How often do authors send their paper by email upon request? Emailing the authors of a paper is a common way to obtain access to the paper when it is behind paywalls.

Is there any research/study/survey that tried to quantify how often authors send their paper by email upon request? I am especially interested in requests that come from non .edu email addresses. I am also interested in how long the authors take to reply.

Cambridge did a limited survey on this, based solely on requests that came via the repository (so not by direct email). They found that:

38% had the author send the paper directly via the repository
4% of requests were explicitly denied by the author

This leaves 56% unknown. A later followup survey of authors who didn't use the repository response function suggested that about a third went on to contact the requestor directly, suggesting an overall success rate comfortably over 50%.

(As an aside: the repository I manage involves us forwarding such requests to researchers, and we have no "click to send a copy" function, so I get cc'ed on a large number of the replies. Counting only the cases where the author is still around, I would estimate that over two-thirds get a copy of the paper, and it's quite common to see replies that amount to "hi, here's the paper, here's also a few others that look relevant to what you're interested in". I don't have solid figures on that, but given that my academics are fairly similar to theirs, it leads me to suspect Cambridge's success rate may be higher than they expect.)

Interestingly, the Cambridge repository data suggests that about half of requests are for material that is simply not available yet - it's listed on the repository on acceptance, but not yet published online by the journal - and so there is the complicating factor that some authors were reluctant to share the paper "before publication". This would of course not be an issue for people contacting the authors of a published article, which by definition is already out there.

There was no data on academic/non-academic email addresses in the Cambridge survey, but purely from anecdotal observations in my own repository, I would say a) academics will often write a more engaging request ("I am doing some work on X and would like to see the data on Y which I think is relevant", rather than just saying "research" or giving no reason at all), which is probably more likely to encourage a response; and b) in a lot of cases, people will state an academic affiliation but use a private (or not-obviously-academic) email address. This is true for both researchers and students.

[edit: I checked today. Of the last twenty requests, 12 used an academic email address, 7 were apparently from academics (or students/researchers) with a non-institutional email address; only one was clearly from a non-academic]

This is all repository-based data. Direct emails to authors may have different response rates, but I suspect this is the most effective wide-scale monitoring approach we have without a (rather invasive) experimental campaign...


What to say in PhD application when potential advisor is moving to another university? I am in the process of applying to PhD programs in Computer Science. A professor with whom I'm interested in working is moving from university A to university B. While he is not super well-known, his research interests and mine align very well, and I am quite sure I would have been admitted to university A had he remained there.

He will not moving to B until latter half of 2015, which means that he will not be able to give input into PhD applications to university B for the 2015 admissions cycle.

I will be applying to university B (with the hope that I can work with him), but is there anything that I can (or should) do with regard to my application? Or just mention it in SoP?

(B is slightly more competitive than A, and both are top 15 schools)

which means that he will not be able to give input into PhD applications to university B

This is incorrect. He certainly can, if he chooses, e-mail the director of graduate admissions at B, say that he's interested in working with you, and ask him/her to consider your application favorably. They don't have to admit you, but that would be true even if he were at B now and had been there a long time.

I'd recommend mentioning this in your SOP, and perhaps also e-mailing him and letting him know that you are applying to B with the idea of working with him. (If you have not done so already.)

That said, "I am quite sure I would have been admitted to university A had he remained there" sounds possibly a bit presumptuous, although I don't know your circumstances. In any case, do what you would have done if this professor wasn't moving: apply to the graduate program where he'll be, let him know, and hope for the best. Good luck.


Should I write a rigorous draft before asking for comments? I have a 10-page manuscript of my independent research and would like to ask a professor for comments.  In short, I claim that I've seen a bridge between Shannon's information and semantic information.

The field has been stuck for a long time and I think it might give a breakthrough on it. However, I do see that it isn't really rigorous, and even have contradiction. I know ideally I should spend more time to research but since I need secure funding and getting some comments might be more efficient now, should I ask them anyway? I have also thought about go crowdsourcing, but if I get accepted maybe I won't need to do that?

I've asked some person who knows me, but they are all busy or out of the field.

PS: it is rigorous and not contradict anymore now. Here is the manuscript, I hope that you can have a comment on it. Many thanks. Clearness and Fadedness as a link between semantic information and physical oscillator

Related:
• How can I get a PhD position to work on solving a particular mathematics problem that I have formulated independently?
• Handling unsolicited proofs of famous mathematical problems
• I believe I have solved a famous open problem. How do I convince people in the field that I am not a crank?

It's the nature of the work of academia to throw out interesting ideas and have them torn to pieces, and then to pick out what remains and build it into something publishable.

Since you're in the definition phase and have a 10-pager, I'll assume that you've put together a reasonable literature review and/or theoretical underpinning. What remains is to express the intuitive leap sufficiently plausibly that your oversight (supervisors, funding bodies, university review panel, etc) is prepared to back you.

There's no need to have it all worked out - that's the work to be done. You just have to demonstrate that you might be on the right track. Naturally, the closer that 'might be' is to 'are', the better. But if you can demonstrate this much, feel free to ask for comments.


Is it possible to find out how one was nominated for Sigma Xi and is this organization worth joining? I recently received an email from Sigma Xi saying the following:
"In recognition of your contributions to the advancement of science, it is our pleasure to nominate you for Associate Membership in Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society."

From what I can tell, it probably isn't worth joining unless I am planning on applying to their grants. However, I'm a graduate student and would appreciate other people's opinions on the benefits of joining this organization. For example, is it likely I would be allowed to join later if I wish or is this something one is typically only nominated for once?

I am also a bit confused and curious about how they got this information/ what "contributions" they are referring to. No one in my lab or my program cohort got this email and I started graduate school fairly recently so anyone from my alma mater probably would have supplied them with a different email address not my email address at my new university. I did an oral presentation this year and am on a paper that has been accepted (not a primary author though). I guess I'm just very curious since no one I know got this email?

The likeliest answer is that one or more of your professors nominated you. I don't think they nominate a lot of people, so you are highly thought of by some, at least. I've been a member since approximately forever. It is worth a line in your CV, at least.

But if you are at a large university and interested, generally, in scholarly pursuits, it is worth joining as some chapters have periodic meetings at which you can connect with other people in other areas. This can be interesting and stimulating, much like Sherry Hour after Dinner at British universities. But it can also lead to collaboration. Many Nobel laureates are members.

I don't see any reason not to accept the invitation.


What is the difference between "not recommended" and "rejected" as outcome of a graduate program application? I was recently told I wasnt "recommended" into a graduate program and was given a referral to another program.

What exactly would it means to not get "recommended" as apposed to being rejected? And is being referred to another program a common practice?

At many US universities, the department you apply to makes "recommendations" to the graduate school. Getting the recommendation from the department is usually the hard part -- that's where they review your grades, letters, essays, etc. The recommendations (accept/wait-list/reject) are then forwarded to the graduate school.

It is normally the graduate school that sends the rejection letter. For non-rejected students, the grad school will go through the applications again just to make sure you meet their requirements for admission (you are highly unlikely to get this far if you don't -- but something like unreported academic misconduct might be caught at this stage). If all checks out, they will approve you, and either the school or your department will send your offer letter.

My guess is that it's the department (or someone in the department) that told you that you were "not recommended." Technically, only the graduate school can formally reject you and close your application -- but the odds that the grad school will reverse the decision in this direction is near zero.


Is there any way to detect high tech (e.g. cell-phone assisted) academic dishonesty? Over the last few years, our university has seen a rise in high-tech academic dishonesty.  We have a no electronics policy, except calculators when needed (even those now are provided by the school, and personal calculators are not allowed).  However, students still sneak cell phones into the exam and use them in a very inconspicuous way.

We have had students take pictures (presumably with a cell phone) during an exam and have someone outside the room sending them back solutions. We have had them communicate with classmates somewhere else in the room (some have been caught this way giving the right answers to the wrong exam).  We have had numerous students using their phones to store notes, copies of old exam solutions, etc., and use them as an aid during the exam (this is the most common).

We have caught some students, but I know it is a small fraction. Students will tell us they see cell phone use routinely during exams, but don't want to squeal on classmates because of anticipated reprisal.  Our instructors are quite vigilant in watching the classroom, but it is very difficult to watch 30 to 70 students constantly.  (Larger classes have multiple proctors.)  Instructors have been informed of the classic cues as well.  Our penalties are stiff (first offense, F in the course, second offense, student gets the boot from the school). However, students are still getting away with high-tech cheating.

My question is, does anyone have any sure fire ways of identifying students attempting to use cell phones or other high-tech cheating devices during exams? I'm looking for methods, electronic sniffers, etc.

Ultimately, this is not a technological problem but a cultural and pedagogical problem.

The problem with technological solutions is that they set up an "arms race" with the students, in which you will certainly lose.  Electronics are constantly getting smaller and obtaining more means of communication, so a student who really wants to cheat will likely have a means that you won't be readily able to distinguish.  Consider, for example, the recent emergence of smart watches: are you going to ban watches from the classroom?  What about low-tech but still effective forms of cheating like scraps of paper?  If you get a frequency scanner, will you be able to catch somebody using non-standard communication bands?

The best defense against cheating students is other students who understand that it cheats them out of the value of their well-earned grades.  If you can inculcate a school culture where most students are not just not cheating but actively opposed to cheating, then it will be much harder for cheaters to prosper.

The second best defense against cheating is to design exams that are more about process than product.  Think "show your work" and "essay question."  Yes, it's possible that a cheating student will outsource their work and render themselves a puppet of an expert whispering guidance in their ear, but that's a lot harder to do than secretly googling for information about Kirchoff's laws.  I am, in fact, a big fan of open-book tests, which tend to push students to focus on synthesis instead of memorization. This, I believe, has much more value to students in the long run, and also has the nice side effect of rendering high-tech cheating much less valuable as well.


A postdoc joining my group is interested in my experiment. How to proceed with respect to leadership on the project? The situation is the following: I have been researching, in an experimental science, the capabilities of a new way how to perform a given experiment. Due to the challenging nature of the project, I have encountered several pitfalls until now and after several years have found a main line of projects within this scope that can yield a good outcome.
The peril: a new postdoc will join our group and he already stated his main interest in also working in the same experiment.

Since I feel like being held back by my advisor, who is agreeing on this situation, my question is: How should I proceed in this case with regard to the division between our leadership? The postdoc will probably perform some of the experiments that took me (a PhD student) two years to find the right track.

The OP is right to be careful. Much depends on the level of trust the OP has to his advisor. The word collaboration is pleasant to the ears, and fun to act out when it works, but there also needs to be a mechanism that protects the OP's investment, in case things do not work out. Yes, students have been sidelined by higher-level forces after investment, so, not knowing the postdoc, it is wise to be careful. However, on the other hand, the OP should not let it appear as if immediately prepared for the worst case. It's a balance act. That being said, it is worth contemplating if there something the postdoc could bring into the game.

If there is a good level of trust between the OP and the adviser, it may be a possibility of bringing up issues of leadership, credit, etc. in a discreet conversation how the OP's investment is going to be protected, if that's the fear. Unfortunately, it will not cost the advisor as much if things go wrong, so clearly the OP needs to make sure his interests are taken care of, if the adviser is not privy of the possible pitfalls.

If the OP merely wants to keep the experiment and its benefits for himself, there is not much he can argue with, I am afraid, but in this case it won't cost him too much to collaborate, as long as first-author credits and potential leadership issues are taken care of.


Any way around letters of recommendation requirement? I'd like to apply for an MBA (sick of working in IT and want to change) but seemingly every university I look at requires multiple letters of reference, one of which from a current supervisor.

Is there any way to get around this requirement?

I have zero trust in my current boss, and given that writing the letter would take effort for no benefit to him (since I'd be leaving the company and he'd have to find a replacement), odds are a letter by him would work against me. Also, I'd really rather not owe him a favor.

Former bosses/colleagues would be a safer bet, but I left my previous workplace about two years ago and haven't had any communication with them since (moving continents doesn't help either, I can't just invite them for coffee).

As an aside, how come one can't get access to higher education (not just MBAs) on their merits alone anymore? When I applied for my undergrad degree acceptance didn't depend on who one was friends with.

Your "merits" consist of more than just your undergraduate grades. They also consist of your ability to work with others, your curiosity, your interest beyond just learning what's necessary for the test, etc. This is why we ask for letters of recommendation.

As for who exactly writes your letters, there is more leeway. I don't know about MBA programs, but in mathematics we would usually be equally happy to get letters that do not necessarily include your current supervisor. I would imagine that letters from former supervisors would be just as acceptable. The point, however, is that your supervisors can speak to your work ethic and abilities in ways nobody else can, and consequently provide important insight to the committee evaluating your application that cannot be obtained in any other way. In particular, co-workers likely have a different perspective on you than what a former supervisor sees in you.


What happens to a research group when a principal investigator (P.I.) dies? Is it common to have existing contingency plans? Principal investigators (P.I.s) are not immune to things like traffic accidents, fatal diseases, or acts of terrorism.

Is it common to have contingency plans as to what will happen with funding, experiments, PhD supervision, and everything else that a P.I. is supposed to be responsible for? And if so, what do these plans look like?

[Full disclosure: I'm asking this because I personally have had a close encounter with death in the middle of a project I'm a co-P.I. of.]

No. The nice thing about most academic departments is that the bus factor is fairly high such that if an individual PI is incapacitated, there is generally enough slack in the system to compensate.

Most funding bodies allow for contingencies. They understand that things happen and that the funding often affects people other than the PI. In the case of the death of a PI, the funder would likely allow for a change in PI to take place. If there is not a single PI who has the required administrative and scientific experiences, co-PIs can be appointed (e.g., someone who has managed grants before and a post-doc who understands the research).

Experiments being run by PhD students, post docs, and RAs, would likely continue unchanged. Experiments being run directly by the PI would probably cease immediately unless there were ethical concerns (think a drug trial). In these cases there is probably someone else involved or a contingency plan in place.

Supervision of PhD students would likely be covered by someone else on the thesis committee.

Teaching and committee responsibilities would simply be reassigned. Immediate teaching duties will often be given to a post doc or graduate student.


Doubt about Reading Project I'm currently doing a reading project under a PhD student.  It's a fairly advanced topic that isn't taught at the undergraduate level. (For more context the project will be on the basics of "The General Theory of Relativity" which is usually a first or second semester subject in masters) We're doing a series of lectures + problems. If I mentioned this in my CV/SoP/interview will an admissions committee view this in a positive light? Will this be a good addition to my CV?

You should certainly list it, whether it is treated as a big deal or not. It won't have a negative impact. But if it is a formal course with evaluation and a grade, then it probably also shows up on your transcript. In that case, listing it again, probably has less value.
But, in an application for grad study, you could list it as part of your motivation for current study in some appropriate place. Certainly a willingness to learn "beyond the curriculum" is a good thing.


Does submitting an enrollment intent mean that I am commiting? I recently got accepted into two universities for the Fall 2013, and both of them asked for me to submit the enrollment intent. I submitted the intent for one of them but then one of my friends said that since I did that, it means I HAVE to go there. But I am still deciding where I want to go. The other university has asked me to send in the form within 2 weeks otherwise I would loose a seat. So let's say if I send an intent to them too, would I be able to pick which one I want to attend when I make my final decision in a few weeks?

Universities typically consider such intent statements to be binding.

If you submit these statements to multiple universities, they will all hold seats for you, seats which could otherwise go to someone from their waiting list.  This hurts those other applicants.  It is also a serious inconvenience to the department's admissions committee, as they need to meet their enrollment targets as closely as possible; failure to do so can affect their funding, and in extreme cases, the survival of the graduate program.  So this is at least inconsiderate on your part, and arguably unethical.

If the institutions find out that you have done this, it is possible that they may rescind their acceptances; this is uncommon but has been known to happen.  In addition, you would certainly forfeit any deposits that you paid.

At the undergraduate level, where deposits are almost always required (in the US), this practice is called "double depositing".  The National Association for College Admission Counseling, in their "Guide to the College Admission Process", says:

  Colleges view dual or multiple deposits by students
  as serious violations of trust and may revoke a previous
  offer of admission from any student who is found to have
  sent tuition deposits to more than one college.

My advice is this: at this point, you should plan on attending the university X to which you've announced your intent.  However, if you are absolutely convinced that doing so would be a huge mistake (not merely that you think Y is a little bit better), then you could contact the admissions committee at X, explain your reasons, apologize, and ask to be released from your agreement.  If you do this, you should do it as soon as possible (ideally within days - don't stew about it for two weeks), and know that it will probably burn your bridges with X, as well as forfeiting your deposit.  If X says it's all right (they probably will - if you don't want to be there, they don't want you there), then you could send your intent to Y.

Some people might argue that you are also ethically obligated to inform Y of the situation.  I think it's kind of a gray area, myself.

You might also discuss the matter with an advisor or other professor at your current institution.  They might offer some perspective on X that would help reassure you.  In general, most people say that it isn't so crucial which institution you attend, within reason - your own skills and motivation are a much greater factor in your success.


Where can I find descriptions of arXiv categories? I've recently gone through the arXiv categories (quite randomly) and found a couple where I'm not too sure what they are about. Is anywhere a description of the categories?

For example, I'm not too sure what the following are about / what I should expect to be in them:

Learning
Computers and Society

From the arxiv.org home page, click on detailed description for the discipline that you need (everything except physics has one). For instance, the one for computer science reads:

LG - Machine Learning [...]
Covers machine learning and computational (PAC) learning. Roughly includes material in ACM Subject Class I.2.6.
CY - Computers and Society [...]
Covers impact of computers on society, computer ethics, information technology and public policy, legal aspects of computing, computers and education. Roughly includes material in ACM Subject Classes K.0, K.2, K.3, K.4, K.5, and K.7.


What is the etiquette for resubmitting math papers? I have two math papers I have submitted for publication. Unfortunately neither paper was publishable in their original form. Both times I received a write up of the subject by the reviewer. I was particularly impressed by the write up on my second paper.

I have a couple of difficulties. I have now received quality feedback from another mathematician, but I can’t find references to the subject matter. I worry this information is from a class and not published material. Also I now have an unknown person who has provided feedback from an unknown source. How do I credit an unknown referee?

My last paper had what the editor considered a fatal error near the end of the paper. If I am resubmitting a paper to a different publication what is proper to mention about the earlier submission?

How do I credit an unknown referee?

Thank anonymous referees in the acknowledgements.

  If I am resubmitting a paper to a different publication what is proper to mention about the earlier submission?

You should follow the venue's rules, they may require you to mention, they may not.


Why is it considered sub-par to re-test something that has been shown before as opposed to addressing a knowledge gap? Firstly, apologies if this is the incorrect StackExchange child to post this one. The only other study design questions I could find were here.

So...

Common feedback I get as I plan different projects for my PhD are "explain where the research gap is" or similar.

My question is: shouldn't it be encouraged to re-test something that has been shown before?

For instance my field is in ecology. So if someone elsewhere in the world has shown an effect on X on Y in a different ecosystem, it makes sense to me to test if it occurs in the ones near me. In some professions, e.g. clinical trials in medicine, completing the same experiments is common.

Or, am I misinterpreting this and I could in fact make the argument the gap being there is no local studies? Nonetheless, if I did this, I feel it is frowned upon to imply that the outcome of the study may already be known. But, this attitude I feel discourages re-testing ideas.

After all, if there is such a massive focus on making science reproducible, but no one ever reproduces it for fear of not doing a novel experiment, then what is the point in making science reproducible?

In short, a PhD is about something that has not been done before. If there is no gap in the literature, there is no PhD, and defining the lack of knowledge is the first step towards covering it. A PhD is about novelty and exploration, not tweaking, and even PhDs that improve existing methodologies need to fulfil that requirement in some way by showing theoretical or technical expansions, or at the very least an application from field B that is novel in field A (even that for many people is not enough). A PhD explores ground already covered is pointless because it does not show creativity and originality of thought, which are fundamental for a researcher.

On the other hand, academic papers can (and frankly should much more) deal with reproducibility and testing/verifying existing results. There is a strong tendency in modern research to present positive results and novel findings, so papers that deal with what has not been found or not has not been replicated fall out of favour. That is an important problem, in my opinion, and should have been encouraged by the practices of conferences and journal editors/ referees, but belongs to a different discussion (even commentaries are under extinction).


How can I justify having only two publications when applying for postdoc jobs in physics/chemistry? I have only 2 publications from my PhD, and I am applying for a post-doc position.

My fields are: Theoretical physical chemistry; condensed matter physics;
computational chemistry; cluster science.

I am already a postdoc and I am finishing 2 publications, and my collaborators are going to write other 2. The problems are: I have no idea when those 2 papers, that I am going to be co-author, will be published; the only proof I have publications is those 2 from my PhD, which are not really connected with the position I am applying for.

How to justify the lack of publications in my application form?
I always had this feeling that putting "manuscript in preparation" in my publication list sounds weird, even if it is true.

I do not understand why you find "weird" putting manuscripts in preparation in your CV. In my field, it is perfectly normal and accepted, and I guess in all academia.

This is the best way to explain what you did in the last years. It won't be strange at all, especially if you have talks on those results already, as you imply in a comment. These things happen; sometimes papers take a long time to prepare, and a selection committee should be aware of this fact.

It would look much weirder, in my view, if you don't list them and write a long statement in the cover letter about the lack of publications. As they said in ancient Rome, "he who excuses himself unsolicited, accuses himself".


If asked to provide separate list of publications in addition to CV, should CV still include list of publications? I am applying for an assisstant professor position, and asked to provide a CV, as well as a separate list of publications. Should I still keep a "publications" section in the CV, or refer to the separate list by writing something like "see enclosed list of publications"?

Yes, I would say so.  A CV always should list publications.

It may be that for some reason to do with their search process, they find it convenient to have a separate document that only lists publications, rather than digging through the CV to find it.  But that doesn't mean you should remove this list from the CV.


What are the important questions to ask during an interview for an adjunct lecturer position? Preface: I apologize if this is a duplicate question; I've searched for it and I believe my situation is distinct, since the answers I found were for post-doc or tenure-track interviews.

I'm preparing for an interview with the Dean of Instruction for an adjunct lecturer position. I've already had an informal interview with the co-chair of the department and that went really well. I prepared and asked a lot of questions in that meeting (about the student population, class size, departmental teaching philosophy, etc.) but now that they've been answered I'm not sure how to best use this formal interview. What information is useful to know about the institution, that the Dean of instruction might be able to answer? Right now my ideas are:

What skills and qualities make an adjunct successful at [institution]?
What common challenges do new adjuncts face?
What do you enjoy about working at [institution]?

Are these appropriate questions? Are there other things that it would be good for me to know/ask about, that I might be missing?

Some other things you may want to ask, but unfortunately will probably be able to guess the answers to by yourself:

What is the compensation per period/credit? (I waited to ask this until after the whole interview, and it turned out to be so far below minimum wage I almost laughed when he said it. Thank goodness I caught myself.)
What is a typical class size? (To know how much grading you'll have.)
Do you have any materials from previous lecturers that I can use? (Save prep time)
Will I have access to a TA/student grader?
Are these traditional or non-traditional students? (You may be able to infer the student commitment to your classes with this answer)

It would also be a good time to ask about resources, parking, if you get an office or anything, and other administrivia.


What is the effect of a journal going open-access on its impact factor? I recently saw this reasonably interesting graphic regarding journals and open access.

As many of you know, there is a large discussion about open access. It appears to be most strong within biological sciences, though that may be more of a side-effect of their style of publishing. An interesting "timeline of open access" unfortunately stops at 2008. Obviously the graphic, while interesting, is a single data point.

What is the evidence regarding the effect of going open-access and a journal's impact factor? I am especially interested in utilizing resources that have undergone some kind of peer review and scrutiny.

A few years ago there appeared a nice article in Science:

Open Access and Global Participation in Science

The authors convincingly show that going Open Access widens the readership of journals and improves citation counts.

There are some interesting references in that article too.


What does a plus sign mean in journal abbreviations? On this journal title abbreviation list, some abbreviations are followed by a plus sign (+).  For example, "Thermophysics and Aeromechanics" is abbreviated "THERMOPHYS AEROMECH+".

What is the significance of the plus sign, and is it to be included when creating a reference list?

Web of science doesn't explain it on the page you quote, but you can find it in another page with detailed explanation: "The plus sign on this last abbreviation indicates that cites to the original language journal are unified with cites to the translation title"

From here: http://wokinfo.com/essays/cited-title-unification/


Writing papers with deceased co-authors? I am doing a literature review for a project and I have come across recent papers in top journals where one of the co-authors is a famous Statistician (Peter G. Hall, 1951 – 2016). This is an example that motivated my question, but my question applies in general. Reviews in those journals usually take less than 2 years (in most cases, about a year). Thus, the papers where submitted a fair amount of time after the famous co-author passed away.
My question is, how do editors check (if at all) if the authors actually worked on those projects with the late famous co-author in order to (i) justify their inclusion, and (ii) determine if the inclusion of that co-author does not follow some sort of political move to increase the chances of getting a paper accepted.

This situation can happen, just like some professors have been caught putting the name of their son or their wife on their paper in the past.
Generally, the editor will not verify if authors really contributed to a paper because it would be hard to verify. Hence, journals adopts some simple mechanism such as requiring that authors disclose what are the contributions of each author at the time of submission, some journals will also send an e-mail to each author to notify them of the submission, some journals require authors to use official e-mail addresses, and some journals also require that authors sign a document when submiting.
Upon receiving a paper, some journals do a pre-screening where they check for plagiarism, if the paper is out of topic and other problems, before sending to reviewers. During that phase, if something is suspicious, the editor could try to investigate more. Or if the reviewers subsequently find something suspicious, they could also raise questions during the review process.
But generally, it is not easy to discover such cases unless it is quite obvious or some authors talk about what happened to the editor.
For the article that you mentioned, it is maybe correct because top journals sometimes not only have a long review time (1 or 2 years), but also have a backlog of papers to publish that can extend to 2 years in some cases. Maybe that the famous statistician has participated to an earlier draft. But in any case, it is hard to verify this.


Research statement and dissertation abstract Based on reviewing multiple examples, a description of one's dissertation research seems to be a mandatory (or, at least, expected) part of any statement of research document. Question: is it appropriate to include my dissertation abstract (as is or lightly edited) in my research statement in lieu of the above-mentioned part (in my case, it is past research, which I plan to extend as part of my research agenda- that will be discussed in the future research section)? Any related advice?

I have never seen this done, though sometimes people include abstracts to their work on their webpages.  The reason it doesn't make sense to me is that they serve very different functions.

For abstracts, you want to briefly explain the contents of your paper to experts, or at least people in your field, quickly so they can ascertain whether they want to take a closer look at your paper.

For research statements, you don't want to be terse.  You want to provide background context and motivation for your work, and you're not trying to convince people to read your work, but rather that your work is good and interesting and they should hire you.  Also, you want to convince people you can explain your work well. (Depending on the kind of position you're applying to, your research statement will either be written for non-experts experts.)

Of course, you can say basically the same thing as what you would in an abstract in an introductory paragraph, perhaps being more informal, but I definitely would not set it off as an "Abstract" block inside the statement.


Can version control systems, like Git, be used to establish priority date of a paper? Are systems like Git robust enough so that if questions arises about a paper's priority, it would prove or substantiate a claim to have a VCS log?

I understand your question in the following way:

You are asking if a git repository can be used to add a "timestamp" to some idea, so that in case multiple researchers come with the same idea, you can prove that you were the first (whenever this is actually true).

Unfortunately, dates in a git repository can easily be forged. See here for a stackexchange thread documenting this.


How does one use a paper that's not written in a language that he can read? For instance, if a paper is written in Russian, and a researcher wants to use this work and cite it, does he have to learn Russian?

What's the typical practice?

Does he try and use translation tools such as Google translate?

Pay a professional translator?

Or, blindly accept the results and blindly cite the paper and move on?

(The last option is problematic, if one wants to write a self-contained piece of work, using the results and proof from the original work.)

There is no general answer to your general question. It depends on a paper.

Do you have to cite it? We know that a2+b2=c2 and we don't cite Pythagoras manuscript on it. We don't cite the basic results we use.

Do you have to read it first? You probably don't read Disquisitiones Arithmeticae in Latin to quote some of Gauss results, and you don't read Théorie des mécanismes connus sous le nom de parallélogrammes to check if Chebyshev polynomials are correct.

So, if a result is already well-established, many people have seen it, checked it and built their work on it - you don't have to read the original paper, if you don't want to. If you really want to understand how some details were presented originally (for methodological or historical purposes), you can check if some colleagues in your University can read this language. If they don't, you can hire a translator, but it is not easy to find one who can also read understand math arguments.


Invalidating a method because its "Dated" I was recently arguing with a college about a concept in economics and was told that my approach is invalid because it based on theory/method developed from the 1980 and that current methods don't approach the problem the same way.

I cited my sources from a credible source which was published (NBER to be specific) however to him it was a good enough of a counter argument to invalidate my point. He did cite contemporary research which approaches the problem differently however he didn't address the sources I brought.

This isn't the first time I've heard the argument from my peers and I'm wondering if the "in with the new out with the old approach" is a general approach taken in academia.

Is the fact that a certain paper or theory is old or dated enough to invalidate it?

Older methods can be tied into older biases, mistakes, and bad assumptions.  In mathematics this is very rarely a problem, but in social psychology it can be a massive one. There may be bad mathematics involved, poor controls, cultural biases, confounding variables that weren't known of then, etc. I don't know where economics and rational expectations falls, but I'd hazard a guess that it's closer to the social psychology end of the spectrum than it is the mathematics end. There's a huge number of factors that impact economic behaviors, and any model is going to have to make simplifying assumptions to try to single out what the model's creators have deemed the most important and interesting things.

While research trends are not an objective evaluation of merit, it does tend to suggest that if something is no longer receiving attention then it is not suitable for addressing modern problems and concerns.  The exact reasons may be hard to pinpoint, but in this case may boil down to "today we're really interested in modeling how widgets and wodgets interact" versus "this older theory is meant to model how gadgets and gidgets interact".  It's not necessarily that the older theory fails to achieve meaningful insights on gadgets and gidgets (though it might, because some of its assumptions may no longer be considered good ones), but that nobody cares about that any more, and it is intrinsically unable to address what people do care about.


Do I have to be concerned about self-plagiarism in a short accessible methods description? I published a methods paper about a data analysis method (in cognitive neuroscience), and I'm now working as a co-author with colleagues on two experimental papers using that method. Since the main audience of these papers will be much less technically inclined than that of my own, I have been asked to provide a concise (1 paragraph, about 300 words) summary of the method which explains its logic and workings as precisely as possible for that less technical audience. In one case the need for such a paragraph has been stated also by a reviewer, explicitly writing that just referring the reader to the methods paper is not sufficient.

My question is: Since the requirements of this paragraph for these two papers are identical, it would make sense to use the same text for both – but would this be considered as a case of self-plagiarism? And if yes, what can I do to avoid that?

Options I have considered:

– Include the text in one paper (likely to be published first) as-is, and then quote it in the other paper. However, explicit quotations either in quotation marks or as an indented block are extremely uncommon in (at least my) science. So would a footnote like "this paragraph has been copied verbatim from XYZ" be the right thing to do to mark it as a quotation?

– Slightly change the wording, sentence structure, etc. – In my understanding this is worse, because it just adds an attempt to disguise on top of the self-plagiarism.

– Just write a separate text for each. But because the requirements are identical and I'm writing them both within a matter of days, it his highly likely that I'll end up with near-identical text anyway, and that any differences would be artificial, just like in the last option. There are only so many ways one can explain a technical matter in a concise, clear, and accessible way.

In each case the paragraph is embedded in a longer passage that details how the method is applied to the specific experimental design of each study. In one case the text is going to go into the supplementary material, while in the other it will be part of a regular methods section.

Morally speaking I don't see any concern here, because this text in no way claims to be original anyway, but just paraphrases a paper which is of course properly cited. But should I be concerned about others seeing this as a case of self-plagiarism?

I'm interested in your personal evaluations of this matter, but if possible also in some "official" references.

My personal belief is that it's fine to duplicate the text with a reference to the original methods paper and a statement that this is a short summary of that work. Unfortunately, you will find people in the world who think you should be drawn and quartered for doing this, so your best bet is to write two different descriptions lest you get "caught" by a pedant. Worries about self-plagiarism for methodology sections, in my opinion, are vastly overblown, but not everyone agrees with me, so you have to be careful who you work ends up in front of. You never know who is going to run your papers through plagiarism detection software and reject your work because of one paragraph.


Is it accepted/common to answer factually inaccurate reviewer comments in case of rejection? I recently got a paper rejected. I do not plan on appealing, I definitely see that some elements of the paper need improvements.

Nevertheless, some of the comments from one reviewer are factually inaccurate.
For example, I cite Paper A, where claim X is made. This reviewer says (repeatedly, in three different comments) that

  The author [me] claims X without proof and does not cite a reference

There are also other inaccuracies from the same reviewer.

Would it be appropriate to write to the editor to answer this kind of factually inaccurate statement?

I have not read your paper and it's likely that you don't work or publish in my field, so you will need to take this advice as it is given: without conditions or obligations.

I have decades of experience helping edit some of the top journals in my field. If I've learned anything, it's this: as much as academics like to think otherwise, peer-reviewed publications operate in much the same way as [insert trashy supermarket checkout rag here]. Journals are human institutions operated by humans with the same human concerns as everyone else. Things would go a lot smoother if they stopped being placed on pedestals.

Despite everyone's best efforts, mistakes happen all the time. From an editorial point of view, it is important to us to receive reports of factual errors so that we can consider the best information to reach the most appropriate decisions.

If you were to write to us about this issue, I promise you that we would consider this seriously. While we value the work our reviewers do, we also need to know when our reviewers are making factual errors such as this. This is actually a red flag for us.

Why did the reviewer fail to pick up that these statements were referenced in the text?
What else did the reviewer misinterpret?
Is this behaviour consistent with other rejoinders or complaints we've received?
Is it still worth our while keeping this person on our list of reviewers?

It is for this reason that I recommend that you compose and send a letter to the Journal making these corrections. It is unlikely that the issues you outline will overturn the decision and, by your own admission, you're not seeking an appeal. Nevertheless, I believe that this is an important step. There's no need to be uppity about this. Just lay out the issue and sign off.

In addition, you might want to reconsider the manuscript to see whether it could be improved to prevent this issue from being raised when you submit your work elsewhere. For example, you might have wrote

  We collected and analysed blood using standard techniques. Levels of serum bicarbonate...

when something like this might be more specific

  Analysis of serum bicarbonate was conducted using the process outlined by Nikishima et al. [5].

I'm making this up, but you get the idea. Could your statement be modified slightly so that there is absolutely no way for a reviewer to raise the original concern?

Anyway, good luck to you.


Is there a consensus in philosophy and other humanities that PhD dissertations have to be at least 200 pages long? I've read a blog post written by Robert Wolff saying that for a philosophy dissertation to be considered good, at least in American universities, it should be between 200 to 250 pages long.

We could respond, of course, that it is not necessarily the number of pages or word count that makes a thesis up to par. If this is so, can you please cite a dissertation wherein a student was able to defend his central claim in less than a hundred pages?

The University of Minnesota library system maintaining electronic dissertations library contained 2,536 records for Phd students.

The range was incredibly variable (minimum of 21 pages, maximum of 2002), but most dissertations were around 100 to 200 pages.

The average number of pages per topic is :

Source: https://beckmw.wordpress.com/2013/04/15/how-long-is-the-average-dissertation/

In fact, it mostly depends on the research area, the university regulation and supervisor research 'style'.


If it is stated that two authors have contributed the same on a research paper, are both authors co-first authors? If someone gets his name second on a paper despite the two contributing the same amount of work and this fact is indicated so, are both authors co-first authors?

There is only one first author. But the 'prestige' associated with the first author, in certain fields, could be extended to a second author.

An example:

  The two authors contributed equally to this work

(source: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1404.7748.pdf)

When cited, this work would be "Najman and Cousty" ("Najman"/"Najman et al" in some contexts, if more than 2 authors), but it is clearly stated that both authors contributed equally, so they both share the 'main author' credit.

(this is the only example I know of this approach, they were my phd advisors - yes, both of them)


First Presentation as a postgraduate student in a new workplace, messed it up! So I gave my first presentation as a postgrad student in a new place! So I usually like to look to my screen once in a while while I'm talking and this time the presentation was projected to the audience on a screen. I was talking and had to walk back from the screen every time to change the slides. Hence there was some sort of disconnect in me changing the slides and me talking about the content. I also admit I did not get much time to prepare for the presentation.

So by the time I changed slides, I had to walk out infront of the screen and, look at it, and then begin talking about things. At one point, I actually missed talking about what was being said in the slides due to this disconnect.

Thing is, I actually planned and wanted to do super well on this. I worked really hard and had gotten beyond what could be termed as an acceptable result. I really regret messing it up with this presentation.

Can someone give me some advice on giving good presentations? Also throw anything else you want to at me?

When presentations go bad, and sometimes they do, it can give us a little PTSD. First, know that presentations get easier as your career progresses, because you have a better handle of the material. You will also experience more hiccups in your presentations (poorly-placed screens/laptops, unexpected interruptions, computer failures, etc), which will make you better prepared to give presentations under less-than-ideal circumstances. When I look back on my very-first lecture (more than a decade ago!), I cringe to remember how basically I read a outline for 50 minutes. Now I barely use notes for 3-hour lectures.

But bad presentations happen. A couple of years ago I was invited to speak to a room of 300+ healthcare providers on a technology my team was developing. On stage, it became painfully clear that the only people interested in the topic were the cinference's organizers who attentively sat up front while I watched 295 participants read their phones for 55 minutes. I also learned that I had to sit in the back of the auditorium to give the demonstration of our technology, leaving the stage empty for 10 minutes. It look me a good year to shake this off. Later, I realized that most of the problems were out of my control, but I prepared better the next time and it went great!

So, shake it off. Don't be so hard on yourself. Next time, ask someone else to change your slides, if the room set up is strange. It's okay to adapt to the situation! We have all been there and it will get better.


Showing interest / Applying for Phd position that has just opened, before finishing Master studies Currently I am working towards Master in Computer Science degree, hoping to be done by the end of the year.
Last month a new professor moved to our University and now there are open Phd positions in his research group. I decided to work on a Master thesis provided by this group, however before starting to work on the master thesis I want to finish my exams. Additionally, I am interested for the Phd positions as I like the area of research, but I believe that it is highly unlikely that the Phd positions will remain open until I am done with the thesis. Having in mind that I have the exams to finish first, it will be ca. 6-7 months from now until I am completely done. And I believe the positions will be filled by then.

I don't know how to proceed now. I think the best asset I have in hand at the moment is the fact that I am going to work my master thesis in the group of this new professor. But other than that, there are some downsides because he does not know me as a student as he just moved to our university. Also, I don't have any publications to impress him, and my grades got slightly worse lately.

What is the best thing to do now? There are multiple options:

1) Leave the exams aside; Start working on the thesis, after starting to work on the thesis express interest in the Phd position. Ensure that the work of the thesis is high quality so the Professor is impressed.

2) Express interest in the Phd position from now. Finish the exams, and then start working on the thesis. During the process improve the grades to impress the Professor.

The dilemma here is, if I wait long to finish everything, by then the places might be gone. On the other side, if I act as soon as possible, I think as if I don't have much in hand to impress the professor.

Please consider this question having in my the context of my exact situation and then from a general view point evaluate on what could happen in the typical case.

I am sure, here we have more experienced Professors and Graduate student that could provide insightful information and suggestions.

EDIT 1: Additionally, what is the typical time frame needed for a Phd position to be filled, I believe 6 months is more than enough, or?

EDIT 2: What if there is an application deadline? And the deadline is at least 6 months away before you get the Master degree? Is it worth applying? I believe no Professor would wait for a student to get his degree for 6 months and then give him a position? My basic instinct says "go for it" there is nothing you would loose at least you are not going to regret that you didn't do it, however when thinking rationally all the odds seem against

Thanks!

If you are currently working on a master's thesis in the group of the professor with whom you'd like to a do a PhD, the best thing to do is set up an appointment and talk to him.

As an advisor, I don't need to have a published paper to see whether someone in my own group is a competent researcher or not. I can see this by interacting with the person, through reading their project updates and emails, and by talking with other the more senior members of the research group (who sometimes will work with the students more closely than I can).

Given that the goal of an advisor is to select people they believe will become excellent researchers rather than simply the "top students," someone who is an "internal" candidate is often a better option than taking a chance on someone whose work the faculty member hasn't been able to observe directly.

[That said, however, I think there is also something to be said for considering going somewhere else for a PhD than the place where you did your bachelor's and master's degrees, when it makes sense to do so.]


Long review time for my papers? It took 5-6 months to hear from the referee in both of my accepted papers.  In my one rejection it was only a couple of weeks.

I do not think it could possibly take 5-6 months to read and understand my papers.

Should I conclude that my referee's wait a few months to even begin reading my papers?  Are they trying to answer questions I posed, to piggy-back before others see the publication?  I just am having a hard time understanding the delay.

Reading your paper is not the only obligation your referee has. They are active researchers who, besides their own research, have teaching, administration, thesis defenses, other papers to review etc. They are also normal people, who have to make their personal life function.

5-6 months is a long time, but depending on the field and the length of your paper, it is not unusual.

Don't be so worried about other people stealing your ideas. Most likely the referees has more ideas of their own than they have available time.


When to publish and what to include in a work in progress? I have often seen conferences which invite papers on "work in progress" or "work with not too mature results" along with the original and exhaustive research. So, when is it apt to present your work in such conferences as work in progress in terms of the expected level of maturity, implementation progress and results ?

My field of research is Computer Science.

Presenting work in progress on conferences is a good way to elicit a first discussion of your (preliminary) research results, to establish yourself in a new topic, or to claim first ground in a "hot" research area. The important thing to me seems to be that you are able to present at least some results. Research concepts and plans often do not yield good conference papers.

There's a number of ways in which results can be regarded as premature, such that you would want to present them as "work in progress". I'll give some of them without claim of completeness:

In empirical research:

Small amount of data compared to the standard in your field.
Contradictory results which prevent firm conclusions.
Low amount of replicates or additional supportive data for your conclusions.
Experimental setups which may not capture or control for relevant factors in the system you're looking at.

In theoretical research:

Restrictive assumptions which make a theory applicable to only a fraction of the relevant problems.
Evaluation of a method with a smaller or more restricted test case than what would be done usually.
Mathematical results from numerical experiments without a clear proof.
Missing steps in an implementation such that only partial results could be obtained.

In many cases, it is a difficult decision, whether you should publish preliminary results (in case they are publishable in principle) or rather wait until you get more complete results. It depends on how fast you want to publish something on the topic, whether you can quickly get more complete results or not, and probably a range of other factors which I didn't think of now.


Asking the Editor-in-Chief about the reason of the review delay I have submitted a manuscript to one of the top-tier journal of my field at six month ago. The recent status of the paper is "under review" which status is there for last four months.

My question is:  In that situation is it ok to ask the Editor-in -Chief of that journal about the reason of the review delay?

Also could anyone please help me by giving a useful reference to a template of such mail (to the Editor-in-Chief), which ask the above question to the editor in a polite and effective manner.

In general, yes. The time for the review process varies between journals and between fields. you should, first of all try to assess what is normal for your field and particularly of the journal to which you submitted your work.

For me as Editor-in-Chief of a journal in the Sciences, it seems long but not unheard of. I have had rare cases where I have had to chase reviewers for a paper and where I have had to wait about three weeks to dismiss anyone or to just get a negative response. All these requests add up. Add to that reviewers that do not return the review despite, even repeatedly, promising to do so. So, it could be a case of bad luck, but before you send off a polite request, check so that such time frames are not normal for the journal. In any case, do not assume that the problem is only with the editor. It could be but as mentioned can results from many steps in the review chain.

Regarding a template, just write a short and polite mail or letter asking what time frame you can expect. You can, for example, say that you wish to know so that you can free up time for your possible revisions or something to smooth the request. But a short question is never wrong as long as the time frame is obviously longer than common for the journal


How to ask the editor of a journal whether our manuscript fits the scope or not I am interested in submitting a manuscript to a certain scientific journal, because it is well ranked. The problem is that I am not sure if my manuscript totally meets the topics and requirements (e.g. lenght, etc.) of the journal.

I would like to send a letter to the editor of the journal in order to find out whether or not they believe my paper can be interesting to the readers and may fit the scope and conditions of the journal.

I have been told that, in cases like this, this option is better than just submitting the manuscript and getting it rejected.

So, my question is: Could you recommend me a letter model to this purpose?

In addition, in this similar question: [ When is it appropriate to contact the editor before submission to avoid rejection without review? ] they talk about even sending the whole manuscript to the editor in this pre-submission step! Actually, I was thinking of not even including the abstract of my work (but just a description) in this letter to the editor. Should I really include it?

Broadly, I would encourage you to review the information for authors provided on the journal's website in greater depth. First, it seems that some of the feedback you are seeking is related to the format of the manuscript (you mention asking about length, for example), and as these requirements are generally laid out online in the journal's instructions to authors, the presubmission inquiry is not an appropriate venue for getting those types of questions answered.

Second, many journals that regularly field presubmission inquiries will have a description on their website of what this inquiry should include and where to send it, although the level of detail they provide may vary. I refer you to PLOS Biology's Presubmission Inquiries page for a good example (http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/s/presubmission-inquiries), as the points they ask authors to include in their inquiry could, I think, be broadly applied in cases where the journal has not provided much guidance regarding what they're looking for. Bear in mind, however, that it is necessary to do your own research regarding your particular journal's guidelines; Nature, for example, wants a fully referenced first paragraph of your article.

Final point--a positive response to a presubmission inquiry does not guarantee that you will receive a favorable review, or even get reviewed at all. It is a good start to the review process, but just a start.


Differences between “Polytechnic” and “Technology”? Some universities are called Polytechnic and some other contain Technology in their name, for example the Valencia Polytechnic University (UPV) vs. the Technical University of Berlin (TUB).

What are the differences between them?

Wikipedia has a nice summary of this distinction (or lack thereof).  In essence: the term "polytechnic" comes from the French École Polytechnique.  Thus, a university with 'Polytechnic' in its name is typically one that was influenced in its founding in some way by the French system.  Today, however, there is generally no significant difference.


How do you join programme committees for conferences? For most conferences in my field it seems to be invitation-only, i.e. somebody has to suggest you/remember you. Are there any conferences that have open calls for applications to the programme committee?

It's rare. I know of one conference though (in theoretical computer science) where the steering committee actively maintains a list of "qualified but has never served", and strongly encourages PC chairs to look over that list when selecting names. Your best strategy might be to approach the steering committee and suggest that they do something like this, so as not to sound like you're shilling for yourself :)


Unsure of German PhD salary I have been offered a phd position in Germany at 75% TVL-E13. It seems very difficult to get a precise figure for what this is in Euro. From a Google search I have figures for this position ranging from €21000 right up to €30000 on various websites dating back over the last couple of years.

I have a deadline on my decision so I really need to know what this 75% TVL-E13 rate amounts to in Euro at the moment so I can weigh it up against offers in other countries. Is this a 'good' rate for a PhD? Is anyone on this rate at present or does anyone have a good idea of how much this salary is currently worth in Euro?

Although I live and work in Berlin since 6 years I don't understand much about these matters, but, while doing a PhD in Biology here (so 6 to 3 years ago) I was paid at a rate called "BAT IIa/2" which left me (once the taxes, the charges and the insurances were removed) with ca. €1100 a month to live.
Now a BAT IIa/2, as the name indicates, correspond to half a BAT IIa, which is said to have been replaced in the current scale by TVL-E13. From that I gather that a 75% TVL-E13 should end up leaving you with a "Netto" (i.e. tax-free, charge-free, insurance-free) salary of ca. €1650 per month.
And indeed according to the website http://oeffentlicher-dienst.info/tv-l/, it should end up in this range: i.e. an annual salary of ca. €31k (gross) / €20k (net).

The exact sum will change according to many factors, including in which region (Land) you end up in, etc.


Does publishing books help with PhD admissions? Say I have a deep knowledge of an advanced technical topic, and have written a book on such a topic. Though this book does not contain any original research ideas, it is a well written and thorough treatise on a technical topic that is relevant in both academia and industry.

Would writing (and hopefully publishing) such a book help with PhD admissions, or do admissions committees generally only care about research publications (as far as publications go -- obviously they care about recommendations, grades, etc in addition to research)?

If the book were published with a major publisher such as O'Reilly Media, would this make a difference?

Certainly it would be a plus---even a good technical blog or a nice portfolio of posts on SE can be helpful.  It speaks to your level of sophistication and interest in the subject.  One can tell a lot about scientific maturity by reading someone's expository works---it betrays the way one thinks about things and can also give an indication of scientific awareness.

At least some of your letter writers should be familiar with the book and be impressed with it.  If you're lucky, some faculty at places you're applying may also be familiar with it as well.

For me, publishing with a well-known publisher would make a little stronger first impression (the publisher can lend the book a little credibility), but really what the letters say about it, or how the book reads if I decide to look at it myself (which is much easier for open access books) is much more important.  (Note: open access books or online notes can actually get wider circulation in academia than traditionally published books.)

This is not to say that writing a technical book is a good way to get into a PhD program.  It takes a lot of effort that could be put to other use if your only goal is to get a PhD.  But if you already have one written, it would be silly not to mention it.


Master's Thesis Adviser Co-Authorship? I have just completed my Master's Thesis and am hoping to publish an abridged version. My adviser has been very supportive of this and upon approving my thesis asked what I would think about her being a coauthor. I don't really know what to think about this. She was very helpful, but she certainly didn't contribute to the research questions or methodology. On the other hand, I also don't know why it would be bad to have her name on it with me. Any information would be appreciated.

From a formal point of view co-authorship should involve a certain definable contribution. The Vancouver Protocol makes the following definition (here in the form presented by the BMJ:

  Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND Final approval of the version to be published; AND Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

You state that your advisor did not contribute much to the research questions or methodology. I further do not know your background so I can only judge from your question and provide general comments on your question. Writing up your research from a thesis to a publishable manuscript is a skill which is normally learned through graduate school. I am therefore thinking that you may still need quite a bit of guidance to manage the transition of your thesis material to the manuscript format. If your advisor is willing to help you with this part and the scientific input required to do so then co-authorship may well be warranted. So the co-authorship question should be answered on the final product and the contributions that went into it, and not necessarily what went into just your thesis.


Is it okay to send a gentle reminder to professor I sent an email to some professor about a month back for some research paper. He reply to me that he will scan the research paper and send me in few weeks. I think he has forget to send the scanned document. Should I send him a gentle reminder?

Yes, it's OK to send a reminder. Generally, if it's been a week since you expected an answer, it's probably fine to ask.


Where to take your research ideas when you don't have a PhD/Master's This is a matter of concern that a friend of mine has been dealing with for quite many many years. They have done much research on the topic using a lot of different online resources and have emailed numerous different universities all around the globe but still have not found an answer. Therefore, I wish to discuss this here to know if anyone has any ideas or experience related to this.

A friend of mine has been an autodidact in many different topics and has been researching on many topics on his own. Due to financial problems, has never been able to afford studying in a good university and a major of interest,  is now finishing the last year of Bachelor's of Economics. They have few research ideas that are not related to their studies, and  have been working on this idea for at least 8 years, and know quite A LOT about the topic, however,  have not got an academic degree or any paper to show that they have the knowledge. A few years ago they discussed one of their ideas with a big company working in their field of interest and gave them a lot of information about the idea and how to realize it, and the company said they had no interest, but unfortunately after a year the company had stole the idea and had already realized it under their own name.

They have been emailing many different universities for many years and contacting anybody they can think of, but no one shows any interest. Universities they have talked to just ask for a PhD or at least a Master's degree in a field related to the project. Is there anyway for someone who has research ideas to carry them out without having that academic "paper"? After the stealing scenario they is also extremely afraid to talk about their research ideas in detail with anyone.

There is a world of difference between a research idea and a research result.

For an actual research result, the right thing to do is to write it up and publish it in an appropriate peer-reviewed journal.  If one is concerned about intellectual property theft, then put it on a preprint server like arXiv first.

Research ideas on the other hand, are a dime a dozen, and there's often no way of judging their value until somebody has executed them.  Moreover, most scientists have more ideas than they have opportunities to execute, and are frequently offered new research ideas of dubious value.  For example, as a graduate student, I was contacted by a man who wanted help implementing his research idea: all he needed was somebody to get his trash-can robot to understand "All in the family" episodes better so that it could irrigate the Sahara desert and solve world hunger.

If you have a research idea, then, there are really only three basic paths that you can take with it:

Work on those aspects of it that you can work on, given the resources you can get access to (personally, in a community lab, through collaborators, via a startup, etc.)
Keep it in reserve to work on later.
Give it away to others.

Note that none of these actually have any requirement of any particular credential or affiliation.  It is just that credentials are strongly correlated with having gained sufficient scientific skills to construct and present a solid result, and credentials and affiliations make it easier to get access to resources for executing on ideas.


Why do some authors seem to ignore reviewer comments? For example a review might say:

This paper is acceptable if the following comments are addressed:

In section two, change "this is a topy" into "this is a typo"
Instead of writing "Log" for the natural logarithm, write "Ln". This issue is present in sections two, three and four.
In section four, [do some serious work].

Then when the revision arrives, the authors make some attempt to address point 3 but completely do not address points 1 and 2, even though they're not controversial.
Why do some authors do this? I certainly do not want to Ctrl + F "Log" and list where all occurrences of it are when the authors can do that just as easily (besides, even if I do that, it often goes unfixed anyway). On the other hand, outright not fixing these issues when they've been pointed out seems pretty rude.
In my experience it seems that authors from India do this especially often, but I have no idea why this would be the case.

Personally I would do things the other way round fix 1 and 2, and not ignore 3 but maybe push back in what's asked.

Anyway back to the question, I expect it's a either an expectation that the journal will correct spelling/formatting issues (depends on the journal) or a gamble that you wouldn't reject a paper just because of a spelling mistake.


Are There Any Schools That do not require a formal education for a BS. MS. and/or Ph.D.? Over my career as a student, I have found that traditional 'Bricks and Mortar' schools are not conducive to a proper learning environment for me, so I switched to home-school for 10th grade*. I have/am learning the equivalent of regular high-school courses, but on a deeper level, and at a faster pace. I also added in extra material that better suits my interests (e.g. for my 'sophomore' year I learned Chemistry, Algebra II, Biology (from an AP textbook), US History I & II, Hebrew Language and Python 3.x).

I want to study Biology. I find myself to be very passionate while learning about the world in which I live, and I would love nothing more than to dedicate my life to studying different fields in Biology.

How likely is it that I could find a college which would accept me based on this learning program I have developed, and allow me to attend their school for a higher degree in Biology?

*Note: I had been cyber-schooled for 5 years between 4th and 8th grades.

Almost all colleges in the United States accept home schooled students into undergraduate programs.  Usually it is necessary to submit a portfolio of work and test scores.


When do you stop mentioning your dissertation in the cover letter? I am re-drafting my cover letter for the tenure track faculty positions in the U.S. While I was finishing my dissertation, I quickly moved to a new research direction. Although I can make the case of how my new research direction grows out of my dissertation, I wonder when do people stop talking about their dissertation in the cover letter? Or must the cover letter contain a dissertation paragraph?

My usual advice about cover letters and vitas is to include everything that you can include "with a straight face". A some point you stop putting your high school awards, because it's too embarrassing to mention them; at some later point you stop putting minor honors from your undergraduate studies; etc.

If you are a recent PhD and are applying for tenure-track positions, you should certainly mention your thesis, unless you have so much other research that it is no longer relevant.

But you do not necessarily need an entire paragraph. Just now, I looked up two successful cover letters of mine. One had a single sentence about my thesis (for a research post-doc position). One had two sentences, the second of which just said that my work could be suitable for undergraduate research (this letter was for a tenure-track position).  At least in my field, we usually submit a longer "research statement", and so there is little need to go into depth about research in the cover letter.


PhD supervisor will not read draft I just wanted to get some input from the community about an issue I have run into with my main PhD supervisor.

I started my PhD about two years ago (hard science field), and about six months ago I finished a preliminary draft for most my first article. The draft is about 70 % complete, but I can't write the last part yet because I am still waiting on some final results.

I sent the draft to my main supervisor as I wanted to get some feedback on the parts I had written so far. Just before summer I had a meeting with my supervisor, and it turned out that my supervisor had not read anything in the draft even though I had sent it several weeks before. As such, I felt that the meeting was rather unproductive as I basically had to spend the short time I had allocated explaining what I had actually done research-wise instead of getting feedback on my draft. This also disappointed me a little bit as my supervisor had specifically informed me before that it was preferable that I summarized my findings in article-form instead of just sending random updates whenever I had some progress.

Fast forward until now. This semester I have spent working at another institution, and my supervisor recently came to visit me. Several weeks before this I had informed my supervisor that I would like to discuss my paper draft, and was told that this should not be a problem. However, it turned out yet again that my supervisor had not read antyhing. Instead I was told that as some of my co-supervisors had taken a look at the draft and said it needed a better focus and a thorough rewrite (which I fully expected anyways), there was no need for my main supervisor to read it. However, although my co-advisors have given me good tips on some of the issues in the draft, I still feel like I have not received proper guidance in how I can restructure the entire focus of the article based on my current findings.

As I have spent a lot of time writing this draft, and would like to receive feedback from my main supervisor on how to improve the paper, I find it disappointing that my supervisor has shown so little interest in reading my draft. It is my understanding that reading drafts is one of the main duties of a supervisor. I am now at the stage of my PhD where I can do most of the research independently, but I still feel I need input on my writing.

Is this something I should be more firm about with my supervisor? We have had a very good working relationship so far, but this issue is really starting to bother me. If anyone has any tips on how I can deal with this, then i would greatly appreciate it!

This sounds like a case of your supervisor being too busy and pushing work they consider less essential to the background. I'd suggest that, since you have alternate sources of feedback here, that you explore those and just push on toward the end.

I think it would be harder to avoid something you represent as a "complete" draft or a "final" draft. At that point I hope the supervisor moves your work up to the first level of importance.

Even feedback from a third party might be valuable if you can find a way to get it.

But there is no reason for you to stall your own progress. But trying to force someone to do something they don't see as essential in the moment doesn't sound like a plan for success. Especially when they have the power.


How to organize email recipients in professional group email? Situation is work related matter about clients in the following group.
Assume the group of people consists of

Prof.
Assistant Prof.
Doctor 1
Doctor 2
Doctor 3 (only been 6 months in the house so so-called resource worker)
Assistant 1
Assistant 2
Personal assistant

Doctor 1 puts email recipients in the given order, which is correct by the status.

Personal assistant changes the order to the similar but with one exception where he puts Doctor 3 at the bottom of the list although is mainly responsible of the work during the time period:

Prof, Assistant Prof, Doctor 1, Doctor 2, Assistant 1, Assistant 2, Personal assistant and Doctor 3.

Culture: Sweden where little hierarchy.

Problem: manipulating the common way of the workplace to have email discussions.

I am interested in how you would deal with such email senders.

It doesn't matter.

Certainly, in Sweden it doesn't matter.

Nor does it matter anywhere else.

The only things you might want to consider:

To: or Cc: header: some e-mail clients show e-mail differently if the recipient is in the To:-header as opposed to the Cc:-header.  Gmail is one such client.  I tend to prioritise e-mails where I'm in the To:-header over those where I'm in the Cc:-header.  If you expect the professor to answer your question, make sure he or she is in the To:-header.  If you just wish to “keep him/her in the loop” (perhaps for future reference), Cc: is fine.
Avoid bcc, as most e-mail clients and servers ignore the rule that the recipient in the bcc should still see their own name there (but no-one else should), and therefore it will look like an e-mail not addressed to them at all.  That makes it downprioritised at best, or marked as spam at worst.

But really.  Within that, nobody cares about the order of the recipients.


Is it possible to attend grad school in cognitive sciences without a medical degree? I'm currently a first year undergraduate student in pure math but recently I've become interested in neuroscience and related fields. Is it possible to pursue neuroscience and cognitive sciences without a medical degree?

If yes, do you know any universities in North America or Europe that accepts people with pure math degrees in programs that are related to neuroscience and bio-mathematics?

Sorry if my question is too naive, I don't have much information about academic stuff yet.

At least in the US, a neuroscience or cognitive science PhD program generally admits people with undergrad or masters degrees, which generally can't be medical degrees since many US schools do not offer medical degrees at those levels.

So the answer to your first question is yes.

As for the specifically a math background, I expect that most schools would consider such an application. Even in fields that have corresponding undergrad majors, it's not uncommon for people to enter PhD programs from very different undergrad studies. An application would have to address the question of having an adequate background and understanding of what the field is like.


Is there any way to find Donald Knuth's undergrad/master's thesis? Just what the title says. As far as I know, Knuth's undergrad thesis was so good that the faculty at his university decided to honor him with both an undergrad degree and a master's automatically.

I wonder if this thesis is available for the public to see. I suppose students at Case Western have full access to it, but I'm unfortunately not one of them. Is there a way to get access to this thesis?

Finally, I contacted CWU's library and was told by an archivist that Knuth indeed graduated from the Case Institute of Technology with a BSc and an MSc simultaneously in 1960.

However, he didn't need to present a thesis. It was not a graduation requirement at that time.

What a shame!


Is age a factor when applying for federally-funded pre-doctoral fellowships (such as NIH's F-31 grant)? I have seen a number of postings along the lines of "Am I too old for tenure track?". While the consensus was "no," I am suspicious of the meritocracy holding for F grants. These are training grants designed to develop the next generation not scientists. Someone who is applying for an F31 at 40 has less runway than  a person who is 22 or 23. Does this aspect get baked onto your scores on some fashion?

Is there an unwritten rule? What's the oldest F31 recipient you are aware of?

The NIH offers a bunch of comparison data of NRSA recipients.  I think you should  pay considerable attention to figure 2.9

Only about 55% of fellows receive Ph.D.'s by 30.

There is more data to be mined from the entire report -- and it shows that about 10% of NRSA recipients received their degrees at 36 or older.  Given what I think the applicant pool must be, I suggest that age is likely not a bias.

Also, the mission statement for Kirchstein states that:

  The overall goal of the NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research
  Service Award (NRSA) program is to help ensure that a diverse pool of
  highly trained scientists is available in appropriate scientific
  disciplines to address the Nation's biomedical, behavioral, and
  clinical research needs. NRSA fellowships support the training of
  pre-and postdoctoral scientists, dual-degree investigators, and senior
  researchers.  More information about NRSA programs may be found at the
  Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) website.

  The purpose of the Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award
  (NRSA) Individual Predoctoral Fellowship (Parent F31) is to enable
  promising predoctoral students to obtain individualized, mentored
  research training from outstanding faculty sponsors while conducting
  dissertation research. Applicants for this F31 program are expected to
  propose a dissertation research project and training plan in
  scientific health-related fields relevant to the mission of the
  participating Institutes and Centers. This training plan should
  reflect the applicant’s dissertation research project, and facilitate
  and clearly enhance the individual’s potential to develop into a
  productive, independent research scientist.  The training plan should
  document the need for, and the anticipated value of, the proposed
  mentored research and training in relationship to the individual’s
  research career goals.  The training plan should also facilitate the
  fellow’s transition to the next stage of his/her research career.

As with any grant, you should ask yourself whether your situation matches the institutional aims.  I would think the more "atypical" your application package is, the more you need to consider this.

Age is a balancing act.  The older you are, the more mature you are, and the better you should be able to describe your aspirations and career goals.  If you look like you're putting off hard decisions, your application will suffer.  This is true regardless of age, but probably especially true for older applicants.


Does it matter if you have three or four possible answers when making a multiple choice test for learning? I have built several apps in Norwegian about hunting, philosophy etc. Students use the app to learn a subject and test their knowledge before doing their exam. In current state i have one question with three alternatives, where one is correct. The student will be presented with the solution to the question after they have chosen the alternative, and not on the end of the test.

For example:

What is the the capital city of Australia?

Canberra
Sydney
Melbourne

I was wondering if anyone know if there is any research on if students learn more/less/equal by being presented with 4 alternatives instead of three.

For example:

What is the the capital city of Australia?

Canberra
Sydney
Melbourne
Edmunton

Does this have any effect for learning, since it's less probable to just check the correct by chance. Maybe students have to do more active thinking since it's more alternatives to think about, and therefore learn more?

The standard for multiple choice questions is normally 4 answers. However, there is research that indicates that three choices is optimal. Three choices seems to increase the reliability of the test and decreases the number of poor distractors.

If you are worried about the difficult of your assessment. Instead of developing questions with four choices another strategy would be to increase the number of questions with three choices. This will allow you to cover more content.


Sharing assignments with a potential employer I'm currently a first year information technology student majoring in software development. I applied for an internship at a software development company. I got an interview and now they're asking to see some assignments that I've done at school to prove my experience. Is it usual that a school (in Canada) own all the rights to assignments that I've done? The assignments contain some code by the school and the rest is mine. I'm wondering if there's a route I can take so that I can share these assignments with this potential employer without violating my school's policies? Or is there something else I can tell this employer?

(Please note that I'm asking this question on behalf of a friend)

I don't think you need to worry about school policy or copyright here: you're privately sharing these documents in order to allow somebody to better evaluate you, not attempting to transfer ownership or widely distributing them.

As such, the question of who owns the code is irrelevant: you are not claiming ownership, you are claiming that the portions you wrote provide evidence of your skills as a programmer.  The company should be expected to treat it as a confidential part of your application process, just like all of the other personal information that you have given them.  If they do not, any possible fault and liability lies with them, not with you.


Referring to previous work “by the authors” Let's consider two papers, one by authors A1, A2, A3 and one by authors B1, B2, B3. In the case of two publications by the same research group, some of the authors may be the same, some may be new… Typically, the senior author/team leader is the same, which means that A3 = B3 (in fields where the senior author is typically listed last).

Now, my question is: in which cases is it okay to refer to the earlier work by the words “the authors”, as in “the authors have shown in [ref] that…”? Is it only okay if the two author sets are strictly equal? Or is it used when A ⊂ B or A ⊃ B? Or when the first author is the same?

I would avoid "the authors" unless it is exactly the same set of authors (preferably in the same order).

I don't see anything wrong with "B1, A2 and B3 have shown that..." even when A2 is one of the authors of the present paper.  It seems a little strange at first, but is quite common.  I have also seen phrases like "B1 and the second author have shown that..." to refer to a paper by B1 and A2 while avoiding mentioning A2 by name, but in more complicated examples it gets pretty unwieldy.


How to cancel an article submission I submitted an article to a journal that is now under consideration after revisions.
Some potential authors I didn't mention in this article censure the submission. To stay on good terms with them I would like to cancel the submission. The article is not already accepted but I think it will be in few days.
What can I do?

Contact the editor of the journal immediately and tell them you wish to withdraw the article.


Can post-doc researchers write a recommendation letter for someone applying for a PhD program? I am wondering how it is treated if a post-doc researcher writes a recommendation letter for someone applying to get PhD admission.

Will the selection committee evaluate it properly?

Academic rank varies by country.  But I would expect in most places a letter written by a postdoc would be considered.  Selecting letter writers is often a compromise between getting a letter writer who is highly ranked and well known and getting a letter writer who is well informed.  Typically one gets both when a postdoc assists a senior faculty member in writing a letter.


What's the point of visiting students? I've started a PhD recently and seen a few students from other universities visit our lab for a few days or maybe few weeks. The other university pays all expenses which many times amount to thousands of dollars. Most of the time, the visiting student gets a place, brings her/his own laptop and does research the way he does it at his university.

What's the point of this? Couldn't the visiting student just stay at his university and discuss his research with our lab on Skype?

One explanation I thought of is face to face networking but the cost seems to high for that. Or it may be an excuse to travel and see the world, but that's quite ridiculous. I also asked the visiting students, but they told me they didn't know.

The main goal, from my experience, is the facetime with many different people. Skype is nice, but it's primarily intended for conversations with very few people. A visit allows students to to talk to many professors and students face-to-face in a short timespan, get to know the place, interact with students in a lab, and get a sense for what the place is like, something which is impossible over the 'net.

Also, this gives the university a good chance to see what the student is like. It's easy to look good on paper and can put on a clean shirt (pants optional) for a skype interview. It's a lot harder to keep up a fake act in front of dozens of faculty and students over a one-or-two day period.


What constitutes a conflict of interest by minimum? When writing a scientific paper, one of the important sections to fill in are the possible conflicts of interest. Typically, I get to write

  The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Now, however, one of my co-authors has moved to a for-profit company before the study has been published. I am arguing whether it constitutes a conflict of interest.

What is a conflict of interest, by minimum?

Such a section usually isn't required for papers in my field, but you should probably put something like "Joe Smith moved from The University of Bobtown to ACME, Inc. during the preparation of this manuscript."


How can a paper accepted for a poster session be credible? If a paper is accepted in poster session of a conference or workshop such that only one page of the article will be published in proceedings, how this paper can be credible? (in particular in computer science and in a workshop like this: http://deic.uab.cat/conferences/cbt/cbt2018/)

I'm not sure what you mean by credible. If you are a student, especially, being in a poster session is a really good opportunity to meet people in the field and impress them with your brilliance and future prospects.

As one of the senior professors who used to wander around poster sessions, I was honored to meet such new and upcoming researchers and learn from them. If I had anything useful to say, perhaps they gained something as well. You can usually, at a poster session, distribute a longer version of your work with contact information.

The same goes, I think, for young faculty, though to a lesser extent. But still, use it as a chance to make contacts and extend your reach.


Would a manuscript be rejected if the cover letter is missing? Recently, I have submitted a manuscript for publication consideration into a journal (impact factor: 2). However, I realized that in the final PDF proof the cover letter is missing.

I think I have forgotten to include it.

Does this mean that the article would be rejected or will not be processed?

It is very unlikely for the paper to be rejected solely for the reason of the missing cover letter.

It is highly likely that you are going to be contacted (using an automated system or personal email) about an incomplete submission or the submission process itself will continue without the cover letter at all.
I would say, missing a cover letter might have an impact on the following:

The potential delay between the journal realizing that the submission is incomplete, communicating that to you, and you resubmitting.

The cover letter can help to assign the associate editor/track editor and, to some extent, select the reviewers. If the cover letter is not present in the submission, it might either take slightly longer or lead to some time/choice inefficiencies that could potentially be avoided.

Sometimes, the cover letter contains substantial necessary information. Say, there was a previous submission to this or another journal some time ago, and you want to inform the editor about that and point out some crucial details that are new in this submission. Or explain why the presence of additional/supplementary materials for your paper is necessary for the review.
In that case, leaving out the cover letter simply does not help to build your case in the best possible way.