How should I respond to a worrying email from an ex student? I run a lab at an R1 university in the USA. Almost ten years ago I removed an undergraduate volunteer student from my laboratory group for harassing another student.

Today I received a multi-page, rambling, angry email from the student volunteer I removed. The email is disturbing, including references to drugs, illness, abuse, and depression. It ends in a way that could be construed as a threat, but is not a direct threat. It also does not contain any indication of intent to self-harm.

Were this person a student, there exists university services to help and check their situation, but they are no longer a student. They do live in the same city I do.

Am I correct that my university is in no way involved at this point?
Do I have any duty to attempt to help?  If so, is there a way to do so that does not engage the individual directly (which I hesitate to do)?
Beyond a police restraining order, is there any action I might take to insulate myself and my significant other from any negative actions this individual might take?

Campus police is in charge of keeping everyone on campus safe -- both from other members of the university as well as people outside the university. They're your first point of contact, and if the email can be construed as a threat, then they should take it seriously. If they think that they require help from outside, they will refer the matter to the city police. City police will, for example, be in charge of restraining orders that relate to your home, your SO, and everything else you do outside campus.

As for helping: As humans, we want to and should. At the same time, I don't think that you have a moral obligation, and certainly no legal one. The person is no longer under your supervision or care, nor do you really have any way to connect to the person: They're clearly not interested in listening to you.

You seem to imply but do not state that the email comes from the person you removed, not from the student who was harassed and subsequently protected by your action. If the latter, they are perhaps turning to you because you were a past benefactor. In this case you do have a moral duty to respond.

However, everyone here assumes you mean the former. In this case, some of the anger may be directed at you. Again, you imply this but do not state it. The implication seems to be that your action of removing him (her?) precipitated the subsequent loss of control, at least in his/her eyes. It is 10 years later and he/she may have harboured a grudge against you for ruining his/her life.

Normally speaking, participation in just one lab does not mean enough in the scheme of things to trigger a descent into depression drugs etc. However, there may be more to it. I assume your actions were fully justified. You may have been called upon to comment on the suitability of this student for other activities. You were bound then, both legally and morally, to explain what transpired; he/she may have guessed that this is what caused their subsequent difficulties in obtaining opportunities.

Also, and this is a difficult one, you do have to think again if you could not have done more to help them at the time. You did have a duty of care, which would have required you to look past their bad behaviour and treat them as a person who needed your guidance (if only this would have meant referral to a counsellor). Particularly if drugs were involved back then.

In sum: you should reply, because this person is at the end of their tether and you are evidently a focal point (unless this looks like an email he/she sent to a few dozen other persons, in which case: ignore and alert security).

You should stand firm on your erstwhile grounds for removing him/her. You should acknowledge that he/she feels this was an important event in their lives, and offer your sympathies while insisting that their subsequent actions and decisions were not your responsibility. Remind them that any action on their part to cause further disruption will only exacerbate the problems in their life.


What should I do if I found too many typos after my Ph.D. thesis being approved but before my oral defense in mathematics? I am doing my Ph.D. in mathematics and did not have my thesis carefully proofread before submission (which is definitely a mistake that I wish to correct). My thesis was approved after submission and I am now preparing for the oral defense.

Now as I reread my thesis in detail, I found that there are too many typos (probably more than five per page). Some are negligible, but some are essential. For example, I wrote "<" instead of "less than or equal to") in the conclusion of a proposition. Another example is that I quoted a wrong theorem number in a proof. I even wrote a same lemma with the same proof twice. One referee complains about the misprints in his/her report, but s/he still considers the thesis tolerable as a whole. But now I feel all those careless typos very annoying and they make the thesis much less readable.

Now I am seeking suggestions on what I should do. Should I correct all known typos and give each committee member a copy of the revised thesis on my defense? Is there any other thing that I can do right now?

Talk to your advisor.

When I defended, my committee came back with a number of such corrections to be made. I made them and they signed off. Then the thesis editing office took the document and came back with even more corrections. I made those, and eventually they signed off. Trust me, you aren't the first to deal with this problem, and likely not the first that your advisor has seen.

My institution is clear that they will not make corrections after the final submission :( If it is before your defense, then go ahead and make the corrections and resend to the committee members!


Research advice needed: How to make a move from web development to PhD research? I am a web developer reasonably proficient in PHP and front-end development. I had completed my Masters (by coursework) more than 6 years ago and have been working as a web developer. My Masters' grades weren't very good (pass in average with few distinctions and credits). When I did my Masters, rather than focusing in one area, I was pretty much experimenting with different subjects such as natural language processing, multimedia, visual info processing, distributed programming, etc 'cause I wasn't too sure what direction to take.

I contacted few research supervisors after completing my Masters but didn't hear anything positive from them. Then I pretty much gave up and started pursuing career and moved into web development.

I am not sure how to go into research now and whether it is even possible for me. How do I prepare myself?

Here are a few suggestions (not necessarily in this order):

Read up on the latest research in your area(s) of expertise and interest.
Narrow the research interests down to a few and make contact with the academics involved - make contact with them, asking good questions about their research.
Contact the admissions offices of your selected universities, explain the situation truthfully - put an emphasis on the experience you have gained through your employment, which is now an area of expertise, despite your masters going in many directions.
In your readings, you should be able to find an area that is in need of more research, where something new can be contributed.

Remember, your situation is different than it was when you completed your Masters, you have several years of specialised work experience behind you now.

Good luck.

In your situation would do the following:

Learn assembly thoroughly.
Learn theory of computation thoroughly.
Learn algorithms thoroughly.
Explore specializations (read papers).


If I interview a professor, should I pay him or her? As part of my Toastmasters club, I am preparing a speech where I have to research a topic I am not familiar with. One suggestion is that I could interview an expert (e.g. a professor) in a field related to the topic I choose. If I do interview a professor, should I compensate the professor for his or her time? What's the protocol for this? Does the answer change depending on whether I use the interview for commercial gains or not?

Unless you're giving a veeeery long speech or speaking about something highly technical to a group of experts in the field, there is no need to interview a professor. What you're most likely trying to do is give a layman's introduction to a fairly broad field. By contrast, researchers are highly specialised in very narrow fields. A short speech is unlikely to get to any details that you need to speak to an expert to learn about.

You mention that you're supposed to speak about a topic you're not familiar with. That means you don't have the background knowledge about the field that makes speaking to an expert useful. You would most likely get more useful information from Wikipedia, blogs (possibly by professors) or finding an introductory textbook in the library. Asking a professor to give you an introduction to an area you're unfamiliar with (outside their teaching duties) is kind of a waste of time for them. If you want to waste their time, then you should certainly offer to pay them, or at least offer to take them out to a lunch you pay for while they talk to you.

Like @cag51 metioned in the comments, you'll probably have more luck with a grad student. We're still new enough to the whole "expert" thing to be flattered that you would ask, tend to have a bit more time than professors, and never say no to free food.

It's understandable that you don't have time to googling around, and probably asking someone who knows the topic is much more efficient. Plus, if the format of the speak you are delivering requires you to have an interview with an expert, then probably you should prioritize searching for someone who agree to interview rather than studying the problem yourself. In that case, when you google the topic, try adding some keywords about the site that experts most likely frequent. Probably Reddit. Asking for help there, and probably you can arrange an interview with low cost.


What is scholarship score in paper review? I got paper reviews and I found there is an item scholarship,

Can anyone tell what is scholarship score mean in paper review?

A guess but robably means good use of the pre-existing literature.

From the dictionary,

  noun

  learning; knowledge acquired by study; the academic attainments of a scholar.
  a sum of money or other aid granted to a student, because of merit, need, etc., to
  pursue his or her studies.
  the position or status of such a student.
  a foundation to provide financial assistance to students.

This is the first meaning - it's a measure of how much knowledge your paper adds to the world.


Having children while at graduate school I am finishing my first year of Masters and have always thought of going for a PhD in North America. I and my girlfriend are going to have a baby which is totally unexpected. The due day will be somewhere this december which I am still half year away from finishing my Masters degree.

I don't know under this circumstance should I still, or am I able to, apply for PhD positions overseas. This would mean I will have to leave them or bringing them together for my study. I am not super rich to afford a family personally and would need to rely on studentships, but I don't think graduate studentships are sufficient to afford the living expense and future education fees of my coming baby.

Taking on a PhD and a research career are definitely my dream and situation seems very difficult for these to come true. Anyone knowing someone carrying kids along grad school, or any suggestion to me? I just don't have a clue how to take care of everything.

Anecdotes are not usually the right kind of answer on stackexchange, but you have specifically asked for them, so here goes...

My experience

I had two children in graduate school.  The first was born during my second year, and the second was born during my fourth year.  Most of my fellow students thought I was crazy.  I graduated (obtaining both a MS and PhD) in five years, with no debt and certainly no regrets.  Surprisingly, I found that graduate school allowed me to be more involved in my children's life than if I'd had a regular job.

Advantages

Some important and perhaps unusual factors worked in my favor.  First, and most importantly, my wife had already decided that after we had children she wanted to be a full-time homemaker.  Her support allowed me to focus on my studies, although I did change hundreds of diapers, stay up a lot of nights, and after the birth of the first I didn't get any research done for about three months (I did continue passing my courses).

The second important advantage I had was generous funding from the US DOE's computational science graduate fellowship (CSGF).  It is (or at least was) the highest-paid government fellowship in the US, at about $33K/year.  That was still officially below the poverty line for a family of four where I lived, and half my income went to rent, but by careful budgeting we had no problem getting by on only that income.  Could I have done it with less income?  Yes, though I would possibly have needed student loans, and the added load of being a teaching assistant would have been a challenge.

Finally, I found that I could get a lot of high-quality research done by focusing intensely for a few hours per day.  For me, that was (and is) a more productive strategy than trying to focus on research 24/7.  This made it possible to complete my thesis and care for my family simultaneously.  I was home by 5-6 p.m. almost every evening and spent most of my weekend time with my wife and children.  I did often do research for an hour or two after my kids were in bed.  I know that many grad students tend to spend a lot more time each day on research, which might make things more difficult.

Assessment

Having children during graduate school was a good decision for me.  The time I was able to spend with them as babies and then toddlers is precious to me.  After I graduated and became an assistant professor, I found that the time I could spend with my children was much more limited, due to the added demands of teaching, advising, service, and administration.  Indeed, with my third child (born 2 years after I got a permanent position) I changed a lot fewer diapers and really spent a lot less time with her early on.  I've reached a better balance since then, but it took years.

In short: with the right setup, having kids in grad school can work out very well.

I have been the same situation and here is my suggestion:

Yes you can do it and do your PHD now. But plan to be on yourself for the first year (a year is the most – it can be somewhere from three to eight months). Bring your family after that, because by that time, you will have all  the information.


Using Cambridge's "short-title reference system" Does anyone have experience using the Cambridge UP's "short-title reference system" or even just know of a work that uses it. I'm copy-editing for some extra cash but the style guide they have online is really not very helpful.
The very first reference I've tried to come up with, for example, is a translated work, and they have no indication of how to include the translator in the citation other than saying that it should be there.
My best guess is:
Author's name, Title of Work, Translator's name (trans.)(Place of publication: Publisher, Year), p. page number.
I guess the main issue is I can't tell if "(trans.)" should be in parentheses or not. This is just my best guess based on the example given for a book with an editor, which is "Editor's name (ed.)"
Thank you for any advice!

I can't give you direct advice about the Cambridge short title but there are quite a lot of applications to go from bibtex to different reference styles. I would suggest using one of those to help. I found the easiest way to do this is to add items to zotero and then export as bibliography, they have hundreds of styles based on journals as well as common ones like Harvard and Chicago Manual.


Plagiarism of Research Proposal Idea by Potential Supervisors I really would like to know how to prevent a plagiarism of your idea or Research Proposal, when it is sent to several Universities and potential supervisors?  What can I do if one of the potential supervisors did not respond to me, nor did consider my research important, but later I notice that they are using my idea with other possible investigators?

What can I do in that case?

I am really frustrated and disappointed with that lack of ethics. I feel that this person stole my idea and my possible place in the University, and the possible fruits of my work and idea as well.

I really would appreciate your advice.
Thanks a lot for your wonderful website.

I understand and completely share your frustration here. It feels awful when your application is rejected but later the same idea is used by a person you put some of your trust in.

I don't have a universal answer which helps to avoid such things. Sometimes people suggest to be vague in your proposal, but I don't think this is really a good idea. After all, when you have an idea, and you think it is good, you don't want to sound like you don't know what you're talking about. So, I don't think you should somehow tweak your proposal to make it less easy to plagiarise.

Instead, I would suggest to maybe do better research of potential supervisors before you send them your detailed proposal. Perhaps, do a small polite exchange of emails and check if they are even interested to have another PhD/postdoc at this moment? Look at their history of publications, read a few papers - are they really working in the area you want to work in? Look at author's lists - is there evidence that a potential supervisor  was a guest/gift author in many papers? Are there cases when they re-claim someone else's idea as their own (by doing minor modifications and changing the name, etc.) If possible, get in touch with their current postdocs/PhDs and check what they think about the transparency and ethics of the research/publication process in their group. Or simply try to arrange a small chat with the potential supervisor - sometimes five minutes face-to-face tell you more about a person than a year of email exchanges.

Good luck.

Insert a copyright statement in proposal document and in your email footnote. Also, to be on safe side always keep record of email exchange, especially the email you sent with proposal document.


Why are (galley) proof requests given such a short deadline? Often the publisher requests to get the proof within 24 hours when it's ready. What are the reasons for making this so short? Do they want the authors to not make too many changes?

EDIT:
The email I received said:

  Please ensure you check the entire article carefully, and answer all
  queries. Return corrected proofs and any related material by uploading
  to the site within 24 hours.

EDIT: @StrongBad pointed out a related question.

Galley proofs are part of the production process where a book or journal issue is actually printed, as opposed to the 'softer' process of deciding what pieces will go into it and in what form. As such, the deadlines for their revision are associated with the physical production process rather than the editorial process for the piece and can be quite different from deadlines for e.g. minor revisions or revise-and-resubmit requests.
These proofs are only meant to be used to check that the typesetting correctly represents the author's intent, and not that the content is scientifically correct (which should have been done at an earlier stage). Occasionally a one- or two-sentence 'note added in proof' may be appended to a paper but that's about it; for an example see the AIP style guide, p.11. Checking the typesetting is assumed to be a straightforward matter that does not require more than one day (though assuming that an academic can spare the time at the publisher's decision with no prior notice is another matter), so such deadlines are usually OK.
Note also that such deadlines can be negotiable if properly handled. If such a requests lands on you and you will not be able to complete it in time, it is usually acceptable to notify the editor, as soon as possible, that this is the case. A polite note along the lines of

Dear Editor,
We have successfully received the proofs of our article. Unfortunately, today is my thesis defence, my coauthor is getting married and my advisor is away due to travel, so we will be unable to complete your request to review the proofs within 24h. We will get them to you as soon as possible, which will likely be the day after tomorrow. Is this acceptable, or will it lead to a delay in publication?

can work wonders in stretching such a deadline. From personal experience, I have seen a 24-hour request be stretched to a full week without a publication delay.

The proof is an actually typesetted version of your paper, ready to production. In other words, everything is ready that someone pushes a button and the press can print the issue. This is the very last "lets check it one more time" thing.

For this reason:

If you have a correction, it is actually cost money to them.
If there is 50 paper in the journal, and 10 out of the 50 start rewriting the paper in the last minute, then the production line waits till everything is fixed, reformatted, again cost money. A lot.

Before anyone starts to complain about the 24 hr (which is common in my field, too), let us be a little professional.
Your paper should anyway be free of errors and well written at the point of submission. Then several referees check it back and force, as well as you are free to check your manuscript if you are not sure. When you are at the proof stage, your paper has already read and checked by several people, several times for months. You don't have a good reason to re-write anything, except if there is an error due to typesetting. In other worlds, if you done your job decently, you don't have more than 5 min job with that proof in 99% of the time.


Should I hold the same writing standards for international students as I do for domestic students? I teach courses in physics, astronomy and planetary science.

Often, but certainly not always, international students (and even some domestic students, for whom English is not their primary language), write worse than their domestic peers who have grown up with English.

For most assignments, I take up to a couple points off for negligence of spelling and grammar, depending on how bad their writing was. The point is to remind students that their writing should be professional. I never nit-pick about a typo here or there, but if there is a whole slew of them, I'll make a note and take off what would amount to be a few percentage points of the assignment's total score.

I'd like to give grace to those for whom English is not their primary language. At the same time, I need to be fair and grade equally. As it stands, I grade equally for everyone, but I try to give more feedback to those who need it.

Does anyone have any better ideas about how to do this?

There are two different types of value judgement that you are discussing here---communication goals and grading---and I think it's important to carefully separate them.

Communication Goals: I think that it is unfair to a person who isn't a native English speaker to not expect them to aim for the same goals of clear and lucid communication.  When giving feedback, don't brush over the language and grammar errors just because a person is not a native speaker.  They should have the same chance to learn and improve as anyone else.
Grading: Unless the class is about English grammar, making English quality a significant part of the grade is generally a bad way to evaluate a person's work.  If the language is bad enough that it interferes with your ability to understand the class-relevant content, then yes, that's a problem and should receive proportional demerits.  If the class-relevant content is clear, however, it's questionable to me whether any points should be taken off at all.

In short: grade very generously on language issues, but point out the mistakes so the student can continue to learn and improve.

No. You should definitively just ignore the fact that you are teaching to someone who can barely conjugate verbs, set tenses, create adequately descriptive phraseology, and who has a massive deficit of knowledge as to homonyms, synonyms, colloquialism and when it is and isn't appropriate to use them. Just ignore all of that and do your best to understand what they meant to say... or what you think they meant to say. You could use a fuzzy logic routine to see if the words they have cobbled together fall into a subset of words that may have been used to correctly respond to a query of their understanding. They are probably very smart and since most modern professionals currently entering their field in the United States are most likely from one of their countries then the fact that they barely have a grasp on the native language of the country from which they are seeking their degree should only serve to make degrees from our country more valuable in the eyes of the world. Lastly, a large majority of these students will simply be taking their expensive degree back to their own country so, as long as the university is getting their check... why should it matter. (tongue firmly in cheek... but not smiling)


Why do some academic journals requires a separate "summary" paragraph in addition to an abstract? At least in the field of biology, some academic journals have added a separate summary paragraph (for example: "Significance Statement" (in Journal of Neuroscience), or "Significance" (in PNAS), or "In Brief" (in Current Biology)) in recent years. Why do the publishers think an abstract is not enough?

They serve slightly different purposes.

Specifically, the abstract is what you'd tell your coworkers; the significance statement is more like something you'd tell your mom.

The abstract is meant to quickly summarize this particular paper. A good abstract will provide a little bit of context or background, lest readers wonder why you're studying gene X or brain area Y, but the bulk of the abstract is approach and results. "Here, we show...." The significance statement is meant to put your work in a broader context and explain/justify why your article is worth publishing. (I suspect these are also helpful in attracting media attention, if that is of interest).

For example, suppose your paper investigates an antibiotic resistance gene. The abstract might look somethng like this one from MacMahon et al. (2009):

  The ardA gene, found in many prokaryotes including important
  pathogenic species, allows associated mobile genetic elements to evade
  the ubiquitous Type I DNA restriction systems and thereby assist the
  spread of resistance genes in bacterial populations. As such, ardA
  contributes to a major healthcare problem. We have solved the
  structure of the ArdA protein from the conjugative transposon Tn916
  and find that it has a novel extremely elongated curved cylindrical
  structure with defined helical grooves....

This briefly hits on the context, but doesn't really delve into it. A significance statement would talk more about this healthcare problem (e.g., X patients have multidrug resistant infections) and how this paper helps solve it (target for co-treatments or whatever?).

Edit: take a look at the PLoS Computational Biology guidelines and examples (linked therein) that @cheersmate found for some more direct comparisons.

A summary paragraph (without highlighting it by a section title) at the end of an article, especially letters without distincts sections, is very common if not necessary in most STEM journals.

Abstract and summary are different things. Abstract is an overview of content without references and limited, the summary often a conclusion of the results with outlook and references.

So one reason could be they want to stress the summary paragraph more again and therefore make a own section. It surely is of value. Especially for longer articles. Papers are not read in a linear fashion from beginning to end. Different readers with different background read papers in a very different way.

A significance statement is normally given in the cover letter or submission system of the journal, it doesn't belong into the summary, the significance of your research you should outline in the introduction, not at the end of the article.


Accidentally leaked the solution to an assignment, what to do now? (I'm the prof) TL;DR; I accidentally made the solution of an assignment visible to some of my students. How can I now fairly address that problem?

A few weeks ago I set a programming assignment to be done using Processing (a graphical programming tool), and to make sure the goal was clear I implemented a solution on openprocessing.org, which I made available to the students. On openprocessing.org, they can look at the working program (a little graphical game similar to tic-tac-toe), but the source code is hidden to them (I took a paid account to get private source code).
But then I embedded the openprocessing.org 'sketch' (a web page that displays the working program as described above) in a different web page, and failed to notice that the embedded version has the source code readily available (the person viewing the sketch just clicks an icon at the top and they get the editor with the source code). I think that's a bug with openprocessing.org and I complained to them (and there's obviously also an oversight on my part), but that's not relevant to my issue.

So basically the solution to the assignment was available to anybody who clicked that button at the top. It's not obvious, so I think only a few students noticed it. One team emailed me asking whether it was intentional and expressing their concern.
The assignment deadline is in 5 days (it's been up for 2 weeks) and it's the end of the term. This was supposed to be 10% of their grade.
I took down the visible solution, and I' trying to come up with a contingency plan. I could cancel the whole assignment, or give everyone full marks... Just let those who saw it submit as is (and indicate the source). I just don't know how to handle this best.

Any suggestions or recommendations?

Very simple actually. Abandon the assignment. Apologize for the error, but not for wasting people's time. Those who didn't find the solution and worked on it certainly learned something. Those who found the solution used their time otherwise and hopefully learned something else.

Mistakes happen.

If you use a large number of exercises in grading it is probably harmless to give everyone full marks. They will be happy and it won't really matter otherwise. But trying, in any way, to discriminate between various levels of "performance" on such an exercise is a minefield.

One thing to remember, however. Presumably you gave that assignment because students would be expected to learn some specific thing(s) by doing it. That may not have occurred, so you need to assure that you find some way to reinforce that lesson in some future activity.

Plagiarism is always something you should be worrying about. Especially for an undergraduate class like this where there are plenty of solutions online for building a tictactoe game, or even building it in processing. If people wanted to copy, they would likely have found someone else's solution online due to yours being hidden.

If you are worried that someone may copy of it, the simplest way to address the problem is to tell the class what happened and to remind them that copying your solution is plagiarism.


How much does a FAIL grade in thesis credits affect PhD admission chances? I am doing an integrated BS-MS in Biological Science from an Indian university and currently am in the 6th (post-final!) year. In this MS part of the program, I am supposed to take a few grad level classes and mainly focus in research. I also need to pass 8 MS thesis courses (worth 3 credits each), in which my supervisor grades me on my research work that particular semester (I can take as many as 4 of them in one semester). The grade for this course is either S or X i.e. Satisfactory or Fail.

I took one of the 8 courses in the summer following my senior year. I worked very little and met my supervisor only 3 times in the term. As a result, I received the X grade in the thesis course. In the following semester (Fall), I took 3 MS thesis courses. My performance was better, I met him more often but according to him, it was not worth passing all 3 - he said it was only good enough to pass 1 of the 3 thesis courses. But since failing 3 thesis courses would have led to termination of my degree, he gave me pass grade for 2 of the 3 courses and cautioned me that another fail course would mean the end of the program for me.

After this, my performance research-wise has been good, I have been more regular. My relationship with my supervisor has also improved, although it could be much better. I have received a pass grade in all the remaining thesis courses and retook the 2 I had failed. Since I had not made enough progress in the one year, I continued my work further until it reaches a publishable position. I am finishing my second year this summer (6th year overall) and the work seems to be coming to an end.

I applied to for PhD positions at US universities last fall. When I asked my supervisor for recommendation, he said - "Ya, I will write one for you, but it won't be a glorious recommendation. I will mention what you did, your performance in my course...". Anyway, the results came out, and it was not good (1 accept out of 9).

(hope this was enough of a background!)

My question is - How much does an X grade in thesis research course (2 such, in my case) affect my PhD application. Are these thesis credits looked at closely? Such X grades are rare in my department, so I don't know how bad the situation is.

EDIT - I think this question is sufficiently different from others asking about a failed subject course. I am asking about failing thesis credits, which is different because a) these can be easily retaken and one can take as many as 4 of them in a semester and b) they directly corroborate with your research performance as opposed to normal courses.

I would be SINCERELY OBLIGED if someone could help me with this. It has been troubling me for months, and any answer towards this question/situation would be enormous for me!

To be successful in applying for PhD programmes, you need to demonstrate your ability to perform research.

Unfortunately, failing a thesis research course says rather the opposite to the admissions committee. By the sounds of it, your lukewarm recommendation letter from your supervisor will have done nothing to help matters either.

To improve your chances if you are planning to apply again, I would suggest trying to publish your work (you hint in your question that this may be possible) and, if you can, finding someone else who can write you a much stronger letter of recommendation.

It is understood that not only you're doing well in your thesis courses, but that you get A at least. Being ranked first is even better. Consider taking a course from another advisor and doing extremely well at it. That will demonstrate your competence, put your new advisor in a good mood, which translates into great recommendations letters. I hope this helps.


How can I search for currently trending, new scientific articles? I often find myself wanting to find brand-new scientific articles within certain search parameters (e.g., words in the title, journal, etc.) that are currently "trending" in scholarly or public attention. As far as I know, standard academic search engines that allow the use of such search parameters offer only metrics such as citation counts, whereas I am interested in something more immediate like Altmetrics. Searching sites like Twitter or Google News better captures instantaneous public attention, but allows only the most rudimentary of searches.

I found ScienceOpen, but it seems to have an extremely limited set of journal articles.

What's the closest thing to a Google Scholar-Altmetrics lovechild?

You can see the arxiv repository site that is very interesting. This site Arxiv has an electronic archive and distribution server for research articles in Physics, mathematics, computer science, nonlinear sciences, quantitative biology and statistics. The interesting point is that you can access to the recent papers in these fields as soon as possible even before long story of publication process!
Also, you can subscribe to automatic email alerts from the subjects you'd like to see recent submitted papers in them.


Is it ethical to have two (undergraduate) researchers in the same group "compete" against one another for leadership/credit of a research study? When I was previously an undergraduate research assistant in a small lab group (seven members), there was a situation where the PI had pitched a research study idea to multiple students independently, with none of us knowing that the others had been told about the idea. The PI encouraged each one of us to go off on our own and pursue the idea, try to make some progress, and eventually come back to them with a better idea of how to approach the project (perhaps even some preliminary results).

I only found out a few weeks later that the PI had pitched the idea to multiple students when a discussion with the other students shifted towards current projects and ideas. As we talked, one student mentioned that the PI had told them about "a new idea for a research study" and that they "had devoted quite a bit of time making progress on the study." That research study happened to be the same one that I was pitched by the PI, and one that I had also spent considerable time working on recently.

The PI had told me that good work on this project could lead to a potential conference presentation and/or journal publication, and I was keen on making good progress. However, finding out that I wasn't the only person in the research group working independently on the idea made me feel like I was unfairly placed into a competition I wasn't even aware of. I could have invested plenty of time into the research project, only to discover that a colleague had already finish more than I had and, therefore, made my progress effectively worthless.

I'm curious what members of the academic community think about the ethics of this. Is it ethical to pit people in the same group against one another on a project, with the credit going to the one that finishes better and/or faster? Do the ethics of this change when the students aren't told that there are others working on this?

In this case, I happened to be an undergraduate research assistant while the other was a master’s student, but I'm wondering if this matters. At the time, we were both paid members of the lab, but I've heard about similar situations where one/both people were volunteer undergraduates working for free.

One part of me says that I was entitled the fair opportunity to work on the project knowing that I would receive due credit for any findings I made. But another part of me says that this is the nature of academia, and I should learn to thrive in situations like these.

Let me try with an "onion-answer", one layer at a time.

It is certainly not unethical to have several undergraduate students work on the same project. This is how most people get by, as there are simply not enough interesting and unique projects at undergraduate level that everybody can get their own. (And if there are, it would take too much time developing them.)
It is borderline unethical to set up a competition between students in your lab, dangling the prize of a conference presentation or a publication ahead of them. The focus should be on how to do good research, not how to get ahead of your colleagues - even though it is sometimes also part of research. I can see how this could be done in a somewhat fun and productive atmosphere, so I will not dismiss it off hand. But I would much rather have the students work together, than against each other.
It is blatantly unethical to have a competition among your undergraduate students without informing them, that they are in a competition, first. I assume from your post, that you have never said yes to be in such a competition, and that you in good faith assumed that your chances of getting the "prize" would be based on your performance alone, and not how it compares to the performance of other students. This is a kind of "bait and switch" strategy, also often used for job interviews, where you get a person in the door by promising them a reward - but at the end of the day there is only one reward, and many people competing.

Finally, you mention that part of the prize is also "credit". Here I want to tell you, that if any scientific work is done towards a specific publication as part of the non-winning studies, the authors of said work should be credited as co-authors. Even if they don't win the competition.

This question seems to reside on the borderline of ethics, with the "grey area" arising from a few missing pieces of information not supplied by the OP.

I will begin by "guesstimating" what has happened so far.

The PI identified a potentially interesting research topic.
The PI identified several students who were potentially capable of conducting research on this topic.
The PI pitched this topic to all of the students in 2, above, dangling the prospect of publication as a prize.
So far we're on neutral ground.

The ethical issues relate to the nature of the resulting "competition."

The decision about publication will be made by a neutral third party such as a scientific journal, that will accept all "qualified" entries. This is the best possible result.
The decision about publication will be made by the neutral third party that will choose one project for publication, including candidates from the "outside" the group. This is OK.
The PI makes the choice of deciding which projects to submit for publication, selecting all that meet some objective "qualifying" standards.This is OK, also.
The PI makes the choice of selecting one student project to submit for publication. This is the case that raises ethical issues, at least as I see it. If there is only one "prize" and it is awarded by the PI (rather than a neutral third party), then the nature of the competition should have been disclosed to the students beforehand, IMHO.


What should I do if my master's advisor used a figure from my thesis in a publication without citation or acknowledgment? A year ago, I finished my Master's degree and ended 6 months of working for an incredibly manipulative and demanding supervisor.  We started working on a publication of my Master's results, which is awaiting final approval (post-corrections) at the journal we submitted to.

Last week, I read a paper this supervisor had published recently, which had a figure taken directly from my Master's dissertation.  Our in-press article wasn't cited, and I wasn't co-author, referenced, or even mentioned in the acknowledgements.  No direct reference was given for the figure, but the text surrounding it made it sound as if it had come from another article by my supervisor from last year.

It seems pretty clear to me that this is plaigarism - we worked on this project together, certainly, but the final product was a result of my work and their guidance.

My problem is, I don't know how to deal with it.  We are currently co-authoring a paper, so I don't want to cause a rupture.  I also plan to continue working in this field, and would like to avoid having a senior researcher and previous supervisor to be angry.  At the same time, I don't want them to get away with using my work, and taking all the credit for it.

I will certainly tell them that I feel uncomfortable with how they used my work, but realistically, what can I expect/hope to happen here?

UPDATE - the figure in question is an overview of a simulation model I created, so is pretty much the core part of my Master's work.

The issue here is somewhat thorny. Relative to you, however, there is unfortunately not much benefit in any event, because citing the figure is not normally enough to merit authorship. All you would have is one extra citation, which would likely get "lost," because the publication with which it corresponds doesn't exist yet.

So I would make sure that your new paper cites the old paper, since it is the first to publish the figure. I would also make sure that you mention politely the concerns that you have over the use of the figure without citing.

I have had a couple of similar cases before. This is a form of both plagiarism and copyright breach (these two are not necessarily always the same). They had to do 2 things before using your figure in their article: (1) cite you; (2) Provide the journal with the written permission obtained from you, for using your figure in their paper.

The failure to do any of the above 2 items is problematic. In theory, you can (1) write to the journal and ask for the retraction of the plagiarizing article after providing sufficient evidence. (2) write to the publisher and ask the same. (3) write to the authors and ask them to send an erratum to the journal (or ask the journal to ask them). (4) If they did not do anything, sue the irresponsible parties.

What happens in practice though? An article stole a figure and even a table of my article. Interestingly enough, they had not even bothered to re-write the content of my table, but had only take a snapshot of it, and had put it exactly as is, in their own article. They had not stated at any point of their article that those figure/table were picked from my article, nor had they contacted me previously. So I contacted the journal for many times, to no avail. Then I contacted the authors (there was no independent publisher to contact). They did not respond as well! So if I wanted to sue them, I had to fly abroad, and I doubt the court in their country had any stringent rules against such copyright breaches.

So in practice, there is usually little you can do, as journals heavily tend to sweep these issues under the carpet. Another article had plagiarized most of the content of my article, without citing me. I contacted every one (journal, publisher, authors)... After numerous emails, the journal told me they will not retract it, and if I want to sue them, I can go to the court in their country!!!!

I now understand the complexity of the case, in which the author of the copied figure is also the author of the original figure.

Because the journal owns the copyright of the article content, not the authors themselves. So eventhough the author can claim that (s)he has used their own figure twice, the journal still has the right to sue them, since (s)he has breached the copyright of the journal.

But if the original article was an open access one, I think it is fine to use the image twice as its copyright belongs to the author (although it is not a good practice to use repeated content).


Questions about the process of collaboration in Mathematics How does the process of collaboration in math work ? Do mathematicians like to share their problems ? Can I do this by e-mail ? How to ask mathematicians if they want to collaborate in a math project ? I'm still learning more advanced math but these are questions I had in mind and didn't know where to ask.

Do mathematicians like to share their problems ?

Usually yes. Published papers will often have open questions or conjectures to which authors worked on / or think worthwhile but does not have a solution. These conjectures sometimes even have corollaries provided by the authors.
Mathematicians also sometimes just "hand out" open problems that arise in their research, write them on their webpage or public chat rooms.

Comments
It is still true that a majority of mathematics papers have only one author.
It could be that your first chance to collaborate in mathematics will be the collaboration between you and your Ph.D. advisor.
After others get to know your publications, they may be willing to collaborate with you.
Two (or more) mathematics students at the same university, who see each other frequently, will likely talk about mathematics; that may occasionally develop into a result worthy of publication.

addition on : "a majority of mathematics papers have only one author."
user3482749 doubts it.  I still think it is true.
Searching for evidence.  MathSciNet has 57,667 journal papers for the year 2000. There is a "Sort by number of authors", but I did not get it to show me beyond the first 2,000 ... that was still in the one-author portion of the list.
Trying a smaller sample.
I arbitrarily choose MSC classification 20, journal papers published in year 2000.
Total number: 1307.
Number with zero authors: 2.  {one erratum, one corrigenda}
Number with one author: 783.  About 60 percent.


How to refer to an author whose last name can be confused with a pronoun? I am currently writing a research paper and am having an issue referring to an author of a paper whose name is "Dadi He". I know that it is common practice to refer to an author by their last name when referring to them or their findings.

Though I find myself writing sentences starting along the lines of "He found that...". I assume that the simple solution is to refer to the author by his full name. But this seems to become repetitive after a few sentences.

Is this correct, is there a more formal or accepted way to do so?

Specific anti-advice (for a related situation):

If this situation arises with a female author, especially if their first name is recognizably female, I encourage you not to write out the full name each time.

It may seem unobjectionable, but this would play into the sexist practice (once widespread, though fortunately much less common today) of referring to men by last name while referring to women always by first and last name:

  This phenomenon has been analyzed previously by Schmidt [6], Wang [7], Mary Jones [2,3,4], Elfenbacher [1], Doris Laubin [5], and Washington [8,9].

It's too funny a situation to pass up the opportunity to quip about it in the paper and simply acknowledge the situation. As in:

  Our methodology is based on one that was first investigated in D. He (1983) and in the following, we will discuss how the referenced paper inspired our approach. (Referencing the author of He (1983) presents a conundrum because the name can be confused with the male pronoun. In the following, when written in uppercase, we will refer to the name -- though there really is no potential for misunderstandings since D. He is male.)

I do think that occasional humor should not be discouraged.


Do graduate schools pay attention to joining Phi Kappa Phi or other honor societies? Recently I received an invitation for Phi Kappa Phi honor society. I do not know too much about those organizations and I was wandering what are the benefits (or possible disadvantages) of joining?

I was searching online and people keep mentioning that it is good for your resume, networking etc. However, it seems to me that I just need to pay for membership and they will put me on the list, how could it be beneficial for me?

Could you please tell me if worth considering? And is it really beneficial to have those things on my resume? Do graduate schools or employers pay attention for those?

Do graduate schools pay attention to joining Phi Kappa Phi or other honor societies?

As I understand it, eligibility for membership in Phi Kappa Phi is entirely determined by grades and class rank.  If so, it won't help with grad school applications, since the admissions committee already has access to far more information about grades than they would learn from knowing the applicant is a member.

Some fields may have honor societies for which membership conveys more information, but I do not think there is any widely known, field-independent example in the U.S.

In my experience on graduate admissions committees in mathematics, I've never heard anyone discuss honor societies at all.

I joined an honor society as an undergraduate, not because I saw personal benefits to it but because my parents would have been disappointed if I had declined membership.  The only consequence for me has been that they occasionally send me a newsletter, but I'm told some people do find membership to be useful or meaningful.

AS a member of many honor societies, I think it is a great opportunity to join however, the benefits you enjoy mostly depend on your involvement. You can benefit from scholarship opportunities, travel discounts , leadership experiences among many others.


Efficient ways to find the original paper which introduced a novel concept/algorithm? Many times while reading papers (especially engineering), many concepts, algorithms or results are taken for granted because they are already established in research. Sadly, at this point, many are not even referenced directly or some authors refer to other publications which use them. Is there a good and a fast method to find the original paper?

Here's the (horrible cheating) method that I use: if something is so well established that people don't bother referencing the original paper, then there's a good chance it's got an article on Wikipedia or Wolfram Mathworld or some other reference site.  The references of such an article often include the original paper, but even if they don't they usually include something close enough in time that it does actually reference the original (or at least something closer to the point).

In many cases, however, you may not actually want the original: as the original becomes better understood, its presentation is often made much clearer and more succinct, and later textbooks or reviews may actually be the right source to point people at.  For example, consider the difference between Newton's calculus, and calculus as it is now taught to undergraduates.

The best way is to talk with your professors.  They should be familiar with established research and the people who originated novel ideas.

Failing that, using your skills at research at your library or asking a reference librarian to help you.


How should I tell a professor the answer to something he doesn't know? Last year, I asked my physics professor a question that he did not know the answer to. This year, while doing a research paper, I also figured out the answer to the question I asked him. I want to send an email to my professor explaining the answer I found simply because he's a curious guy.

Typically, if I asked something that the professor didn't know, I'd email them a few days later saying:

  Hi Dr. Professor, after some reading, I figured out the answer to why so-and-so happens. Here's what I learned.

But since it's been so long, he definitely doesn't remember what I asked him. So I'd like to remind him what my question was. However, writing:

  "Hi Dr. Professor, last year I asked you a question that you did not know the answer to, and this year, I figured it out. Here's what the question was, and here's what I learned"

sounds a bit insulting to me, because I'm writing that he didn't know the answer. What is a good way to share an answer with a professor without being "insulting"? Am I just overthinking this?

I think there is an easy way to phrase this to make it tactful, after all professors are often curious about learning new things too!

  "Hello Professor X,
  I hope you've been well! Last year I asked you a question and we couldn't figure it out at the time but I've since come across an interesting answer and just wanted to pass along the info just in case you're curious. We were discussing Y ... "

I am XXX. Last year, we couldn't figure out(state the problem that the professor did not know the asnwer). While reading (State the source of your answer so he can refer to) this year, I realised(state what you found). I just thought it would be nice to share with you.

Kind Regards
XXX


Can I get a university teaching job with only a bachelors degree? I have a B.Tech (Bachelors of Technology) from IIT Madras (class of 2000) and looking to change tracks from my current job in the software industry. In university, I specialized in computer science and engineering.

I want to know if I can get paid as a faculty for teaching at university level either in private or public universities. I’m also interested to learn what possible salary ranges I should expect.

(U.S. answer follows)

It is virtually impossible to get a teaching job at the college or university level without an advanced degree at the Master's or PhD (or terminal professional degree) level.  Most faculty have a terminal degree.  The opportunities for teaching with a Master's are limited, especially because competition is high and even collegiate level positions that are open to Master's holders still attract PhDs.  Master's degree holders are normally limited to non-tenure track teaching positions and adjunct teaching positions.

If you really do want to be a teacher without an advanced degree, there are opportunities at secondary schools, although most public schools will expect you to start working toward your Master's degree in either Education or your specific field within a few years after you begin.  Private secondary schools are less strict in this regard, but these days you'll find that most teachers will work towards their Master's even in private schools.  With a computer science / engineering degree, you should be competitive for teaching positions in mathematics, physics, computer science/technology, and possibly other sciences.  When I started teaching high school physics, my undergraduate degree was in electrical engineering (but I also finished a Master's in education).

There are obviously exceptions to the above -- Bill Gates could get a job teaching at virtually any school in the country, and he doesn't even have a bachelor's degree.  But, unless you are in a unique category like that, you should be prepared to get an advanced degree of some sort if you want to teach at the college or university level.

very bad info here.  ive been teaching for years with no pressure to get a masters.  there's a nationwide shortage for teachers, so why would a masters be necessary?  also you can teach at the college level if the courses are considered prerequisite or remedial/college prep classes.  HS teachers are preferred for these classes as they are acclimated to the type of clientele you can expect in those type's of classes.


Is referencing another PhD dissertation or Master's thesis a reasonable practice in a Master's thesis? Not much literature can be found on what I'm working on and it's all by the people I work with. Am I able to reference their work/text in my thesis or I should just stick to referencing material published in journals and conferences, however remote they might be and just get away with whatever's not published and not back them up?

Yes, you are able to reference their work in your text, as long as you make clear in the bibliography what type of document (master thesis, PhD thesis, Institution) it is.

However, i would not consider it to be ideal if your work critically depends on such references in the sense that a central assumption or starting point in your thesis breaks down if the reference provides false or incomplete results. Particularly in the case of master theses / dissertations it is not generally clear whether and to which extent they are peer-reviewed and what their overall trustworthiness is. With (accepted!) PhD theses things are better, as these normally go through a review process. Furthermore, for PhD theses i would expect that their main points have been published somewhere (conference or journal) and then you clearly should prefer these publications.

you shouldn't quote a master's Thesis because they are typically not published. only published work should be cited in a research work. If it hasn't been published no one is responsible for the Content


Does the International Math Olympiad help research mathematics? I was reading a note of Hojoo Lee on inequality which is written for International Math Olympiad (IMO) participants. Although he writes that “target readers are challenging high schools students and undergraduate students“, it appears to be quite advanced.

It occurred to me to ask, do these IMO problems contribute towards research work in math? Do these math notes/books give good overview for research work?

I am not interested in examples of Fields Medal winners who had previously participated in the IMO.

I think of Olympiad problems more as "parlour tricks". They're really difficult, and it's super-impressive if someone's good at them, but the skills are very different to the skills you need in research. As a big example of a difference: the Olympiad rewards quick accurate leaps of reasoning, because you're under such time pressure. Research rewards long-term grit and persistence through blind alleys and repeated failure.

There is some IMO-problem which was influencing research-math:
 https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2009/07/20/imo-2009-q6-as-a-mini-polymath-project/

In short it is used for testing


Co-authoring a paper with a persona non grata Suppose Researcher A did some joint work with Researcher B. While the work was still in progress, or the manuscript was in preparation, researcher B became persona non grata in Academia, due to wrongdoing. I don't think the exact nature of wrongdoing is relevant here, but let's say it is serious, as in for example:

faking research results (the research with A was not faked)
severely breaching research ethics (the research with A was not affected)
sexual misconduct towards subordinates (that Researcher A was not aware of during joint work)

What's Researcher A to do? I see four options, all of which have their ethical and practical drawbacks.

publish the result jointly with B as planned. The ethical drawback is that it can be perceived as siding with B in the scandal/breaching a boycott, and the  practical one is that Researcher A's career might suffer from association with the scandal.
not publish at all. The practical drawback is that Researcher's A CV suffers, and the ethical drawbacks are obvious: not publishing a worthy research funded by taxpayers is a waste of their money; it may hinder further progress of the field, and, for example, in Maths, if results have been announced or communicated to the community, then codes of conduct explicitly require that the details are published soon.
withdraw Researcher A's name. The practical drawback is as above, and the ethical drawback is that generally nobody should receive full credit for the work that was in fact joint, and even less so as a "reward" for the misconduct.
ask/pressure Researcher B to withdraw their name. The practical concern is that Researcher B may not agree, and the ethical one is that, again, Researcher A should not get more credit than their contribution to the work, and wrongdoing should not disqualify B from getting their share of credit where it is due.

So, what is the right course of action for A, ethically and practically?

I expand on a comment by Buffy where this was hinted at:
It is a very different issue whether the misconduct was on the scientific level, which would cast doubt on the results, or on the social/moral level.
In the first case, it is difficult to trust the results if B is on the author list. Here, we have a serious dilemma. Probably OP might want to consider to cut their (and everybody's losses). Perhaps there is a way to publish it that makes it explicitly clear that this work has not been tainted by misconduct (editors note etc.).
To the second point:
Reiser's filesystem, Bieberbach's or Teichmüller's achievements are not devalued by their personal moral failings.
In this case, the research is done. It should be published. I do not know how important or impactful it is, but in principle, it's always a service to science and humanity, not just the respective taxpayer. Ultimately it's the OP's decision whether they are prepared to accept possible flak for their step. The research is separate from the authors behaviour. It's their detractors that would be trying to mix science and mores.
The only exception I can imagine for research to be suppressed for moral failures would be if the data were obtained in a clearly unethical way. The purpose of this is to discourage incentives for future breaking of ethical rules for obtaining it.

Publish the result jointly with B as planned. There is no hesitation here. If you want ethics, here's a teaching from the Bible Matthew 22:15-21:

Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.

Did Researcher B contribute his value to the study? Yes, he did, according to what you said.
Did Researcher B commit any crime within your joint study? Faked results, etc.? No, he didn't, according to what you said.
So, the reward of having the result jointly published with you (under his real name, for god's sake) is his, isn't it?
It's not your place to judge him or to take this from him - you are not the judge, right? Not even judge should have that right. Should all your contributions and credits be deleted when you commit a crime? Does it sound like justice?
Now, to your concerns:

The ethical drawback is that it can be perceived as siding with B in
the scandal/breaching a boycott, and the practical one is that
Researcher A's career might suffer from association with the scandal.

OMG... this is based on a fear of being judged by a very sick society. Only very sick minded society would make these judgements.
You have to make a choice, if your decision shall be driven by real ethics, or fear of being judged by sick minded people.


Are there any decent online undergrad computer science degrees or courses To keep it short I already have a BS and MS in a physical science from decent schools.  I want to apply next year for a MS or PhD in ECE and thought I should get some formal programming on my transcript first.  I have only one intro class on there now.

I'm not having much luck finding any online courses that don't look like scams or poorly set up at best.  I was pretty excited to see that Oregon state is offering a post-bacc BS degree but the tuition is $600 a credit.

So I guess I'm looking for legitimate courses that aren't crazy expensive.  Is there anything else out there like the Oregon state program?  That's exactly what I'm looking for.

You may want to try Coursera. Their courses are quite good and the instructors are some of the top computer scientists in their fields.

They give you a certificate signed by the instructor if you finish the course well.

You can use this tool and refine your search, and also checkout this article from Huffington Post.

~Hope this helps.


How to cite an old poem which appears in a new collection/anthology put together by a different editor? (Chicago) According to CMS, we should cite a poem in an anthology as we would a chapter in an edited book. But, what if the poem was orginally written in another year?
eg.

Hàn Mặc Tử. [1939] 2009.“Hồn là ai?” (My soul, who art thou?). In Hàn
Mặc Tử. Tác phẩm chọn lọc [Hàn Mặc Tử. Collection of poems] edited by
Nguyễn Đăng Điệp. Hà Nội: Nhà xuất bản giáo dục Việt Nam.

Is this correct? Putting this way might be confusing to the reader as they might think this collection was reprinted in 2009. The correct understanding should be that this poem was written in 1938 and published in 2009 as part of a collection.
Following this, should the in-text citation for the poem be

(Han Mac Tu 1939)
(Han Mac Tu 2009)
(Nguyễn Đăng Điệp 2009)

Please help!!

If the publisher gives you the option of using BibTeX, here are the BibTeX database entries I've used in an equivalent situation:

@INCOLLECTION{Newton:1726:PNP, crossref="Motte:1846:NPM",
author="Isaac Newton", title="Philosophiae Naturalis Principia
Mathematica", pages="73--507", edition="Third", year=1726,
note="Translated into {E}nglish by {A}ndrew {M}otte; first edition
published 1687",
url="https://archive.org/details/newtonspmathema00newtrich" }
@BOOK{Motte:1846:NPM, editor="Andrew Motte", title="{N}EWTON'S
PRINCIPIA: THE MATHEMATICAL PRINCIPLES OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY",
booktitle="{N}EWTON'S PRINCIPIA: THE MATHEMATICAL PRINCIPLES OF
NATURAL PHILOSOPHY", publisher="Daniel Adee", year=1846,
edition="FIRST {A}MERICAN", address="New York",
url="https://archive.org/details/newtonspmathema00newtrich" }

Then you can let the publisher's BibTeX style file sort out the CMS formatting.


Publishing vs. putting work online under a free license Suppose a work (a book with abstract math research) is presented as LaTeX source under a copyleft license available at a public Git hosting service.

Will scientists be reluctant to cite such a work, because it was not published "officially"?

Having asked this question, I mention that in my opinion that publishing under copyleft in a Git repository is a better means to hunt errors than traditional peer review, because everybody can track and patch errors in the book. But will this real security convert to enough sense of security of academic community?

There are two separate questions tangled together here.  The first is whether scientists will cite something that has not gone through a traditional peer review process, and the second is whether a copyleft / open source repository project is a good way to manage such a non-traditional publication.

To the first, the answer is most certainly yes.  Many non-peer-reviewed publications are not just cited, but highly cited, particularly technical reports and standards.  These do not undergo peer review, but if they are useful to people, they will cite them---sometimes thousands of times.

For the second, well, consider the fate of most free and open projects, whether on GitHub or elsewhere.  Almost every project of this type dies quietly in the dark, because nobody notices or cares about it.  Some, of course, succeed, and a few have massive impact.  The question is: why should anybody care about your project?  If they do, then copylefting in a git repository is no better or worse a way to manage the document than any other way that communities manage non-peer-reviewed documents (though make sure you do it with a CC license, not a code license).  If they don't then the technological or ideological elegance of your approach will make no difference.

The bottom line is: you are focusing on the technology, rather than the community.  You need to understand how your work will interact with your community, and then the technology is a secondary issue that will follow from that interaction.

Scientists typically only cite works that have been evaluated by experts, although reviews are not an error-free guarantee of truthiness. A good way to catch errors is to temporarily post a preliminary version, and then revise for reviewed-publication in light of comments that you get. Add the possibility that anyone could modify the work -- effectively making the book a Wiki-type publication -- then there would be even less trust in the work, if any random drive-by web-surfer is given permission to modify the book.


Is there any problem with students seeing faculty naked in university gym? This is a strange one. I have been going to the gym 2-3 times per week for stress management. Before summer, our university made some nice offer for staff to register to the on-campus gym. So, I switched. Compared to my previous gym, I pay less money, it's more modern, and it's more convenient.

Over summer, everything was fine. I usually go at 07:30 and it's quiet. Now that the students are back, I realised that many of my graduate and undergraduate students go at the same time as well.

The showers are sex-segregated, but the problem is that the gym showers are open. Meaning that I'm bound to meet one of my students "butt-naked" in the shower. I've never been conscious about this before and I'm used to using shared showers since I was a kid (camping, sports, etc.). However, I've started thinking that meeting your PhD advisor or first year lecturer naked in the shower might lead to a slightly disturbed dynamics in the Professor-Student relationship.

Am I overthinking this? Should I just pretend I don't see anyone? I've thought of switching back to my old gym or go home to shower, but it would be very invconvenient.

I think that if this is a shared student/faculty gym with open showers, there’s an expectation of seeing some of your fellow university goers naked. I wouldn’t worry about it. Your students are adults and this is the norm at the gym.

If the gym showers have curtains (or doors) you can slide them to block the view while you are showering. In addition, outside the showers you can use the towel to cover your private parts to reduce the exposure.


Are 16 schools too many for a professor to provide recommendation letters to? I plan to apply to approximately 16 schools and am wondering whether that's too many for my recommendation letter providers.

It's happened before that a professor of my friend refused to provide all letters for him because they're too many. They refused to send all the LoR and cut it from 10+ to about five finally. It would be a disaster if the LoR provider changes his/her mind in the end. Also, I don't want to bother my professor that much.

I believe my professors are nicer than him, but still don't know what's a suitable amount of required schools.

I'm applying for master programs and the 16 selections are range from dream to match to safe, with about five in each category. I failed last year and thus I chose a safer (and might be a bit unnecessary) plan.

As other people have mentioned, the problem with 16 schools is that a professor cannot, either truthfully or operationally provide customized letters to 16 different schools. By "customization" I mean more than changing the name of the school and program. Good letters of rec use professor's familiarity with their field to speak to applicants' specific strengths with regard to the program, or referencing previous students of theirs who attended the program in question.

In honesty, I wouldn't expect to ask a professor to customize a letter for more than two or three schools, plus a generic one for the others. Maybe four custom letters if you have worked very closely with them.

You could let them know what your top few choices are, then acknowledge a generic letter can be shared among the rest.

I would also reconsider whether 16 is a necessary amount. In my field, 10 programs would be a lot.

Consider how long it will take for your professor to write one great recommendation letter for you. Next, consider how much time it might take your professor to produce 16 fantastic recommendation letters for you. Most people will do a fairly awful job if they feel they are being undervalued or asked to serve unreasonable requests.

That you are asking the question should be evidence enough requesting 16 letters is unreasonable. It shows you were raised right.


How to handle relevant, but disruptive, questions I've seen on this site several posts about how to handle silly or "trolling" questions, but I recently faced the opposite situation. Several students in a class I'm teaching continuously bring up questions that are relevant to the lecture and/or interesting; however, they ask so many questions that it tends to disrupt the lecture by throwing off the pace and flow of the presentation (e.g., I lose my train of thought or I have to speed up to finish the lecture on time). I don't want to discourage questions, but at the same time, I don't think it is fair to entertain so many questions if it results in a lowering of the lecture's quality.

A solution that I tried is telling the students that they can come to office hours or make an appointment with me to talk. However, most of them don't take me up on those offers, and those who do take advantage of my offer sometimes come with so many questions that I cannot answer them all within the time I've set aside for office hours/teaching appointments.

Since this is limited to a small (but vocal) subset of my students, I don't think the issue is with the quality of my teaching. Otherwise I would expect (and hope) that more people would be asking questions or giving some other indication that I'm not being clear.

Is there any way to handle this sort of situation without coming across as uninterested in student questions or discouraging questions from being posed? I truly am interested in making sure everyone is understanding the material, but at the same time, I cannot be devoting large amounts of time above and beyond what I'm already devoting to teaching.

As a student, I find that waiting to ask all questions in office hours or the end of class is not a great solution. I don't mind delaying non-urgent questions, but sometimes if I don't understand something presented in the first ten minutes of the class, I might then miss out on the rest of the lecture if I don't have a chance to ask a question. So I appreciate when instructors give students some chance to ask questions during the lecture.

A good way to allow this and also control when and how many questions are asked is to invite questions in each class at times of your choosing (and let students know you'll be doing this).

At the beginning of the lecture, say, "I'll pause and ask for questions at regular intervals, so you'll have a chance to ask your questions then."

Decide ahead of time where you will pause and ask for questions (at convenient places to break the lecture, or places where you know students often have questions).

During the lecture, pause at the predetermined places and say something like:

  "I'll pause for questions now. We have time for three or four questions."

(and you can decide how many questions to take depending on how the lecture is going, time-wise.)

Students with too many questions in office hours are an entirely different issue. You should ask these students to schedule a separate appointment, and determine whether the questions are a sign of a problem (i.e. they may need tutoring or similar services) or a good thing (i.e. they are looking for enrichment and need some pointers on how to find it).

Frankly it sounds like you are the issue here. As the questions are on topic you are a lucky teacher to have students as interested in the topic. As a student (of the questioning persuasion) I can't stand to be told that my questions are "out of the scope if this class" etc. Learn your material backwards and forwards an in-depth. You aren't there to read the text book to them.


How ethical is the practice of including spouses as co-authors when they are in the same field? I've noticed many situations where a researcher will put their spouses as co-authors in a paper. This is commonly seen in situations where both spouses are in the same field. Valid collaboration between spouses is possible (and exist).

The question is not meant to attack spousal collaborations in academia. Simply put, this is just one possible example where a conflict of interest might arise (the same question can be placed in situations of parent-child and parent-sibling collaborations with no significant difference).

However, where does one draw the line in such a situation? What is stopping them from putting each other in every paper they write, effectively "doubling" their academic output? Whether we like it or not, publication metrics are used in fellowships, grants, awards, and many other situations in academia. In order for it to remain an objective metric requires the integrity of authorship to be upheld. When a PI is choosing authorship, they are responsible for not only themselves, but those in their own group, as well as their department and institution.

The situation with spouses (and other familial relationships) is somewhat unique in that the barrier for co-author contribution is far more easily passed, compared to two regular collaborating PIs. Not only are they often more readily available for collaborations, there is also a possibility of subconscious bias when evaluating the contributions of a significant other. There is also a greater possibility such a system can be gamed. For example, could such a possibility arise where a contribution which would otherwise be recognized in an acknowledgement be replaced by co-authorship due to a slight bias?

The issue is not whether or not spouses, family members or any other person should be allowed to be a co-author when they have made a valid contribution. The problem lies in whether or not the judgement of valid contribution can be made fairly without a conflict of interest by someone in that situation. Being aware of this, is it ethical to still make that decision? Is there a way to be unbiased without complete recusal?

Your question is based on one assumption (that you spell out):  "the barrier for co-author contribution is far more easily passed [for spouses], compared to two regular collaborating PIs.".

"Yeah, well, you know, that’s just, like, your opinion, man." -- The Dude

As pointed out in a comment, ethical people don't draw the line in different places depending on the situation (at least for the case in question). The line is already drawn by the ethics principles they follow.

So, to answer your question, it is ethical to include spouses when the spouses contributed to the paper, it is not when they didn't. Exactly like including anyone else.

The fact of the matter is that - also due to common interests as a couple (especially when married is like a business) - the spouse would almost always be seen as significant contributor. It's not that there will be attempt to pretend or lie for the spouse's contribution. The PI will always value even the slightest thing that the spouse will do. He/she is chosen as a lifetime companion for a reason. So, it is almost inevitable that even under the best of the intentions, spouse's contribution will be overvalued and someone will feel injustice.


Is it bad to not test the capability of the explainability of the student at the graduate level? Suppose I am the only instructor for a subject.

I need to conduct an exam. I am confused between the following two approaches for designing questions.

Approach I: Questions with single line answers such as boolean answers, multiple-choice questions, etc., note that the answers to these types of questions do not occupy more than one line.

Approach II: Questions that demands explanation, subjective/objective explanations, etc.,

The advantages of approach I is at least trifold

(I) Marking is objective

(II) less evaluation time

(III) No partial marking

But, recently, one of the elder professors of my campus, opined that approach I is a bad way to conduct exams and he told that approach II is needed because of the reason that studies of students should be research-oriented and hence explainability or presentability of the concept is very important for a student and hence approach II is preferred a lot over the approach I.

I am really concerned about the bolded part, I mean, is it really a bad way?

Assume that the subject I'm dealing with has the flexibility to support both types of questions.

It depends on what you want students to learn.  Use open ended questions for learning critical thinking.  Either approach is good if you want students to learn facts.

Nearly always, at the graduate level, you want students learn "critical thinking" from the analyze/evaluate/create parts of the Bloom Taxonomy of learning.  Frequently this is the case at the lower levels of education as well.

Open-ended questions are necessary to demonstrate the ability to create, and can make it easier to tell if students are analyzing and evaluating.

If your goal is for students to remember a list of facts, then multiple choice questions are an efficient (but not necessarily better) way to test that.

"Understand" or "Apply" are often best addressed with open-ended questions, but could be addressed either way.

Put both types of questions in the exam.

So, some students get the highest grades because they can answer both types well,

Other students get lower grades because they answer type 1 well but poorly answer type 2,

This gives a range of grades based on the students performance.

Deliberately not going in to the discussion about whether exams are a suitable test...


Are Researchers at Private Companies Allowed to Publish Papers? I'm an academic researcher with a very good publication track record in computer science.

I'm considering the possibility of applying for a research position at a well known telecommunications company with a large research department. But I still would like to have the possibility of publishing theoretical work.

1) Are researchers in private companies usually allowed to publish theoretical work produced in cooperation with researchers outside the company?

2) Are researchers in private companies usually allowed to publish theoretical work produced inside the company?

Speaking as a researcher at a private for-profit company, who also publishes frequently, it all depends on the nature of the business model and the position.

Most people at companies do not publish, either because the company has no interest in publishing or because their particular job doesn't involve much of scientific interest. For companies that are involved in cutting edge work, however, scientific publishing can gain credibility and visibility for the organization just like it does for people at universities. This is the case for the company I work for, particularly given that many of our projects are federally funded research where the government is paying us in part to disseminate knowledge.

Nor is there any necessary conflict between protecting intellectual property and publishing. The three main strategies for protecting IP are copyright, patent, and trade secret. Of those, only trade secret is incompatible with publishing, and it is generally the most fragile and least used in any case.

The biggest obstacle to publishing in private industry is simply priority and time. Writing a manuscript is a lot of work, and if management doesn't see much benefit, they will likely want you to use those hours for things more directly connected to the bottom line. You might be able to publish out of hours, but that can be a more complex negotiation.

Bottom line: it really depends on the particular circumstances. The best way to know if you will be able to publish is to look at whether others in the group you are joining publish. If so, you probably can. If not, there are likely major obstacles, whether formal or merely pragmatic.

In general terms, if the publication is, in any way, related to the company's business it will probably be contractually forbidden unless specific permission is given for the paper.

Signing on with a company that depends on IP usually means that anything you produce is theirs, not yours. Read the contract to be sure. Some contracts try to bind you forever, even when you leave the company. The legality of these can be challenged and they may be illegal in some places.

However, if your other work is completely unrelated, then it is probably ok, but it needs to be "released" by whoever is responsible for IP control at the company.

On rare occasions (THE WOZ at HP, for example), a company will give permission to do something that would otherwise be prohibited, but normally because they lack sufficient insight to see the consequences. If they are happy enough to make an exception, make sure you have it in writing - signed and maybe notarized.


What are the differences between viXra.org and arXiv.org? What are the differences between viXra.org and arXiv.org?

From arXiv's website:

  Started in August 1991, arXiv.org (formerly xxx.lanl.gov) is a highly-automated electronic archive and distribution server for research articles. Covered areas include physics, mathematics, computer science, nonlinear sciences, quantitative biology, quantitative finance, statistics, electrical engineering and systems science, and economics. arXiv is maintained and operated by the Cornell University Library with guidance from the arXiv Scientific Advisory Board and the arXiv Member Advisory Board, and with the help of numerous subject moderators.

arXiv has a form of moderation. Users must be "endorsed" by people who have themselves posted papers on the arXiv. (more info) Moreover, a team of moderators is able to reclassify or remove content from the arXiv, for a number of reasons: unrefereeable content, inappropriate format, inappropriate topic... (more info) It also implements some automatic checks for content overlap between papers.

In some fields (e.g. math) it is the standard way of releasing a new paper into the world. At the moment there are 1,369,674 papers on arXiv.

arXiv has a plan to ensure its sustainability and make sure that papers uploaded to arXiv will not disappear from the internet should anything bad happens. There also exists several mirror websites should it even go down.

From viXra's website (in the footer):

  ViXra.org is an e-print archive set up as an alternative to the popular arXiv.org service owned by Cornell University. It has been founded by scientists who find they are unable to submit their articles to arXiv.org because of Cornell University's policy of endorsements and moderation designed to filter out e-prints that they consider inappropriate.
  ViXra is an open repository for new scientific articles. It does not endorse e-prints accepted on its website, neither does it review them against criteria such as correctness or author's credentials.

It was founded by a disgruntled physicist named Philip Gibbs. It is unclear who funds the website today, and it is not even clear who actually runs it today if you just read the website. Compared to arXiv, there is little moderation (according to the FAQ, a paper can e.g. be removed if it's not science/math, if it's plagiarism, if it's obscene and so on, but not if it is obvious nonsense unless it is computer-generated nonsense) and people can submit papers anonymously or under fake names.

At the moment, there are 22,596 papers on viXra.

viXra has no sustainability plans. If whoever runs it decides to take it down tomorrow or their servers catch fire, I'm not sure what would happen.

Warranted or not, it has a reputation of being an alternative to arXiv for cranks and to host a lot of junk science, fake proofs or even outright nonsense. It is not recommended to submit something to viXra if you wish to be taken seriously, because the reputation of viXra would probably taint your paper's reputation by association. (Which is not the same thing as saying that arXiv "bestows credibility" on papers found there. It's rather viXra which bestows a bad reputation.)

Another important difference that isn't  outlined in the other answers above:

arXiv supports HTTPS, so you can't be spied on what you read or upload or have content injected into your connection (a JS miner for example).
viXra doesn't seem to support HTTPS, which means that all of your identifying information that you use to log in can be tampered or stolen by anyone who is able to watch your traffic or viXra's server traffic.

Note that non-HTTPS for a website which requires login forms is unacceptable in 2018 especially since there are now free SSL certificates such as Let's Encrypt.

Moreover, according to the Mozilla Observatory:

arXiv has a "D" rating https://observatory.mozilla.org/analyze/arxiv.org
viXra has an "F" (!) rating https://observatory.mozilla.org/analyze/vixra.org

tl;dr: arXiv cares more about your security than viXra.


'Scholarly' alternatives to Goodreads As you can read on Wikipedia,

  Goodreads is an Amazon company and "social cataloging" website founded
  in December 2006 and launched in January 2007 by Otis Chandler, a
  software engineer and entrepreneur, and Elizabeth Chandler. The
  website allows individuals to freely search Goodreads' extensive
  user-populated database of books, annotations, and reviews. Users can
  sign up and register books to generate library catalogs and reading
  lists. [...] On the Goodreads website, users can add books to their
  personal bookshelves, rate and review books, see what their friends
  are reading, participate in discussion boards and groups on a variety
  of topics, and get suggestions for future reading choices based on
  their reviews of previously read books.

My question is:

  Is there a scholarly alternative to Goodreads, that is, a website
  where you can shelf papers, journal articles, scholarly websites, and
  preprints as well as books?

There indeed is plenty of web sites where you can shelf articles, preprints, etc. (Mendeley, Zotero, CiteULike, and so on; a fairly comprehensive list is available on Wikipedia) but if you also would like to have the possibility of adding reviews like in GoodReads, the things are somewhat different.

One site that I know of that allows you to do this, in addition to merely bookmarking the items, is ResearchGate with its Open Review feature, but you can only bookmark and review items that already are in their database (you can add the articles that you (co-)authored but I doubt that reviewing them is your intention). Perhaps there are some other sites with a similar functionality: e.g. according to Wikipedia CiteULike has it too; on Mendeley you can share articles' annotations within private groups.

Also, there is a number of sites allowing you to bookmark and review arXiv preprints (e.g. SciRate) but not the other kinds of items like the books.

http://f1000.com/prime "is composed of 5,000 Faculty Members — senior scientists and leading experts in all areas of biology and medicine — plus their associates.

The Faculty recommends the
most important articles, rating them and providing short explanations for their selections.
"


Applying for a postdoc. Should I mention that I completed my PhD with no supervision? I'm hopefully in the last half a year or so of my Ph.D. in a subfield of mathematics/theoretical physics and am considering applying for a postdoc within the next three months.

My supervisor works (partly) on field X, and I've pursued my Ph.D. in the direction of subfield Y (with the thumbs-up from my supervisor) – however, my supervisor neither has experience in subfield Y nor much familiarity with the type of mathematics involved. Furthermore, my supervisor is the only person working on field X at my institution.

I've therefore been working with zero direction/advice from my supervisor (I like them, I'm not complaining!) – essentially complete research freedom (which I guess is strange for a typical Ph.D. experience). Of course, this has its pros and cons. The cons mainly consist of working in complete isolation (internet aside) without any supervision in the traditional sense, and with no people in area X (let alone Y) to talk to – my own doing, I know it's what I effectively signed up for! This has been slightly daunting at times (given I had zero research experience before the Ph.D.); it's been 99% laissez-faire.

I have managed to attend a few relevant workshops. The discussions there have been great and have often left me feeling positive/excited about research – I guess if I managed to secure a postdoc in an environment with a group of people in field X (even better with some in field Y), I'd get to experience the stimulation/collaboration experiences that I've thus far missed out on.

The question: When applying for a postdoc, should  I mention any of the above? I'm not sure if having done the Ph.D. in field Y in 'isolation' will be a mark for or against me. If I should mention it, what would be the best way (roughly) to word things?

Should I mention that I completed my Ph.D. with no supervision?

Definitely not.  "I had no supervision during my PhD." could be interpreted as "Nobody taught me anything during my Ph.D. so I am unqualified." or "I am incapable of giving credit to other people who deserve it." or "I am so obnoxious my supervisor will not interact with me." or "I refuse to work with others."  It is likely none of these are true, but the misinterpretation is a possibility.

What should happen is that your supervisor writes a letter of recommendation saying that you have shown a high degree of independence and that you now have more expertise in Y than they do.

Do you have the experience, the knowledge and the expertise?
Was your thesis published and peer reviewed?
If so, what is the problem?
You need to sell you so think sales and marketing
Be honest in interviews and what you write down but no need to reveal details that do not affect your ability to do the job
I think you should keep it to yourself