Including a famous person as coauthor? Let's say a famous researcher contributed only a bit to a research project by a student, and the student could reasonably choose either to include or not include them as a coauthor.
Is it beneficial to the student to include them? It seems that having a big name would increase viewership and perceived legitimacy of the paper, while having more coauthors also seems to diffuse the ownership of the work.

Let's say a famous researcher contributed only a bit to a research project by a student, and the student could reasonably choose either to include or not include them as a coauthor.

The student doesn't get to choose, the student gets to invite: It's the famous researcher's decision as to whether they want to be a co-author, since they contributed a bit to [the] research project.

It seems that having a big name would increase viewership and perceived legitimacy of the paper, while having more coauthors also seems to diffuse the ownership of the work.

The benefits are significant, whilst the drawback of more authors is minimal (albeit, fields vary).


How to organize course component when there are a lot of students? I am teaching a university maths module, which is currently taken by approximately 300 undergraduates. By the way, I am teaching in Asia.

Due to the number of undergraduates, tutorial classes are conducted from Monday to Thursday. There comes the problem:

This course consists of 2 in-tutorial quizzes. The quizzes are set very similarly so that the level of difficulty is consistent. However, due to the similarity of question, students from Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday classes can obtain quiz questions and keep practising them. In the end, these students excel while students from Monday do averagely or poorly.

Question: How to deal with this kind of situation? A few solution that I can come out with is to have a mid-term, where everyone sits in a lecture hall.

Another way is to set different questions each day. However, this method does not guarantee the level of difficulty is consistent throughout all tutorial classes.

The last way, which I don't prefer, is to set assignment. However, students tend to copy each other and t defeats the purpose of assignment.

However, due to the similarity of question, students from Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday classes can obtain quiz questions and keep practising them. In the end, these students excel while students from Monday do averagely or poorly.

Give all of the students sample questions similar to the quiz questions ahead of time, so that seeing Monday's questions does not become an advantage, and all students can practice the problems and do well. (That's what you want, right?)

You can also set about 80% of the quiz questions to be the same "type" of question across all of the sections, and vary the last 20%. That way the quizzes remain similar in difficulty, but students still have to prepare everything in order to do well, even if they know what was on Monday's quiz.


highly technical skills: is it possible for uni staff to provide these skills for a thesis or must you teach your self? Note, by highly technical skills I mean anything that isn't directly taught by your course (i.e. programming/coding, use of specialist lab equipment, mathematical expertise)

I am student of Earth Sciences/Geography within the UK.

I'm planning on doing a masters and in brainstorming ideas for my application's thesis proposal, I often run up against the issue of lacking specific technical skills needed to conduct the study. Should I let this hamper me? I worry I'm restricting my potential by only choosing topics in which I can wholly conduct every step of the research/analysis independently.

For example, my undergraduate dissertation required large datasets and modifying open-source software, meaning I independently taught my self to code. Another student looked at microfossils which required the use of a spectrometer.

Although both of skills were not taught to us, I independently taught my self to code while uni staff operated the spectrometer machine for my peer, meaning he didn't have to learn it.

If I want to study, say, microplastics in fish, will I need to be able know how to use the required lab equipment and interpret the results or is it acceptable to outsource this?

Summary

To word my question another way, University thesis: How can you utilise highly technical skills without falling into the rut of teaching your self everything from scratch?

I taught my self coding for the sake of my undergraduate dissertation, at the cost of a loss of free time which could be spent on my area of study (Earth Science, not Computer Science). Coding is not the direction I want to take in life despite the effort to learn it. I, therefore, do not want to invest so heavily in another one-off skill for my masters.

My two main concerns are:

Restricting my potential research topics to studies which I can wholly conduct and interpret each research technique.
Become stuck teaching my self a skill which I do not desire to follow up in the future (i.e. a statistical technique, coding, lab equip)
Use up a lot of time independently learning said technique

Real life example

In the question linked here, a SE user discusses how during his masters two programmers were hired to help with programming. Would it be reasonable to request the university for someone to help with a skill I've not been taught (i.e. coding or high-level statistics) for my master's thesis?

The answer to your question is very simple. If doing your research requires coding, you will have to learn how to code. Period. You can teach yourself, or take a class, or hire a tutor or whatever, but one way or another, you won't get very far trying to get your university, or anyone else, do the coding for you. As @JeffE and others were politely trying to help you understand, coding in the science and technology worlds today is such a basic skill that your comparison to operating specialized lab equipment simply isn't appropriate. A more proper comparison would be to things like typing up documents or using Microsoft Excel. Would you consider asking your university to get someone to help you with Excel because you can't be bothered to learn it? No? Didn't think so...

As for other skills which your question might be applied to, I think the answer would be it depends, but it seems pretty clear you are mainly interested in coding.


Do colleges/professors sign contracts with educational publishers that require them to use the publisher's learning platform? I am attending a community college in the US, and one of my professors has made it a requirement to purchase a login from McGraw-Hill Connect, even though our school is already set up with a decent online-learning platform. (This is a traditional class, by the way - not an online class.)

So far, the only material that has been placed on this McGraw-Hill platform (which I paid $120 for) is a weekly multiple choice homework assignment which could easily be handed out on a piece of paper or distributed via the previously-mentioned platform (which is already available to students taking the class and requires no additional charge).

What would be the incentive for a professor to require students to purchase this "extra feature" which, for my class, provides little-to-no real use and reaps in thousands of extra dollars for McGraw Hill? Is it possible that my professor is required to do this to fulfill some sort of contract?

Is it possible? I suppose so, but that's not the way things normally work. Usually the professor, or a committee of professors, decides what textbook and/or homework system to use. There is not usually a contract, and they can change to a different book or system at any time.

I can think of several more likely reasons for using the system:

Simplicity. A generic online learning system like Blackboard has little pre-made content, while a system from a publisher will come with questions already written.  Writing even one quiz per week "from scratch" in Blackboard is highly time consuming. Giving quizzes on paper is also more time consuming, and takes class time.
Textbook integration. The online systems from publishers are often tightly integrated with an online textbook. Students often complain about systems like Blackboard, saying they don't see the link between the questions there and the textbook.
A desire to try out online systems. From the question, it sounds like the professor could get more "value" from the system. Perhaps she's just trying it out, before really committing to it. Or perhaps she is concerned about complaints if she assigns more frequent assignments. Student feedback is important in this case.
If a committee decided that the online system is required, perhaps the professor could be "playing along" by assigning a minimal amount of work on it, just enough to avoid criticism from colleagues.


Should I give a copy of my thesis to those professors that supported me? I have just received my master's degree. And I am wondering, is it academically conventional to give a copy of my thesis to those professors that directly or indirectly supported me?

It is nice to do so (especially if you mention their support in the acknowledgement - which may even be the only things they'll read), but it is far from required.


Can I understand the rejection reason of an article by reading the reviewers' comments? My paper is rejected with this comment from editor:

  Unfortunately, the reviewers generally agree this paper should not be
  considered for publish in....

My question is do all the reviewers reject the paper?

While, I read the reviewers's comment, some of them suggest some notations in order to improve my paper.

You can't really tell, unless it's explicit in the referee reports you receive. A referee could well give suggestions for improvements even if they advise rejecting the paper - they don't assume that just because the paper wouldn't appear in this journal it won't appear anywhere. It also doesn't matter whether all the referees recommended rejection - it is the editors that make the call, and that is what stands.


How are non-academic (eg. industrial) reports cited in publications? This question pertains to peer reviewed journal articles in materials science/metallurgy.

In my upcoming research article, I wish to use some statistics from an industrial report to highlight the relevance of the material being studied. Said report is not academic or peer-reviewed, as it is based on business numbers and forecasts, aggregated by a forum.  It does not have an author/list of authors (only a foreword by the secretary-general of the forum).

How can I cite this article? Is there a strong reason not to use this and stick to only academic publications?

Thank you!

It is common in Economics to cite reports from institutions/lobby groups/banks, e.g. to motivate one's research. These reports may be more or less academic in nature and they are typically not peer-reviewed (they likely underwent some type of internal review process, but I would not compare that to peer review).

I typically cite them as (pseudo bibtex syntax below):

author = {[name of institution]}
title = {title}
journal = {[type of report]}

If possible it is also nice to add a link or available at if the report is not easily found. You will likely be able to find a similar solution.

As an example, this article is published in Journal of Finance, a top journal in its field, and includes at least 4 such citations:

Source: preprint version of the article linked above. The blue text are clickable links in the original document.


What makes a paper publishable? I wonder what makes a paper publishable?

Is it because it provides a better solution to an existing problem?

Or is it because it identified a new problem that no one has found?

Thanks.

UPDATE:
My field is electronic engineering.

In my area, software engineering, the criteria for having a paper accepted (which implies later publication) are usually listed in the call for papers of the publication venue (conference or journal). They typically include the following:

Novelty. The paper should contribute to the knowledge in its field. This could either include a new problem formulation, and a new idea to approach an existing problem.
Relevance. The paper should make a point in why the presented work is relevant.
Soundness. The work presented in the paper should apply a sound methodology. The argumentation presented in the paper (in particular, technical reasoning) should withstand scrutiny and be reproducible by experts in the field.
Presentation Quality. The paper should be logically organized, self-contained, use appropriate scientific language and writing style, and be free of major language flaws. In some research directions, there is a standard paper organization that should be followed (for example: Introduction, Related Work, Methodology, Results, Discussion, Conclusion).
Appropriate consideration of related work. The paper needs to depict its own contribution within the landscape of existing research. Closely related work has to be referenced and discussed.
Validation. (Only applies to papers that contribute some solution to a problem; a counter-example to this are empirical study papers.) The paper needs to validate the presented solution, for example, using a theoretical validation with theorems and proofs, or an empirical validation in which the solution is applied to realistic instances.

There is a lot of variation in how these criteria will be interpreted specifically. Some venues will have much higher standards than others, with top international conferences and journals on the one, and small national workshops at the other end of the range. Some venues will offer special paper types (for example, experience reports or tool demonstrations) that de-emphasize some of the criteria.


Read both revised and original version to cite paper? For papers, these questions advise to cite the original peer-reviewed version instead of a revised edition.

Now, does this mean that one should

read the revised edition, and then, if one wants to cite
also read/skim the original paper in order to cite correctly?

Is this the consensus on the correct approach, or did I misunderstand something?

(It seems like an ineffective use of time, thus the question)

I believe that you are somewhat misinterpreting the advice given in the questions that you link: the general consensus seems to be to cite the most recent version (as being the most current state of knowledge), unless you have specific reason to cite an older version.

As such, I do not believe that you generally need to read or cite prior versions.


Why would a grad school not want me to defer admission? I have been accepted to a fairly competitive online computer science-related graduate program (in the US). It is a part-time program geared toward working professionals. During the application process, I was assigned an admissions counselor that worked with me during the application and answered questions, etc. The counselor did mention at one point that I could defer  admission by one trimester, should I be accepted.

Well, long story short, I have a situation with my employer (who would be funding my graduate studies), that is now making me strongly prefer to exercise the deferral option.

I have reached out to my admission counselor seeking guidance on how to do this. I expected this to be a fairly routine, straightforward process. Instead, I am getting aggressive pushback, with the counselor trying to talk me out of it.

After several emails and phone calls with the counselor, I still do not have any instructions on how to actually accept the admission but defer by one trimester. My admission offer is still pending. I would really like to simply accept the offer (and pay the deposits), but with deferral.

All I have are appointments to talk with a current student and a scheduled one-on-one demo of the "courseware" with the counselor. I cannot help but notice the counselor is seemingly dancing around my question on how to defer.

Since this deferral option was mentioned up front when I was still just an applicant, why would I be encountering this kind of resistance? I am truly baffled. Why can't I just do "what is best for me"?

The program has three admission cycles throughout the year: fall, spring, and summer. I applied for fall 2015 and was accepted. I'd like to exercise the option to defer, essentially as if I applied for spring 2016.

I am starting to wonder: Does my request for a deferral reflect badly on someone? On me? On the counselor? Might the school have some aggressive revenue forecast that was expecting my tuition payment, and now this deferral request throws a wrench in it? Does the admission committee and/or counselor have some quota for accepted offers they need to meet? Might they simply be trying to balance class/cohort sizes? I am trying to understand this from the school and counselor's perspective: Why might they do this, and why do so in this aggressive manner?

Furtheremore, does anyone have any advice on how to proceed from this point? Should I just be frank and ask the counselor why the aggressive pushback?

The MIDS program at Berkeley is an unusual special case among graduate programs.  One clue is the use of admissions counselors, which are almost unheard of in typical graduate programs but are widely used in for-profit education.  (This doesn't mean there's anything intrinsically problematic about relying on admissions counselors.  They are used because they are an effective recruiting technique and can genuinely help everything work more smoothly for applicants.  However, it's a cultural difference in how recruiting is done.)

In fact, the MIDS program is run by the I School at Berkeley in partnership with a for-profit company called 2U.  See here for a description of how 2U and Berkeley are collaborating on this.  In particular, the key sentence is "2U's marketing and recruiting team supports the I School's goal of finding students who are most likely to succeed in the rigorous Master of Information and Data Science program."  The admissions counselor you've worked with is presumably a 2U employee from the marketing and recruitment team, whose job performance is based on getting people to enroll. Deferring at least means you won't be enrolling now, and you might change your mind about enrolling at all in the meantime, so it would not be considered a good outcome by 2U.

So why is Berkeley working with 2U if it could lead to awkward situations like this?  One reason is 2U's educational technology platform, but frankly I think it's primarily the prospect of making money.  The I School is descended from Berkeley's library school, and this has never been a lucrative field.  I'm sure the idea of running a professional master's program (in which people's employers pay a lot of money) is very attractive to the I School, especially if 2U takes care of recruiting students and managing the online program itself.  This seems to be a common pattern in 2U's partnerships with universities.

This situation actually gives you a little more leverage than you might normally have:

Feel free to be firm (but polite, of course) with the admissions counselor.  This is someone who is trying to sell you something, and you don't need to worry that they have some wise but inscrutable motivation for trying to get you to enroll now.
The I School really doesn't want 2U to embarrass them.  If you have a bad experience with 2U, I'm confident that the I School would like to know and will try to keep 2U in line.
In the worst case scenario, you could try complaining to the Berkeley administration (outside of the I School), or even doing something like bringing problems to the attention of someone at the Daily Californian.  I'm sure many people at Berkeley dislike the idea of partnering with a for-profit company, and this gives the I School and 2U a strong incentive to address complaints effectively.

It sounds to me like you have a legitimate complaint.  Either the admissions counselor is trying to keep you from exercising a legitimate option, or they misled you about what your options would be.  It doesn't sound like a simple miscommunication, since the counselor could have easily addressed that by providing the correct information or context.  It's not clear how things will play out, but you shouldn't give up just because the admissions counselor is uncooperative.


Is development research? I'm a Msc student, and my project is to develop a novel software tool for use in neurosurgery.

There is a current tool that is considered the standard of care for the procedure, but it has low rates of clinical adoption (~45%) due to archaic technical limitations. We propose that we can develop a new system, exploiting advances in available computational power and state-of-the-art image processing algorithms, that could improve the rate of adoption for these systems.

My question: Does development qualify as research? Or does research begin after development? My intuition tells me the latter.

For example, a hypothesis I could have would be "We propose that we can develop a novel system that overcomes technical limitations of traditional systems". However, this seems to be a weak hypothesis to me. Could we ever say that it is theoretically not possible to do that?

However, if research begins after development, we could propose that "our tool has increased usability compared to traditional systems". This seems much stronger to me: we can test whether our tool leads to significant improvements in different measures of usability.

I am unsure which path is more suitable to present in a formal research proposal, after all, at the stage of the proposal, we have not developed anything.

Maybe I'm not even formulating the initial hypothesis correctly.

I've looked at other dissertations in the field, and have noticed that some do not even attempt to structure the dissertation around a hypothesis, but rather say things like: "The goal of this thesis is the development of such techniques utilizing prominent HARDI data models", "This thesis presents the development of a 96-well plate culture system that allows 4-color, flow cytometry based high throughput screening of defined, serum-free hESC differentiation conditions". It seems that they just present the outcome of development, rather than test some constructed hypothesis.

I ask because my courses and committee seem to desire a formal hypothesis and I am hesitant to provide something weak.

The goal of research is to advance the state of human knowledge.  The goal of development is to create a new capability that did not previously exist.

Sometimes, these goals are separate.  For example, one might acquire knowledge by studying outcomes from a medical intervention without needing to develop anything new.  Likewise, one may do development that provides new capabilities but doesn't particularly add to the state of human knowledge (e.g., making phone app versions of existing software or web sites).

Often, however, as in the case of your own research, the goals are inextricably intertwined: the capability comes from the synthesis of recent developments in knowledge, and will in turn produce new knowledge ("Yes, this is better positioned for adoption").  If you're doing it right, there will tend to be a lot of feedback between the two sides in the process, and thus the idea of does research come "before" or "after" development doesn't make much sense.

Rather, when you are putting together research proposals, I would suggest that you focus on the following questions:

What will be possible when you have finished the project, which is not possible now?
How will you be able to measure that you have succeeded?

The first is the development aspect, the second the research aspect (which is inextricably tied to the development).


Is there any ways to document Google search results in a research paper? I'm about to write a paper that includes extensive searches on google with different queries. Is there any ways for me to show in my paper that this search provided these results at the time being?

Is there any ways for me to show in my paper that this [Google] search provided these results at the time being?

No, this isn't possible: the same search can simultaneously produce different results, because Google considers factors beyond the supplied search term, e.g., location.

That said, solutions are possible if you are willing to consider just the results of a single search. (Perhaps that's what you meant anyhow.) Leading to:

Yes (partly), you just need to record the raw result data (which will be authenticated, hence, cannot be forged*), which you can (probably) do using curl (with option --trace <filename>), for instance.

Ultimately, reproducibility is unattainable, but you can prove your results were derived by your method, as I have explained. (Your work might be useful without such proof.)

*There are some caveats.


What could be the outcome of writing negative things about previous university in an application to another university? I am applying for a PhD program abroad. In my application form there is a section saying "we understand that individual, family or community circumstances may have affected your previous academic record or educational experience, and that the materials you submit with your application may not be a full reflection of your potential for success in graduate school. If your education has been affected by such circumstances and you wish to provide a more detailed explanation about them, please respond below and use the space to share more about your experiences".
My previous department environment was not conducive to learning or research. As undergrads, we were encouraged to memorize rather than understanding, developing intuitions or solving problems. Whatever I have learnt, I learnt from the resources available on the internet e.g. OCW, YouTube etc. Only a couple of professors are involved in research. They are not at all helpful or encouraging. They always need to boost their ego, never ready to discuss anything, never ready to accept their mistakes if they made one. The teacher-student relationship is more like, dare I say, a master and slave type of relationship. These events have affected my academics and more importantly, affected me physically and psychologically. I had been suffering from chronic depression, started to fall sick very frequently and even had suicidal thoughts.
If I express my thoughts regarding these things would it affect my application? I can understand that if I bad mouth my department then the LORs that I got from the department become less valuable. I would really appreciate some advice.

Applications are places to write positive things, not negative ones.
Negative circumstances can paint you in a good light if you can describe how you have overcome those obstacles. Stated as you have here, the descriptions of your previous environment sounds more like blame, especially this part:

They are not at all helpful or encouraging. They always need to boost their ego, never ready to discuss anything, never ready to accept their mistakes if they made one. The teacher-student relationship is more like, dare I say, a master and slave type of relationship.

Maybe the blame is valid, however, when you talk negatively about someone else, people will reflexively wonder whether your complaints are justified, and they may worry you will describe them the same way. If you say your institution only drove you to memorization, how does this demonstrate you've developed skills related to research?
That said, mental health is very important, not for PhD applications but for you. I strongly suggest you seek professional assistance with those concerns - this is much more important than any PhD application.


CV for leaving academia after PhD I am soon finishing my PhD in computer science and I decided to leave academia for the industry (not industry research).

I am not clear about what to include in the CV.
I currently structured it like this:

Education
Work experience (including teaching positions and internships)
Selected Honors, Awards & Fellowships
Programming Skills
Selected journal publications
Selected Workshops, Schools  & Conference Talks

which in its current version results in a two page CV.

I am neither sure about the ordering of the above items as well as the importance of each.

For example while I have ten publications I only mention two of them in the CV. On the other hand I mention about eleven Workshops, Schools  & Conference Talks. I think this is not the right balance. On the other hand I am not sure how much companies (like Facebook, LinkedIn, ...) care about theoretical publications. I also do not mention any research visits I did.

So my question is, what academic information do you include in a CV for non academic positions and how important is each of the items?

The current structure of your CV looks like an academic CV to me. You put too much emphasis on the academic credentials. You definitely need to rewrite it.

What the industry (not industry research) companies are looking for are your skills and experience. They are not interested in how many publications you have or how many conference talks you gave. They are interested in how much you know about solving problems so that you can help them to make money.

I would suggest you to emphasize your programming skills, the contents of your publications (what kind of problems you solved in those papers), the internships, etc.

Don't under-estimate your teaching experience. Emphasize it. Many hiring managers had told me that they like the teaching experience on my resume. I asked them why. They said I must know how to communicate because I can teach. Knowing how to communicate to others is an essential skill in industry.

Good Luck!


Am I violating authors copyrights? I simplified a publication into a method scheme and then published it on ResearchGate.

I added a reference to the original publication in my method paper.

My question is: am I violating the original authors rights by publishing this method paper I wrote online?

You can see the paper here: Ibuprofen RP-HPLC Method.

Thanks :)

In general, information is free, but its creative expression is not. Therefore, you can build on other people ideas from copyrighted works but you can't copy text or images from such works.

Therefore, you can freely summarize other people's methods, provided that you cite your source - and that's an issue of intellectual honesty rather than a copyright issue.

However, you copied verbatim the whole paragraph in your "Sample preparation" section instead of explaining the method with your own words. This can only be done if it qualifies as fair use (or equivalent rules outside the USA) or you get permission from copyright owners - be it specifically to you or with a free license.

Since the original article states that "This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons CC-BY-NC 3.0 License" (link mine) you can copy it while abiding to the license. You are obliged to:

Acknowledge authorship of the copied fragment. It's debatable if just citing the original work without stating that you copied text from it is enough.
Not to make any commercial use of your paper. For example, you can't publish it in a commercial journal. I would say that publishing it in ResearchGate doesn't qualify as commercial use, but the limits of commercial use are tricky.

If these conditions pose a problem to you, or even a slight nuisance, you can try to remove the copied content and explain the same ideas with you own words. This way you can get rid of copyright and license issues and you will just need to keep citing the original paper.

Addition

The original article is also published here under the same license. This publication is more specific about obligations of reusers of content, with a dedicated page.


My former post-doc host failed to credit my work in a paper - what to do? I was employed as a post-doctoral fellow at some institute, and left it a couple of years ago. When I left, it was on ok terms with my host (= person who invited me and arranged for funding for my stay) - although our relationship had not always been on the positive side, and we ended up collaborating only here-and-there rather than closely. We both have a negative view of some aspects of the other's personality.
Anyway, I've noticed that members of the research group - some junior ones, but also my host - have published a certain paper a few months. This paper is mostly not about my own work, but it presents a certain concept which (*) I was studying and developing; these ideas are now in work that I've published - but mostly on ArXiV and not in peer-reviewed venues. I've also sent an email link and an invitation to read it to a bunch of people in my field - including my post-doc host and one of his junior co-authors.
The paper does not mention any of the above; makes no reference to my work or to me; and says something like "In this paper we introduce the concept of X".
Now, my work is much wider than just that concept (it fits into a larger theoretical framework); and the paper does something with this concept which I didn't explore nor write about. So it's not a case of brazenly stealing results.
A final point is that this work of mine has not yet gotten any (non-self) citations, which makes this situation sting more.
My questions:

Considering the circumstances, should I even get in contact with my former host and/or other co-authors about this, or should I just drop it? Especially seeing how this paper is already published and has made its rounds for a few months? I am worried that this will just develop into a fight involving third parties, a sort of a "crusade run remotely" on my part, and end up hurting more than it helps.
Assuming I do contact my former host about this - How diminutive/coy/reserved should I be in a first email about this?
What can I / should I ask for as a rectification of the situation?

(If you'd like more information, please ask in the comments.)

First, please remember that human memory is fallible. People have honestly forgotten work done by their students or their postdocs or even themselves. So I'd be inclined to assume, unless there's evidence to the contrary, that your supervisor has forgotten your work on the broader concept Y that subsumes the "new" concept X, and that he hasn't had time to study the arXiv preprint that you sent him.
Second, what should you do about it? I think that, under the assumption that no malice was intended, you could write your former supervisor an email along the lines of "It seems to me that the concept X in your paper "[title]" is an instance of the general concept Y studied in my paper "[title]" [arXiv link] which I sent you a preprint of a while ago. I hope that my work on Y will be useful to you if you contiue to explore X." It seems to me that something like this should alert him to pay attention to Y and cite you in further work on X.  (Of course, you can put personal things like "I hope you are well" before and/or after the main message.)
I think you're unlikely to get a citation in the already published paper (unless it has an on-line version that gets updated), but if your supervisor produces more papers about X, you might get some citations in them.


Is it acceptable for a referee to suggest changing "theorem" into "proposition"? In mathematics, it is usual to call terminal results "theorems" and intermediate results "propositions" or even "lemmas" depending on importance and place in the overarching proof. Suppose that one is refereeing a paper where the authors have decided to call almost all their results "theorems", making a paper with a large number of "theorems" that even emeritus professors don't usually reach by the end of their career. (Such theorems include computation that could conceivably given to as end of year exams to master students. Not to diminish the importance of the paper, the actual theorems are good, but the 20 others are not theorems. There are more theorems than pages.)

Would it be acceptable and well-received to suggest toning it down? Or would it be overstepping and rude? This is not just a philosophical question: I truly believe that it makes the paper harder to reader, because it is difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff, so to say. A reader does not know what is important and what is not.

I think we should begin by acknowledging that it is the author's choice whether to label results Theorem, Lemma, Proposition, Remark, etc., so a referee should not insist on changing this as they should insist on the correction of an actual error or gap.

  Suppose that one is refereeing a paper where the authors have decided to call almost all their results "theorems", making a paper with a large number of "theorems" that even emeritus professors don't usually reach by the end of their career.

Don't say that to the author, by the way.  It's snarky and not really helpful -- you seem to suggest that the author is somehow cheating their way to "too many theorems."  That's not a thing.

Referees can make stylistic suggestions, of course.  How much they should do this is quite a judgment call. I think a good referee should make stylistic suggestions when these suggestions impact the readability of the paper or affect its appraisal by readers.  Will it look a bit weird to many readers to have multiple theorems on every page?  Yes, I think so, and perhaps the author deserves to know.  However, if by having "too many theorems" the author makes it hard for the reader to see what are the important results of the paper -- and, as a statement about human cognition rather than mathematical achievement, a paper simply cannot have, say, 50 important results -- then that's a much bigger deal.

If I were you, I would lead with the latter: explain that you had trouble isolating the important results of the paper because so many results are being presented in the same way, then suggest that changing some theorems to propositions or lemmas might be helpful in alleviating this.  (Then, if you like, say that having fewer results called theorems might make a better impression on the reader.)  I think this is putting things in the right order and does the best possible job at getting your concerns addressed.

But it is possible to address the main concern -- that the important results not get drowned out -- while still calling every result a "Theorem."  If the author pulls that off...okay.  Up to them, really.


What are the most important actions after starting as a junior lecturer? I am a new lecturer in a sciences department, this is my first academic position. There is no one telling me what to do which is great, but I am not sure how to maximise my chances of doing well here. What would you think is the most important actions to do and not to do in your first 6-12 months of a position like this? Some people suggest to apply to all grants possible, but I am tempted to get my backlog of papers submitted instead. I was given a lab which is currently empty, and I have limited internal research funding but I can hire one PhD student. Any tips from more seasoned academics?

As commenters already point out, ultimately this is a question that only people within your department can answer. However:

  Some people suggest to apply to all grants possible, but I am tempted to get my backlog of papers submitted instead.

In general, and assuming you are in the sciences, the people that say that you should be focusing on grants are probably right. I kind of understand the temptation to write up all the things that you did not yet have time for due to needing to wrap up your dissertation, but this seems like short-term thinking to me. Sure, you will appear fabulously productive for some time, but then your backlog is empty and you have not acquired funding for new students nor started any other longer-running new initiatives.

As a faculty member, you will now need to start focusing more on the longer term, and sadly this often means that grants are more important than individual papers.


Recent data supported by media report, not by peer-reviewed article? In the letter of intent for the dissertation proposal, the student reports data about the number of minority hires for x-number of program positions in the upcoming season. The source for the data is a sports newscast from February 2020; the season starts in September 2020.
The chair wanted a peer-reviewed article (not the newscast) for this data.
We (the student and I) have been unsuccessful in finding peer-reviewed articles for this data. Presumably (because we can't think of any other reason), such an article or article is elusive because the hiring event is so recent.
The recent data is truly relevant to the study.
What is an acceptable way for this dilemma to be reconciled? Initial thoughts are to cite more than one news source.
Note: This is a no-hurt feelings zone. If the question needs to be rephrased to comply with stackexchange guidelines, then ok. And if that is the case, then please give guidance.

There are cases of course where a non-peer reviewed source is the authoritative source for a particular piece of information. I'd do my level best to track down if they have the raw data (including requesting it) but personally, if that's the best source available, it's the best source available.
I'd consider that preferable to ignoring data that exists in the world because it's from the "wrong sort of people".


Is uncredited use of grad students' unpublished research by professors accepted/common practice in academia? I'm a master's student, and over the course of my studies I've conducted a few independent studies in which I investigate specific research questions that I formulate on my own. Those independent studies have culminated in final papers, and I then use the material in those papers as part of articles I publish and presentations I give at conferences--am trying to build up a public profile on these topics.

Recently, a professor of mine asked to see research I had done for one of those studies, ostensibly to use as background for something the professor was working on. I'm not this professor's employee or otherwise under contract for a project of the professor's. I'm conducting independent research during classes that I pay for as part of my degree. The professor is in other words just my adviser and teacher.

I provided the professor my research and presentation materials, and then heard the professor use my work--word for word--in a subsequent presentation. The professor had not sought out my consent before doing this, and I was not cited.

The same professor again asked for a full, unpublished paper I had written to use as background for a different project the professor was undertaking. I declined to provide the paper because I did not know how it would be used (though I didn't say that).

Am curious about whether this is accepted and/or common practice in academia. And if it is, should I just send my paper to the professor?

No, this not accepted and/or common practice in academia. (Your use of the plagiarism tag was correct.) It is of course unethical and not right to copy other's work and not mention them.


Double major or specialization? I am a freshman at a university and so I am a little confused on to what type of courses should I be taking since there is a limit on the number of courses I can take.

I have three options

Double Major in physics and maths and take 3,4 extra physics or maths electives
Major in Physics, minor in maths and take extra 5,6 physics electives
Major in maths, minor in physics and take extra 5,6 maths electives

Which option is better in terms of career and applying to a good graduate school?
Let me know if more clarification is required in this question.

Edit: Reading the comments I have altered my options a little

Double Major in physics and maths and take 1 extra physics, 2 maths electives and 5 Programming/ Computer science electives
Major in Physics, minor in maths and take extra 10 physics/ CS/ Programming/ Maths electives
Major in maths, minor in physics and 10 physics/ CS/ Programming/ Maths electives

I think you are missing an important part of your ambitions for graduate school and industry careers. The most important asset you have during school is your time. Whether or not this is dedicated to classes, work, or leisure. The idea here is that time spent in one thing cannot be spent on another.

If your goal is to have employment lined up, then industry internships, externships, experiences would be important things to consider.

If your goal is to go to graduate school immediately after undergrad, research experience and friendly relationships with your current faculty is important.

My anecdotal experience is that double, or even triple majoring, has very little impact on your ability to garner a full time position after graduation. It is all about who you know and how well you know them.

Focus on the major that gets the door open for you, if you decide that you want to widen your breadth of experience, then double. Just don't triple unless you really want to. My decision to double major was based on whether or not I wanted to graduate my 2nd year (I wasn't ready), my decision to triple major was whether or not I my resume was good for industry my 3rd year (it wasn't). Hence 4 years of undergrad with three majors and a minor by the time I graduated.

As for CS, I would assert that it would be an excellent addition to any major. But be mindful that the skills you need and will use can all be found online and learned at your own pace, majoring (or minoring) in it is nice, but not required.


Listing an offered (but not taken up) position on CV I was offered a lecturer (assistant professor) position which I decided for personal/professional reasons not to take up. I therefore remain currently a postdoc. I have seen people listing such offers on their CV, with the addendum "not taken up". I guess the rationale is to convey the message to future prospective employers that "someone already deemed me good enough for this kind of job".

I was wondering if while I am a postdoc it is a good idea to list said lecturer offer on my CV, and if so, whether I should drop it once I manage to secure a lecturer (or equivalent) position elsewhere.

Personally, I wouldn't list jobs I hadn't taken up on my CV. Whilst it could give a prospective future employer confidence that you would be up to the job, I feel for me I would rather discuss this face to face in an interview where they can hear you out rather than let them make unnecessary and potentially false assumptions about you based on your CV alone.


Can a lecturer force you to learn a specific programming syntax / language? My class is currently further learning our relational database / SQL as part of the course.

The lecturer we have currently is restricting us to learning specifically Oracle SQL syntax rather than allowing us an option to using PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, etc.

When we brought up our preference in the use of alternative systems due to working with those mentioned above in work placements or academic study from the year prior, we were talked down to for even discussing the matter.

Is this permissible within the UK to restrict students from using a preferred database syntax / software environment?

Edit to add: thank you for your insights and feedback. The post was made on behalf of myself and half a dozen class members who did not know the best route to address the matter, but now have a clearer understanding thanks to this community. For what it's worth, I can confidently say myself and my fellow students are confident with Oracle, MySQL and other SQL Basics from prior education, projects or employment and don't have an issue learning something new to keep progressing.

No, they can't. But they can make you fail the class.

Lecturers usually have free rein over the specifics of the material taught. Therefore they are free to choose any technology or dialect as long as it is within the area of the course.

Nobody can force you to study anything but if you want to pass his exam or the course by e.g. submitting lab problems, you have to play by their rules.

They might not know any other dialect and therefore be only able to teach (and grade) Oracle SQL. Or they might consider it the best dialect, e.g., because of wide industry use.

Finally, although I would be annoyed by this as well, sometimes you have to suck it up and just pass the course. Lecturers that teach the same (obsolete) material for 20 years are unfortunately a reality in academia. At least you might learn what to avoid in the future.


How to do undergrad summer research in philosophy, when there aren't any programs? I am a first year undergraduate student studying natural sciences at highly reputed university, and am pretty sure that in the future I would like to pursue studies in philosophical theoretical physics and mathematics, and philosophy of artificial intelligence, perhaps also dabbling in philosophy of mind. I wanted to explore this during the summer, however there aren't really any philosophy summer programs for undergraduates. I would be very interested to hear any suggestions that anyone has. I have come across the Summer School for Mathematical Philosophy for female students at the University of Munich, for example. However, it is only a one week long course and I have a 3 month long summer vacation!

I was wondering if there are any other options? Perhaps I could email a professor at another university and I could spend the summer there? The problem is, I don't really know what this could entail, so I am not quite sure what to put in an email. If I were to spend, for example, 6 weeks in a department, what could I hope to achieve? Is it common for a humanities student to write a short paper during the summer while working under a department? I would rather not spend the summer at my university -- I think it would be good for me to spend some time in a different environment as well.

There are many options, a lot of research internships are offered across the globe, you should look what universities have relationships with yours, at national or international level, an then you can apply. However, for now just prepare writing short essays and get a partner so them can be reviewed, also, read a lot of philosophy; I tell you this because most of the research internships are for high-performance students, and you don't want to under-deliver, also, most of them only accept students with more than the 50% of the total credits finished.

So plan ahead and you'll do something really interesting, I was accepted in the Globalink program in Canada, and if I have no problem with mexican bureaucracy I'll be in Montreal this summer. Keep in mind that most of this stuff must be planned a year ahead, and always look for updates of many programs so you can have a variety to choose, there are also a lot of programs for practices and professional service if you university requires either of them. Greetings and good luck!


Alternatives for when your institution doesn't provide you an e-mail address I study in an institution that never provided me or any other student with an institution e-mail. I feel that this is highly prejudicial to my academic success because a) it forbids me to access closed content, except if I'm accessing it through an institutional computer; and b) it prevents me from being acknowledged by the scientific community. My profile at Google Scholar isn't showing on searches because I don't have a valid institutional e-mail. I cannot create a Scopus profile for the same reason. I really feel that's holding me back when it comes to fully participating in the academic sphere. I've already filed 2 requests for an e-mail, but they simply answer that they don't hand them to masters' students.

My question is if there are alternatives that are suitable to my case that doesn't envolve arguing with the dean about it, because I'm literally days away from my graduation, and if I'm not mistaken, I believe those expire when you graduate. Am I wrong?

Some scientific organizations like ieee provide an life-long (or membership-long) e-mail adress which can be used in an academic context. The advantage is, that it will stay valid even if your affiliation changes. The downside is, you will collect spam forever ;-).

In our university, all students are in a dedicated "firstname.lastname@student.our-university.de" scheme, and they are deleted a few months after graduation. This does not help for long-term communication issues, but allows access for restricted content during the time of study.

In general, I believe your institution should provide an e-mail address due to many reasons (e.g. authentification, ease of communication, etc.), honestly it is hard to imagine how we would run our institution without.


What's the difference between "research grant" and "fellowship" ? (what to choose for a postdoc?) I was wondering what's the difference between a research grant and a fellowship ?

I am currently finishing my PhD and I am looking for funding for my postdoc. I came across a call for proposal of a fundation and it gives details of Regulations about "research grants" and Regulations about "fellowships".
Should I ask for a "research grant" or a "fellowship"?

Thank you.

Not sure what country you are in, but the usual difference between fellowship and grant funding in the UK is eligibility.

A fellowship is for somebody who does not yet have an academic position (that is, they are not a lecturer with an ongoing job). The fellowship supports them to do research that they choose and usually has a strong element of mentorship and other development.

On the other hand, a grant is for someone who already has an academic position and will lead the research. The academic wins the grant and then hires postdocs to conduct the research. The postdocs hired do not get to choose their research topic.


Is there a clear etiquette on providing full text paper when you are a coauthor? As a coauthor, I occasionally receive requests for full-text pdfs of research I have worked on in the past (vis Researchgate for instance). Thus far I have generally ignored those requests - leaving it up to the first or corresponding author to reply.

However, when these requests lay dormant for a while I would like to know what the etiquette would be for providing the full text as a middle author?

Advantages:

Share my work more widely, also increases visibility for the first author/senior author.
Coauthors may have drifted away from academia, or not be on the platform.

Disadvantages:

Not sure of the interface on Researchgate - but if they have explicitly ignored the request and then I accept it I have acted against their interest.

It's your paper, even if you are just a co-author.  I can't imagine why any of your collaborators would not want to share them.  Keeping in mind that not all journals are accessible to everyone, I see no reason not to promptly acquiesce, even if  you are not the corresponding author.


IQ and Probability of Success in Two Difficult Fields I've had my IQ measured on multiple tests over the past several decades. The first time was in middle school and it was measured at 120. I guarantee you that I didn't care about the result when I took that test as a kid. I probably wanted to get it over with. Much later in life, and consistent with another time later in life, my IQ was measured at 138. I am a believer that these measurements can vary with motivation, health, alertness, sleep deprivation, and other psychophysiological factors.

Based on my measured IQ range of 120-138, I'd like to see an answer to the following questions:

What is the probability that I could complete a PhD in Mathematics or Physics? What is the probability that I could contribute at least slightly significantly to either of those fields over the long term as a PhD?

One of my "best" qualities is that I'm very tenacious regarding problem-solving. I might not get there the quickest, but I don't give up until I do or the pursuit begins to interfere with other aspects of life. People might accuse me of being physically lazy, but there's no way they can accuse me of being problem-solving lazy. I'm the kind of person who will hire a home maintenance technician as a last resort only because I don't have the tools. I'm pretty frugal.

I feel pretty inferior to many of the people who have posted comments on StackExchange.

IQ is a terrible test for anything but certain types of pattern matching and to aid in educational intervention, and its limitations are well understood by actual psychological practitioners.  There are correlations, but the correlations are pretty loose.  With all those caveats, according to Wikipedia, you are totally in a reasonable range to get a Ph.D..


Raising money on the Kickstarter or GoFundMe websites Let's say a student is not funded during the summer months but has a cool research idea that even their advisor thinks is tractable and important to the scientific community, and this student wishes to devote an entire summer pursuing research on this topic and forgoing a summer job / internship.

Can the student attempt to raise money on the Kickstarter or GoFundMe websites?

Are there any obvious restrictions or academic violations for doing so?

To me, it seems like a creative way to raise money, and I feel people would back the project too.

There have been a number of successfully crowdfunded research projects already, see e.g. this write-up. Specific crowdfunding websites have even been set up for research projects, such as Experiment and Petridish. As you might guess from all this activity there is no general issue with crowdfunding research. However, your particular university might have specific policies or restrictions to be aware of. (Your advisor should know the right people to get in touch with to find out for sure.) I've heard that a common roadblock is that the university's accounting offices might not know how to (or want to) handle this kind of projects, where the funding comes from many small donations, rather than a central funding agency. In any case, there are no obvious global restrictions that apply.

There have been some other crowdfunding questions on this website you might be interested in as well: What are some tips for crowdfunding science off websites like PetriDish?, and Can a PhD be crowdfunded?.


What to consider when presenting without PowerPoint? (I hope this question is not off-topic, if it is, maybe you can suggest how to make it on-topic?)

I am in the biological sciences and I'd like to present my research (in front of colleagues who know about our research area but not specifically about my topic) without using PowerPoint (or slides created by a similar tool). I have about 30 minutes for the presentation which is supposed to be the basis for the subsequent discussion of my work.

There is the possibility to use a whiteboard and/or flip chart. And of course I could provide my colleagues with some printed material before the presentation starts.

My motivation for this kind of presentation is simply to move away from the expected and conventional PowerPoint-presentation and try out some different techniques.

What should I consider to make it easier for my audience to follow, and what should I avoid?

I think you are right to want to avoid PP or similar. Slides can help a presentation but can lead to horrors such as the presenter standing with back to the audience reading the words on the slides.

I have a number of thoughts based on my own experience over many years of public speaking with and without slides:

If you have no slides then the audience's attention is going to be on you. How confident are that you can hold their attention? What is your speaking voice like? Can you modulate it to vary the tone? Do you have any verbal tics that they will find irritating? You could practice in front of a trusted friend who must be honest with you about such things.

You must avoid reading aloud from notes. Notes that are just headlines are good. If you can manage without notes that would be great.

If you use the flipchart then avoid putting too many, or even any words on it: just visual images. If you circulate a paper in advance do you think they will read it before the presentation? If they don't then they will have their heads down reading when you want them looking at you and listening intently.

Good luck.


Cold emailing another grad student at your institution to ask a question I’m stuck in my research (I'm a PhD student) with a task/question that neither I nor my advisor are knowledgeable about (we are looking for vendors of a niche item and have had very little success in that). I have found a group on campus that I think may use this tech (based on their published research) and I want to reach out to a grad student there that I think may know where they get this tech from or who makes it for them.
Would it be inappropriate to email them just to ask this question? It isn’t really a scientific question so I don’t want it to come across in a bad way.

Nope, this would be totally appropriate.
If they don't respond, your advisor could escalate to their advisor.


What are some specific benefits of having my name as a coauthor on a research paper as an undergrad? I'm finishing up my B.S. in mathematics right now, and I was approached by a former professor with whom I've kept a good relationship, and she asked if I would be able/willing to help her and another professor in a research project they are working on.

My role is pretty purely computational, basically just implementing their mathematical work in code, but she said that it's enough to have me listed as a coauthor on the paper, considering that things don't go south (which, they aren't expected to).

Besides having Erdos number 4 (hey, pretty good for a fresh bachelor's degree), are there some actual benefits that would go along with having my name on a publication?

Just to be clear, this is not an undergrad research opportunity or project, nor do I think(?) it is considered a graduate paper. They are both published professors working on this as a team.

Could this help me get into a better grad school (rather-- master's program) than I would otherwise be able to (pretty average GPA, to be honest)? Help secure some funding? etc

Could this help me get into a better grad school (rather-- master's
  program) than I would otherwise be able to (pretty average GPA, to be
  honest)? Help secure some funding? etc

Yes, it can help you with all those things and more (including non-academia-related things like applying for a job in industry). Generally speaking, being a coauthor of a published paper in mathematics says good things about you and your math/STEM/academic/research abilities in any context in which someone would care about those abilities.

However, it's important to take things in perspective and understand that "just" the fact of your being a coauthor on a single paper will not make a huge difference in and of itself. E.g., a grad school or fellowship candidate with no publications can easily "beat" a candidate who has a publication if the former has other good things going for them (a better GPA, better recommendations etc) that the latter doesn't. What I would say matters a lot more is not just being a coauthor, but what you actually did to deserve being a coauthor. If you do an unusually good job on the project, this can translate to excellent recommendations, which will carry a far greater weight in a grad school application than the mere coauthorship line on your CV. If you were just a code monkey who did low quality work, the coauthorship would still be of some value but would overall not be worth very much.

Finally, I should mention that you seem to think that work that's "pretty purely computational" is less important or creative than other sorts of math research, but that is not universally true (although it may be true in specific instances). Even in a computational project there may still be a lot of room for creativity, and a chance to excel in all kinds of unexpected ways. Who knows, you may end up having an idea for a cool optimization that would extend the computational range of the algorithm enough to enable you to discover an amazing new phenomenon your collaborators did not even suspect existed (such things have happened many times). Besides, understanding complicated mathematical constructions well enough to translate them into code can be a highly nontrivial challenge. You would also get to experience the thrill of doing mathematical research and taking a part in the discovery of new knowledge, learn about working collaboratively with others, and probably derive many other benefits from the experience. So, to summarize, I would not scoff at the opportunity to take part in such a project. Doing it just for the paper coauthorship would probably be a bad idea, but doing it for the experience and knowledge you will gain, plus the chance of a coauthorship, seem like excellent reasons to me.


PhD Research under guide/advisor of a different department I am a physics undergrad, who is also interested in pure mathematics. I am not very sure what I want to pursue for my PhD. Though I have specific interests in each of the two, and also inter-linked interests, in general I am very confused. My question is it legally and practically allowed for you to chose a guide from another department different than that which you are affiliated to? If not, can someone from another department become a co-guide? In particular, I am looking for laws and practices in the US and Europe (may differ from country to country).

Yes.

At least in the US, it is quite common for PhD students enrolled in department X to be advised by faculty in department Y, either alone or with a co-advisor in department X.  Off the top of my head, I can think of PhD students in my (computer science) department who are advised or co-advised by faculty in electrical engineering, mathematics, and industrial engineering.  Similarly, faculty in my department who advise PhD students in mathematics, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and biology.

That said, if you enroll in the PhD program in department X, you will have to satisfy the degree requirements (courses, comprehensive/qualifying exams, etc.) for department X, even if your advisor and your eventual research interests are in department Y.


Is it worth finishing your PhD if your advisor thinks you are not cut out for research? I am a fourth year PhD student.  My advisor told me I was a bad researcher, and as I understand, I would need his letter of reference if I wanted to do any research in the future.

He advised me to pursue a career in data science when I graduate.  However, I think if I wanted to, I could get a data science job right now, and wouldn't have to bother finishing.

Is there any advantage to finishing a PhD if I can get the same kinds of jobs either way?

Thanks.

I am very, VERY reluctant to tell anyone to scrap what they've worked so hard for. I don't have a doctorate and I can tell you that I'm always impressed when I find out someone has one. To me, it means they contributed something new and significant to their chosen field. That's impressive. Think of it this way. Let's say you are NOT a good researcher. That means you broke through that hurdle and achieved it anyway. You had drive and stamina others might not. Let me show you how impressive it is to achieve a doctorate. I Googled on "what percentage of Americans have a doctorate".


How many choices of postdoc jobs a PhD student normally get? At the end of the PhD experience, how many choices of postdoc jobs a student can normally get?

It depends totally from the PhD supervisors or there can be other factors influencing the matter, such as e.g. the student desire to join a particular university/research group, the PhD research topic, number and quality of papers?

Thanks

There are really no answers to your question. It depends on so many factors:
* If you're from Harvard or Berkeley, your adviser is well known, and you've been doing excellent work, then you might get offers from essentially all places you choose to apply.
* If you're from Middle-of-Nowhere City College, worked on some obscure research topic that was started by your adviser 40 years ago and that nobody cared about at the time (and cares even less about today), and did not publish, then you may get no offers from any of the places you apply to.

In addition, it of course depends on where you apply, how many applications you send, whether you carefully choose your letter writers, if you have many/few publications, if you're willing to look overseas, etc. There is no generic answer to your question.


What is the etiquette for CCing faculty in eMails? I'm working in an international collaboration (Germany and Netherlands). It happens quite often that I'm asking technical questions to fellow postdocs by email, just sending the email to this single person. When I receive the reply, I almost always see that the head of the group has been put in CC.

I'm wondering why this is done. Is this some kind of etiquette I'm not aware of? I imagine that as a group leader you get flooded with emails, so why would you request more?

Yes, that sort of etiquette (CC'ing the PI of each involved partner in a collaboration, even for exchanges at lower level) exist in some groups. It is particularly true of recent collaborations, either because they have been established recently or because the research is still in its infancy. In both case, I suppose it is nice to help PI's stay on top of how things are progressing, both on the science and on the interpersonal relationships (like, is everyone acting professionally).

It's not universal, but it is common. It depends a lot on the nature of the relations between the PI's and their groups. I tend to ask students/post-docs to keep me in CC of the first few emails to our collaborator after they arrive/we start the project, then after sometime I tell them to drop me when it's evident things are going well.

In your situation, the safest course of action is to keep people on the CC list. You didn't CC them, but someone did, so don't drop them unless they ask for it. Also, ask your own boss how he likes to do things.

“I imagine that as a group leader you get flooded with emails, so why would you request more?” — Whatever you do, you will be flooded with emails. You don't read them all, but you may skim those for tone/content, keeping an eye on things.


Job advertisement: "Liaise professionally" Australian academic job advertisements often ask for candidates to show they can liaise professionally with people in certain other academic roles.  What sort of experience or achievements are they looking for?

This one is pretty easy. The requirement that you've mentioned simply asks for some proof, at least, informal one, that a person is capable to successfully facilitate professional interactions by communicating with people from various subject domains and convert ideas and information between domain "languages". In other words, successfully act as a subject domain translator.

The simplest example of such role from the industry would be a business analyst, which most often requires to translate requirements and other project information between business-focused groups and IT-focused ones. Roles of project / product / program manager are related, though different.

Therefore, to meet such requirement, which is very typical for both academia and industry due to their collaborative nature of work, I would say that listing successful projects (with specifying roles and relevant tasks & achievements of facilitating interdisciplinary cooperation) in a CV is enough.


Submit an idea to a conference I was wondering if it is appropriate to submit a work to a conference call, which only presents an idea without further development.
So far, in my field, computer science, I usually submit works following more or less this structure:

introduction

background

methods

proof of concept

evaluation

conclusion

Recently, I have seen a call quite interesting for presenting an idea related to my previous research. For this reason, I have to admit that I know the topic. However, the idea is not implemented, neither I evaluated it. Let's say, the work is only the method.
This scenario makes me doubt about the appropriateness of presenting my idea in the shape of a paper.
Finally, if doing this is not appropriate for a conference. Can it be for a workshop? Or even more, a lighting talk, or a poster?
EDIT ---------------------------------------------------------------------
Apart from the interesting given answers, it is important to note that there are conferences (or tracks) for position papers:
A position paper presents an arguable opinion about an issue. The goal of a position paper is to convince the audience that your opinion is valid and worth listening to, without the need to present completed research work and/or validated results.

In CS, conferences are like journals in other fields: the normal medium to publish fresh results. But it is results. There might be exceptions for some specialized conferences that make exceptions.
Also, many CS conferences have a Workshop track in which unfinished work can be presented and discussed. Likewise, there is sometimes a Doctoral workshop in which PhD students discuss their ongoing research and get feedback.
But for a normal paper track in a typical conference, a completed work will be expected.


Omissions of undergraduate information I am new here. I was wondering since many of you are learned professionals what your opinion on this is.

I have recently returned to further education (as an undergraduate) and have been there for a few years. In my original application to the university, I filled in the previous academic background section as much as I could. Since there have been a large number of years since I left a course I did not finish, I was wondering if - ethically and perhaps code of conduct wise - forgetting to include that I did not finish said course at a 'partner college' to the university I am currently enrolled at would come back with implications down the line.

Would it be best to bring this to attention? It is worth mentioning that the results for which my current undergraduate course was deemed 'conditional' from, are not related this course I accidentally omitted. Any opinions?

You should have been asked for transcripts of all your previous work, and those transcripts will fill in what you may have omitted.


Is it financially worth it to teach a MOOC (e.g. Coursera)? I am not sure what the requirements are to teach a MOOC. I guess it is a little different, depending on which platform one is going to teach. As far as I undestand, Coursera offers only 15% of the revenue to the teaching team. Somewhere else it might be more, but the number of participants is smaller. Does someone have experience whether it is financially worth to teach a MOOC?

For this question please leave aside other benefits like getting known or the satisfaction of teaching. I see those as benefits, but that is not the question for now.

Also I am only counting money that flows from the MOOC platform to the team/organisation/company, not compensation from a university to the lecturer for doing the course (like discussed in How are instructors compensated for teaching a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)?).

Coursera works on a different model from Udemy. Basically, Udemy pays its instructors while Coursera does not. Coursera may split profits (or revenue) with the university, but as far as I can tell it does not pay the teaching team directly. Based on your constraints this means teaching for Coursera is not worth it. It is possible to make money teaching for Udemy. For example, in 2012 the top ten earners made 1.65 million [1] and a quarter made at least $10,000 [2].


How should I respond when an audience points out an issue in my research in my talk? I am a PhD student, and just gave a talk about a model that my advisor and I have been working on in a small conference. During my talk, a professor pointed out that our model will have an serious issue in his field, which my advisor and I are not familiar with, so the model might not work. I wasn't sure how to respond to him at that moment. Fortunately, the issue only associates with part of my talk. And, my advisor was there, too. He responded to him that this part of the work is still in progress so I wasn't too embarrassed.

Therefore, I would like to ask, in general,

How should I respond when an audience points out that there might be an issue in my work during my talk?
How often does this happen in an actual talk?
How serious is this?

Whatever you say, don't get defensive or passive-aggressive. Just discuss the remark as it is. He may be right, he may be wrong, and he may just have an interesting point, which, while not invalidating your approach, may show you some ways not to go. I've seen various possibilities and derailed at least one talk myself. Such situation is not very common but it happens now and then and what it really calls for is pursuing the issue to the end (not necessarily during the talk; you'll have to think when discussing such stuff, and being at the blackboard with 20 people looking at you slows your brain down quite a bit).

If it is not immediately clear that the observation just kills the presentation completely (in which case the only decent exit is to step down) the obvious immediate response would be something along the lines "Thanks for the observation. I haven't noticed that. Let's discuss it right after the talk". In most cases people will be happy to do it and you'll learn something new in the process. It is normally understood that the discussion of a controversial point during the talk itself is not a great idea.

As to how serious it is, it won't hurt your reputation much, if that was the question, but it may be serious enough to force you to completely abandon your current approach and that is something you'll need to find out. Don't expect the objection disappear once that professor is out of the room. If it was a valid point, it will arise again and again, so you'd better address the issue right away.


How do employers verify that job applicants have the degree(s) they claim? Let's say someone is named John Smith applied for a job claiming that he was graduated from University X. How would an employer confirm that the applicant is John Smith, who also has the degree from University X? Wouldn't it be incredibly common for someone else to have the same name from the same department?

Most of the time, employers trust that potential applicants have the degrees that they claim they have. When applicants apply for jobs, they are frequently asked to attest to the fact that everything they are submitting is truthful. There can be enormous legal and reputational consequences to lying.

If it emerges later, for any reason, that an employee lies about a degree, they run a very strong risk of being fired and having their reputation and credibility destroyed. In some case, fraud can lead to criminal changes. Because the consequences can be enormous, most people will not lie about something like the conferral of a degree.

In situations where employees needs to verify a degree, there are many options. Employers might request a copy of a diploma or a transcript from applicants (I was asked to do this by an Academic HR department at my current university to finalize my appointment). In some cases (e.g., when applying to graduate schools) it's routine for the degreeholder to request signed and sealed copies of academic transcripts that are sent directly from the registrars to potential schools or employers. Some universities and fields have automated systems that employers can use to verify that an applicant has the degree they claim.

Although it's possible that a university or department might have multiple students with the same name, you won't have two students with exactly the same experience. Two identically-named students will not likely have started in the same department at the same and ended at the same time (information that would normally be on a CV). Registrars will often have systems in place to ensure that they only individual students can grant access to their transcripts (e.g., by requiring less public information like a password, birthday or, government-issued ID number) which acts as another form of evidence.

If an employer was incredibly skeptical, they could just ask an applicant basic things about their experience in school. Who did they take classes with? Which professor did they have the best relationship with? Then send an email or call and see if things check out.


Listing patent applications on graduate/postbacc application CVs I'm an undergraduate applying to graduate school and post-bacc programs, so posts like this one have been very helpful for me.

I haven't yet seen a post about patent applications, though.

So I interned at a company and they put my name on some patent applications. I asked about it here when I thought there were just 4 applications, but I signed some papers today and it turns out there are 14 patent applications that they listed me on.

I'm proud of what I did to help with those applications, but I don't think they're terribly profound observations--just some genetic targets I identified through some data analysis.

It seems like a lot to put all 14 applications on a CV. Should I? Should they have their own section?

If you include them, they should have their own section. Issued patents are more clearly reasonable to include than pending patents, though I don't think there's anything intrinsically wrong with listing pending patents.

Whether you should include them will depend in part on your field and how you want to position yourself in that field.  I would recommend consulting with professors you respect in your field.

In my field — computer science — many of us believe that the patent system is harmful to the profession.  I have an issued patent, but I do not advertise it. If I saw an applicant with many pending patents listed, I would ask about it in the interview, because depending on their motivations and reasons it may be sign that our approaches to research are not compatible and they would be better off with a different adviser. Occasionally I will include it on a version of my CV that I know will be reviewed by people who care about patents, but it is not on my primary CV.

I cannot speak to the particulars of your field, or how debates about patentability play out in it. But your decision of how to structure and what to include in your CV may stake out an initial position in that debate, and if so you should be aware of it and make sure that's what you want to do.


How to demonstrate excellent undergraduate and graduate teaching capabilities in academic position applications? It is quite common in almost all position opening announcements in academic institutes to demonstrate EXCELLENT teaching capabilities. For instance sentences like below:

  Applicants are expected to demonstrate excellent undergraduate and graduate teaching capabilities

But the question is HOW to demonstrate that excellence? Is just listing subjects taught during last couple of years sufficient? I guess we can use teaching statement or teaching philosophy to demonstrate that ability too. But, what type of sentences show that excellence in teaching statement?

It is a great question that I have asked myself in the last several years and I'm also looking for an informed answer. In the mean while, I have come up with an idea to demonstrate my teaching abilities to potential employers:

After graduation, I taught several graduate courses mainly on mathematical analysis, such as measure theory, harmonic analysis, C*-algebra. Based on these experiences, I have written a lecture note on C*-algebras which is available in arXiv. I thought if a serious employer really wants to evaluate my teaching abilities, nothing speaks better than my lecture notes.


Chicago manual of style block quote reference placement In the Chicago manual of style Author-Date format, what is the preferred way to place the reference to a block quote, if the author name is mentioned in the text.

As Smith (2000, 3) wrote about this issue,

       this is a block quote which is
       spanning more than three lines
       so that it definitely deserves to
       be indented.

Next paragraph ...

or

As Smith wrote about this issue,

       this is a block quote which is
       spanning more than three lines
       so that it definitely deserves to
       be indented. (Smith 2000, 3)

Next paragraph ...

It is clear that Chicago prefers says that the reference should be as close as possible to the quote, but in the case above I'm unsure.

According to the style manual itself, the preferred placement is generally after the quotation. However, it allows for placing it before the citation as well.
From CMOS 16th ed., section 15.25:

Text citations in relation to direct quotations. Although citation of a source normally follows a direct quotation, it may precede the quotation - especially if such a placement allows the date to appear with the author's name.
...
When the source of a block quotation is given in parentheses at the end of the quotation, the opening parenthesis appears after the final punctuation mark of the quoted material. No period either precedes or follows the closing parenthesis.

This doesn't directly address the case when the author's name is already present in the preceding sentence. However, if we instead look at Kate L. Turabian's Manual for Writers, 8th ed., we're given an example in line with your second example. A similar example is shown in these notes.
All in all, I think your second way is generally preferred. Nevertheless, there is some freedom you can use if it makes things clearer. For example, if the parenthetical citation does not include the year (which seems not be required for block citations) putting the citation (including year) before the quotation may be a good idea.


Main argumentation in introductory chapter of Phd thesis? I am in my last year of my PhD and start focusing on writing my thesis. In the course of my PhD I had to apply twice for external funding, in which I - thanks God - succeeded.

I believe that part of that success was - aside of the "hot" topic - the way I presented my research. I wrote roughly 10 pages in style of a paper, where I had an abstract (5-6 phrases about my research answering the 5 common w-questions) for those who had just 1 minute to spare. However, instead of presenting my text of 8 pages right away, I added first a text of about 1,5 pages in which I wrote about my research in categories like motivation, research gap, my approach and contribution, research questions, method, time and work schedule in greater detail for those who had about 4 minutes to spare.

Is it good practice, a good idea to do the same for my PhD thesis, presenting the major argumentative path in the first chapter "Introduction" on perhaps max. 5 pages? My idea is that the reader (supervisors) do not need to read the entire dissertation to understand/identify the major arguments (but obviously need to, for him/her to challenge my entire work) and to not get tempted to only read the conclusions of each chapter to prevent that they get a sided idea (just in case).

My idea is basically to allow the reader to follow my entire argumentation easier, not to help them skip pages or save them time (like in the case of the funding application).

Every dissertation or thesis should have an introduction.

When I receive a student's thesis to read, I usually do not have numerous hours to pick out the details of every page. Having a 4-8 page introduction is extremely helpful in allowing me to learn what is most important in the overall arguments of the thesis. An introduction allows readers to see the major theme of the work.

When I wrote my own dissertation, I treated the introduction chapter much like an extended abstract. It highlighted what the reader needed to watch for and established the overall theme of my work.

The introduction can also serve a useful purpose of providing a place to take care of some of the administrative aspects of the thesis such as acknowledgements and holistic citations ("This thesis was written using LaTeX; all code was written in C++). These things are given their own pages at times, but I found it useful to be able to just place them in a paragraph in the introduction.


Why do so many PhDs choose to join academia instead of industry given the pay in academia is considerably lower and the workload is much heavier? In the computer science field, an entry-level software engineer in top-tier tech companies (e.g. Google, Facebook, etc.) could earn as much as a 20-year experience professor. And the workload in academia is way heavier.

For example, my friends in Google work 8 hours a day and have the weekend while my Ph.D. friends have to work at least 60 hours a week if they want to have a good publication record. They almost stay in the lab all day long and don't have the weekend.

And also, given my observation, getting a position at an even mediocre university is even much harder than getting a position at Google level companies, let alone a Ph.D. would take more time on their education.

Why do so many PhDs still choose to be a professor while they have the choice to go to the industry?

In CS field, an entry-level software engineer in top-tier tech
  companies (e.g. Google, Facebook, etc.) could earn as much as a
  20-year experience professor....Why do so many PhDs still choose to be a professor while they have the choice to go to the industry?

First, your assumption is wrong. Most PhDs end up in industry. I don't have any source but I think this is from 90 - 99%.

If you limit your question to the 1% - 10% that become professors, they are all very successful, i.e. they have plenty of papers, promising research direction, strong network etc etc. And there is a reason for their success: they have passion, and when you have passion, money is likely not the most important thing in life.

Except for machine learning, in most areas in CS, you need to stay in academia to do research. And there are many benefits that you can only have when working in academia.

You take credit for what you have done. Products in industry are developed by a large team, and nobody can take full credit for it. But researchers can take full credit for what they do in their papers.
Reputation: you are invited to give talk, become program committee members, etc etc, and everybody will know you. I would be excited to meet an author whose paper I have read. I'm not excited at all to meet a Google employee. (I'm living in Mountain View, a small city with 80,000 residents, but more than 20,000 Google employees)
Do interesting jobs. You always work on new things in research, while the majority of tasks of a software engineer are maintenance, fix bugs etc.

(I'm a software engineer if you are curious)


Make some papers in PhD I am a third year PhD Student in math. I am studying abroad from my country. I need some advice.

I have three main problems that I would like to share with you.

1) It seems, I will be graduated with 1 published paper. As you know, finding postdoc position is so difficult even though I would really like to keep doing research in mathematics. Do you have any advice to me for 1 year left of my PhD so that I can get postdoc position easier than now?

2) My supervisor would not like to work with me. Moreover, he is so busy. Whenever I can ask questions from him, he thought about my questions at that moment, not anymore.

I found out I have to work by myself. Unfortunately, I do not have enough experience to work myself and I need to work with someone. I decided to work some mathematician who I met them in some conference. I had some bad experience. Would you please tell me how can I talk to some mathematician so that we make a paper together? In particular, I will meet a great mathematician that I have been following his work since 2017. I made some progress and i would like to show him and convince him to work with me.

3) How much I am good in my field, I am terrible in other branches of mathematics. Let me give an example that show that my question clear. I do high level things in mathematics but I forgot some basic things from other branches that I have learnt several years ago, such as graph, Algebra,number theory,... Is it bad things? What is your advice?

I was in your exact position couple of years back, not that the supervisor didn't want to work with me; rather he left the university and I had no supervision!; and I had to finish up and defend my thesis. So here's my advice to you:

Start Your Thesis: You have to start writing your thesis right now! It is a toxic environment when you are 2+ years in and the supervisor is not responsive; and you are still trying to figure things out. So, have a template, and start adding things; and so on. Time is running out and you are responsible for your thesis at the end of the day.
Regular Meetings: Send calendar invite to your supervisor for a weekly meeting. If he is not responsive you must inform the head of research group. If you don't you cant say "well my supervisor is unresponsive for the last 4 years and I need to finish my PhD" they will ask you why you didn't inform them sooner.

You might ask: what about papers? Well, you could take part of your unfinished thesis and turn it into a paper. Ideally we want to make papers and write a thesis about it. But when time is running out and you have no direction by the supervisor, you must start writing your thesis, to see what parts of your work need more focus.

That's it! Two important points to finish up your PhD. Finding a postdoc position is not your problem at the moment! You need to finish off your PhD first. Being a Postdoc is not that different from a PhD, what are you going to do if the supervisor is busy again? You need to develop your skills first. So, finish up your thesis and think about defending it, as soon as you can.


Co-author responds to email by mistake cc'ing the EiC I (first author) received a decision on a manuscript recently (minor revision). All my co-authors were cc'ed in the decision email and some of them replied to the decision email saying "congratulations" to me while cc'ing the other co-authors.

One of them accidentally cc'ed the Editor-in-Chief (EiC) of the journal!!! Actually, his reply was to the EiC of the journal with me in the cc. I think this horrible as formally the paper is still pending minor revision before publication.

How should I react? Should I just ignore this or send an email to the EiC apologizing for the misdirected email of this co-author? I do not want to overreact but this got me anxious as I have been eager for this paper to get accepted.

I think you can safely ignore it. I don't see how or why the editor would suddenly disfavor your paper because of something like this. They seem to think your paper is worthy of publication and they want to publish such papers, not get upset about small communication glitches.

And, of course, people often get cc'd on emails they shouldn't see, causing minor embarrassment. And I think that it is only that here: minor embarrassment.

Let it go. Someone got a chuckle out of it perhaps, but there isn't any reason for them to take out the big hammer.


Is it possible for MSc (India) student to pursue MS in US? Is it possible for an Indian student with M.Sc degree to do M.S course in USA? I heard BS degree in USA is of 4 years, but in India MSc is done after BSc.

So long as you meet or exceed (but not by too much!) the graduate admission requirements of a department, there's no reason you shouldn't be able to study there. There's no fixed rule that says that you can't do a master's in India then do one in the US as well. (If there is such a rule, it applies only to the departments or universities that impose them; there are no universal rules that govern US graduate admissions.)

The best bet is, of course, to contact the schools you're interest in attending and ask them directly what their policies are.


How to properly address an unsolved problem that is very hard to solve in mathematical thesis? I'm preparing my thesis presentation and I'm trying to address a situation in which the general case has no known solution and is an open, very hard to solve, problem. It involves non-isolated singularities, so, if you're a mathematician, you could have an idea regarding this kind of difficulty.

How can I spell this out in a more appropriate way? I don't want to say "one should notice that solving this problem in the non-isolated singularities case is very hard". It seems out of place and subjective (I mean, what do I mean by "very hard"? That the case I solved in my thesis was easy?).

I am assuming you're talking about a presentation to be given at the defence of a PhD thesis.

Let me address a few points you raise.

It is perfectly appropriate to include subjective judgements about the difficulty or significance of certain results in a mathematical thesis (or paper). Mathematicians make these judgements all the time in deciding what to work on and in evaluating other people's work. What matters is that you have a solid rationale for the judgements you make. In your situation, the rationale for considering the general case "very hard" is that it involves non-isolated singularities. That seems perfectly reasonable to me.
If you're worried about presenting subjective judgements as if they were statements of fact, there are various standard forms of wording you could try. Instead of writing "solving this problem... is very hard" you could write "solving this problem... appears to be very hard" or "solving this problem...is generally considered to be very hard" (assuming the latter is true). If there are published works affirming that the general case is hard, you can cite them in support of your point.
Finally, asserting that the general case of a problem is very hard does not imply (in any sense of that word) that a special case is easy, only that it is easier. But that is completely fine: experienced mathematicians are well used to people restricting themselves to more tractable special cases. I don't have any examples to hand, but I have read many papers in which the author does exactly this. This is not interpreted as an "admission" that the special case is "too easy". (In fact, often when someone does prove something that really is too easy, their rhetoric is the opposite: they try to puff it up to make it sound more difficult than it really is.)