so completely independently. Also mind that any intellectual contribution qualifies for authorship, so think about any feedback or advice you got from your mentor on this work.
Your mentor may have some power over you. I don’t know them, but you must consider the possibility that they freak out over this and try to sabotage your career and particular this very paper.
The biggest advantage of having an experienced mentor contributing to your paper is their experience in writing. It is very unlikely that anybody produces proper scientific writing on their first attempt without help from somebody experienced with it.

Unfortunately, you have to judge your mentor’s mentality yourself.
However, unless you are sure that they do not abuse their power, I strongly suggest that you find another professor or similar who can advise you and possibly act as an arbiter in this situation.


Consequences of applying for two (or more) programs in one university Is it alright to apply for two different programs in one university (and in some cases programs within one department) at the same time?

I wonder whether that would affect the decision of the admission committee. For instance, will that make them reject both applications due to the differences (different ideas expressed) in each statement of purpose? Will it have any effect in general?

Finally, do you recommend such approach?

UPDATE:

I finally applied to two different Master's programmes at one university, and actually got accepted to both of the programmes without any problems. However, the programmes were in different departments! But they were both Computer Science/Technology-related programmes.

When I applied to graduate school, I sometimes sent applications to two departments within the same university because I could see myself being a fit for either department. In fact, at least one school had explicit instructions for applicants to two or more departments, so it is likely not as uncommon as one might think.

My experience was that it didn't really matter that I applied to two different departments within the same school. The biggest issue was making sure that things like my GRE scores and letters were sent to both departments instead of just one, since somehow there were mix ups along the way. In terms of the review of my application, I don't think there were any drawbacks because there was no overlap between the two review committees (i.e., no one who reviewed applications for department #1 also reviewed applications for department #2). As such, expressing different ideas in different SOPs, etc. did not have any impact on my admissions to my knowledge.

I would, however, caution you against applying to two degree programs within the same department (e.g., the Master's degree and the doctoral degree). Since it's within the same department, chances are high that the same people will be reviewing both applications, or at the very least, it is likely that someone will notice that you applied to two different degree programs. This might come across as a sign that you do not fully know what you want to do, which can hurt your application to both programs. Many departments (although certainly not all) have a policy where if you apply to the PhD program and are rejected, you can automatically be considered for the Master's degree program. If you know you ultimately want to apply for a PhD, I would apply for the PhD and see if you can be considered for the Master's program if your application is unsuccessful.


Fellowships of smaller amount to support your main postdoctoral fellowship I've a certain postdoctoral scholarship for a year in certain area of applied science. But the scholarship is not very generous compared to the local cost of living (think of Marie Curie postdoctoral fellowship as something very generous for any place), so I'm planning to apply for a scholarship which I'm okay with being relatively smaller amount (as much as € 500/month or $ 700/month is good enough, more is of course better :), which I can earn as my 'research expenses' scholarship, or some such similar.

Do you know of any such examples of such a scholarship? If yes, could you please be kind enough to mention them?

Two obvious possibilities come to mind:

travel grants (there is plenty of variations, including e.g. small travel grants provided by the grant agencies and grants for attending a particular conference given by the conference organizers)
intramural grants (this is strongly institution-dependent, of course).


What to say when I contact my future advisor? I haven't officially been accepted to the program yet, but I needed to secure an advisor prior to applying. I was accepted by an advisor and she has been great with helping me fill out the application. However, I have yet to be accepted by the school. The school said they were waiting to hear the results of my funding, which I found out that I got. However, my person of interest then left to go away on a research expedition (and has little access to internet). I suspect she MAY be the reason my application is not moving forward right now. I have to select courses in less than a month. She suggested that we talk over the phone about courses when she comes back in a couple days.

I would like to send her an email the day she gets back, but what should I say in the email? Also, how should I bring up the fact that my application hasn't moved forward without complaining (or blaming her)?

It's not clear why you need to send an email, if you and her already agreed to talk over the phone. Anyway, I guess you can send an email as a reminder and to set up an agenda for the phone call.

I would just say something like:

  Dear NAME/TITLE/WHATEVER_IS_APPROPRIATE_IN_YOUR_CULTURE,

  I'm looking forward to our phone call on DATE at HOUR.

  Just so that we have a starting point for our conversation, I'd like to please get your advice on the courses I should take (the deadline for course selection is approaching soon).

  Also, I haven't heard any final word about my application from the department since DATE. I know you just got back from your research expedition, but I was wondering whether you have any update about the status of my application. Thank you in advance.

  Looking forward to talking to you soon,

  NAME


How acceptable are the outputs of automatic LaTeX converters for journals with LaTeX requirement? Is there anybody there, who uses this combination as the pipeline of document production in his/her work? IF so what are the common bugs/imperfection that one should expect.

From a latex-noob point of view, it seems faster and easier to work(collaborate) on a paper in Microsoft Word (For months) and then use a plugin or some other quick converter to make it into a latex on the last week(ideally a day) if there exist a smooth conversion tool to get to .tex format?

a reliable/acceptable converting should address the journal template/format, tables, table of content, footnotes, margins, figures, equations and bibliography. Is there a bulletproof conversion out there, and if not why?

The most probable answer to what acceptable is the conversion from word to LaTeX is probable too little. The main reason is that word is more based in local format (visual appeareance) rather than semantic tags.

For instance, you need to specify that a group of specific paragraphs are the abstract. LaTeX made this using an instruction like
\abstract{ ... text ...}. A converter needs to look in styles to learn the meaning of the text fragment against its list of heading, leyends, abstract, section, subsection, etc.

But if what you want is have a simpler medium to wrote and rewrote contributions to the text, provided that you have a a solution to create graphics in jpg, png or pdf format and a transfer the more complex tables to LaTeX way, you can use Pandoc to convert from word to LaTeX.


Where would you publish a serious research proposal/idea that you don't have time to work on yourself, but would still like to get credit for? I am an ex-academic (Ph.D + a couple of postdocs) who has been in industry for more than a decade. I work in enterprise analytics and data science.

My current work is fulfilling, but takes up most of my time, and along with my family responsibilities, I don't have the time to work on pure research projects, or to collaborate with an academic team.

I have a couple of serious research ideas in AI and ML, arising from my current work experience plus my previous training and some of the recent results in the literature, that I think are definitely worth pursuing.

They are not just good one liner ideas. I have a rough idea of the steps and experiments needed to implement them (roughly on par with what a serious Ph.D thesis proposal would look like).

As I said, I don't have the time to pursue them myself, but I seriously think they are worth pursuing, and I would like to get credit from coming up with the overall approach, even if can't execute the actual code and simulations myself.

What is an avenue for publishing the ideas and the approaches for investigating them, such that they would get the attention of people who actually have the time to follow through on them, and getting credit for thinking of the approaches?

Does a solid, well substantiated research proposal count as a legitimate contribution?

Does a solid, well substantiated research proposal count as a legitimate contribution?

No, it does not.  A plan for achieving something, where none of the steps have been completed, is not a significant achievement.

Sometimes it is necessary to do experiments or calculations in order to form a plan.  That could be an achievement.


Is it good practice to have hyperlinks in bibliographies? Lately I have been thinking about what is the right way to cite other papers (i.e., what to put in the bibliography entries, in the section which is typically called "References"). As many papers are available online nowadays, it seems to me that bibliographic references should include, whenever possible, a link to the paper being cited: this is supported by the PDF format, and is easy to do (at least for works typeset in LaTeX: e.g., with \href{} or \url{}). Yet, strangely, I have never seen a paper whose bibliography entries consistently featured URLs or hyperlinks to the works being cited. Is it good practice to include hyperlinks in bibliographies? If yes, why is essentially no one doing it?

One possible explanation is laziness on the part of the authors, but, strangely, there are still many papers whose bibliography entries include information about volumes, series, and page numbers, even though in my field (computer science) I have never seen anyone look up a paper using this information: people just search for papers with Google using the title and authors every time (in other words, they work around the non-existence of a hyperlink which should be there). Maybe the explanation is that existing bibliography management tools make it easier to manage page information than URLs? But is this just inertia, or is there a good reason?

A side question is assuming you want to have hyperlinks in your bibliography, which hyperlinks should you use? I have a preference to link to open-access versions of the cited papers (i.e., which aren't paywalled, so everyone can follow the link), but this sometimes conflicts with other desiderata, such as having a stable URL (e.g., not a PDF on some author's personal web site), having a link which indicates the DOI of the paper, etc. Which criteria should one preferably follow?

Another side question in this case is how should the links be formatted? One possibility is to write out the URLs explicitly, but this ends up taking a lot of space, and may be illegible, especially for long URLs. The other option is to use \href{}, i.e., put a hyperlink on the paper title, but this is probably not very discoverable, and it means information is lost whenever someone prints the paper. Which one is preferable, or are there other formatting options?

Edit: For papers submitted to publishers, indeed, it probably suffices to follow the publisher style (although the question remains of why so little publishers seem to be doing it). My question was more about preprints and author-final versions, prepared by the authors to be published online (e.g., on arXiv) independently from any specific publisher.

Related questions (with URLs ;)):

Should I include a DOI/website URL for a publication in dissertation bibliography?
Publishing DOIs instead of traditional references?
What are the downsides of using DOIs in reference sections of publications?

Maybe I'm a bit late here, but I do think it is among the best practices there can be. I also can't understand why journals' names are abbreviated. IMO providing links is really important for many reasons:

It provides quick access to the cited material (either text or anything else).
If a link is available, checking that source is (normally literally) one click away.
If it isn't, it can be a challenge to get it. If the link is a DOI or other persistent link, it ensures access even if the final link changes. If the link is not persistent, it provides some transparency: the material was online at URL "x" at day "y", so if it's gone it's not your fault but you stated every information you had, and your reader now has some more info to work with when trying to reach that same source (looking for cached/archived versions, maybe looking for other people referencing the same URL who might quote some bigger part or even have an offline copy, who knows...).
A reason for deliberately using a not-DOI URL: "People click on URLs that they understand and view as authoritative", so depending on the domain or subdomain of your cited material's URL, it could be a (not so) subtle persuasive use of that information in one's favor (either a publisher's, a government's, an international body's or any other institution's domain).

And these are just the ones that immediately come to mind now. But I think all the reasons that justify all the efforts to create the idea of DOI as a persistent link and maintain a whole infrastructure around it apply here as reasons to use it.

Actually, the real question could be why not use them (DOIs first, but links in general), and there are as many reasons for not using it as there are for abbreviating journals' names these days.

As to formatting, reason 1 above suggests not using "doi:10.1234/abcd1234" as this is not clickable (unless you manually make each one clickable by formatting it as link etc.), but rather something (automatically) clickable like "https://doi.org/10.1234/abcd1234".

And providing the last date you had successful access to it is useful as well, for what I mentioned in reason 3 above. (Some styles suggest stating the date of your first access. I can't quite see why would this be more important.)


How to find out whether my advisor expects to be author of a paper to which she did not contribute? I am a postdoc and I prepared a paper that is now ready for submission.
I did this work by myself.
I know that adding my advisor as an author would violate authorship standards, but it is a widespread practice and therefore my supervisor may still expect it, which I have to take into account when making a decision.

How can I tactfully find out, whether she would like me to put her name on it or not?

For almost every paper (and particularly if you are the sole author), it’s a good idea to have an “internal peer-review”, i.e., have a colleague who is not an author read the manuscript and give feedback before actually submitting it to a journal.
(The main reason for this is that it is much faster and interactive than peer review.)
Usually this internal review is done by other advisees of the professor, other professors within a collaborative project, or close colleagues.

Now, if you are authoring a paper on your own, your advisor is the most obvious choice to perform the initial peer review¹.
Moreover, in many cases you also have to report to your advisor about your research not due to authorship reasons, but due to her being your superior (in the employment sense), because the rules of your PhD programme say so, or similar.
This gives you enough reason to talk intensively about your work, without delving into the issue of authorship first.

Now, the details depend on how much you already communicated about this piece of work and how you generally communicate within your group, but here are a few suggestions:

Ask your supervisor to internally review your paper, but leave the author field blank. This may prompt your supervisor address the topic herself, telling you what she wants. There are some variations of this, which differ in risk and effectiveness, such as to giving her a paper which only lists you or both of you as the author or thanking her for constructive feedback in the acknowledgements.
If your target journal requires a list of explicit author contributions (“X and Y designed the experiments; Z held the Giraffe, …”), you may be able to elicit a response by having a title for this segment, but leaving a big and fat “TODO” below it.
If this did not yield any feedback, you can now bring up the issue of authorship mostly neutrally, saying something like:

  It seems that the paper is ready for submission now. Now, we only need to talk about authorship.

Maybe the internal review prompts creative contributions from your supervisor that would justify authorship and you avoid the dilemma altogether (but lose your sole authorship).

Be aware that if you really want to be the single author of this paper, giving the paper to your boss for review may be a slight risk, as it may give her a reason to think that she should be a co-author in the first place.

Finally, do not forget that authorship is not only about writing the paper. So, if your supervisor gave constructive input to your work, this may qualify her for authorship even though you did all the work and writing.

¹ unless this is a “hobby” paper in a completely different field


Can I write to a (prestigious) conference that I am interested in chairing a session? I have a paper selected in a very prestigious conference in our field. Is it appropriate if I ask the contact person that I am interested in chairing any conference session? Note that I am a Ph.D. student as of now and not a faculty member or qualified Ph.D. doctor.

Yes, it's okay to volunteer to chair a session, but there is not a lot of benefit to it and you might be turned down.  People may see it as unusual, since it's not a prestigious job (certainly nothing to list on your CV).

It's important to have a chair who can keep the session running on time, provide appropriate introductions, and sometimes ask a question if there are no questions forthcoming from the audience.  These are fairly easy tasks, but if I was organizing the conference and I didn't know you, I probably wouldn't agree to let you chair since I don't know how capable you are in these regards.


Do people with masters degrees have an advantage over undergrads in PhD admissions? The pool of applicants for a PhD program consists of people applying straight after undergrad, and also people who have done masters programs. Do students with masters degrees have an edge over undergrads in the process? Do admissions officers judge undergrads and masters students differently? If undergraduate students have taken graduate-level courses (but perhaps not as many as a masters student has), where does that put them in comparison?

It very much depends on the Country, the Field, and the Master's.

I'm assuming, since you are asking that you are interested in Country where a Master's degree isn't an absolute requirement for a PhD in your field of interest. My field (Life-Sciences) in my country (UK) is like this.

I would say that it very much depends on the Master's degree. As far as I can see there are three types of Master's degrees in UK Life-Sciences

Those for people who want to learn something different to what they learnt at undergraduate. So for example, my research is in Bioinformatics, and this is not normally covered in UK undergraduate degrees. This could be an advantage if you wanted a PhD in that area.
Master's degrees that are integrated as the 4th year of an undergraduate degree, and are generally almost entirely research based. I have found the students with these often have an advantage over others as they have experience of doing real research in a real research lab. This is important because UK PhDs are generally 3 years (4 at a maximum) and you need to hit the ground running.
General topic master's degrees for people who didn't get a good enough grade to go straight to a PhD. These might help you make the grade (i.e. if your undergrad grades were too poor there is 0 chance of a PhD, and a none zero chance after the master's), but if you have the grades to be accepted, this master's is useless to you. Worst, it might you look worse.

So in conclusion, it very much depends on the master's and why you took it.


Need advise on a career in academia I am desperately looking for a sense of direction. I am about to start a career in academia and I am..I guess scared. My Ph.D. was something, it was enlightening, to say the least. I do not have too many publications, just 6 to 7 in total.  In my second year of Postdoc received an offer for this tenure-track faculty position at a teaching-intensive university.  Here is the problem:
1. The start-up money is pretty small, I don't know if I might be able to get my research up and going(even for preliminary data) They do not have a Ph.D. program, only masters.
2. I don't know if I can get a grant from the NIH based on having my publication number. Also, some NIH grants are not for H1B visa holders.
3. I cannot use my postdoc to generate data (That was one of the things that someone suggested to me). Not all PIs like that, also my postdoc funding agency doesn't include a portion for research, only stipend.

Did anyone make it through with something like this? How did you do it? How and which grants do you think I could apply to bring money in for a lab?

This depends on what you want your career to be like. At a "teaching-intensive" university or a Liberal Arts college, expect teaching to be much more highly valued than research, though you can't ignore the latter. This explains the small start-up funding. If you want, primarily, to teach, the position will probably serve you well.

But if you really want research to be your focus you need to think hard about it as you will probably be largely on your own for obtaining both funding and the time for research. Given that, generating lots of quality papers will be harder, though not impossible if you have, or can develop, a wide circle of collaboration. And without a lot of papers it might be harder to move up to a research focused position. Again, not impossible, but harder.

Your choice. Think first about what you really want from your career.


How to count non-self citations of articles? In Google Scholar, I can view the number of citations of each article, but this includes self-citations. Is there a way to view the number of non-self citations?
In this tweet from 2019, the author suggests a way to calculate this number for a specific article. But is there a way to do this automatically for all my articles?

The Scopus tool ("h-graph") allows one to turn self-citations on or off for a given scholar if you have access (my institution provides access to the full tool after linking them with Elsevier).
https://www.scopus.com/freelookup/form/author.uri
Note that the total citation count will differ from Google Scholar, even if the profiles are aligned as to which publications count.


Should peer review of conference proceedings be listed in a CV with journal peer reviewing, or should it be separate? In my field, conferences are rarely peer reviewed.  The usual categories of peer review are journals and grants.  If I peer review for conference proceedings, should I list that in my CV under journal peer reviewing, or should I create a new category?

Maybe you can go with a broader heading so you can group them all together - something like "Manuscript Reviewing" will cover a myriad of publication categories, like conference proceedings, journals, edited volumes, etc. EDIT: Would also add that in doing so, the reader would then automatically know that those are all peer-reviewed venues.


Junior faculty position - course development I would appreciate clarification on the following aspect of joining academia as a junior faculty member. I have seen a number of advertised positions for junior faculty, which often involve a teaching component. However, a particular timing aspect is not clear enough to me: if, for example, a position advertisement mentions "vacancy, starting August 2015", does it imply:

A) that a candidate by that time is expected to have a portfolio of developed courses, expected to be taught in that position, or, at least, similar courses that could be easily customized; OR

B) that August 2015 is just a position's start time, but a candidate will be given adequate time to develop corresponding required courses, including necessary materials, after the start date?

I think this is a false dichotomy. In the US, you are generally expected to be able to teach a course your first semester. You shouldn't need to have the course fully prepared in order to start teaching it, though. You can prepare as you go.

Also, many departments in STEM fields back off on their standard teaching load for junior faculty during the first year to give you some time to prepare your first courses, so you might get a 1-1 your first year instead of the usual 2-1 (or whatever). This kind of thing varies quite a lot from department to department, but there is usually some sort of consideration given to let you ramp up some classes.


Is it legal to use tourist visa waiver for academic visits? All countries have visa waiver for certain nationals, but it is only for touristic purpose. People use this scheme for attending scientific meetings (isn't it some kind of business trip?).

Anyway, academic visits, in which the guest is paid, is definitely a business trip. For example, when an academic organize a paid two-week course in the host university, or when visiting for a join project in which he is paid.

For example, a German academic traveling to the United States for two weeks for working on a NSF-funded project in which he is paid.

Is it theoretically illegal to travel without Business Visa for such academic visits?
If yes, how often it happens in practice?

Each country might have different rules, but in the example you're considering, you can benefit from the US Visa Waiver program for business purposes if you would qualify for a Business Visitor Visa (B-1):

Lecturer or speaker: No salary or income from a U.S. based company/entity, other than expenses incidental to the visit. If honorarium will be received, activities can last no longer than nine days at any single institution or organization; payment must be offered by an institution or organization described in INA 212(q); honorarium is for services conducted for the benefit of the institution or entity; and visa applicant will not have accepted such payment or expenses from more than five institutions or organizations over the last six months.
Researcher: Independent research, no salary/income from a U.S. based source, or benefit to U.S. institution.

Researchers who receive US payment should apply for a  Temporary Worker (H-1B) Visa or Exchange Visitor (J) Visa.
So, to answer your first question: if the guest is paid (other than an honorarium, and in addition to have his/her expenses covered), then travelling on the visa waiver program is theoretically illegal. Otherwise, if could be legal. Check with the legal team at the US institution.
About whether it happens in practice, I doubt you'll find plenty of people who are happy to claim they are doing something illegal.


Were predatory journals widespread before publishers of reputable journals introduced the "author pays" model? After reading yet another news article about predatory journals/conferences and how they weigh on the finances of labs in some countries, I started to wonder the following. Were they widespread before publishers of reputable journals started introducing the model where the author pays to have their paper open-access, the so-called "gold open access" (a name I dislike very much, but that's not the point)?

Indeed, I would expect that before that (which seems to be a relatively recent development, maybe less than 10-15 years ago...?), labs would have been much more reluctant to pay for the publication in a predatory journal, because that would have been a surefire way of telling that the journal was junk. And if a researcher had to pay from their own pocket, then I would expect the practice to be much less common, simply because fewer people could afford it.

Anecdotally, a significant proportion of journals on post-Soviet space in 90s were quite happy to publish literally anything as long as author covers the "publication costs". The peer-review was either very light or non-existent (e.g. authors could invite their friends to act as a referee). This was used by some high-rank officials to secure the publications required for their academic degree, which gives a bearer a certain level of prestige even if they never practice science.

This happened before any OA was introduced in Europe/USA and it is still happening now. The existence of predatory journals is probably more driven by the publish or perish principle, than by OA.


I am a Re-Applicant for MS/PhD program,can I copy snippets of my previous SoP for my new application I am applying for masters program after a gap,I had a few rejects last time and re applying to those universities this year again,will it be ok if I copy some snippets from my old SoP for the new application's SoP

It's a common practice among students to do so. I applied to two schools and used almost the same statement of purpose - I just made sure that any specifics like school name and programs were tailored correctly. You should be okay, just be sure that your new essay isn't an exact duplicate of the one you sent before.


Why ask both for CV and publication list? Some academic job posts and grant applications require submitting both a CV and a publication list. I would have thought that it is a standard to put the publication list in the CV, hence it is not necessary to have the publication list again. What is the purpose of requiring both of them?

On mathjobs, my workflow when glancing through files from candidates is to look at the publication list instead of the CV.  This is for two main reasons:

CVs typically frontload a bunch of information which I already have from the mathjobs cover sheet (education, postdoc, advisors, etc).
CVs are longer than one page, so finding the publications takes some time.  Publication lists have the info I'm looking for right at the beginning.


How to transition into a PhD in Theoretical Physics? I am currently a graduate student in Theoretical chemistry/Chemical Physics at one of the higher-ranked R1 universities in the US. After a year of taking graduate-level courses in Physics, I have realized that an academic career in theoretical physics is something that I really want to pursue. Soon I would be graduating with a MS in chemistry from my current graduate program in August and I plan to re-apply to graduate school again, specifically to programs in Physics. Here are a few things that aren't clear to me about executing this transition:

Will it be possible for me to make this transition given my academic background in chemistry?
Can anyone who's been through this before, made a similar transition.... give me a couple of pointers?

I don't know if most or any of this matters but, here are a few details.

Academic Background

Prior to joining my current program I went to a college in India to get my bachelor (3 years) and Masters (2 years) in chemistry. I did have rigorous coursework in basic mathematics covering most of the essentials in Differential Equations(ODE and PDE), Linear algebra, Multi-variable calculus, etc. In terms of Physics, I have taken courses in classical mechanics, optics, electronics, and basic E&M. Beyond this most of my advanced knowledge in quantum physics and statistical mechanics comes from personal reading. From both my degrees I have had slightly more than above average to really excellent grades.
After I came to the US in the past year I have taken about 6 graduate-level courses ranging from quantum mechanics to quantum optics, offered by the Physics department at my university and some reason to believe that I have had a fairly decent performance in them.

Research Experience

In terms of research I do not have any research publications yet. But, I have worked for a year in an experimental lab during my masters in India and two summer research internships in experimental condensed matter physics and chemical physics(theory). Also currently, I am working on a summer research project in theoretical condensed matter physics with one of the faculty members at my current university in the US.

I am mainly looking to transition into a Ph.D. in either condensed matter field theory or something more aligned towards quantum physics(like quantum information or ultra-cold physics).

Your situation is not much different from other people seeking to pursue condensed matter theory.  There's a lot of overlap between theoretical chemistry and condensed matter physics, so there's no real scientific barriers.  The regulations of individual universities may matter, but we can't help you there.

People who brand themselves as chemists tend to pick RSC or ACS published journals.  People who brand themselves as physicists tend to pick APS or AIP published journals.  Otherwise, it can sometimes be hard to tell the difference.


Do I have to do a Masters and a PhD thesis? I am currently perusing my masters degree in engineering, and would like to continue that with a PhD, and it was my understanding that I needed a thesis for my masters in order to get into the PhD program. Is this true? I'm beginning to reach out to professors to see if they will take me on, and when I mentioned a masters thesis to one of them, he said it would be better just to take the class requirements for a regular masters degree, but I could start looking at my PhD thesis now. Does this sound right? Thanks for your input!

It depends largely on the country and institution.  Some PhD programs in engineering require a Master's with a dissertation.  Other programs are content with a course-work-only Master's.  Your best bet is to find a person to work with at the department of the PhD program you want to enter (which it sounds like you have already done) and follow the advice of that person.


Is citation bias a studied issue? I have noticed in a number of papers, including those in top journals, a common dirty practice which consists of self citing your previous works and omitting other important references in the area (I admit some of them at least include the classic references). For instance Prof. John Doe writes a paper and his references look like:

[1] John Doe (1970). Paper 1.
[2] John Doe (1971). Paper 2.
...
[200] John Doe (2014). Paper 200.
[201] Issac Newton (1687). Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica.

I am aware of the concept of Publication Bias, which is related to a bias with regard to what is published. I wonder if there is also something related to self-citation bias or citation bias (it might also be the case that a person only cites a group of researchers (friends?))?
This, of course, is not just a matter of taste, but it is a practice that complicates the literature review in a certain area.

This problem has been receiving significant attention in recent years.  Among other thing, there was a recent scandal around "citation cartels", in which journal editorial staff organized not only to ensure their own journals self-cited but also so that groups of conspirator journals would cite one another in order to raise impact factor while adding a layer of indirection to make it harder to track.  Such journals also sometimes strong-arm authors into adding citations to other publications within the same journal.

I don't know if anybody has tried to further tease apart the different between intentional (i.e., citation cartel) and unintentional citation bias.  It would be interesting to study, but may be difficult given the amount of intentional bias that some are using the game the system.


Would I be facing any kind of trouble in the future for leaving my degrees incomplete? I have dropped out of 2 MSc in CSE programs because of my health issues and lack of proper math background.
You can check the full story from my previous question.

What should I do now to go ahead and restart my aspirations to become an appropriate candidate for a Ph.D. program?

Now, I am facing a new decision dilemma.
One of the professors from the Faculty of Life Science of a university in eastern Europe just hired me to work with him on a project. The project I would be working on is related to data science and algorithm development. He is also interested in taking me as a Ph.D. student under him. I can start a Ph.D. under him in 2022 if I agree.
Suppose, I enroll and complete my Ph.D. under him. Would I be facing any kind of trouble in the future for leaving my 2 previous MScs incomplete? I have been having a lifelong ambition in working in academia in the USA. Would any problem arise in the future regarding these 2 incomplete MScs?
Another question is, how would it look like if I want to work as a teacher in the Faculty of Engineering in the USA, but have a Ph.D. from the Faculty of Life Science?

Leaving the masters unfinished isn't a huge problem. But moving from a Life Sciences Doctorate to Engineering is a big step and would need a lot of justification. You don't say which university in Europe so it is hard to guess at their reputation.
I won't predict that it is impossible, but I think you will have a hard time convincing people unless you have produces some substantial papers that are pretty technical.
Is getting an engineering doctorate in Europe an option for you instead of one in life sciences? Or some sort of joint degree.
Tough road. Uphill all the way, I think.


Is it normal to preferentially invite female speakers when there would otherwise be few female speakers? My institute is creating an annual list of invited speakers and solicited suggestions from staff. It was at pains to point out that although only "n" 18% of suggestions received were female, they made up "n+1" 31% of the speakers selected to talk. As a female student, this makes me feel uncomfortable that women seem to be getting preferential treatment - is this normal practice in academia, in the UK or elsewhere?

Edit: I didn't mean my question to sound insulting, I'm sorry if it sounded that way. Everyone invited is perfectly qualified and I didn't mean to suggest otherwise. It just seemed a little strange all the women on the shortlist made it through whilst quite a few men didn't. And that the email took on an apologetic tone and emphasized this so heavily. I was just interested in whether this is common as it makes me feel a little uneasy that gender plays such a prominent role in the organizers' thinking. Thanks.

First of all: if the women who were invited to speak are in fact highly qualified for this invitation, they are not getting a "free pass". A "free pass" implies that they are invited only because they are women, and are not otherwise qualified. Qualified women are at best getting a "priority pass" to make up for being often overlooked (especially when the organizing committee is all male), and possibly not getting any kind of special pass.

It is a bit insulting (although I am sure this is not your intent) to suggest that these women were invited to speak because they are women, and not because they are doing quality, competitive work. I can see why you were uneasy when the organizers sent an email emphasizing the gender of the speakers, instead of their contributions to research; I would also be.

Second: depending on the sample size, it may not be entirely significant that 31% of invited speakers were women when they made up 18% of the list of suggestions.

In answer to

  Is this normal practice in academia:

Yes, sometimes a conference or workshop organizer will look at the list of invited speakers, see that women are heavily underrepresented, and think carefully about whether there is a qualified female researcher doing excellent work who could be added to the roster.

This is done as a deliberate response to counter a known bias. We know that we (as humans) are very bad at evaluating people based on merit alone; we tend to let our cognitive biases get in the way. (See, for example: Science faculty’s subtle gender biases favor male students.) Deliberate attempts to increase the representation of women in underrepresented fields exist to counter this known bias.


Should I provide a useful update to a professor currently grieving a parent? I am a PhD student working with a professor I do not know very well, as a proposed supervisor, on several postdoctoral applications. The professor's mother passed away several weeks ago. Since that point, I have been working on these applications independently, but I have determined that one of these applications will no longer be feasible, given some of the application requirements.
I am unsure whether I should very briefly update (and emphasize that no response/action is needed) this professor via e-mail so that they know that their workload is reduced during the coming months, or whether I should wait until they've reached out to me asking for an update. For context, we did not establish a date at which we would resume communication.
Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Receiving an email starting with "No action needed, just an update" adds an infinitesimal amount to ones workload.
Wondering about whether some project is still going on, if its time yet to check in on the junior people involved and writing a request for information does take mental energy and a bit more time.


Low quality postdoc application and deadline extension I was interested in a postdoc offer and forgot about the deadline.

I remembered the deadline to apply was today. I rushed to make a CV and motivation letter and sent it at 23h59. The day after, the PI sent a message on a job offer mailing list saying that the deadline is extended for one week.

The question is: should I rewrite a better application and send it again, or just wait for an answer on my poorly written application? Or, maybe there is another solution? (And yes, the best solution is to prepare an application before the deadline)

If anybody has any ideas as to what to make of this situation, please do share. In advance, Thanks for your time.

Contact them, explain yourself, and ask if it is OK to resubmit your application. (And make sure that you can submit a significantly better application before the new deadline.)

This has the added advantage of bringing you in contact with the PI, and putting yourself on their radar.


Is it normal for the manuscript submission date to change from the original submission date to the revisions submission date? I submitted a paper to an ISI journal almost a year ago. The submission date of the manuscript was May 20, 2015. I received a referee report on January 15, 2016. The report was quite positive but asked for some major revision. I made all the required changes and submitted a revised version of the manuscript on March 10, 2016.

Ten days afterwards I received from the Editor a message that the manuscript would go into the refereeing process and Date received: March 10, 2016. Is it normal to change the initial submission date of the manuscript?

In my field, for a time, a very brief time, the time between submission and publication was a factor for people when submitting to journals. Some journals the time between submission and publication was close to two years while for other, equally reputable, journals the time between submission to publication was less than 3 months.

When people started complaining about the time to publications, the slower journals began to cheat. The outcomes of the review process used to be Accept, Revise and Resubmit, and Reject. To "speed up" the process they changed "Revise and Resubmit" into "Reject and Resubmit". The resubmission was treated as a new revision, although you got the same reviewers, so the submission clock was reset. While this did nothing to speed up the process for authors, it reduced the time between submission and publication (it also made the journal look more selective). As I said, it is cheating.

In regards to if it matters, while it would be nice for authors to have access to meaningful statistics, it is not something the publisher needs to provide. Some might argue that "time stamping", but realistically, in fields where articles are infrequently published in the first journal they are submitted to, time stamping does not exist since I have never seen a time stamp based on the first journal an article is submitted to.

One thing to be concerned about when the submission date changes is if the process has gone awry. It is possible that the resubmission is being treated as a new submission and not a "Reject and Resubmit". If that is the case, then you may get a new batch of reviewers (and editor). Unfortunately, the way the automated systems work, sometimes it is difficult to tell what is going on. In these cases, a quick message to the editor is not out of place.


Should research papers that require millions of dollars to development be evaluated on the same track as those that do not? I have previously asked many questions on the encroachment of tech industry on academic research in the past few years [1], [2] I am here again because this encroachment not only hasn't stopped, but accelerated.
The latest is the news that GPT-3 developed by Open AI won the best paper award in NeurIPS 2020. https://openai.com/
Open AI is backed by at-least 1 billion dollar of Microsoft funding. This software/program required countless millions of dollar to develop, the kind of funding that is only available to tech companies. The research is not reproducible and proprietary. A estimate is that it would required $12,000,000 - $1,900,000 USD for any individual (in academia) to redevelop this model from scratch.
Given that it has won a best paper award, it begs one to question whether if academia can ever compete on the same level as these multi-million dollar companies. These large tech companies can continuously pour millions into these projects and create ever more impressive results with far reaching impact on society. In light of all this, should these type of research be evaluated on the same track as regular (say, theoretical) papers in terms of awards and other metrics?

I feel your question approaches this topic from an unhealthy, competitive perspective: I think the most important thing to keep in mind is that science is about progress, not about a fair distribution of NeurIPS papers, awards, or other brownie points. We accept papers because they expand our knowledge, and we award those that (subjectively) do so by the largest margin. Whether a single person working in their office has generated this knowledge or a team at a company does not change the knowledge that's being produced. In that light, excluding companies from academic research (effectively because they are being too good at it) is silly.
That said, your specific question asks whether there should be different "tracks" (I guess either actual conference tracks or completely separate conferences would qualify) for papers that need a lot of monetary investment. This can certainly be useful, and in my experience it often happens fairly naturally - either because an industry track gets created and gains importance over the years (as happening for instance at ICSE with its Software Engineering in Practice track), or because an academic conference gets more and more industry interest until it essentially becomes an industry conference with an academic track (this has arguably happened with WWW and maybe NeurIPS, although I don't know enough about NeurIPS to be able to tell).
However, you may not like the result very much - once you push all those expensive and highly practical contributions into a separate thread, you may find that people actually value these papers higher than your (now clearly earmarked) theoretical academic papers. The end result may be that the highest-prestige tracks or conferences are the ones where you as an academic aren't even the target audience anymore. The top conference of my field, ICSE, isn't quite there yet (the research track is still higher-prestige than the industry track), but you can already today observe that attendance in industry track talks is higher than in research sessions.
That said (and this brings me back to the opening paragraph), I'm not sure what the problem is. At the end of the day we should be happy that the field progresses and that people are interested in what's being produced. As long as academic contributions in the field are still useful and valuable, meetings, conferences will remain available. And it pays to remember that academics rarely compete directly with industry anyway (say in the context of jobs, promotions, or grants).


How to react to unfair criticism to my published study? Background

Few years ago, I have published an article on a peer-reviewed internationally recognized journal. My study went through an extremely sound (blind) peer-review, which allowed me to improve many aspects of the final manuscript. The article has been cited a sizable number of times since then.

Problem

I came across an article by a colleague, published in an edited book, in which the author express criticism about some aspects of my study. I am always open to criticism and suggestions when they are constructive, sound, and polite. What I have found particularly upsetting is that, in an attempt to bring to the forefront what s(he) thinks are flaws in my published study, the colleague has actually shown his/her plain misunderstanding of many of the theoretical and methodological underpinnings of my work.

Question

I am wondering what could be a viable option in front of the above-described situation.

Shall I do nothing, leaving the scholarly community to judge who is right, or should I try to publish somewhere a polite but firm reply to what I consider an unfair criticism?

If the latter is the case, should I write to the Editor of the journal on which I published my article to ask him/her if the journal would accept a sort of reply "in defence" of my earlier publication?

I have two reasons for not ignoring something like this:

(1) Research does not progress in isolation. Results are reinforced when others reproduce them and validate findings. Similarly, if someone has taken the effort to point out shortcomings/flaws (irrespective of how correct they are in their judgement), the original author(s) should take the time to examine and respond. Its your responsibility to defend something that you stand for, or else accept that you were wrong. To not to do smacks either of arrogance (the 'I don't need to explain myself to everyone'/'Its not worth my time' arguments) or lack of confidence in the work ('let's not muddy the waters further, let things settle down quietly by themself').

(2) All readers in the future will potentially see two conflicting opinions on the same topic, and will be forced to examine both opinions and make their own judgements. Verification is indeed essential but one shouldn't be forced to reinvent the wheel. If you are certain that you have been misunderstood, you can save readers' time and effort by providing your clarification. You would be doing the community a service. A more harsh way of looking at this is, if you don't care enough about justifying your work to the community, probably you shouldn't have published it in the first place.

Having said this, you must ensure that:

(1) You are 100% sure of your position.

(2) You provide a justification, not a counter, especially one directed to individuals. 'John [xx] has evidently misunderstood the foundations of XYZ and proceeds to draw incorrect conclusions' - is the latter. 'The conclusions of John [xx] are based on assumption xyz, which we here demonstrate to be untenable' - is an example of the former.

Since it's an edited chapter, redressal in form of an 'authors note' may be difficult. Nevertheless, if the editor is convinced of your position and attests to it, you can communicate the same to the objecting authors and prevent them from misinterpreting further.

EDIT: There appears to be a belief that contesting criticism can cause some sort of damage to the original author. This is most likely a pervasive myth without basis, as this article in Scientific Reports suggests.  Papers with these criticisms and rebuttals do, in fact, get more citations than the uncontested papers in the same journal.

To clarify, I am not an author or in any way affiliated to the linked article.


Supervisor doesn't give me a chance to contribute more and gives himself first authorship, how to approach this? My supervisor proposed a test, just a concept and I designed the experiment and executed the lab work all by myself.

After the experiment was done and I presented the data (in nice figures and tables) to my supervisor, this supervisor asked me to only write down how I did the experiment but not anything related to the other parts of a manuscript. Yes, it's clear that my supervisor told me not to touch the results and discussion, etc. I thought this might be the way my supervisor does things, I mean this professor might want to do things step by step, so I didn't comment on this.

Two days later my supervisor showed me a whole manuscript, a manuscript almost ready for submission, this professor wrote the whole manuscript without any discussion with me!

The professor told me that he/she would like to be the first author because I don't have intellectual input into the manuscript... I think this is ridiculous, isn't the experimental design a kind of intellectual contribution? And I have this question to my supervisor in my mind... how can I add my thinking into a scientific publication if you don't even allow me to participate in writing the manuscript? I'm not sure whether I did the right thing but I didn't really make a comment on his remarks. I was shocked when I was in this professor's office.

What is the best way of approaching this problem?

We only have a few students in this lab now, we are new so I cannot guarantee nothing like this happened in the past though. Any suggestions?

Well, so let me phrase it this way: Your professor had the original idea (which you then fleshed out and executed) and then did the most difficult parts of the writing. I typically see that what students struggle most with are introductions, providing context, the literature review, and forming conclusions. If that is true for you as well, then the parts your professor wrote would have likely taken you a long time to do. If you see it this way, then it is, at least, not inappropriate that your professor would be the first author.

What I think most people would probably agree with you is that doing all of the writing him/herself is a poor way of teaching you how to do it. Ultimately, we educate students because we want them to become knowledgeable and independent, and that can only happen if we teach them how to do it, not do it ourselves. If your professor is still young, you might want to simply ask to be included in the writing part in the future, and say that you'd like that to happen because you'd like to learn how to do it.


Good responses to "Ivory Tower" accusations? Recently I have come across a few articles on Google that are really distressing.

I typed in "professor real world" and it just mentions how professors have lost touch with the real world, how they need to step down from their ivory towers, etc.

Why is all that bad? It doesn't make me reconsider my dreams a little, but it does hurt.

Is it ultimately subjective from the pessimists' point of view? I have come to terms with the fact nothing ultimately matters, we are just grains of (smart) sand in the universe. Whether I did industry or not wouldn't matter, since I love academia.

How can I help others see that academia is a 'real job' too?

There is no point talking to people about the job they cannot do themselves or about the parts of reality they cannot even see, not to say enter. Most of them are, probably, just envious (that's why the words "easy life", "good salary", and "tenure" appear in such articles more often than not). The rest are frustrated that our work doesn't provide any immediate personal benefit for them. As to "stepping down from ivory towers", in Soviet Union the students and professors were sent for a month to collective farms to help with harvesting every year. It turned out that we could do the farm work. Sending help in the other direction wasn't considered practical.