texts
list | tags
list |
|---|---|
[
"What is the mean in an standard exam? (For grading on a curve)",
"Suppose a grading system is used in which grades vary between 1 and 100. Grades below 50 are failing grades. If I want to grade the students on the normal curve, which grade should I choose as the mean of the distribution? In other words, what should be the mean of the new grades? The number 50 is somehow counter-intuitive, as it results in half of the students failing the exam.\n\nNote: This question was previously posted to stats.SE, but was voted as off-topic there."
] |
[
"grades"
] |
[
"Citing \"In press\" article",
"I had a conference last week on which I presented paper 1.\n\nThere's paper 2 that has been accepted with the CR deadline within a week. I'd like to cite paper 1 in paper 2. I could make the reference state \"In press\" but my worry is, when paper 2 gets published, is the \"In press\" part going to remain there after the publication (forever)?\n\nIs there a way to avoid this or solve this?"
] |
[
"citations"
] |
[
"How to handle an advisor who regularly gives me new work for my thesis?",
"I'm currently working on my master thesis and will have to hand it in in April. Of course, the topic of my thesis is somehow restricted to a certain problem, but my advisor keeps telling me new problems to consider for my thesis, which have little relation to my original master thesis problem. \n\nThe problems he gives to me are very interesing, but they do not fit into my master thesis and if I had to include them, I would get into serious time troubles. I talked with him about this and he always answers very vaguely, e.g. with \"Let's see how your thesis turns out to be\". His answers are also very mood-dependent, so one has to be careful.\n\nHow can I convince him that his problems are not fitting for my thesis and that it is simply too much? I have to hand my thesis in soon and now, at this point, he comes up with new stuff to include. Furthermore, I am afraid of getting a bad grade if I don't do what he tells me to do. I am planning to start my PhD study under his supervision afterwards. Could I perhaps propose that I work on his problems after my master thesis?\n\nThanks in advance, I appreciate any sort of advice."
] |
[
"thesis",
"masters"
] |
[
"Are academics allowed to own/be part of/found a private company (UK)?",
"I have seen some professors being members or even founders of one or more private companies. Many times in a similar topic as the one they teach/research.\n\nWhat is the legal status behind this in the UK? Is it universal (controlled by state laws and rules) or contract/university specific (to be negotiated with the employer)?"
] |
[
"united-kingdom",
"conflict-of-interest"
] |
[
"One student grading other students' assignments in the same course?",
"In the US, can a student who is already enrolled in a course grade homework assignments of all other students in the same course (but not actually accessing and changing academic records)? Is it legal and compatible with academic integrity?\n\nTwo of several issues that I'm concerned about are:\n1. He has not actually done his own homework (because homework submissions are not recorded).\n2. By comparing my paper with other students I wasn't able to observer a consistency in grading. Actually initially I found who has graded our homeworks based on a pattern of inconsistency in grading and also inappropriate comments on my paper.\n\nHowever the professor rejects my concerns by stating that he has overseen and reviewed everything himself.\n\nIn this page from USC.edu it is stated that \"Please note that it is not possible for you to be both a student and a TA within the same course. Federal law [FERPA] and University policy both specifically prohibit students enrolled in a class from being able to modify their own grades or to view or modify the grades of other students enrolled in that same class.\" However as pointed out by Bob Brown, Supreme Court allowed in-class peer-grading."
] |
[
"legal-issues",
"grading",
"policy"
] |
[
"Doing a PhD in physics after doing bachelors and masters in mathematics",
"I have done my bachelors and currently doing masters in pure mathematics. I have done four physics courses during bachelors degree which also includes special relativity. What is the possibility that I may prosper in theoretical physics and earn a PhD in any branch of mathematical physics?\n\nAlso, I am going to take the GRE this year but I am little bit confused about choosing subject in subject GRE since scoring in maths is much easier than scoring in physics (if later its possible to change departments then of course I'll choose maths). Any suggestion regarding that is also welcome."
] |
[
"phd",
"mathematics",
"changing-fields",
"physics"
] |
[
"Counting journal reviews (when reviewing revisions)",
"We've discussed how many papers we should review, but how do we count reviews? Sometimes I review 2-3 versions of a manuscript before it is finally accepted/rejected. Should I count each version that I review? Or should I just count each accept/reject decision?"
] |
[
"peer-review"
] |
[
"In addition to the grammerly software, are there other better tools in English writing?",
"For non-English speakers, are there other useful tools besides grammerly software in English writing? Mainly check whether the sentence is authentic."
] |
[
"software"
] |
[
"Who \"owns\" a project idea after a grant application is rejected or declined?",
"This past year I put in an application to a federal agency (US) for a post-doctoral fellowship and collaborated on it with a three profs/research scientists on the proposal. If funded, one of them will act as my post-doc supervisor and the other two as collaborators, all bring necessary skills and methodological capacity to the project. The project idea was my own that I had before meeting or discussing it with these collaborators, I chose to work with these people because they are researchers whose work I was familiar with and they are located in a city I'm interested in living in. \n\nI have accepted a different post-doc since that application was submitted and I expect that application to be rejected because it was still a bit rough when submitted and it's a pretty competitive grant. Since I took the other position, I won't be doing this project with these collaborators in under this recent application. This is my first time as part of a multiple collaborator application, so I am wondering:\n\nWho has ownership of an idea after grant rejection/do all members of a proposal collaboration have to be informed of any member independently moving forward with an idea from the proposal?"
] |
[
"funding",
"collaboration",
"rejection",
"science",
"intellectual-property"
] |
[
"Referencing a question on research level from StackExchange in a footnote in a thesis?",
"Is referencing a question on research level from StackExchange in the footnote of a thesis appropriate?"
] |
[
"thesis"
] |
[
"On tenure track and department chair wants me to consider leaving",
"A few weeks ago after my grant meeting my department chair asked me if I still wanted to do research. She said I didn’t have to if I didn’t want to. She went on to say that I appeared to be struggling and that I could leave the tenure track. She said no one would judge me or think that I was a failure if I decided not to do research anymore. She said I could return to practice if I wanted to. This was pretty much an invitation to quit. She said she couldn’t promise I could get another non-tenure position and that the other departments did not have any needs. \n\nIt turns out that the department does need someone but she lied to me. She told me to think about what I wanted to do. Last week she sent me an email saying that she wanted to meet with me about my grant. So I invited my other grant team members. She then emailed me back to say that she did not want them present. She said that the meeting was not about the grant and that she wanted to close the loop on our discussion. Basically she lied again with a misleading email. The subject of her email even read meeting to discuss grant. \n\nWe didn’t meet that day. I was sick. This week she emailed me again to get on her calendar to have this meeting. I feel like she is trying to force me to resign. Do you have any advice about how I should proceed?"
] |
[
"tenure-track"
] |
[
"Does switching majors look bad for graduate admissions?",
"Here's my situation: I've want to get into a master's or PhD level program in biomedical engineering. However, the college I go to does not offer a biomedical engineering degree. So, out of the options I was given and at a advice of my advisor, I decided to major in chemical engineering degree.\nI pursued research with a professor in the chemical engineering department and was preparing to take the GRE. Once, I got to my actual Chemical engineering courses in the second semester of my sophomore year. I really ended up disliking my courses and not doing well in them (I got mostly Bs and two Cs and it's my fault). I went to my academic advisor for advice on the situation and I was told that the average GPA for the chemical engineering class was a 3.2, and that it's really hard for people to make a high enough GPA in this major to get into graduate school and the my grades are what most people make in the classes.\nI don't know if this is the standard for engineering or something but it feels really discouraging to me cause it feels like I can't fix my grades and grind through to get a good enough GPA to just get into graduate school. I like my research, but I'm unable to handle the rigor and intensity of my chemical engineering engineering classes despite reaching out to my professors and my university's tutoring center. I feel like me not liking the major is also a major factor in why I am unable to pass my classes. I will be a junior this year.\nShould I just stick it out with this major that I don't like at this point and work harder to keep up my grades since I will be doing BME master's anyway? I really want to get into a good masters program for biomedical engineering, but I really dislike my current major. Would changing majors hurt my graduate school admission chances?"
] |
[
"graduate-admissions",
"changing-fields"
] |
[
"Dealing with unsupervised research as novice researcher",
"I am currently working on a research project at a non-academic institution as part of a summer internship. They've brought me in to work on a topic that is somewhat within my area of study. However, there is nobody here who shares my field. There are other folks with related expertise, but it's not quite similar enough to be of help (at least not at this stage in the research). Furthermore, my work involves data that is quite different than what I'm used to working with. It's enough to say that the data requires different analysis techniques than what I'm used to--to the extent that the application of this research is whole sub-field in its own right.\n\nI'm obviously reading papers to familiarize myself with this sub-field, and I've also reached out for direction from colleagues who have plenty of experience in this area. The real problem stems from the lack of an experienced adviser/supervisor who can help direct the project. As much as I'd love to be capable of doing this solo (and this will probably be a good trial-by-fire learning experience), I'm concerned that I'm still too novice of a researcher to go it alone.\n\nI'm not throwing this project away, so what are some steps I can take to make progress despite this limited supervision?"
] |
[
"research-process",
"advisor",
"literature-search"
] |
[
"How to verify authenticity of submitted assignments",
"When teaching 250 students in the same subject, knowing each student can be quite difficult. In smaller classes, it may be possible to learn enough through classroom interaction that when assessing the assignments it may be easy to tell if it is their work or not. For example, if a student can never form a coherent argument when asked in class, but that same student submits extremely high quality work, the teacher might want to dig a little deeper to see if the student is just better at writing or if they are hiring a ghost writer to produce their reports for them. However, in large classes, there is too little interaction with each student to form a strong opinion of everyone. Those who can 'hide' in class are the least likely to be 'caught.'\n\nI see one option as incorporating an oral exam into the overall mark and using that mark as a basis from which to judge the student's future work. It's not perfect but it's something. One problem is that with 250 students, oral exams end up consuming so much class time that little time remains for lectures.\n\nRunning through something like TurnInIt will only catch if they are taking from an existing work but it will clearly not catch ghost writing.\n\nWhat are the most effective ways of verifying authenticity of student assignments?"
] |
[
"teaching",
"plagiarism"
] |
[
"My supervisor ghosted me",
"I am a STEM master's student in a University in Europe. I am going to graduate next month and I need to settle the date of my defence and other bureaucratic matters with my second advisor. He had no role in my master's thesis project but has to be part of the committee on the day of my thesis defence.\nThe problem is: I have been trying to contact him for almost three weeks with no success. He ghosted me.\nThe question is: Should I try to contact the head of the department and report his behaviour (in order to get him answering)? Or should I forget about that and look for a different second advisor?\nYou should consider that: he has not answered any of my emails in the last weeks. The emails were 2-3 lines long. The academic staff working with him suggested me to call him on the phone in some particular days/hours in which he was there. I did it and he did not answer. I cannot go in person to the university since the access is restricted due to the Covid pandemic (and anyway the professor goes there rarely in this period as far as I have been told).\nAlso, I have been told that this professor behaved similarly with many other students, but usually they managed to "spontaneously" come across him at university (there was no pandemic at the time). Therefore, I am not really sure if contacting the head of department would ever change anything. On the other hand, looking for a different advisor might be as challenging as contacting this guy, since we are close to my graduation date and there are not many professors at my university who work in the field of my master's thesis."
] |
[
"advisor",
"email"
] |
[
"I uploaded a transcript in my online application for grad school but did not include the back side (transcript legend), should I worry?",
"Title says it. I submitted a transcript in my online application for grad school but did not include the back side which contains the transcript legend (has some general info about my university and grading system). Should I worry? Would this affect my application? And should I send them the legend now?"
] |
[
"graduate-admissions"
] |
[
"Does an acceptance of an abstract mean that I will definitely be presenting at the conference?",
"I just had an abstract accepted by a UK conference and will be submitting the final paper in a few months. We were notified by email of the acceptance and directed to register for the conference. The information we were sent currently does not mention a presentation and the schedule is not yet posted. \n\nDoes this mean that I will definitely be presenting at the conference? Or are abstracts/papers sometimes accepted but not presented?"
] |
[
"conference",
"presentation"
] |
[
"As an experimentalist, will it be possible to be a good theoretical researcher through self study?",
"My Ph.D. research in materials science and mechanics was entirely experimental with some MatLab coding to analyze the results and some image analysis through the image processing toolbox. However, in my 2 years postdoc with my Ph.D. supervisor, I am planning of carrying out computational simulations using Molecular dynamics and Finite element analysis. I have limited mathematical background (undergraduate 1,2,3rd years) and programming (undergrad, master's and through Coursera). Through self-study (books and online lectures), will it be possible to be proficient in these modeling tools and methods? Or has that ship sailed when I started the experimentalist path?\nHas anyone followed this path in their career?"
] |
[
"research-process"
] |
[
"I want to switch PhD programme",
"I started a PhD programme 6 months ago. During the selection process you were asked which areas would u like to work in. My studies specialization is in microbiology and molecular biology, I clearly stated that i wanted to carry on my research in food microbiology because I carry out my master thesis in this area. What is more, after the interview I was contacted by a professor working in this area because my profile was totally fitting the PhD they were looking for.\n\nHowever, a big professor was also interested in me (the rector of the university) and directly contacted me to work with him in biosensors applied to food. I tried to go back to my interest but I found the door closed (some matter of power around...). Despite of this, I though biosensors sounded very interesting and I would enjoy it.\n\nAfter the PhD kick-off I found out that we did not share the same definition of a biosensor.. they were meaning just sensors made with organic polymers. I was told to do a PhD proposal in a short time of a topic I had no knowledge in.\n\nNowadays, my supervisor does not follow me and they group is so new that there is only a postdoc researcher who is an engineer, we have nobody from biotech,food science or a chemist who works with sensors in the \"bio\" part. I am totally alone in my research in a field I do not know. I told my supervisor and he told me to look for somebody who help me in the literature to help me. what the .....?? I really fear i do not manage to finish this PhD successfully.\n\nI started looking for another PhD opportunities and I found one which I totally felt in love with. I would like to write the professor in advance but I am not sure whether I should mention that I am already a PhD student. \n\nWhat would you do? In the applications I am doing I am commenting I am a PhD student that does not have interest nor the background in the area I was assigned..\n\nThank you,"
] |
[
"phd",
"application",
"writing",
"supervision",
"changing-fields"
] |
[
"How to write an email to request a dataset to a professor",
"I'm interested in a dataset used in a scientific article, but I am not able to find this dataset on the Internet, I guess it is because the dataset was provided by NSTAR (an energy company) that no longer exists (it has merged with Eversource).\n\nI have thought of requesting it to the corresponding author of the article, but I have never sent anything to a MIT visitant professor (female, just for the record) and I have never called a teacher of mine by its title. I think that there is not such a strict culture in Spain of calling everyone by its title. Can anyone help me in writing the letter? Will it bother her if I send such request? How should I start? What should I say about myself? How should I end the letter?"
] |
[
"etiquette",
"email",
"writing-style",
"communication"
] |
[
"How to deploy a StackExchange-style question and answer site for a university subject?",
"Problems with discussion boards: After being involved with StackExchange for a couple of years, I've really grown to despise standard discussion boards. All those meandering threads, no commenting, no ability to edit questions to improve them, inadequate cross-referencing of questions, no markdown support, no voting for good answers; no rss subscription options, the list goes on...\n\nEducational context: I have interacted with a few course management systems that include discussion boards for students to ask questions. These systems also lack most of the great features of the StackExchange model of Q&A. \n\nQuestion\n\n\nIs there a way of deploying a StackExchange-style Q&A site for a university subject?\nAre there any examples of people doing this?\nDoes anyone know whether StackExchange themselves have considered this market?\n\n\nInitial thoughts\n\nI realise that there are open source clones of stack exchange in existence. However, my concern is that they take a bit of effort to setup.\n\n\nIdeally any system should be very simple to deploy for the lecturer, and easy to learn for the student."
] |
[
"teaching",
"software",
"tools",
"answering-questions"
] |
[
"Late recommendation letter",
"I'm about to apply for postdoc positions in the US through mathjobs. I already did it last year, so I have my reference letters from the previous time (which are probably pretty good). \n\nNow here's my situation: During the last year, I was lucky to solve some well-known open problems in my field (well, it's not going to earn me a Wikipedia entry, but the tiny group of researchers in my esoteric field is impressed), which will probably turn my application from \"good\" to \"outstanding\". In order to really make my application look better, my reference letters should address the recent results, so I asked my letter writers to update their letters. Most of them did so, except for one (who didn't reply to my emails). The problem is that I should submit some of my applications by November 1, and as I didn't hear from that letter writer for several weeks now, I'm afraid that he might not update his letter by November 1.\n\nQuestion 1: When job ads on mathjobs say something like \"screening of applications will begin on November 1\", do they really mean it, or do they mean something like \"screening of applications will begin on mid December, but we want you to submit your application early\"?\n\nQuestion 2: What would you do in my situation (assuming that the relevant letter writer is currently abroad and I have no other way to contact him)? Should I contact the relevant search committees and ask them to check that reference letter a bit later, once it gets updated?\n\nQuestion 3: If a letter of recommendation is updated on mathjobs past the submission of an application, which version of the letters is available to the search committee? What should I do in order to make sure that they read the updated version?"
] |
[
"mathematics",
"application",
"postdocs"
] |
[
"Career advice: How can I move on from my probable PhD flop?",
"So thing aren't going well for me with my PhD and I sort of think I'm not going to get there (hard deadline is September and frankly I think I'm fairly close to having a breakdown). I'm in the UK and the hard deadline is university policy. \n\nHow soon should I start looking for work outside academia? How should I go about explaining my (likely) failure?\n\nI'm not sure I know what to do from here.\n\nI don't feel confident about bringing this up with my supervisor. If I did, he would brush it off (he doesn't really get me, I don't think) with something along the lines of \"What else are you going to do? Just get on with it.\". He has expressed concern about my progress before now. Also, part of the motivation for asking this question is feeling well-researched on this topic prior to having a conversation, which I'm hoping will show my supervisor that I'm serious about it.\n\nIf this information is useful I'm based in the UK, I have a pass at Master's level already and a 2:1 BSc in physics and I am in an allied field at the moment."
] |
[
"phd",
"career-path"
] |
[
"How to deal with unnecessary stress introduced by the supervisor?",
"I am doing my PhD in a high prestige UK university. \nI am finishing my second year and I have funding for three years in total. \nI have already two papers finished (pending to be published) and working on two more. \n\nI like research and I like being pushed to achieve the best I can. What I don't like however is introducing unnecessary stress into my daily life. With this I mean the following: \n\nI think that it is totally acceptable and expected of me to work overtime when nearing a deadline. Usually the month before a deadline I work 12 hours per day, 6-7 days a week. This is totally fine and to some extent I enjoy it. \n\nMy supervisor is a brilliant researcher. Young and successful in his field with many publications in high prestige venues. However, he's also the classic stereotype of the super-workaholic academic who works 7 days a week, from early in the morning until late at night. \n\nIt's common for him to send messages or emails at 23.00 or during weekends asking for something. This could range from asking to complete a certain task or a simple \"What is the status of X?\". \n\nI find this exhausting. To work hard during the week I need to have a \"safe space\" where I know that I can relax without worrying about work. Otherwise I feel demotivated to work hard. Due to this behavior I have anxiety issues. Recently, after a very stressful period mostly due to work, my hair started falling. This was identified by my GP as \"Telogen effluvium\". It can happen after very stressful periods. Thankfully it stopped but it's a clear sign that I've been stressing too much. \n\nIgnoring my emails and messages is not an option for me. The reason is that I know that he genuinely cares about my PhD and many times his messages may be about the changes he has done on my paper. Ignoring this makes me feel ungrateful. \n\nMy most important problem is that, looking back, 70% of the stress introduced by supervisor could have been totally avoided if he could relax a bit. He's micromanaging me and wants to know everything. And many times we could have taken a month more on a project instead of rushing things. \n\nMoreover, because he's always pressuring me to do as many things as possible as fast as possible, I feel that I cannot do any quality work. I prefer quality for quantity. He's the opposite. \n\nI have tried to convey my feelings to him multiple times already. He does not seem to get it. Or he may back off for 2-3 weeks and then resumes his previous behavior. In a recent confrontation I mentioned the words \"unnecessary stress\" and he didn't take it very well. \n\nMany colleagues have told me that I should be thankful because he's actively working on my PhD while other supervisors are totally absent. I find this unfair. None of the two should be OK. \n\nOverall I feel burned-out and demotivated. This saddens me because I really like my PhD and research in general. \n\nHowever, I don't think I can take this for one more year. \n\nQuestion: How to deal with a workaholic supervisor who is introducing unnecessary stress into my daily life?\n\np.s. It's important to mention that my supervisor probably suffers from anxiety as well. This is somewhat known by his PhD students and he has implied it one or two times."
] |
[
"phd",
"advisor",
"supervision",
"emotional-responses"
] |
[
"Which department does a professor in a joint appointment get his/her graduate students from",
"If someone is a professor of department A, however, s/he also affiliates with department B in a joint appointment. Which department does the professor in a joint appointment get his/her graduate students from? Department A or B? The original or affiliated department? Also, does he/she evaluates the admission of A or B? Or both? Thank you. I did a web search on this site with the keyword joint appointment, but I can not find any similar discuss."
] |
[
"graduate-admissions",
"advisor",
"joint-appointment"
] |
[
"My manuscript status says that one referee sent a message but not a report",
"About three weeks ago, I submitted a paper to a highly reputable physics journal. (I had another paper recently published in this journal as well.) I have been checking the status continuously, and today I saw the following as a follow-up to a referee request:\n\n\n message received (not a report)\n\n\nI am curious about this status update, as I have never encountered it before. What does this notification mean – rejection of my paper or acceptance? It would be really appreciated if anyone could share experience on this."
] |
[
"publications",
"peer-review",
"physics",
"journal-workflow"
] |
[
"How reasonable is it to ask about my application status to the Chair of the search committee?",
"It has been more than 4 months I applied for a tenured-track faculty position in a research university. However, I have not heard back from anyone (e.g. representative of the Chair of the search committee or someone else) regarding my application status. Unfortunately, there is no online status-checker system available. I am even not sure whether my application has been rejected. In such a circumstance, can I place an inquiry to the search chair and ask him to let me know the status of my application?"
] |
[
"faculty-application"
] |
[
"Which is preferable, to go to graduate school at same school as undergrad or to go to a lower-ranked school?",
"I've heard from people that generally, it's a bad idea to go to the same school as your undergrad to get your graduate education. \n\nHowever, in the situation that you get into only your undergrad school and a few much-lower ranked grad schools, what would be the better school to pursue?"
] |
[
"graduate-school",
"undergraduate"
] |
[
"Are there scholarships for a physics PhD in Germany that don't consider income?",
"I'm searching for scholarships for a physics PhD in Germany. I will have a (part time) contract by the institute in which I'm doing the PhD and receive a monthly income. Now, the only scholarships I find on the internet are intended to fund the PhD position entirely and count the income by the institute against the amount of scholarship money. In the end the scholarship is reduced (maybe to zero) because of the income.\n\nAre there scholarships that don't consider any other income and can be received additionally to the income by the institute? Since I'm going to travel quite a bit during my PhD I'd also be happy with scholarships for traveling expenses."
] |
[
"phd",
"funding",
"physics",
"germany"
] |
[
"reference letter from current line manager?",
"I am currently a lecturer at a UK university, and I got an oral offer from another university. I was called by their HR today saying that their official is condition on satisfactory reference checking with my current line manager, who is the HoD of my current department. In my case I do not know my HoD is willing to provide a reference letter, as I am pretty sure that he will not be happy knowing I want to leave. \n\nI am wondering if this (requiring reference from current line manager) is a common practices for UK universities? If there is any alternative solution to it? Thanks for your suggestions in advance."
] |
[
"job-search",
"recommendation-letter",
"united-kingdom"
] |
[
"Are there other cities in the world like Boston where a large number of good postsecondary institutions are located?",
"The really unusual thing about the greater Boston area is that so many and such good postsecondary institutions are crowded into that area. Harvard, M.I.T., Tufts, Brandeis, and others.\n\nIs Boston unique in all the world in that respect, or is there some comparable place elsewhere?"
] |
[
"university"
] |
[
"Applying to Ph.D. as M.S. student but failing to complete M.S. after admission",
"I'm currently studying for a qualifying exam required by my M.S. program to get the degree and have also applied to continue onto a Ph.D. elsewhere (all of this in the U.S). This situation got me curious about a weird edge case:\n\nWhat is likely to happen if I get accepted to a Ph.D. program, but later find out I have failed my qual/will not receive the M.S. degree?\n\nI realize that no answer to this will be universally applicable, but the reason I ask is because I already have a B.S (what most of my fellow applicants have) and they don't necessarily know that my M.S requires a qual in the first place (so admissions decisions were probably made taking into account my coursework, etc.). So, on the one hand, it seems like even supposing I didn't receive the M.S. I am still an applicant with the same credentials as my fellow applicants + two years of additional grad level coursework + 2 years of MS project + 2 years of Research on top of these other things. On the other hand they accepted me expecting another degree which I don't have. \n\nI'm not too worried about this personally and intend to pass, but I was curious since it is a real possibility for me (most people get 2 or more chances at the quals, but since I am changing fields a bit I wanted to take certain classes to help in Ph.D. admissions during my first year and ended up with only one shot). \n\nIt would be nice if this got answered as generally as possible for future worriers, but if more specificity is needed I did a math undergrad/M.S. and applied to Comp. Sci. for PhD. Also, the M.S. was not done to bolster my record but instead just because I found funding and got more time to explore before jumping onto the PhD \"treadmill\" as some of my professors have described it (meaning, my undergrad would have made me a good math applicant with research experiences, 3.6+ GPA, strong letters, from a respected school, etc. should I have decided to apply straight out of it).\n\nAnyhow sorry this got long, I was just trying to walk the line between keeping it general and making it unanswerable haha. (Also, as a little aside, I can retake it late in the summer but it'd be a pain travel/housing wise).\n\ntl;dr\nAccepted into PhD while in a MS elsewhere, but failed exam required for MS (all in USA). What happens?"
] |
[
"phd",
"graduate-admissions",
"masters",
"application"
] |
[
"Mentioning money in statement of purpose",
"I am currently working as a research assistant with a pay grade that is half of a typical entry level commercial job (computer programming jobs in particular).\n\nIs it beneficial to mention this in a Statement of purpose for graduate admissions, so as to show that I sacrificed a better financial situation in favor of a research career? Is mentioning money a bad idea regardless of the context, or is it well known that research assistance-ships pay less than regular jobs?"
] |
[
"graduate-admissions",
"motivation",
"united-states",
"statement-of-purpose"
] |
[
"Have US universities seen a significant increase in administrative workforces relative to academic activity?",
"I was recently made aware of a study (caveat: from 2014) indicating that, supposedly, US academic institutions have taken on non-academic staff at a much higher overall rate than the increase in the student population, counting from 1987 and unti 2011-2012.\nNow, the think-tank which authored this study seems fishy to me, but I don't live and work in the US, so I wanted to ask for corroboration or refutation of its claims based on your experience and knowledge.\nNote: Academic activity and number of students is not the same thing; information relative either to the former or the latter is relevant."
] |
[
"united-states",
"administration",
"non-academic-staff"
] |
[
"How do I tell my supervisor that I've been offered a job and want to leave?",
"Yesterday I posted about wanting to leave my PhD and I've definitely decided that it's the healthiest choice for me. Now comes the hardest part- telling them that I plan to leave the program once I find an alternative role. I'm not a very confrontational person and I hate to feel that I am wasting anyone's time so I want to be as polite and direct as I can be.\nIs it as simple as emailing to say that I wish to discuss my progress and long term goals and then inform them during the meeting that I've been offered a job?"
] |
[
"advisor",
"quitting"
] |
[
"(How) can you teach a subject effectively for which you are a skeptic without biasing students?",
"I recently accepted a tenure-track position at a university and will be on a 1-1 load my first year. My first course I will teach, I will get to modify and alter based on my expertise. \n\nIn my second semester, I am taking over a graduate course that was taught by a previous faculty member. This course is over a concept that I am extremely skeptical about. The prior professor, who taught the course, is a prominent supporter of the theory and has written articles and books on the subject.\n\nSo my concern is that my own biases could bleed out into the class. \n\nMy current plan is the following:\n\n\nFirst half of the semester: teach the course close the the prior syllabus with some differences. \nMidterm: present the evidence as to why I am a skeptic. \nSecond half of the semester: students either provide evidence in the form of a literature review supporting or objecting to my skepticism.\n\n\nA little background, I was brought into the department for my computational strength, productive research stream, and subject expertise. The thing is, the subject expertise has nothing to do with this course where I am a skeptic. So I feel a little bit like I would be being unnecessarily disruptive to an already established department curriculum. That said, the faculty member who pushed this subject recently left and I do not know if anyone else in the department is as passionate about it as they were. \n\nI hesitate to outright say the topic due to not wanting to be unmasked. But it can be thought of like this: The idea has a solid foundation built on strong empirical evidence and results. This foundation is largely agreed upon by the field. Where this foundation is not nearly agreed upon is a certain abstraction/extension of this foundation. I believe that this abstraction/extension is trivial and also ill-defined. Others in the field believe that this extension is an important area of study."
] |
[
"teaching"
] |
[
"Listing talks given at home institution on CV",
"I've given many talks at my home institution, at the undergraduate and graduate colloquiums, and in a few seminars. The list is getting quite long. \n\nIs it appropriate to list many talks given at my home institution? Does it reflect badly on me?"
] |
[
"mathematics",
"cv"
] |
[
"When reapplying, does it pose negative effect in the admission process if you use the similar personal statement?",
"I was reapplying the same institution that rejected me last year. Last year, I didn't reach any potential supervisors and this year, one professor told me that he would assist me. I thought the personal statement last year was not the main problem for rejection so I reused it. I added two lines to update my background information. And I reworded two paragraphs though they express the same meaning and intention.\n\nI just realized this problem after I submitting my application. Will the selection committee check my previous application? Will it pose negative effect? I really don't want to mess it up with this opportunity."
] |
[
"phd",
"graduate-admissions",
"statement-of-purpose"
] |
[
"What open indexing services compete with Web of Science",
"As far as I know, the only indexing services which track citation across journals and data repositories are accessed for a fee. Are there any free-to-use databases of article or data citation indices ?"
] |
[
"citations",
"open-access",
"indexing"
] |
[
"Why did it become so much more expensive to start a university?",
"In 1873, Johns Hopkins University was started with an inflation-adjusted $144.5 million. In 1884, Stanford University began with an inflation-adjusted $139 million. Meanwhile, in 2009, KAUST was started with $10 billion. There's a difference of two orders of magnitude.\n\nWhy did it become so much more expensive to start a university in modern times?"
] |
[
"university",
"academic-history"
] |
[
"How should I cite a conjecture to which no written record can be found?",
"Suppose that a famous mathematician E (long deceased) made a conjecture (C), but no written record of this can be found (either because none exists, or because it exists in a very obscure source). Then, a senior mathematician S, who knows for a fact that (C) was conjectured by E, tells another mathematician X about this problem, and indeed X manages to prove (C). Just to clarify: S is sure about the conjecture, but does not have a publicly available source for it.\n\nThis creates a problem: one of the reasons for X's interest in the problem was the question asked by E. Without context, the problem is still interesting, but less so, and it would be better to include a reference to the conjecture whenever communicating the result. Presumably, in verbal communication this is not a problem, since one can simply explain how things are. But what about publishing the result?\n\nI see the following options. Which of these are most widely accepted? Is there any better alternative?\n\n\nNot mention E at all, simply state the result as is.\nMention that (C) was conjectured by E but not make effort to justify this.\nMention that (C) was conjectured by E, try to use elaborately justify that.\nKeep digging for a reference (the real question here is - for how long.).\n\n\nThe question is most natural in mathematics, but I suppose it makes some sense in other disciplines. Feel free to post non-mathematics based answers/comments."
] |
[
"publications",
"citations",
"writing",
"mathematics"
] |
[
"Is it suitable to ask for extra work concerning my bachelor thesis?",
"I study computer science and going to write my bachelor thesis during the next weeks at a very practically working chair.\nAt my university most students are not able to write simple programs or algorithms (of course they are able to design them in theory).\nBecause I also work in the field of computer science I have many years of experience in programming. Therefore I think that the tasks I have to do will be very easy and bore me.\n\nFurthermore, during my next semester I have enough time to work on my thesis more than maybe is necessary. I do not want to get a better grade or something like that. I just want to gain new knowledge and work in an scientific environment.\n\nSo is it suitable to ask for more difficult tasks and say to my supervisor that I would like to invest more time in my thesis than necessary? Or does it sound arrogant?"
] |
[
"thesis",
"professors",
"bachelor"
] |
[
"How to write my name and my job description in a publication?",
"I'm a resident in a teaching hospital and not a staff member in a university, how to write my name and my job description in a publication as an author"
] |
[
"publications",
"teaching",
"affiliation"
] |
[
"MSc with relation to Cloud",
"I wonder if there are universities having real-world MSc related courses. My focus is to understand cloud technologies and services(especially if it is Amazon). Preferably in UK, but can be actually anywhere around the world. Maybe general or specific like PAAS , SAAS etc. Could you suggest any?"
] |
[
"masters"
] |
[
"Should you place accents on letters in academic writing in English?",
"Is there a standard practice in academic writing regarding the use of accented letters when the underlying language is English? I'm specifically thinking of the word naive, which often has a dieresis above the i, but I suppose this is applicable to other words.\n\nI would prefer to not use them since it's simpler and seems somehow less pretentious to me.\n\nAlso, is there is a difference between dissertations and journal articles?"
] |
[
"writing"
] |
[
"Cannot present paper at conference. Instructor wants to move me to second author",
"Due to unforeseen circumstances, I am not able to present my paper at a Computer Science conference. Without the presentation the paper will not be published. My instructor has said that she will present the paper instead, but wants to move me from the primary author to the second author. I did all the work as a graduate student while she reviewed and gave general feedback. What is the proper etiquette here? Is it okay to move her to primary because I cannot present?\n\nUPDATE\n\nIn the interest of fairness to the professor, I want to provide some more background. This started off as a end-of-semester project. Each student needed to come up with an idea, then propose, implement, present and write a paper on it. I initially proposed a vague concept of using PSO to train neural nets. My instructor said her lab is working on something similar and if I wanted, I could tackle an extension to their algorithm, which depending on the outcome could lead to a published paper. During the course of the semester, my instructor offered little to no help for the project, presumably because that would give me an unfair advantage. All the work, code, paper, the specifics of the algorithm extension are all mine, and all I had was the published paper of the previous algorithm to work on.\n\nAfter the semester was over, I decided to see if I could get it published. I noticed a lot of mistakes I made with my implementation during the tight semester time-frame and spent several months iterating and refining my process and results. I was put in touch with the previous researchers who offered little help with the exception of getting a portion of their source code, which was also of little help to me. I would venture to say that my professor's role in this was mostly advisory, although at the end of it, I would send my paper to her to proofread it.\n\nFast-forward to now, my instructor is claiming that because I am not presenting, I am not taking ownership of my work. She is also claiming that the work was her idea and based on her lab's previous work. She gave me a choice of swapping authors or withdrawing the paper. Note that a camera-ready version of the paper has already been submitted. I offered to withdraw from the conference. She then tells me that she has already registered the paper so I shouldn't withdraw, but she wants the source files for my work (I assume latex files?).\n\nShe has now invoked university policy and copyright law, saying that since both our names are on the paper, I cannot withdraw without her consent, which she has not given. Since she shares ownership of the paper, she claims she is also entitled to the source materials of the paper. She has offered not to change the author order.\n\nThat is the majority of the story. The actual email conversation was not as civil. I have graduated and moved on... we never actually met face to face since this was an online class. So... given the above story, have I done anything wrong? Is the instructor entitled to the source material for the paper? This is for the IEEE WCCI conference this summer. We are the only two authors on this paper. This is my first paper, this is not her first paper."
] |
[
"publications",
"conference",
"authorship",
"presentation"
] |
[
"Regarding withdrawal of a paper which has not been registered for conference",
"I had submitted a paper for an IEEE conference. My paper has been accepted for presentation and potential publication. However, I have not paid the registration fees and do not wish to register the paper. I want to submit the same paper to some journal. So, is it necessary for me to withdraw the paper from the conference by writing some sort of email or Can I simply submit it to some other journal without withdrawing it from conference? I mean what is the need to withdraw the paper if I have not even registered it. Non-registration would automatically mean withdrawal"
] |
[
"conference",
"paper-submission"
] |
[
"Applying for tenure-track research position and lecturer position at the same university?",
"there is a very good research university (actually many of them; this is mathematics in the US) that have both tenure-track assistant professor open positions and lecturer open positions. I want to know what you think about applying for both. Ideally I want the tenure-track position, but the job market is tough, and I would also be happy with a lecturer position (which is much more teaching oriented). How would a hiring committee look at this? I am afraid that the tenure-track guys will say \"Well, this guy/girl doesn't think he/she's good enough to get a tenure-track job because he/she is also applying for a lecturer position, so let's ditch him/her\". At the same time, the lecturer guys could say \"Well, it seems that he/she wants a tenure-track position but he will settle for a lectureship. We want someone more motivated.\"\n\nThere is a similar question here: Should I simultaneously apply for multiple jobs in different ranks at the same university? which is more about \"post-doc vs. tenure-track\". I think this situation is slightly different."
] |
[
"mathematics",
"faculty-application",
"tenure-track",
"lecturer"
] |
[
"I just submitted my PhD applications. What do I do now?",
"I just submitted my applications to all the grad schools I am considering. Is there anything I can do during the wait to help my application?"
] |
[
"phd",
"graduate-admissions",
"graduate-school",
"application"
] |
[
"I have career gap after bachelors degree and irrelevant work experience. How do I write SOP for MS admission in US?",
"I pursued a Bachelor of Technology in Electronics and Communication Engineering stream and I completed the course in 2010. I was jobless for more than a year so I did a 3 months course in Java. Im Sun certified. I still wasn't able to find a job. I got a job in a Business Process Outsourcing company as a customer support associate. I had to take the job, as I didn't have any choice. I worked from Aug 2012 to Nov 2013. Now I'm interested in doing an MS. I'm afraid I don't get admitted. I'm especially interested in University of Texas at Austin. I don't know how to project my negative points in the SOP. I don't know what points to include and what to not. I have no clue. Please help me."
] |
[
"graduate-admissions",
"statement-of-purpose"
] |
[
"What's the point in specifying the grant number in a paper's acknowledgments?",
"I understand why people mention the grant agency, but what's the point in specifying the grant number in a paper's acknowledgments?\n\nExamples:\n\n\n The authors acknowledge\n the support of the U.S. Army Research Office under\n grant number W911NF-10-1-0533\n \n This work was supported\n by the National Key Basic Research Program of\n China via grant 2014CB340503\n\n\nI am mostly interested in the field of computer science > machine learning, and English-speaking venues."
] |
[
"publications",
"funding",
"acknowledgement"
] |
[
"Did any universities publish an official analysis on how successful remote learning has been during the pandemic?",
"Most universities around the world have now completed at least a year in remote-first mode due to the COVID pandemic. Some countries have been lucky enough to avoid/supress a major explosion of cases (China, New Zealand, Australia) but European and North American institutions have definitely been severely restricted in how much they could do in-person.\nDid any universities publish an overview of how successful remote learning has been, according to whatever metrics they find important? I.e. graduation rates, median test scores, number of research grants approved, etc."
] |
[
"covid-19",
"remote-work"
] |
[
"Going for a PhD after being unhappy in industry",
"After finishing my studies, I worked as a researcher for a few months in the field of my master thesis, but was not quite satisfied with the field.\nSo, I tried to transition to industry. In my first job I was working in R&D as junior engineer and I quite liked it. Later on, I moved to pure software engineering and I hated it. Even though I was receiving a good salary for my experience. I couldn't stand the lack of innovation, I wasn't even good enough in my job (this is my personal opinion), I was always bored and after a while the dissatisfaction from my job made me unhappy for my life as a whole. I couldn't imagine myself doing this for the next 40 years. I quit my job and this is my last week, after that I have nothing scheduled regarding my career.\nI am really very confused about my next steps and I have been thinking about finally doing a PhD. The reasons behind this is that I want to feel that I can really make contributions, bring my ideas, solve problems and not just write code lines. I would prefer intellectual and time flexibility, as I believe that I am functioning better this way. I had never thought of following an academic career before, now it may not be my ultimate goal, but I could consider it. I know that becoming a professor is very hard, and I am not targeting such a position, but I really want to do research and not just software engineering. I would be mostly interested in doing an R&D job later, either at a company or at a research center.\nI have been reading here that a PhD can be a waste of time for people that do not seek a purely academic position. I have already applied a couple of times for research positions in companies and research centers without success. Thus, I thought that a PhD could make the difference here. What is your opinion regarding my case? Is it a good idea to go for a PhD or can it be a burnout after some bad career decisions until now?"
] |
[
"phd",
"career-path"
] |
[
"Has there ever been a trend in academia like the one we're experiencing with Data Science?",
"At a panelist event that I attended recently, exactly 100% of the current students and alumni in the room who didn't have PhDs in Machine Learning stated that they wanted a PhD in Machine Learning -- and they all wanted to know how and where to accomplish this goal. I'm honestly not sure whether most of these students can even describe what machine learning is. There were long lines to talk with computer science PhDs, who are directors of research either at a university or in industry, e.g., Google, Goldman Sachs - everyone was so infatuated with the thought of getting into Data Science.\n\nDoes any field in the past compare to the current field of Data Science, in terms of trendiness and importance? \n\nWas it Probability Theory? Fourier Analysis? Number Theory? Mechanics? Law School?\n\nThis coming semester, I really wanted to follow my interests and study measure theory and functional analysis - just skimming through the table of contents of the functional analysis book by Reed and Simon was pretty exciting in itself. Yet, it's hard to drown out the Data Science influence, and I feel that I should be \"wiser\" and take machine learning / data science courses instead. \n\nA respected math PhD student in our department advised me that, \"if you study some subfield of algebra deeply, then in the future perhaps a dozen people might understand your work. But if you get into Data Science, it's a field that's projected to grow for decades to come, and if you land in industry instead of academia, all of the skills are transferable, unlike the skills gained from studying algebra.\""
] |
[
"research-process",
"mathematics",
"computer-science",
"academic-life",
"academic-history"
] |
[
"Experience with paid English grammar and style software for writing papers?",
"I'm looking to suggest to our institute to invest in a paid software for helping writing, along the lines of Grammarly Premium, Antidote 10 or something similar. Does anyone have any experience with any of these, in particular for writing papers in STEM? Can you comment on how valuable these are?"
] |
[
"writing",
"writing-style",
"software"
] |
[
"Several questions about getting a master degree in mathematics in US",
"Currently I am a junior at UCLA. I have taken some math classes and they seem really interesting. However, I am not sure whether I should pursue a PhD in mathematics. So instead I'm thinking about getting a master degree. However there's very few information about master in mathematics online. \n\nQuestion 1: How rare is it for people to go to industry first and then go back to academia (after 2 years, for example)? How should they deal with the recommendation letter part?\n\nQuestion 2: Some of my friends have been taking honour classes since they were freshman. However I used to be a math/economics major so I've been taking regular courses. How would that impact my application? (suppose I'm NOT talking about master in computational finance or financial engineering. I took a class in option pricing and interest rate model, worst \"math\" class ever)\n\nQuestion 3: Is there any \"rule of thumb\" of determining whether someone should pursue an advanced degree (master and PhD) in mathematics? I remember once one of my TA told me that \"if you cannot get six A's, then probably this is not the right path for you\". Now, my major GPA is 3.8. Got 3 A's in upper (analysis and linear algebra), bunch of A- (complex analysis, differential geometry, probability), and B+ for abstrac algebra. \n\nAny advice/insight is greatly appreciated. Thank you very much."
] |
[
"masters",
"mathematics",
"united-states"
] |
[
"How to establish a presence at a community college that might lead to adjuncting",
"I'm an engineer with a M.S. and 20+ years of industry experience. I always wanted to teach but I left grad school for industry to help pay the bills. I have no regrets, but I do have a very strong desire to go back into academia. I remember my first real engineering class was taught by a adjunct who had a full time industry job. I really appreciated the advice he gave about being an engineer in the real world. I'd like to return that favor to future engineers by being an adjunct. \n\nI'd like to start by establishing a presence at local community colleges. I'd love the opportunity to do some volunteer work, collaborate, substitute or sit on an advisory board. I'd offer a unique perspective still being connected to industry, but with a strong interest in academia. What would be realistic? What position should I contact at the community college and how should that conversation start? \n\nCountry United States"
] |
[
"teaching",
"united-states",
"industry",
"community-college",
"adjunct-faculty"
] |
[
"How to handle sexist questions toward a faculty job candidate by other undergraduates?",
"I am an undergraduate in the U.S., and my university is currently interviewing for an open faculty position. The department arranges lunches with the job candidates and current undergraduate students, where we can ask the candidate questions and get to know them. Students fill out an evaluation of the candidate following the lunch (which is in theory taken into consideration for the hiring decision). However, the atmosphere of this meeting itself is quite informal and conversational.\n\nTwo of the candidates are currently expecting a baby. The male candidate said on their own that he was expecting a baby. One fellow undergraduate specifically asked the female candidate (in front of 20 other undergrads) if she would be able to balance a new baby and the job at the same time. However, she did not bring this up with the male candidate, who is also expecting a baby. We met with the male candidate first.\n\nAs a fellow undergraduate, how could I respectfully address this?"
] |
[
"ethics",
"etiquette",
"job-search",
"faculty-application",
"gender"
] |
[
"How to resolve: Reviewer #1 says remove section X vs. Reviewer #2 says expand section X",
"I am experiencing conflicting reviews with my manuscript that recently received its reviews. The reviewer #1 wants me to delete the analysis X for the clarity and focus of my MS, while reviewer #2 wants me to further discuss the results of analysis X, as it appears to be interesting for him/her. Both comments have important points. Reviewer #1 will make the MS short and clear, while reviewer #2 will make the MS longer and open more discussions."
] |
[
"publications",
"peer-review",
"review-articles"
] |
[
"Is there any point in handing back exams ordered by grade?",
"Back in France I had a few teachers handing back exams in order from the highest grade to the lowest grade, and I recall there was some tense suspense, especially for for the people at the bottom of the stack. Is there any point in handing back exams ordered by grade? Assume there is no online platform to release grades."
] |
[
"teaching",
"grades"
] |
[
"How do you verify facts claimed by a deceased author?",
"The question is not a arising in my capacity as an academic. I was recently reading a book, and I came across a claim that seemed dubious; so I wanted to find out whether it was accurate. I thought of contacting the author, but then I disovered that the author had been dead for a few years.\n\nMy question is, what is the appropriate thing to do in such a case, where the author is the only one who has the information necessary to verify a claim, and yet the author is deceased? Assuming you cared about it enough, would you contact the family of the author, to see if they had notes the author had used in writing the book, or is that impolite? What else can be done?"
] |
[
"books",
"communication",
"death"
] |
[
"Will my student insurance in US, as an international student cover my pre-existing ileostomy caused due to Crohn's disease?",
"I am planning on applying abroad for my further studies. But I have this disease called Crohn's, due to which currently I am having an ileostomy. Few of the costs associated with ileostomy are I need to buy accessories to maintain my ileostomy. And also I would need to take medication for my Crohn's, which I heard are quite costly abroad. So my question is:\n\n1) Will the student insurance that the University collects help me with the accessories and the medications required?\n\n2) Also, if at all I am eligible for the insurance, if something were to happen to me abroad(like an emergency surgery due to my pre-existing condition) would I have to pay for it from my pocket?\n\n3) I heard that health care system in US is quite brutal. So is there any other country you would probably suggest for me to pursue my studies.\n\nCorrect me if I am wrong about the idea of health care. Thank you for your time."
] |
[
"graduate-admissions",
"graduate-school",
"united-states",
"international-students"
] |
[
"How to attract student attention in difficult/technical topics",
"When teaching, at some points I sometimes have to go over \"boring\" technical stuff. By doing so, I see students attention decreasing: they look at their mobiles, at their laptops or, in lab environments, fool around in facebook, youtube etc. Their attention comes back when the lecture moves on to \"lighter\" subjects.\n\nThe thing is that you cannot just omit the content from the slides, as it is crucial for the course (e.g. IPv6, TCP/IP protocols etc.). However, only a small percentage of the students seems to be interested, even after I underline that the material will be examined in the final exam.\n\nThe question is: how to increase student interest and maximize the percentage of students that actually assimilate the lecture content?"
] |
[
"teaching"
] |
[
"How do I convince my professor to keep me as his student?",
"This is a continuation of my previous question, I believe my advisor doesn't think I am smart. How should I deal with this?\n\nIt just so happens that when I asked my prof for feedback, he decided to just drop me. Obviously I had asked for feedback when I saw some signs recently which indicated that he wasn't very happy. \n\nNow what do I do? \n\nI really liked talking to this prof. I was enjoying the discussions. I thought things were well. But he seems to think that I get stuck with simple things! He probably also thinks that I am overambitious (in the few instances that I have tried discussing some other topics with him). \n\nI wrote to my prof asking him to reconsider his decision and reflecting on what could be the issues of his disappointment and what I could do to improve. Obviously he didn't reply. \n\nI met the grad coordinator. \nHe has schedule another between with all three of us.\n\nI wonder whether I should be optimistic about that meeting!"
] |
[
"graduate-school",
"advisor"
] |
[
"How do I replicate simulations on a research paper?",
"I am a student and I have to replicate the simulations of a research paper about electrical engineering using Matlab, but I have seen that often the research papers don't say much about how the various plots of the simulations are obtained.\n\nIs there any strategy I can follow to replicate the results on a research paper?"
] |
[
"publications"
] |
[
"Prizes and awards: what about travel grants?",
"I am applying for various postdoc grants at the moment. They all have some section concerning Prizes and Awards. While I understand that this obviously includes things like 'best poster presentation' or 'best dissertation', I wonder whether competitive travel grants fall under this category? Often they involve the writing of a research proposal, have a low success rate and can entail large sums of money so I am sure this is relevant for applications.\nIf not under this section, where should I mention these things? I have never seen a field specifically dedicated to travel grants and I do not think they can be mentioned under something like research grants."
] |
[
"funding",
"postdocs",
"travel",
"awards"
] |
[
"Patent trial data set",
"I am looking for a data set that would list patent trials that involve an academic institution, if possible with the date, the parties involved and the outcome.\n\nI am aware of this list of number of US patents awarded by academic institutions in 2014, as well as (1), which lists the evolution of yearly aggregate costs for resolved lawsuits, unresolved lawsuits,\nand nonlitigated assertion for patent trials (non-academic specific), but I couldn't find a similar data set for academic patent trials.\n\n\n\n(1) Bessen, James, and Michael J. Meurer. \"The Direct Costs from NPE Disputes\" Cornell L. Rev. 99 (2013): 387."
] |
[
"reference-request",
"data"
] |
[
"Are summarized reviewer comments a thing?",
"I recently got a rejection from an Elsevier journal. What struck me as odd was that each reviewer comment was three sentences each. To me they look clearly summarized, possibly by the editor. This is also suggested by the wording (\"[...] from reviewer (sic!) pointy (sic!) of view [...]\"). Colleagues argue that this might just be the way some people review papers.\n\n\nIs it common that the editorial office summarizes the reviewer comments? \nWould I have received more complete feedback in case of a conditional acceptance?\nHow can it be justified that Elsevier doesn't pass on the feedback to the authors? Personally, I review papers ''for the love of science'', not to support a listed corporation.\n\n\nAdditional information: Three reviews/summaries in total, one of them enthusiastically positive."
] |
[
"publications",
"peer-review",
"editors"
] |
[
"How to cope with feelings of powerlessness on a PhD?",
"I am currently a third year PhD student of pure mathematics.\n\nI've been dealing with a feeling of burn out for a long time now. Quite frankly I struggle to find interest in anything related to my branch of science right now and am all but fully decided not to pursue academic career afterwards anyway. This furthers the feeling of disinterest in my field as anything I do seems irrelevant to me in the future.\n\nFurthermore, I have a major personality clash with my supervisor in that I would like to approach PhD as a regular job, establishing a routine et caetera, while he is a very spontaneous person, often coming up with a brilliant idea in the middle of the night and wanting to share it ASAP. Also I am sure that if I told him I want to abandon academia he would be quite disappointed in me (to put it mildly).\n\nBecause of that I find it very hard to motivate myself to read papers or even textbooks on my chosen subject. The feeling of falling behind furthers the depression and inability to progress in anything. While everyone talks about how much new skills and knowledge they have mastered throughout their PhD, I feel as if I haven't learned almost anything new since I finished my Masters. I look at my PhD and don't know what I can do to make it better and I am very unsatisfied with how it is going so far. I thought that maybe trying to just write up everything I have so far would rekindle the motivation in that I would at least see I already have 20/50/100/whatever pages worth of work, but just thinking of writing everything up is so intimidating I am unable to even start doing it.\n\nI feel like a terrible student and a horrible person in that I am wasting so much time I am, in principle, getting paid for (from my funding). What can I do to get as much out of my PhD as possible and to finish it to satisfaction of all interested parties?"
] |
[
"phd",
"graduate-school",
"mathematics",
"motivation",
"emotional-responses"
] |
[
"acceptance letter with no letter of financial support",
"I have received my admission letter for a graduate program from a Canadian university. However, the letter contains no information about funding. I have already talked to my professor about the availability of funding by this email for two times.\n\nHello Professor,\n\nI am writing to follow up on the letter of financial support we had discussed a while back. I was wondering if you had a chance to write it, or if you needed more documentation from me. Please let me know if I need to do anything on my end.\n\nBest, Nikki\n\neach time he said that he will send me a letter of financial support. So far he has not sent me said the letter. What should I write to ask him again for this letter? Could you send me a template of an email which shows my concern about visa process? any other suggestion? I am fed up with sending so many emails and I really don't know what to do...\nI will miss the winter semester if he doesn't send me the letter in 2weeks."
] |
[
"graduate-admissions",
"masters",
"funding",
"professors",
"email"
] |
[
"Which is better, a paper with pedantic vocabularies or a paper easy to read?",
"Many say that\n\n\n A good paper is a paper which is easily understandable by a reader.\n\n\nActually when I am reading lots of papers in good journals, however, they are written with a sort of pedantic vocabularies, even though I can find simple and easy words which can replace the former.\n\nShould I use a pedantic vocabulary but clear sentences in order for other people (reviewers, readers) not to underestimate me? I think the previous statement (clear sentences with pedantic vocabulary) sounds like contradiction, or irony.\n\nWhat do you think about it?\n\nFYI, I am EE/CS graduate student and good journals can be IEEE TMC, TWC and so on."
] |
[
"writing",
"writing-style"
] |
[
"Chance Of Getting A Research Internship In US/Canada For Non-US Residents?",
"I completed my undergraduate study in computer science outside of the US. I hope to obtain a PhD degree in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) in the US, but I don't feel that I am qualified enough (in terms of research experience). So I am hoping to find a research internship opportunity in US/Canada. \n\nI could probably find relavant projects in my own country, but I feel that trying US/Canada first is more straightforward. After all, it's in US/Canada where I am looking for a PhD degree.\n\nI have a few HCI professors in mind, with whom I would like to work very much. Should I contact them for internship opportunities? What are my chances and more importantly, how can I improve my chances?\n\nSome facts that I think are relavent to the question: \n\nI am not a US resident so I will need a VISA. I don't expect assistantships (it's up to the professor). I have already learnt the basics of HCI and I know the fundamental research methods (through reading and auditing classes). My undergraduate university is not the best, but it's surely one of the best universities in my country."
] |
[
"phd",
"research-process",
"internship",
"international-students"
] |
[
"Regarding changes in the accepted manuscript",
"My paper got accepted before 13 days back in AEU journal. But I want to make several changes (only word change) to the accepted manuscript. How do I request the editor to send my corrected manuscript. Will they allow several changes in the accepted manuscript.\n\nChanges are not in the result, tables, graphs.\nChanges means reedit some words...\n\nNeed help urgently."
] |
[
"publications",
"errors-erratum"
] |
[
"How to Find Peer-Reviewers Who Aren't Busy (During the Summer)",
"TLDR: How do I figure out who to ask to review an article (who isn't too busy)? \n\nI was asked to submit an article for an upcoming thematic issue for a well-regarded, peer-reviewed journal in my field. Several months after the initial submission, the issue's editor mentioned that they've had issues with finding a peer-reviewer for my article. They asked a handful of people: some have disappeared, some are too busy. As such, they would like for me to suggest names. I don't have an issue identifying people in my field who can review my article. However, I don't know who to identify as someone who would have enough time, especially because it's summer. I know the top people in my field -- the superstars -- but not so much about others I could ask."
] |
[
"peer-review",
"paper-submission"
] |
[
"Which part of the GRE is more important to admissions committees?",
"I graduated from the University of Michigan with Psychology and Communication Studies degree.\nI am planning to apply to Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) master's degree and Information Science master's degree.\n\nFor those of who do not know, HCI is an interdisciplinary field, combining mainly computer science, cognitive psychology, and design.\n\nI have two GRE scores and I have trouble deciding which one to send for my application.\n\nScore 1: Verbal: 158 (78%) / Quantitative: 165 (91%) / Writing: 4.0 (58%)\n\nScore 2: Verbal: 162 (89%) / Quantitative: 161 (81%) / Writing: 4.5 (78%)\n\nThe second set of scores has higher verbal and writing values, but the first has a higher quantitative value. Which should I send?"
] |
[
"graduate-admissions",
"gre"
] |
[
"Will a journal reject a paper for citing an Encyclopedia?",
"When writing a paper, when I identify some area I'm uncertain of, I try to track down a good source in JSTOR, the library, etc. I am in a situation where I found there is no academic source available on the subject. Scholars studying the topic within the confines of a specific territory, I could find none presenting the information globally.\nTo be really specific about the case, I need info on the territories a European nation acquired globally, changes to that territory over time. All sources I uncovered were territory-specific, and it would seem silly to cite 10 separate books for this general information.\nSo that leaves me citing the Encyclopedia in about 10 places in the article, which I normally stay away from except for building background knowledge. Is that something that will be a problem to publishers if I have citations to something like Encyclopedia Britannica?"
] |
[
"citations"
] |
[
"How to find out the impact factor of a journal?",
"My paper was accepted in \"International Journal of Knowledge and Web Intelligence\". It has been indexed in notable websites like DBLP, ACM, .... However, I can't find any impact factor on the website or on the web. \n\nHow to find the impact factor of a journal?"
] |
[
"journals",
"impact-factor"
] |
[
"How to organize email recipients in professional group email?",
"Situation is work related matter about clients in the following group. \nAssume the group of people consists of \n\n\nProf. \nAssistant Prof. \nDoctor 1\nDoctor 2\nDoctor 3 (only been 6 months in the house so so-called resource worker)\nAssistant 1 \nAssistant 2\nPersonal assistant\n\n\nDoctor 1 puts email recipients in the given order, which is correct by the status. \n\nPersonal 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:\n\n\nProf, Assistant Prof, Doctor 1, Doctor 2, Assistant 1, Assistant 2, Personal assistant and Doctor 3. \n\n\nCulture: Sweden where little hierarchy. \n\nProblem: manipulating the common way of the workplace to have email discussions.\n\nI am interested in how you would deal with such email senders."
] |
[
"etiquette",
"email"
] |
[
"Competition in department among professors",
"My professor that I've worked for, and other professors that I've met in undergrad, often complain about how it is \"publish or death\" situation in their department. Specifically, they have told me that they feel like they are under heavy pressure to publish, often having to work for late nights and weekends. It's somewhat ironic because they thought that life would get much easier once they finish PhD and perhaps get a tenure, which is exactly what I'm thinking now. \n\nHowever, they told me that they are often over-worked and burnt out as well, just like many other PhD students. It might be worst because for many of them, it's been a long marathon, working day and night to obtain PhD, just to compete with many outstanding candidates fighting for limited positions in universities, and if they have successfully secured the job, to work insanely to impress other colleagues and get tenured.\n\nEven for tenured professors, while they won't be fired for not publishing, they have told me that they are often looked down upon if they don't publish many papers in good journals, especially since they are now 'senior researcher' in the department. While these are purely anecdotal with very limited sample, I feel that there might be some truth in their complaints. \n\nMy question is: Is it common for professors in university to be under such high pressure and constant competition? Why do people want to go into academia if they are under such stress? \n\nI personally would not want to go into academia, if I know that for the rest of my career, I'd be under constant pressure to outperform others and publish as many papers as possible in the best journals. I may be naive, but I feel that workload in academia easily exceeds that of industry job with fixed 9-5 hours, and I doubt many industry jobs have such fierce competition among the 'best of the best'. \n\nI'm aware that this may be field-dependent, so I'm interested to hear from people's experiences in many fields. I'm currently in US, but I want to hear from experiences in other countries if they have different cultures."
] |
[
"academic-life"
] |
[
"Should funding be listed under \"distinctions and honours\" on a PhD application?",
"In one of my Ph.D. applications, there's a section where I must \"List any academic distinctions or honours or paricipation in olympiads etc.\" I don't know exactly what this means. \n\nWould this include:\n\n\nA scholarship I earned to study a semester abroad at an (important) university.\nThe funding I received to attend a summer school abroad? (I didn't present anything, just attended the school).\nMy current MAs scholarship."
] |
[
"phd",
"graduate-admissions",
"application",
"funding"
] |
[
"How to not lose focus after each disruption in flow",
"I have observed that whenever I'm studying something, or solving an assignment, whenever I would hit a question which I am unable to solve or is taking too long for me to do, my mind wanders away from that task, no matter how urgent or important my current task is. I would maybe end up surfing the net, or thinking about a conversion ,etc. I end up wasting 15-20 minutes of my time . This is very frustrating. How can I curb this problem ??"
] |
[
"time-management"
] |
[
"How much would writing a thesis help for a person's career in industry(not in academia)?",
"There are many people who pursue a thesis-based master's degree but do not want to pursue academia after graduation. If people just want to have a good job, is thesis writing helpful to them? My major is electrical engineering."
] |
[
"thesis"
] |
[
"What do you call research that has no hypothesis?",
"Background:\nI'm just wondering - I'm writing my bachelor's \"thesis\" in information-systems management, which should in theory be a paper about a hypothesis I make, an experiment and an evaluation.\n\nI have an \"experiment\" which is comparing reality of information-systems management to various theories of information-systems management.\nI have my evaluation.\n\nBut my \"thesis\"... is basically my assumption based on experience that says: \"theory is based on assumptions that practice do not always exist\". And my \"experiment\" neither proves nor disproves this triviality, but is supposed to show how you can tailor the management theory for it to be useful under economic constraints to a real specific problem.\n\nQuestion: \nWhat should I call this thing, since it isn't a thesis?"
] |
[
"research-process",
"terminology"
] |
[
"When to switch PhD projects if you are hitting roadblocks",
"When is it advisable to switch PhD projects if you are not making progress and have a promising alternative project? Is it worth going from guaranteed research assistantship funding to less reliable teaching assistantship funding?\n\nBackground:\n\nI've been working on a particular funded research problem for 2 years now. So far, I'm still trying to reproduce previous results and learn. I am making progress, but it's very slow and frustrating. I don't anticipate finishing a PhD on this topic in less than 5 years, and think 7 or more is likely. At this point I am frustrated with this project and losing motivation.\n\nThis is mostly due to certain unanticipated faculty changes at my university. I originally came to work with 2 professors in a field that overlaps with both of their previous research. Unfortunately, one of these professors left and has declined to participate further. Had this professor stayed, I'm confident I would have made a fair bit more progress already. My current advisor is capable, but they freely admit they are far out of their comfort zone with my project. I'm making many basic mistakes that would be easily recognized and fixed if my advisor was more knowledgeable on my topic. My advisor has tried to interest other faculty in the project, but unfortunately none at my university consider themselves adequately competent in the subject to advise.\n\nFor fun, I recently published a paper on a particular solution to a problem which grew out of a homework assignment. I have received a surprising number of positive comments on this side project so far and see many research opportunities in this field. This topic fits my advisor's capabilities much better than my current research topic.\n\nI think I'm at a juncture where switching projects may be a good idea. I discussed this with my advisor, and they said either way is okay with them, but I think they are leaning towards me switching. We have no funding for the second project, but my advisor thinks it's worth trying for a grant application and they told me they would support me financially either way (even if it's making sure I get TA positions)."
] |
[
"phd",
"research-process",
"funding",
"united-states"
] |
[
"Publish a significant but brief improvement of a Mathematics paper",
"I am a PhD student and I started studying a recent article of my advisor. During the study, I realized that some of the reasonings and results used in the article could be considerably improved. Moreover, the result of the main theorem of the paper could have been much more general. My advisor agrees on this.\n\nThus, the changes are significant. The problem is that the novelty of the idea belongs to the previous paper and that my changes, although significant, would be 4 or 5 pages of length (the original article is 10 pages length).\n\nMy question is whether significant but brief improvements of papers in the field of Mathematics can be published in some journals. Should I forget about this idea? Should I send the improved version to the same journal than the previous paper? Are there special journals for papers dealing with significant but brief improvements of extant articles?"
] |
[
"publications",
"journals",
"mathematics"
] |
[
"Who writes the solicitations?",
"Who writes the solicitations for funding agencies? The program directors or possibly other invited researchers."
] |
[
"funding",
"nsf",
"nih"
] |
[
"the status \"required reviews completed\"",
"I submitted my paper in one of the Energy journal in Elsevier. After 2nd revision of my article, I got no update. So, I gently sent an email. Then after 2 days the status said \" Required Reviews completed\". But this status did not change for almost 2 months. Should I send another email to the editor? Is there any possibility to reject my article?"
] |
[
"research-process"
] |
[
"I don't feel confident about my place in research. I am objectively less equipped for this career. How to move forward after a PhD?",
"I got my PhD earlier this year. I have been productive during my PhD, published 4 papers during my 5.5 years duration in decent journals. My advisor was not an expert in my area of research, so my research ideas, methodology and analysis were completely isolated endeavour. This helped me become independent researcher but it also made me seriously unconfident in my technical know-how and research abilities.\nMy PhD was on a different field than my Masters and Undergrad degree. I took some courses to come up to speed, but I did not do many of the necessary courses because I thought I could self study them. I did self-study, but since I did not give exams or diligently solved many exercises in the book, I have a gap in the understanding of the core fundamentals of my field.\nFor example, one of the course I had to self study was numerical methods. I read the theory, made notes, did some exercises. But only retained a part of the subject because I had to add Newton-Rapson method in my code, so I just remember that.\nSimilarly, another course was Finite element method. I read the theory, made notes, did some exercises. But only retained a part of the subject because I did not have to develop FEA codes in my research. I used an opensource solver and focused on getting results for my research.\nAll these half-baked fundamentals made me realized that I am not equipped well for a career in research. I get overwhelmed when I start to revisit the fundamentals now. I feel I missed my chance when I should have studied more seriously and asked for help for the topics I was facing difficulties.\nI had so much time in PhD to improve my knowledge and technical knowhow. After PhD and during postdoc, I am finding it harder to concentrate as I have to produce results at a much faster pace than my PhD and I cannot dedicate time to study and develop fundamentals. How to address this knowledge gap after a PhD?\nPlease don't say its imposter syndrome. I am just asking on how to improve technical/fundamental knowledge outside a university environment? Because, I feel it is not possible to gain deep understanding about a subject without the university/classroom setting.\nI am really troubled and am worried about my career prospects. I have been looking for jobs in industry and at the moment I am not getting responses. So the postdoc position I am in currently will support me for the next year. However, I have to find something till then. If I don't have confidence in my abilities, none of this would matter. I would not be able to get a job."
] |
[
"postdocs",
"coursework"
] |
[
"What to do with a very long research paper?",
"Some background first.\nI recently graduated (a couple years ago) with a Master's in applied mathematics. During grad school I began working on a paper, which I continued to work on in my free time post-graduation. A complete rough draft of the paper is nearly done and is ~115 pages in length. The work contained in the paper is completely original and solves an open problem (the problem is open but not anything necessarily revolutionary).\nIt was of my opinion that the paper contained publishable material. To verify, I emailed a professor at my alma mater with a copy of the current draft. The professor did reply stating that the work was publishable and even suggested some Q1 and Q2 journals that might accept this type of work. While this was useful feedback, I received the reply in just a few days so I doubt the professor in question had the ability to read my paper in depth.\nThe problem:\nI have published a couple papers before and thus have some experience in the world of academic publishing. That said, the scale and complexity of this paper is something I have never dealt with before and so I am not comfortable with proceeding to publish it without help/guidance, i.e. on my own. In particular, I suspect I am going to have to divide the work into small portions and publish a few separate papers but don't know how to do this. Also, the paper is very dense and I am concerned that its "readability" is not exactly optimal. Given that I do not have a ton of experience and am essentially working in a vacuum, I also really desire to get feedback on the quality of my proofs, which I suspect are not as concise as they should be. My situation seems a little unusual and I suspect that the feedback I am looking for would typically be provided by an adviser in a PhD program (not claiming the paper is worthy of a PhD).\n\nGiven that I do not have an adviser that can provide detailed feedback, what should I do?\n\nI thought about reaching out to professors/experts with relevant backgrounds and proposing to add them as coauthor in exchange for helping navigate the process of publishing my paper. Is this an absurd proposition? I wonder how such a request may be viewed. Are there any other routes one might suggest I consider?"
] |
[
"publications",
"research-process",
"independent-researcher"
] |
[
"Is it ok to include references to a book in a report even if I have not quoted the book in the text?",
"I am writing a report based on activities performed during my internship as a webmaster. It is to be written in the format of a thesis in APA format. In the report I reference examples that I found on the Internet. However, I have been asked to include references to books.\n\nIs it okay to include references to books in my thesis-style report even if I have not quoted these books?"
] |
[
"citations"
] |
[
"Conference held in year X, proceedings published in X+2 - which to use?",
"A certain conference was held on year X, but its proceedings were published in print in year X+2.\n\nWhen I cite an article submitted to that conference (which I read in the published proceedings) - how do I indicate the correct year? \n\nI'm asking specifically about BibTeX field values, but a less-specific answer would also be ok I guess."
] |
[
"citations",
"conference",
"citation-style",
"latex",
"proceedings"
] |
[
"Editing example written work for PhD opportunity?",
"For an interview for a PhD, I have been asked to provide 'an example of some written work from a project I have worked on in the past'. I'm assuming this is generally intended to be previous coursework I have completed for my undergraduate degree. Should I send an example of my work as it was when I submitted it for marking, or make changes to it so that it is further improved/more appropriate for the role?"
] |
[
"phd",
"graduate-admissions",
"application",
"interview"
] |
[
"what factors affect your admission in PhD in Biological Sciences",
"I am a student with both Master's and Bachelor's degree in Biotechnology with a good aggregate. But, i have a low GRE score of 295. My TOEFL score is 107 along with a research project going on. \n\nWhat do you think are my chances of getting in in a PhD program for Biological sciences?\n\nI have had a good academic as well as extracurricular career.\n\nApart from GRE what factors should i be concerned about which might affect my admission?"
] |
[
"phd",
"graduate-admissions"
] |
[
"Outsourcing a mathematical research problem",
"During my Ph.D. research I encountered a mathematical problem. I found solutions in some cases, but in other cases I couldn't find a solution. My advisors also could not help with this. I asked at Math.SE and MathOverflow, even offered a boundy, but got no hint.\n\nAlthough I can proceed in my research without a solution to these cases (there are many other problems to solve anyway), they are very interesting and can contribute a lot to understanding the general problem.\n\nThe problem itself is very simple, such that even high-school children can understand it. So, I thought of the following idea: give the problem to talented high-school or under-graduate students that go to math olympiads, and offer a monetary bounty (in addition to co-authorship) to the first solver. Hopefully a fresh young mind can succeed where older minds have failed.\n\nWhat do you think about this idea? Is this ethical? Useful? Done in the past?"
] |
[
"research-process",
"ethics"
] |
[
"Would it be unethical to not cite a figure obtained from a Q&A forum?",
"We are writing an article in which we should give a figure (a satellite image; not a real map) to make the 'preliminary' section complete and understandable.\n\nHowever, drawing the image ourselves is not possible. However, as the image is related to a well-known problem, it is available in various Q & A forums. The same image can be found in multiple such forums and we do not know the original source of the image.\n\nIn such a scenario,\n\n\nWould it be unethical to not cite the forum in our research paper?\nIf we must cite any of the available forum links, how are we supposed to cite the image?"
] |
[
"publications",
"citations",
"ethics",
"plagiarism"
] |
[
"International Student Funding for Graduate Programs outside North America",
"I'm considering doing a masters or a PhD program outside of North America, in particular Europe or Australia. I had originally expected every graduate program to fund students the way North American universities do - as in, they (basically) fund every accepted applicant for somewhere between 12-24,000$ a year. I also was under the impression that funding covered your tuition and more. But the other day I talked to a representative from a small Australian university and she said that they did not fund international students at all unless they got a specific scholarship, which most did not.\n\nI am curious as to which major universities in Europe and Australia fund all / most of their accepted students, and if so approximately how much. My girlfriend (who is coming with me) has EU citizenship and I do not, so I'm wondering about both cases. We are both currently in Canada and applying for mathematics/statistics.\n\nI am particularly curious about the University of Amsterdam, ETH Zurich, the National University of Australia and the University of Melbourne, because those are the ones that I really can't find information about. However we are also considering other European countries (France, Germany, Spain, UK, Hungary, other places with good programs) and I would appreciate any information you had about institutes there too!\n\nThank you!!"
] |
[
"graduate-school",
"funding"
] |
[
"Should I ask my master's advisor and co-advisor for a recommendation letter?",
"I'm doing a master's, and I plan to start a PhD next year. All the admission processes I've checked so far require two or three recommendation letters. My question is: should I ask my advisor and co-advisor for them? On the one hand, they are the ones who know me the most and who certainly have the most writing material for the letters. On the other hand, I've been wondering: if I get a letter from each of them, could this be seen as biased by the evaluators? Also, another related question: my co-advisor has a PhD, but is not currently employed as a full-time professor (he recently finished his postdoc). Should I only ask professors for LORs, or is it OK to ask him too?"
] |
[
"phd",
"graduate-admissions",
"advisor",
"recommendation-letter"
] |
[
"Can authors from certain origins really not know about the gravity of plagiarism?",
"With respect to some cultures, in particular Asian ones, one often hears statements such as the following:\n\n\n In this country, copying is regarded as flattery and thus people do not know the evils of plagiarism.\n\n\nor (taken from here):\n\n\n In some traditional cultures in Asia and the Middle East, for example, college students are expected to quote or paraphrase the best known political or religious authorities without attribution because readers, especially professors, are expected to know what texts are being circulated. Indeed, it might be a serious insult to the teacher if the student writer formally cites the text being borrowed.\n\n\nSuch statements may nourish prejudices or lead to it being considered an extenuating circumstance that a plagiarist comes from a such a country (see, e.g., this answer or this case).\nI wonder whether this phenomenon really has the extents that would justify the latter, more specifically: Is it conceivable that somebody makes it to the point where they author a paper or a PhD thesis without knowing that they must not plagiarise? Or: Can authors really commit plagiarism out of inexperience on this level?\n\nNote:\n\n\nI am primarily interested in anything going beyond personal experience (there are individual statements in this article). A scientific study would be ideal, but is probably not the only possible way to fulfill this criterion.\nThis is not directly about how the respective academic cultures nourish plagiarism and what aspect of the culture is behind this.\n\n\nAs all the answers so far have ignored this: I am not asking whether cultures differ in their attitude towards plagiarism – they clearly do. I am asking whether these differences reach a certain level."
] |
[
"ethics",
"plagiarism",
"international",
"asia"
] |
[
"Is it appropriate or acceptable to thank a professor for their dissenting public opinion?",
"This is a question mainly in case I haven't foreseen any potential repercussions.\nThe pandemic is a contentious issue, and a particular academic in my country has been outspoken with the same view as me. I'm currently a PhD student, and would just like to send an e-mail in support to said academic, especially considering that I imagine they would be the victim of many negative and/or abusive communications, again given the contentious nature of the topic.\nTheir field is also an application of mine, so I would be interested in discussing some of their research in that vein."
] |
[
"etiquette",
"professors"
] |
[
"Requirements for getting into a German physics MSc",
"I am in my second year of a BSc in Physics in India. I want to pursue my physics graduate degree (MS) in Germany. I want to know what graduate schools are looking for in my application there."
] |
[
"graduate-admissions",
"masters",
"physics",
"germany"
] |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.