Would the professor leave the classroom if only 1 student uses their cellphone during class? I’m a college student. My class has only 40 students. My professor left the classroom before class ended because, like he said, too many students were using phones while he was talking. It was not like there were phone sounds or the phones rang. He said before leaving that he would let us teach ourselves.

In this case, I’m quite curious about something:

Would he be able or be allowed to not teach, and let us handle it ourselves and only come in to do the test?
Would he be able to fail the whole class?
Would he possibly react the same way if only 1 student used their phone without making any noise?

I've occasionally done "shocking" things to send an important message. It might be that all he intends is to make it a dramatic statement that you (the class) should take it more seriously.

I doubt that he intends to not return, and also doubt that he would get any administrative support for that.

I've always been willing to fail the entire class. Also willing to give full marks to the entire class. But that depends on individual, not group, behavior. Again, failing person A because of the actions of B would be unethical and would draw no administrative support.

If it is only one student then, perhaps, a more nuanced and less dramatic response would probably be called for.

In one of my "dramatic explosions" not every student was guilty. But even the ones who were more conscientious got an important message about proper behavior. In this case it was more about their own lack of preparation. There is a scene in Stand And Deliver in which the teacher, Jaime Escalante, denies entry to the classroom to a student who doesn't have his homework paper ready to turn in: "If you don't have a ticket, you don't get to watch the show."

But hopefully, the need for such drama is infrequent.

It depends on the country and if the school is public or private. If the teacher is considered an employee and does that then he can be charged for abandoning work or breaking his contract of services with the school if the entire class goes to complain to the school administration, in which case the teacher could even be fired. BUT on the vast majority of situations... yes, he can. To answer the questions:

1-Would he be able or be allowed to not teaching, let us handle it ourselves and only come to do the test?

R- Yes. However petty and childish that is he can and would. Of course he should be reported, but best the student can do is ask another teacher of the same subject/class to allow you as listener (just to enter class and hear the lecture). Modern times do require modern solutions too, so making a scandal in social media might help. On the other hand, it could be argued that he was teaching you all a lesson.

2-Would he be able to fail the whole class?
R- Yes. He can, or fail someone he doesnt like. In which case the whole class or the affected ones can make an official petition or procedure, based on the class's plan deliverable homeworks, to be graded by an external source. That is a normal procedure in most universities.

3-Would he possibly react the same way if only 1 student use the phone without making any noise?
R- That is hard to answer without knowing the person, but petty behavior does come from petty people, so yes, he could, or he might  try to use that student as an example for everyone.

Having said that, you should consider that  its basic respect and manners to not be messing with your phone when someone is speaking to you. More so, it's a class where you are supposed to be learning, so you'd be wasting the chance.  If he did stated at the start of the course that he would not allow using phones, then the class is at fault.

However, to take into account is that there are many teacher, the older ones specially, that do not understand just how integrated is modern learning and technology. You could be taking notes on a tablet/notbook/smart-paperbook, check what he says and references on the phone, sending the photos of the whiteboard to the class's chat group, using the cloud to share the materials, etc . If that was the case, the whole group needs to speak to the teacher about it and get clear what is expected or allowed.


Change from one PhD-Program to a much more prestigious (and better paid) new program at my institution I started my PhD last year in November. I've now heard of an incredibly attractive program that is just starting this autumn, with insanely good working condition (the salary is basically twice as high as my current salary and there are also nice internship options, which my program completely lacks.) My PhD advisor actually also participates in the program as an advisor. Thematically it is very close to what I am working on currently. I'm not unhappy with my current position or working environment.

Is it advisable to talk to my advisor about applying for this program? Of course, it is not very likely that I would even be admitted to the program, but it is so attractive, that not applying seems stupid. For different reasons, even though my advisor also participates in the program, I would not be able to apply for a position supervised by him.

I would have definitely applied for this program, had it existed last year. Also, when I started my PhD I did have the clear intention of finishing it, so some possibly related questions do not apply here.

Just talk to your advisor. Since he participates in the program, he will know if you are qualified to apply and stand a chance of getting the position. He will probably also be able to tell you if the two of you will be able to continue working together – after all, it's far from unheard of that a PhD student has a nominal advisor for administrative reasons but a "real" co-advisor who is responsible for the day-to-day research.

In any case, it seems completely unlikely that you would get the position without support from your current advisor. If anything, it's probably that you will need letters of recommendations, and an application without a good letter from your current advisor is an application that is headed for the trashcan.

Just go see him in person – I would avoid email – and start a conversation with "I heard about this new PhD program with much better conditions than the one I have, do you think I could get into it and still continue working with you?". Then see where it takes you. Maybe your advisor knows a reason that would prevent you from applying altogether and you are fretting over nothing. Or on the contrary you are the perfect applicant and you will start earning twice your current salary in a few months. Until you talk with him, you don't know.

First off make sure you have some solid research about that program, I've seen tons of friends jump ship from Masters of Engineering to MBA Business, only for them to call me crying about how terrible the program and job opportunities are.

Second, you best get solid networking connections, a prof is an okay start but knowing the dean of program is better.

Third, find out which companies/organizations are the big sponsors of the program and network with the people who are board members.

Fourth, find out and get to know the people who are doing the acceptance of applicants. Might take a few phone calls and emails, but use some social engineering (legal ways only, don't do anything illegal). And then network with them.

Fifth, join the Uni club associated with that program. And network with the people in that program.


Presenting twice at same conference I applied to a pretty broadly-themed conference in my research areas, and submited two very different contributed talk abstracts. I suspected one would be downgraded to a poster, or simply rejected. Instead, the organisers told me I could present both talks. Looking in the abstract book, I see that no one else will be giving two talks. Is giving two talks in poor taste?

Specific background: I am an early postdoc, and the conference is in Europe. Both research projects are new and have not been presented elsewhere, and are with completely separate sets of coauthors.

It's totally fine.  I commend your efficiency.

It would not be fine if you submitted two similar talks, or if you submitted a talk under someone else's name so that you could pretend to fill in for them.

Is giving two talks in poor taste?

It isn't ideal, but I wouldn't consider it inappropriate.

  Both research projects are new and have not been presented elsewhere, and are with completely separate sets of coauthors.

I think it is better for a co-author to present one of the works.


Is it normal to have grad student instructors for upper division classes? I'm almost done with my undergraduate degree (B.S. in a physical science) and, looking back, a good portion of my upper division major classes have been taught by grad students. Is this normal?
I hope the grad students are getting some sort of additional stipend for full-on teaching these courses in addition to their research since the department seems to lack professors.
Possibly pertinent info:
This is a public research university in the United States.

US News and World Report has data from 697 ranked colleges. Of these:

544 schools (78%) reported that no graduate students were the primary instructor of any course. These include all except two "National Liberal Arts Colleges."
The 10 schools with the most graduate students as primary instructor were all large public research universities. These 10 schools reported that 18-26% of their TA appointments were as the "primary instructor."

Purdue University is listed as the school with the highest fraction of graduate students as instructors of record. Their policy allows the department to assign courses to graduate students; it makes no reference to upper division or lower division.
As another case study, the University of California reports that "as students progress through their academic careers and enroll in upper-division and graduate classes, they receive more consistent exposure to full-time permanent faculty and smaller classes." More specifically, the policy at Berkeley allows graduate students to teach lower-division classes, but they do so under the supervision of a faculty member, who remains instructor of record. However, Berkeley does allow graduate students to be the instructor of record for an upper-division course, though usually in exceptional circumstances only.
Summary: about 80% of universities do not allow graduate students to be the instructor at all. Of the other 20%, most are large public research universities. There is less data about the courses to which these graduate instructors are assigned, but Berkeley is an example of one school that will "formally" assigns graduate students to upper-division courses but not lower-division courses.

It's more common to have a Ph.D student being involved in teaching advanced upper division courses than undergraduate courses. Teaching, say, student seminars on advanced topics like string theory is a task that a PhD student in that same topic should be able to handle without much problems. But you don't want to let a PhD student handle a first year classical mechanics course. Didactic skills matter a lot more when dealing with a large class of students fresh from high school.


Contractions ("can't", "don't") in a mathematical paper I am refereeing a  paper (a good one) for a mathematical journal. The author repeatedly writes like this: "we can't do", "we don't know" etc. He is not a native English speaker, and this paper is his first paper in English.

Question. I am going to ask the author to change "can't" and "don't" to more formal "cannot" and "do not". Is that a right thing to do?

I am not a native English speaker either....

(Since a referee is supposed not to disclose their identity, I ask the question anonymously.)

My experience has typically been that the more formal mode, with no contractions, is preferred for most scientific publications.  It is not a terribly strong or important custom, however, and in one of my more high-profile multi-disciplinary publications, I actually found the copyeditor introducing contractions into my writing!

In short: worth mentioning, but not a big deal.  As a reviewer, you might say something like: "I found the contractions distracting, and would advise removing them" but I wouldn't recommend being much stronger than that in your statements.

In mathematics writing, a small reason to avoid contractions is that the apostrophe vaguely suggests mathematical notation, so having this occur in the natural-language part of a paper impairs skimming/reading. A slight extra, needless cognitive load.


Is it rude to use tracking softwares for the emails that you send to potential advisors? A considerable portion of emails that I send to professors abroad to see if they have any position available remains unanswered. Not receiving a response, I can not imagine if they didn't attract to my CV or they simply forgot to open my email. In this way, I am wondering if it is normal(not rude) in academia to use email tracking softwares that inform you when the receiver opened your email. Actually, It is not very hard for them to check if the sender has used such software specially if they block the images in their received emails.

My sense is that the vast majority would not notice one way or another but that some potential advisors might and would find it intrusive and and inappropriate. In many other cases, (like myself) professors use text-based email clients or systems that that block this kind of tracking. In these cases, folks won't think you're rude but you still won't know if I've read it. For that matter, I may have opened an email but not read it carefully. In some cases, people will notice and and think it is rude or unethical.

Critically though, I can't see why knowing whether your email was opened will help.

The reality is that many professors receive between dozens and thousands (really!) of emails from prospective students. This has been discussed at length. Many answers on this site explain why it's just not possible for everybody to reply to every email and there are many reasons why people do not. They might not reply because they are overwhelmed by teaching. They might not reply because it's simply not a good match. They might not reply because they don't have funding to take on new students this year.

My advice is to pick a small number of perfect potential supervisors. Read their papers. Write emails that make it clear that you're not just mass-emailing anybody you can find but that you want to work with them. Send an email. If you want, send a follow-up after a week or so. In either case, I don't see how knowing that the email has been opened helps.

Suppose, that I (total stranger to you), would hack into your computer, circumvait your protection measures, spy on you, all before I would presentr myself to you and then I would ask you to get even better access to your environment.

Would you protect yourself up to applicable law, or would you accept it and put me in your friends and grant me better access to you? (And if you would just out desparation from longliness, would you do, even if you would be target of such approach daily, while occupied over your head with existing real relations?)

That is (from my point of view) exactly what are you asking about.

(If tracking would hit, than it would be when the email is opened, before adressee is able to read first line - and cannot find, if the email was actually read, most it can do is tell if it was opened. And it nearly make sure you will be ignored and emeail deleted without reading at the best, (if it is discovered), more probabelly resulting in some worse case, from automatic rejection, maybe blacklisting, maybe contacting your school/employer, up to some official actions))

Not that such approach would work against myself, as I have all emails sorted first to apropriate directories (Family, Friends, lists/ConferenceA, lists/ConferenceB, ... Partners/A, Partners/B,... reports/A, reports/B ... reports/unimportant/A,reports/unimportant/B, ... Spam ...) and what is left (not met by any crieria) in Inbox I consider possible spam more than anything else.

And I did set my email client to not automatically confirm delivery nor opening email.  And to shouw only plain text (if email is only in HTML or other format, then it is presented as empty and usually deleted under assumption of being spam/malware/virus anyway without any attempt to see the content - except for a few manually explicitely named exceptions). And even if I open HTML attachement, it is not allowed to access internet (no images/css/flash ...) and of course all flash/(java)scripts/similar are baned from being run. And I would not run/install any program from email.

I reported back to authorities a lot of such emails as being unwanted and offensive. Some of such actions indirectly helped to the court and fine for the sender.

If you want to get positive answer from me, then I suggest (as other stated here) make your email as simple to deside on as possible.

use short, but descriptive subject
start with short (like one line/sentence/ short paragraph) summary in neutral tone ( I look for position as XXX, have this school/grade, I participated on YYY, more in email and on my website htpp://my.web.site/folder)
then write the "full official" body with addressing/greating, describing why you are sending this (read about free position there, wanted to participate on this, interested on that field ...), what you archived yet (if you have something related) etc, etc - just the letter you wanted to send.
if you send Curriculum Vitae, documents and such it is possible to include them as attachements, if they are short and important (and you can mention them in the email too)(longer document should be saved on web and provided by links to them - nobody wants have its email filled with multimegabytes messages from strangers), it is better, if the name is descriptive for the receiver (my_name_CV.doc, my_name_awards.html ...) then just common(CV.doc), as the professor probabelly have tons of CVs. Surely do not name it from your point of view (CV_for_proffesor_this_and_that.doc), even if you store it with such name on your comp (still is better to make directory on your computer named by this professor and store it there with your name on this, in case he/she would later ask you about 3. paragraf in my_name_CV.doc, then you can simply find, which CV it is and what exactly was there. The same, if you are later asked to resend that, maybe because it was accidentally deleted)
end the letter with your full name, email address and any other contact informations you want to share (including the website about yourself) - it is better, if the message is printed, saved/resend, that all contacts to you are included (as email headers can be stripped, or your email would be resend many times and finding, who is the author is difficult/impossible)

All other rules of proper coresponding also applies, but you surely know that.


Should a teacher be able to solve all the assignments they give their students themselves? A moment ago, I happened upon https://puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/99712/almost-impossible-sudoku-like-puzzle which explicitly mentioned that this student was given a puzzle in math class that his math teachers couldn't solve. And it got me thinking: To me, it feels like a teacher like that is unfit for teaching. After all, how could they impart knowledge they don't have onto their students?
Should a teacher be able to solve all the assignments they give their students themselves? Assuming the assignment is in fact solvable obviously.
Note: The question that prompted this was a math problem, but I'm looking for course-agnostic answers, if possible.

In general, yes, a teacher should know how to do any assignment and, in some cases, should have actually done it. In teaching programming, for example, it is usually a mistake to assign a problem that the instructor hasn't essentially done themselves.
The reason is that one of the tasks in making assignments is to estimate the effort and time required to do the task. If you can't solve the assignment yourself, you are giving an open ended task to students. In almost all situations students have a limited time to spend on any given assignment and that competes with their other tasks.
There is an exception to the above. If you tell the students at the beginning that you are assigning something you don't have an answer to, and will be grading their efforts rather than their results, then you can make this work. The assignment becomes an exploration. At lower levels of education this makes less sense than it does at higher (say, doctoral) where it is natural to explore the unknown.

George Dantzig was mathmetician who famously solved two "homework problems" set by his lecturer, that were in fact unsolved problems in statistics.  So if you happen to be teaching a genius then yes, it's a great idea to set problems you can't solve yourself!


Can I write the diversity statement around my ADHD? I am applying for PhD in physics, and realized that a lot of schools have the option to provide "diversity statements" or "personal statements". As a foreigner, I can't seem to grasp what I should write about...
Can I write about my ADHD and how it influenced my study, along with how it made it hard for me to make friends because of a cultural thing called "nunchi" (reading the atmosphere of the room)? Or will mentioning something like ADHD at all put me in a negative light? I know that in Korea, if I mention this, it wouldn't go well... But I heard that diversity is kind of taken very seriously in America so was wondering if it would help me or not... or is ADHD even considered "diversity"?

Look around, but I think @Anonymous Physicist is right that this isn't about you but about how you will handle diversity in your interactions with the university community you are likely to encounter if you are hired as a PhD student at this school (and maybe as a Teaching Assistant (TA)). See, for example, Vanderbilt's Center for Teaching's definition of what their Diversity Statement expectations are.
In that case, I would say that you should weigh your own personal experiences as a person with ADHD against others who are different races or from other countries or ... against what you have experienced before bringing it up. It's unlikely to be considered relevant, in my opinion.

A couple of things:

have the option to provide "diversity statements" or "personal statements"

Usually, a personal statement is required along with a "research statement." Often, a diversity statement can be supplied if you want room to talk about your unique experiences. Increasingly, it is required. You don't have to provide one, if you don't want.

As a foreigner, I can't seem to grasp what I should write about...

I'm not sure if this is sarcasm, but the point of a diversity statement is to explain how your experiences are different from the majority of people in the field. For physics in the US, this is white men, equally distributed between US nationals and visa holders (warning: PDFs). Often, these statements contextualize your experience to people who lived a different life from you. But they can also explain how you'll bring a different perspective to your field of study. I don't know exactly what that might look like in physics, but different perspectives are needed in fields like psychology, or image processing.
But diversity doesn't need to be race or gender. Parents of people with PhDs are way more educated (PDF) than the average American. So one could write about how growing up with a less educated family affected your approach to education.
To your specific question, writing about your ADHD (especially in Korean culture) would be totally appropriate. It doesn't have to be woe-is-me, but it serves to contextualize to your experience. Presented with two equally qualified candidates, one having worked through ADHD might be a stronger candidate for graduate school (data).
Also consider the university environment. If classes, the program, etc, have all been designed around people without attention deficits, having more people with ADHD join the program/university will force them to improve their practices. (You don't have to be the guinea pig for this, either.)
Tl;dr: You don't have to write about your ADHD (or anything), but if you think you can answer the prompt appropriately with it (you didn't share the prompt, so I can't say), then it would be a good choice IMO. But I also agree that it's unlikely to make or break your application.


Do authors have to be politically correct in article-writing? My colleagues and I have recently submitted an article in a biology-oriented journal about a new technological system. While describing the interaction between the different modules of the system, we used the terms "master" and "slave", as it describes the communication protocol in a very comprehensive manner.

One reviewer raised an issue that these terms were not suitable for publication in an academic journal, without proposing an alternative wording.

We understand that writing a text aimed at being read by a broad community of people imposes a high degree of decency, and that's of course what we always tried to do. Given the context it is extremely clear that these terms are used to describe an interaction between to electronical devices, and are in no way a reference to slavery. We are Europeans, and have never heard of any controversy on this. Also, the "master/slave" terms have been and are still widely used in engineering lingo.

So we have two questions regarding this situation:

Is there an alternative wording that we could use, still expressing clearly the same idea?
More generally, do authors have to write politically-correct articles, even though this not a very well-defined notion and can significantly vary from one region of the world to another?

We don't really want to enter into a long discussion with the reviewer on this particular point, so the latter question is more something of general interest about what one should have in mind when writing an article.

Edit

Thanks for the numerous answers and comments, this is really helpful. Since I can choose only one answer as the good one, it's the one that proposes a useful  alternative. We believe that the most problematic word in this case is "slave" and not "master", so we'll propose the terms "master/worker" as a replacement for our article.

In addition, a thought I had in the meantime is that using these terms as adjectives instead of nouns may help a little bit. A "slave device" may be a slightly softened wording than simply a "slave" (though not resolving the issue). More importantly, I feel that "master device" and "worker device" are expressing the general relationship between the modules in a clearer way than simply "master" and "worker".

For the more general question about PC, it seems to be still an open question. As suggested in one answer, this certainly desserves some changes in our writing practices now and then.

In the absence of a compelling reason to not use politically correct language, authors should make reasonable attempts to minimize offending readers. Given the information you provided, there does not seem to be any reason not to use master/slave. The words, and even the context, do not seem inherently offensive and have an established usage in many fields. I suggest including in your response letter a statement that you do not see the established use of master/slave to describe communication systems as being offensive, but if the editor requires a change, you will be happy to comply (assuming you are).

This is not at all standard across academia. Either across countries, institutions, fields or journals. Usually because no-one feels comfortable challenging a request for political correctness, the strictest standards 'win'. It seems to me that keeping your head below that pulpit is a good idea. There are sometimes trade-offs: master/slave vs supervisor/worker seem to be doing the rounds, so lets use that as an example.

To my mind:

master/slave implies both perform the task, but one additionally orchestrates and takes precedence over the others.
supervisor/worker implies that only the workers perform the task and the supervisor orchestrates.

Both are valid models but being force to pick one over the other has consequences including readability. However these are tiny. I'd say the biggest risk in a similar vein: you are implying 'supervisors' (a huge fraction of your target audience) are not 'workers'. You are not wrong about the potential impact on readability, but I would caution that if you are relying on your reader inferring this from your wording you have bigger problems than which. In practice they only form labels, and either will work perfectly for that role.

However, falling foul of a reviewer by refusing to adhere to their language preferences will give them cause, and justification other won't question, to prevent you from publishing.

This seems like an easy choice to me; it doesn't matter how readable it is if it won't get read.


How, if and where to submit a paper when former co-author cannot be contacted So I have been on my own completing a paper that I had started with initial discussions with a professor more than an year ago. In the meanwhile I have lost contact with that professor and I haven't heard back from him when I emailed him the recent state of the draft.

I had showed the draft to another expert in the field and he had given me some very positive comments and had asked me to complete a certain part of it more fully. He had introduced me to some other renowned experts in the field to talk to about the paper. But I haven't gotten back any feedback from any of them about the current draft.

As it stands I am unable to find any experts to read my paper.

In this situation can I (a) submit it to arxiv and (b) submit it to a journal?

The most important question is whether anyone else should be a coauthor.  From your description, it's unclear whether the professor you were initially talking with should be one (the others do not sound like coauthors at this point).  The fact that you describe it as "completing a paper that I had started with initial discussions with a professor" suggests that maybe he should be.  The key issue is whether he contributed anything significant to the paper's content.  If so, then you need to discuss the authorship issue with him and cannot make a unilateral decision.  If he did not contribute anything, then there is no ethical barrier to submitting the paper to the arXiv or a journal if you choose to do so.  However, you should be careful with this decision, since it is a major problem if the two of you disagree about coauthorship (especially if you find out after you have already submitted the paper without him).  If you think the situation might be ambiguous, then you need to discuss it with him before submission.

When I say there would be no ethical barrier to submission if you have no coauthor, I mean submitting it would not be a form of academic dishonesty.  You might still offend people, if they feel you are not taking their advice seriously or giving them a sufficient chance to respond.  I'd recommend giving everyone plenty of warning before submitting the paper.  For example, you could send an e-mail saying something along the lines of "I'm just about done with the paper on topic X.  I'm planning to submit it for publication in a month, after I do some final polishing, and I would greatly appreciate any feedback or suggestions you may have."  (But don't say it this way unless you are sure nobody else could have a case to be a coauthor.)

You can always submit a paper whenever you want. However, if someone has significantly contributed in your work in any respect, you should mention him/her as coauthor. Again, if the prof. is not responding you, means he/she is not really interested and does not provide you comments/review of the paper (no other contribution)), i believe you can ignore him.
Remember, its always better if someone can read your paper (an expert) before submitting your paper to a good journal/conf. For example, if your prof. reads the paper and gives you the comments, it is perfect. Otherwise, you can ask to your friends/colleagues to read the paper and give you feedback (in this case no co-author is required to be mentioned).
Hope this discussion will help you.


Is it okay to mention we're citing an article only because a reviewer told us to? In a recent review, one reviewer said we must rework the paper in light of two other papers.  One paper was a highly valuable suggestion, and we've enthusiastically taken it on board.  However, the second paper seems to be an ultra-specific paper (one example among thousands) and not applicable to our work.

I'm thinking of writing something like:

  There are many methods for XYZ (and an anonymous reviewer of this paper seemed fond of QRST [26]), and a survey was given in [15].  In this paper, we take the approach ABC for our specific problem.

(Here, I leave off "...since QRST does not actually apply to our problem".)

In this example, we (fairly politely) highlight that we're citing [26] at the reviewer's request.  But I'm a bit worried it would be perceived as a passive-aggressive slight.

Question: Is it okay to mention we're citing an article only because a reviewer told us to?

I'm also considering two alternatives:

Alternative 1:

  There are many methods for XYZ, such as QRST [26], LMNOP [4], and QRSTUV [5]; a survey is given in [15].  In this paper, we take the approach ABC.

But this seems like I'm adding even more virtually irrelevant citations.

Alternative 2:

  Acknowledgment
  A helpful anonymous reviewer suggested citing [26].

But while accurate, it might be considered provocative (and rude) and get the paper rejected.

This question is related to: How to deal with an unreasonable reviewer asking to cite irrelevant articles?  But in our case, the reviewer is not being unreasonable, maybe just fond of this particular paper.  And it's just one additional citation that's being requested.

Update: Thanks for everyone's help!  To let you know what's going on (and maybe this will help someone who winds up in the same situation):

(TL;DR: The reviewer's suggested paper is related to an "in-between" paper which is related to our work; we feel it's not off-topic to cite it while discussing this in-between paper.  It wasn't as off-topic as originally thought.)

We generally agreed with the advice in the answers (don't cite it).  We also found the editor's email specifically said not to cite irrelevant papers suggested by reviewers.  But we dug deeper to ensure we're not perceived as being dismissive.  What happened next:
Upon more careful inspection, the reviewer described it as an "example".  Eventually, we concluded that the reviewer was not giving us a list of papers to cite, but to generally say "look at papers like these".
This turned out to be a gold mine: it gave many papers which we could use to put our work into a broader context; none of our paper's predecessors do this.  In fact, we found a paper which almost identically states the motivation for our paper, but in a broader context (which empowers our justification for working on this topic).
We looked into the suggested paper's references and papers citing that paper.  We found another paper is a kind of "in-between" paper (related to both our paper, and the paper that was mentioned by the reviewer).  We now discuss this in-between paper in detail, and explain how our method deviates from it.  In the context of discussing this in-between paper, we feel it's not irrelevant to quickly cite the paper that was mentioned by the reviewer, without giving it undue weight.

(PS. In this particular instance, I feel this is not the reviewer's paper: other papers by the same authors (e.g. the in-between paper) are more natural to cite.)

As it turns out, not every comment or suggestion forwarded by a reviewer needs to be necessarily accommodated in your manuscript. Hence, as you seem to have a convincing argument against citing the suggested paper in your manuscript, in your rebuttal letter state that you have considered the suggested comment but you didn't find that paper to merit citation. (However, compose your argument politely, thanking the reviewer for the suggestion.)

ALWAYS put the reader first. What would you like to read as a reader? Comment "method QRST [16] is irrelevant here but reviewer wanted it included" or nothing at all? Out of your suggestions, only 2nd one is viable even though you don't like it.

If such statement doesn't already rub the editor the wrong way and he demands removal of the statement or simply rejects your paper, reviewer is likely to be offended too - he will try hard to find reasons to reject the paper or at least demand this statement removal. (Well, unless he is only after that citation, but I doubt it - as you said, he recommended a valuable paper too, so he seems to know the field).

Finally, considering there are multiple approaches to solve the problem - enough of them to warrant a review article - there is absolutely no harm in adding yet another reference to yet another method solving the problem. After all, you surely have a section of introduction dedicated to other approaches and showing why you are better. It will be just another citation in the section mainly used to pad the reference list.


course vs module vs lecture vs seminar My question concerns terminology in computer-science MSc/BSc education in universities. Let us consider the following terms:

course
module
lecture
seminar

in the US and the UK.

Which terms denote one-off events, which events last a term, and which events denote a whole BSc/MSc program? (Yes, I've read the Wikipedia entry, but it seems controversial.)

US usage

A course is generally the main unit of instruction. You will register for a course that lasts a term--which could be a semester or a quarter depending on the university.

There could also be a year-long course but it would actually be two or three courses that you would have to register for each term.

It's also possible to hear the term "course of study" which is the set of courses that you need to take to fulfill requirements for a degree.

The term module is not very common in the US, but it would be a themed subset of a course. I've seen it used in professional development courses.

A lecture is one meeting of a course.

A seminar could be a one-off lecture or meeting but a seminar course or a course using a seminar format would be designed for a small group, likely under 20, with more discussion rather than lecture or every student presenting on various topics over the term.

UK usage

Course is used for the entire set of topics to be covered for the degree, so corresponding to course of study in the US.

A module is a themed subset of the course, what would be called a course in the US.

A lecture has the same meaning as does a seminar.

If I guess correctly, I would think there is a desire for understanding the hierarchy of a education learning? (I could be wrong?)
My take on the hierarchy:
Curriculum -> Course(s) -> Lecture(s) -> Module(s)
A curriculum is a list of courses, while a course can contain one or more lectures.
Each lecture can have one or more modules. A module can be further broken down to contain content, assignment(s), quiz, etc.


How to get started with PhD dissertation? (Management & Humanities) I got accepted to a university as PhD Candidate. My research proposal is sent & accepted, and I found a supervisor.
Though we plan to meet at least 1 time/month, I feel a bit confused about the way I should get started with my research. Of course, I plan to complete the literature review I started when I wrote my research proposal before engaging with fieldwork, and then with data analysis and dissertation writing. However, how do concretely those different steps go on? I mean :

When do I know I am over with the literature review and conceptual framework? I feel like I always find more papers and books to read every time I read a new paper. Continuing this way may mean always postponing fieldwork, which I know is not a good way to go...
When should I start writing some serious stuff concerning that literature review/conceptual framework? Before or after engaging with fieldwork?
When should I contemplate writing down a first contribution (i.e. scientific communication for a conference or article)? I feel discussing my theoretical perspectives with other PhD candidates/researchers may be fruitful to confirm/modify the way I tackle my topic. However, I don't know if working on a theoretical paper before engaging with fieldwork is relevant as it may change through time ...

Start writing now, every day. Put down any ideas you have.  Don't try to plan the whole project from the start. Don't wait to write until after the literature review, or after the fieldwork. Your daily writing will move the work along even though only a small part of it may end up in the finished dissertation.
Edit in response to comments.
Writing "even before you have anything to write about" is valuable because it can help you sharpen the particular questions you want to ask/research. You can speculate about what you expect to find (but be honest when you finally see the data). If you start writing every day  you can develop a writing addiction that will serve you well as the dissertation deadline nears.
You can rough out a version of the conceptual framework now and  refine it as you see more literature, and as your fieldwork plans develop. Don't think of the project as a sequence of distinct stages, even if the final written dissertation has that structure.
This is the short form of what my wife Joan Bolker recommends in her book
Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day.
(This answer may be flagged or deleted as the blatant product promotion it is. I hope not, since many students have profited from this advice. I haven't included a link to the title so you have to work a bit if you want to get the book. That may make a moderator hesitate before deleting.)


What to call someone that is currently studying for their PhD? I'm using a PhD student as a reference for an application, and I wonder what title I should use for her. She hasn't yet got her PhD title but is still writing her thesis. Is there a name for that position?

The title would likely be "Mr." / "Mrs." / "Ms.". There is no prepended academic title that means "will likely have a doctorate at some point".

In other news, a PhD student is probably not a good reference in the first place. You should look for somebody who has been in the game a bit longer and provide a reference that more plausibly compares you against a wider range of previous students.

You can put "ABD" after her name.  From Wikipedia:

  "All but dissertation" (ABD) is a mostly unofficial term identifying a stage in the process of obtaining a research doctorate in the United States and Canada.

You could also say

  Marie Smith, PhD candidate.


How do I get an email alert when my paper is cited? I recently published a paper in a journal which does not offer a notification system to send email alerts when a paper is cited. The journal is a well known and has a high-impact factor in my field. Are there free services which can automatically send me an email alert when my paper is cited in another publication?

You can set up an alert on Google scholar that will do exactly what you want. From Google's help page:

  How do I get notified when a particular paper is cited?

  Search for the title of your paper, e.g., "Anti de Sitter space and
  holography"; click on the "Cited by" link at the bottom of the search
  result; and then click on the envelope icon in the left sidebar of the
  search results page.

An even more effective way can be to set up a google scholar citation profile and select "Follow new citations" from the appropriate checkbox.

Another option would be ResearchGate . It a bit like facebook for academia (e.g., you can additionally follow people and get alerts when they publish new research). It's free, so you can give it a try.


How can I tell my advisor that I'm not going to work for free? I am an undergraduate student of Physics in Spain. This year I have to prepare my bachelor thesis and I also applied for a fellowship with the same advisor to do further research on the same topic.

I wasn't awarded the fellowship and I told my advisor about it but he wrote me an email a few days back telling me to try to finish the thesis early to be able to start with the collaboration.

Given that I wasn't awarded the fellowship I just want to finish my thesis and I don't want to do further work (which was discussed under the hypothesis of me getting the fellowship) for free. I thought that this was clear to my advisor when I told him that I didn't get the fellowship but it seems that it is not the case

I don't want to sound rude when telling him this because I still have to finish my thesis with him and I wouldn't like any kind of problem between us. How could I tell him that I'm not willing to work for free?

I would suggest that you repeat that you did not win the fellowship and ask if he has other funding available, "because I am still very interested in the work, but will need to find paid work instead if I can't get a stipend for this collaboration."

As a professor/researcher who has mentored many students I certainly see this issue from both sides.  I advise the following (from the professor's perspective)...a "collaborative" relationship between student and advisor typically means:  (a) the student works their butt off (long hours), (b) the student learns a lot from the experience, (c) the professor/advisor benefits from "free" work, and (d) the professor/advisor works to promote the long-term goals and professional development of the student (e.g., networking, mentoring, co-authoring papers and presentations, etc.).

It should be a win-win situation.  However, it is not the responsibility of the advisor to financially support the student.  That is an ideal situation but not a requirement.  Sometimes it happens, but when it doesn't, it's the student's responsibility to figure out how to eat and pay the rent while volunteering in a research lab.  It's not the most pleasant arrangement but that's how it works.  It's hard work training students (trust me) and it's hard work being a student!

tl;dr The suggestion to tell your advisor, "I want to continue my research, but I first need to find part-time work to support myself" is spot-on!


Should I cite an article that I can't find? I am facing a problem, the article seems a very important reference that everyone talking about the subjects is citing it. However, looking at these articles, they can't give a reference or link to the cited article. Even I use the volume number, article number to search on the net, I still can't find it.

For example, this article, only the second reference doesn't have a pdf link pointing to it. I think the author may be like me can't find the article, but sees others citing it in a very important position, so he also cites it. I can't exclude the possibility that the author reads a paper-based version.

When you search the citing article, many of them can't give a link to that paper, and I can't find it either. Should I cite it anyway? Because from the inspection, this paper seems an indispensable reference when talking about the subject. On the other hand, I can't find it (even on the official site) and I didn't read the abstract or even the title. I think this is not quite equal to the case where the article is behind the paywall, because behind the paywall you at least see the title and abstract.

I would definitely try contacting your librarian at your university library. University libraries collect physical copies of papers and they might have this one. Librarians are also a lot more versed in navigating the various search systems and they will probably be able to find this paper, if only as a hard copy. It is also possible that your university does not have the paper, but they could contact different universities to get it.

I would definitely recommend to no cite what you haven't read, especially if you don't even know the title of the paper.

Edit: As others have also noted, it might be good practice in your field to in fact cite the paper, but with the caveat that you cannot find it, as suggested by Thredolsen's answer. If this is common in your field please do this.

I'm going to go against the grain here a little bit. I will preface my answer by saying I don't know anything about your field, so everything I've found is based on the information you provided.

Yes, cite it, even if you can't find it

If it were a relatively recent paper (~5 years old) or is controversial, you should absolute not cite it if you have not read it yourself. However, the paper you're looking for (or at least, the examples you provided) is an English translation from 1965 of a paper published the previous year, entitled "Inhomogeneous State of Superconductors" (or "Nonuniform state of superconductors"). It appears to be in an issue not available on the journal's website, but many more from the same authors are available on the site to give you a scope of their work adjacent to this apparent seminal work. It also appears that the work in that paper was among the first to describe a now-validated component of superconductor physics; this, I would imagine, makes it something that would appear in textbooks, which generally classifies information that doesn't require citation. You can get the gist of what's in the article by what others who cite the article say about it (you can determine that from Google Scholar), or by the article by other researchers that found the same results.

So why cite the seminal work if you haven't read it and you got the information about it from another source, especially if the information may not need to be cited at all? Sometimes citations are simply a nod of understanding or recognition to major works in our fields. You would be ethically safe not citing these authors at all (unless you're addressing something very specific about their paper), but it's sort of a sign of respect to cite them anyway.


How do I use potentially copyrighted images in my course material? I teach at a school and I create PowerPoint presentations to use in my classroom.  I also need to upload the PowerPoints to my school website for my students to access.  Access is restricted and students must sign in with their school codes.  Can I use images I find on Google search?  Are all images copyrighted?  If they do not have an "ownership" stamp on them, are they ok to use in this manner?  Nothing is being sold and the presentations are taken down at the end of each year.

Images found in Google search don't belong to Google.

I can't speak to fair-use under academia, but I can say images aren't fair game just because they're found on Google images

There are, however, places you can find images you can use. Wikimedia has a ton of images that can be used, with a wide variety of licenses for re-use. Flickr is another that comes to mind.

I want to reiterate that I don't know fair use under the realm of academia, but would ask permission and highly recommend captioning photos in order to give credit where it's due.

It doesn't really matter, but if you're worried just caption the pictures with a relevant credit and/or copyright notice.


What are some good ways to keep students coming to lectures? Having taught calculus for several semesters, I've noticed that the number of students attending lectures are gradually declining (especially for the 9am session). I would not be worried if they have learned the material by themselves so don't see the need of coming; However looking at their exam scores I concluded that a lot of them are not doing so well in the class when they miss lectures.

So what are some good ways to keep students coming to lectures?

Here are my suggestions:

Make sure your lectures actually add something to their learning experience. Ask one of your coworkers or someone from the teaching support center (if you have one of those) to come watch a class every now and then and give you feedback on how to improve. (Even if you are a teaching super star, there is always something you can improve.)
Take 5 minutes to ask the students to fill in anonymous "exit tickets" with three questions: Something you should keep doing, something you should stop doing and something you should start doing. This should be done in class after a few weeks, but before the attendance starts dropping. Actually follow any reasonable suggestions.
Over the long term, create a scatter plot of number of lectures attended versus final grade. If your lectures are useful, then there will be a strong positive correlation between the two. Show students the plot during the first class every semester and tell them to make their own decision about attending or not.
If you really want to make them attend class, schedule daily quizzes that account for some not insignificant percentage of the grade. If they don't attend class, they receive a zero.
Remember that your students are adults. They are responsible for their own learning, and if they decide to sleep in rather than come to class no matter what you do, that's still their choice and their responsibility. You can't force them to attend. If your lectures add value, and they still choose not to attend, that's ultimately their problem.

You're asking the wrong question. It's not about getting students to come to lectures but getting them to understand calculus.

If you need them to show up for some reason, irrespective of their learning, just mandate a 10% grade attendance policy. If you'd like ideas to help them learn calculus, edit your question accordingly.


Can I use these letters of reference later? I was working with some startups as their tech advisory and with some others as tech lead. But now I want to concentrate on my main goal, that is research. That requires me to work with researchers and study. So I asked people I was working with, for a recommendation letter. As I am aiming towards Waterloo for my masters for research. The real problem is I was not so much focused on my academics as I was busy here. Though I still have last two years to cover up at Waterloo, usually checks last two year scores. I just want to know will these LORs will help me, when I will apply, in Waterloo, after my engineering and giving my GRE.

I suggest that if you want letters that won't become relevant for a few years, that you tell the writers that so that they might be able to update their recommendations at the appropriate time, without forgetting you. Keeping in touch is also useful for that.
I don't know the procedures at Waterloo, but some universities require direct transmission from the writer, not the candidate.
Whether they help or not depends on too many things, including the unknown future, to comment directly. But having the "on the shelf" is probably useful.


"Start-up funds" in offer This is probably really silly to ask, but I'd rather look silly anonymously here than look silly to my possible future department chair.  I received my first offer for a position at a public university today.  This is a teaching-focused position in mathematics at a public university.  To be clear, it is an "instructor" position, but they want instructors with PhDs to teach upper level undergrad courses.

There is a line in the offer letter that states "You will be provided with $3,000 start-up funds during the academic year 2019-20."  I have no idea what this is.  I've tried searching specifically on the university website and also general google searches, but found nothing on the university site and most searches just turn up info about start-up funds of high amounts for research focused positions.

What is this money typically used for?  My main question is can this be used for moving costs?  Just hoping from insight from people in public institutions who may know what this is intended for in a mathematics instructor position.

Generally, startup funds cannot be used for moving costs unless you are moving an existing lab. Even then, mixing personal belongings into your lab equipment is pushing the envelope.

It might be for buying a computer or a tablet or some teaching technology. If it is a one year position, you should expect the university to keep the technology at the end of the year. It might be for buying teaching materials and/or office supplies. Some school offices have a supply closet, others do not.

They may also realize that while your job does not include research, that you may still want to travel to a conference. They might allow travel, but they may not.

It is not unreasonable to ask what the constraints are on the money, but if the answer does not affect if you are going to take the job, you could wait until you start.

There is probably a long term expectation that you will apply for grant funding for various things, including (some or all of) research, travel, publication fees, etc. The startup is to get you started so that you aren't delayed by having to wait for your first successful grant. In some fields, for some positions, these can be quite hefty amounts, but with, also, quite hefty expectations. I would guess that it is a bit more modest for your position. Especially if it isn't a tenure track position.

You might ask, separately, for moving costs, or at least part of that.


Paper is based completely on my thesis, but I'm mentioned in the acknowledgements only, not as a co-author, what should I do? I developed a medical device for my master's project. The general idea was initiated by my supervisor but the rest of the work is mine (Design, build up, test, measurements, results and some additional functions I added to the idea).

After finishing the master thesis my supervisor started to write a paper about my project. The information in the paper comes from my master thesis and it merely rewrites and summarizes ideas from my thesis. Additionally, all the results and discussions were also picked from it. I was away during this because I found a job in a different city. My supervisor then started to contact me and asked me to give him feedback about what he wrote and to explain the results and said that he would name me as the co-author. I was supporting until the point that I got very busy, but soon his questions become orders and he started to ask very silly questions so I stopped responding.

Finally, he threatened to acknowledge my contribution only, that is, to only mention my name in the acknowledgement and not as a co-author, because he was not satisfied with my support / me not responding to his requests for help with the paper.

The whole paper is taken from my thesis and all the results are mine on top of the added support that I gave but finally, he'll mention me in the acknowledgements only.

Is he right in doing this / allowed to do this and if not what can I do?

I am thinking of contacting the journal and explain all of this. What do you think?

I will try to give my perspective, on both sides if possible. In many countries, most incentive professors have for supervising undergraduate or MSc theses, is that some of them (or all if possible) may actually lead to a publication. There is a problem though: Most of the time undergraduate or MSc students leave the university and the paper usually can only be prepared after the student graduates. Unfortunately, at that time the student has already left academia and has really no interest in publishing, since he has more important things to do (like finding a job). This is quite the setting that the OP describes.

Still in your case, your supervisor of the thesis has started writing the paper himself and he needs your help. Initially you provided the help needed but you became frustrated because it was more work than you wanted / expected to do, because (let's face it) the paper really does not make a huge difference to you. On the other hand, you want to stop him from publishing it solo. So, both parties are partially right to be angry at each other. You do not want to take orders from him and he does not want to be treated like an idiot (who calls his questions silly) from his former student.

So, how can you fix this? For me, writing emails back and forth is not the way to discuss details for a paper. Why don't you use a better mean of communication such as skype, face-to-face meeting, phone call etc. You can there discuss all the details and your problem will be resolved. Of course he writes the paper and he will be the first author. But you get a publication and everyone is happy. And who knows? In the future you may collaborate further.

Publish the paper by yourself. Just put it in the archive. Don't let him steal your work. Seems like your adviser just manipulated the situation so you lost the will to publish your work. As you mentioned he made it impossible for you to publish and he asks silly questions, its the very same experience that I had with my adviser.


Is it acceptable to take some exercises directly from the text book when preparing exercise sheets? I want to prepare some exercise sheets for a course. I am wondering whether or not it is OK to take some exercises directly from the textbook.

From a practical point of view, taking a few exercises for internal classroom use will probably not cause copyright problems, depending on the local laws. Teaching is one of the fair use possibilities in the US, but I am no expert in law, and I don't know how far it goes.

Assuming US law applies, here are a few rules for fair use, and I believe you fulfil them all: non profit, for educational purposes, on content more factual than artistic, extracting small parts, and no net effect on the market. Some other sources also add restricted access to the student as a point in favour. It is always safer and more ethical to add a reference to the original book.

Most of these answers seem to be focused on the legality of using textbook but I would like to argue from a student's viewpoint that it is not acceptable.(And don't have enough reputation to simply leave a comment.)

These questions are from a textbook they should already have. Normally the questions are extremely similar to examples in the text and are most useful in the context of understanding the concepts. It is my opinion those questions should be reserved for students to reference while going through the book, as well as references while working on your slightly different or harder exercises.

What is the point of taking a class when you could have just got the book instead?

Edit: It is your responsibility as the instructor to add value to the course, giving students new (possibly tailored to skill level) problems is a great way to do that in addition to your in class explanation of concepts. Taking exercises from the textbook adds no value since they already have those questions.


My first authorship is being turned into co-first authorship, what can I do? I am currently submitting a paper for Nature Structural & Molecular Biology. I worked on this project for the last four years and was the only one working on this project. I had everything going very well. In order to get the crystallization, I gave the plasmid construct to another laboratory which has expertise in crystallization. Fortunately, they got the crystals.
After the crystallization got successful, one researcher (say, A) from their lab came to my lab and my professor told me to teach him all the methods. I happily agreed to do so. After A went back to his lab, I got the draft of the paper from my professor, where, my name appeared as first co-author! I almost fainted. There were 20 figures in the paper. 13 were contributed by me, 4 by A and rest by 2 other people. The paper was mostly about my work. But in the contribution section, my prof and the prof of A  mentioned that I and A had equal contribution. In fact it is mentioned that A was solely contributor of crystals and he equally contributed in all other results.
I discussed this issue with my prof, but he tells that he is getting pressure from A's prof to make A the first author. And my prof does not want to estrange relationship with A's prof. I am heart-broken and I don't know what to do.
Please suggest me what to do.
Edit 2021: It has been quite some time since I posted this question. I accepted the authorship as recommended by my advisor. Now I feel mature and realize that maintaining a cordial relationship with one's advisor and colleagues is more important than anything else. If one is capable enough, s/he will get more opportunities to prove their worth.

First, try to calm down and don't react hastily.

Your situation is very frustrating, but it is not horrible. Let's say that the current author ordering would be the final one. You would be what's known as a co-first author. While it would be slightly more advantageous to be the sole first author, in my experience being co-first practically will not have a significant negative effect on your CV (BTW - are you a grad student or postdoc?). This is important for you to realize - the worst-case scenario that you mention is upsetting, but definitely not a disaster.

Some additional points:

You can try explaining your perspective to your professor. If you originally decided that you would be the sole first author, you should definitely remind him/her of that. Do this politely, of course, but show your professor this is a big deal for you. This could cause the professor to reconsider, depending on his/her personality.
Instead of being the sole first author, you can consider being co-first but listed first. This doesn't make a big difference, but people might associate you with the paper more easily (Whatshername et al.).
Consider that regardless of the number of figures, the other author might deserve being co-first. For example, in many papers an experimentalist produces the data and a computational person analyzes the data and produces most of the figures - and they would often be equal co-first authors (even though each of them could think of themselves doing "most of the work"). So I do not know all the details of who did what, but it does not sound completely implausible that the other person did work which justifies being co-first.
Regardless of what happens, I suggest you talk with your professor about how to get a more satisfactory outcome next time (if this is relevant for you). Discuss authorship in advance and what happens when things change.

Good luck!

The question is: who wrote the results down? Writing down the results in an appropriate form is taking much more time, and maybe even more knowledge, than doing the research and coming up with some figures.

Did you write your intermediate results down; and if so, why didn't you publish them? Did you really do four years of research without leaving the nuthouse called "university" once, heading for a conference?

If three years of intermediate results are all written down and published, A will have to take all the conference papers into the list of sources, so everyone can see who the researcher behind the paper really is.


Why is it bad to judge a paper by citation count? I hear a lot from the experts that citation count is a bad idea as a measure of judging a paper. This seems simply counter-intuitive to me. I would like to know if any study has been done in this direction?

I do not know of any study in this field, but I have a hunch that the following points apply (without any particular order, just numbered for convenience in the case of comments/replies):

Opportunity for citation: A paper that presents the ultimate answer to a problem is probably more valuable than a paper that presents just an unfinished attempt at solving the same problem. Yet, the latter is much easier to build upon (because it still leaves obvious extension points) and thus might be cited much more frequently.
Meaning of citations: There is no rule that a paper needs to be cited positively. If a paper has an obvious flaw, this may give rise to a number of other papers that just cite the flawed paper to point out what they are about to prove wrong or do better.
Citation scope: Referencing a paper does not mean referencing the whole paper, or its core finding. A reference to a paper might mean that the whole paper is pointed out as related work, or it could just mean that the second half of a particular statement in the introduction section is pointed out as related. A citation can well point out a remark that is completely marginal to the referenced paper, but that the citing author deemed to explain the fact in question particularly well, or that made a particularly recent mention of an old topic (to show the topic is still of interest).
Not all citations are equal: The question whether something is or is not cited hinges on its relative relevance compared to other citations, based on the available space left in the current paper format, not on the global importance of the work.
Citation habits differ: Even within one (sub-)field, citation habits differ wildly between conferences and authors. This is in part due to different paper formats and length restrictions (see previous point), but also simply because some authors are much more willing to throw in citations every now and then than others. Such habits can even vary for a single author, based on "strategic" considerations for the intended final target audience of the paper.
Citations can be transitive: Authors occasionally face situations where they can either list several examples of related work, or cite a single overview paper (e.g. a state of the art report), to give an overview over some basics or otherwise related topic. The latter case is clearly more space-efficient and possibly more helpful (as the overview paper is designed to give an overview while at the same time conveying the information somewhat in-depth, which often cannot be done in a single sentence of a related work section), but does not increase the citation count of the works referenced in the overview paper.
Papers are not atomic: There is no "natural" clustering of research questions, solutions, works and experiments. How many or how few findings go into/are allowed in a single published work is mostly a matter of style and personal preference of authors and program chairs. With that in mind, any particular finding may be presented in a single paper (which gets N citations), or split up into N papers (each of which may get only one citation). Thus, while the number of citations in this example may give a hint about the importance of each of the single written documents, it does not say much about the importance of the actual set of research questions.
Citation count is not normalized by field/community: As correctly pointed out by Cephalopod, '"What constitutes many depends on the field". Groundbreaking work in a narrow field might never get many citations.' Likewise, fields where publishing small bite-sized papers at a high frequency is common naturally amass a much larger total amount of citations than fields where publications are very seldom and, when they occur, cover a large amount of progress, discussion and findings.
Citation tweaking: As any metric, defining such a single factor for measuring performance, citation count is prone to abuse. If an author suspects citation count to be beneficial, there is an incentive to self-cite (or cyclically cite each other within an institute), and possibly even break up publications into smaller parts (related to the practice of salami slicing) to have more opportunities for those extra citations. As it can be assumed that some authors are already doing that, this renders citation count even less reliable as a quality indicator, as the "training data set" that would be used for comparison is already skewed.
Citation count ≠ citation count: The citation count itself is not a reliable measure to start with, as different sources will provide different citation counts, depending on what citations (and what kinds of documents that contain citations) are counted:

Citations in a book can be counted by chapter (point in favour of this: If each chapter is written by a different (group of) author(s), every chapter has its individual list of citations), or for the whole book (point in favour of this: A book tends to have a certain focused topic, and - more so than e.g. conference proceedings - all chapters tend to follow a common "narrative", so some central works are likely to be referenced in various chapters).
If possibly predatory journals are included, a variant of item 9 can ensue in which citations in less reputable sources (that are counted nonetheless) are bought, as pointed out by ff524.
Citation counts can include citations from totally legitimate works, which are nonetheless of a vastly different status compared to peer-reviewed publications. For example, Google Scholar sometimes seems to count student Bachelor and Master theses and other documents created while studying if the university's digital library that provides a copy of every such submitted document happens to be crawled by Google.

External factors influence selection of cited works: If there is one particular finding in one particular work that is appropriate to cite, there is no question that that particular paper will be cited. However, often enough, things are much more vague - there are various eligible papers that allude to the same statement in different ways, and it is not at all clear which one is preferrable to cite. At this point, external factors that are rather arbitrary can directly influence whether or not a work is cited. For instance, the older paper might be cited to show the original finding ... but the more recent paper might also be cited instead to show that the topic in question is still of interest in recent works. The older paper might be chosen because it is the original reference, or the more recent paper at the more highly-valued venue might be chosen to make the reference stronger, or yet another paper might be chosen because it contains the more comprehensible explanation. Lastly, depending on the citation style, even space may be an issue - if an author is fighting for the last few lines to stay within the allowable page limit, at least in APA style, a paper by Li et al. has an inherent advantage over one by Miller and Bowman, one by Miller and Bowman has an advantage over one by Erdenebileg and Papadopoulos, and one by Erdenebileg and Papadopoulos has an inherent advantage over a paper by Russell-Rodriguez and Pennington-Kiesewetter.

Human beings, regardless of intelligence level, generally tend to subscribe to the "herd mentality". I guess it's because we, as animals like any other animal, want to conserve energy. For example, if everyone believes Stephen Hawking or Lisa Randall is rarely wrong, then it's in my best interest to focus on what he/she has to say. It will save me the energy of exploring other sources and finding answers for myself.

At someone's request I will try to clarify my answer.

Let's say I'm writing a paper about black holes. Obviously, I want to write the best possible paper but I'm not the best physicist on planet Earth. The best physicists on planet Earth will probably have the most citations on the subject matter. Does having the most citations about a subject mean that the highly cited individual is always correct concerning the subject? No. I have to realize that if I'm referencing that person's work. Assuming that Stephen Hawking is right all the time about black holes or even assuming that he is right most of the time is a huge and dangerous assumption.


For interview questions about innovative or engaging teaching, is it OK to say I give lectures in the standard way? If asked a teaching question in a interview for a math professor position about how you engage students or innovate your teaching, would it look bad if I say I'm just a traditional lecturer, teaching either using the board or slides or both?

This is in fact how most people lecture in my experience, it works fine, and the interviewers probably know this. And students like it, but somehow it feels almost shameful to admit it.

"I engage students by giving clear and insightful explanations of concepts [include some examples], using a standard lecture format with the board or slides."

When someone asks in an interview, no-matter what the topic, which cutting edge approaches interest you, they are subtly asking three entirely different questions (in order of severity):

Are you even exposed to any of them (which shows an interest in your subject in general)
If yes, do you have an opinion on any of them (which shows leadership, independent thinking)
Can you justify it with evidence (which shows critical thinking, experience etc)

Saying "no" is like answering "no" to all of the above.

Your answer is effectively saying "no I know nothing about that, nor do I care to know or have to justify myself".

Even if the end-message of your answer is that at the end of the day you prefer traditional teaching, your answer will be much better received if it first shows knowledge of all the cutting edge techniques in the field or even some experience in trying to adapt them to your own teaching, which show promise in general and which do not, your personal opinion on what works and what doesn't, why, how it fits your particular style or not and why, how you think students benefit or not, or tend to respond in each, and why you feel that traditional teaching trumps all of the above based on your experience, and critical judgement of the competitor methods.

Contrast that with "no I just teach". Doesn't sound so professional does it?

No, it is not okay to say you lecture in the traditional way.  There are many high quality experiments showing that a wide variety of teaching methods are better than the traditional way of lecturing.  Further, traditional lecturing disadvantages students who are historically underrepresented.  For example, in my field male students are better prepared to learn from traditional lectures than female students.  If I lecture, it will be harder for female students to learn and many of them will give up.

In short, if you say in an interview you are lecturing in the traditional way, you are saying that you are unethical teacher.  You are saying you use less effective methods.  You are saying you use discriminatory methods.

Also, don't say you use flipped classroom.  That's no longer innovative.  It's cliche.


Publishing into journals as an independent undergraduate researcher I'm an undergraduate student looking to publish 2 papers in materials physics on novel research. I've lead the project on my own as an independent research, but have worked with the departments and faculty to gain access to several of my universities labs to conduct the research. I have no clear supervisor or adviser for the project though, and have a few questions regarding the submission of papers to journals as an undergraduate.

Would I be discriminated against due to the lack of qualifications
Is it appropriate for an undergraduate student to submit a manuscript to a journal.
What journals have low to no cost for manuscripts, the project is self funded and I doubt I'll be able to financially support the extraordinary fees I've seen from some journals.

I understand the paper can be posted on ArXiv or ResearchGate, but that nullifies the legitimacy of it being called a publication. The professors I've spoken to have suggested the paper could be submitted to well ranked journals, and wish to have it published in a well respected journal.  Frankly I'm just unsure how I should approach submitting my manuscripts as an undergraduate.

Editors don't normally look at your "qualifications" when evaluating a paper. It is actually unprofessional. The work should stand on its own.

You don't need degrees, or specifically advanced degrees to submit. Again, the work...

The costs are a different matter. I can't know the policies of all journals, but for some, at least (I hope it is still true), the following applies. First try to charge the funding agency of the research. Second, to charge the submitter's institution if available. Third (maybe second), charge the submitter. Fourth, if no one pays, absorb the costs internally.

I'm especially not certain of the fourth point, but it used to be true for some reputable journals.

My advice would be to submit the paper to the most appropriate journal, ignoring costs. But also ask your department if, in the eventuality that it is accepted, they would pay. If they say no, submit anyway.

Deal with the issue of getting a personal bill only when it arrives. Possibly just by saying it is impossible for you to absorb the cost as an unsponsored researcher. If they then refuse to publish it, you have at least benefitted from some review of your ideas.

Journals normally expect that researchers have some funding and that the funding includes covering page fees for the resulting research. Funding agencies benefit from being mentioned in the papers produced. But that doesn't apply to you and journals may still be able to make exceptions "for the greater good."

With regard to the cost issue, you should probably research what precisely those fees you mention are charged for. At least for the fields I publish in, many if not most reputable journals have a path to publish at zero cost to the authors, providing you:

Don't want colour plates in the paper version of your article
Keep the submission below a certain length
Accept very bad terms regarding open access (i.e never, or with a very long embargo)
Don't use any of the optional, fee-driven methods to increase exposure.

Number 3 in particular is an example of an airline style method of charging. Public funding bodies tend to demand open access on publications, but then provide the money to pay the publishers to allow it.


Choosing among graduate schools I am an undergraduate student who has been admitted to three universities with full funding it is almost two weeks that I am stressing over my choices, therefore I decided to post my situation here to have your thoughts as well. I have been admitted to:

A high-rank Canadian University in Chemical Engineering MSc and my research will be related to Oil&Gas related fluid mechanics and simulation

A low-rank US University in Chemical Engineering MSc and my research will be about Oil&Gas related Molecular Dynamics and CFD simulations

A high-rank French graduate school in Renewable Energy Master

I am just left undecided between going to the US where a lot of opportunities are, or going to one of the top schools in my field in Canada or going to France but specialize in a rapidly growing Renewable Energy sector.
Thanks in advance for sharing your thoughts!

First of all, congrats! I don't have a full understanding of your situation, and my field of study isn't the same, but these might be some questions which might help you rank your options:

What's your post-graduation plan? Do you plan to get a PhD or start working after you finish your MSc? Knowing what you want to do with the degree will certainly help you see joining which university/lab will take you closer to your goal.
It's a research-based MSc: how much do you know about the lab you are going to be working with? Have you talked to the PIs of those labs personally? Can you request a brief online meeting with the lab members? Are they happy with the lab culture? What are former students from those labs doing now?
In my opinion, the alignment of your research interests' and the lab's, and the lab culture are the most important.

I am not sure if your field is different but currently I don't see any job opportunities in the States. I am also unsure if you are living in the US or not but with COVID related visa issues, it gets complicated to get even a student visa. I have university experience both in Canada and in the US (social sciences), and without any reservation, I would pick Canada (in Canada - US comparison). However, many factors play a role in a decision like this one (e.g., language barrier, further collaborations, daily life, support system etc). But imho US lacked many of these things for me.


Impact factors of preprint repositories I'm wondering if the growing catalogue of preprint repositories have known 'impact factors' similar to those of popular print journals. If so, can anyone highlight them?

Even if there are services computing them, the impact factor for a preprint repository would not be useful.

Impact factors represent how many citations an article gets on average within a certain period of time. As such, they are supposed to be a rough metric for the selectiveness of a journal. If a journal is highly selective, then only highly impactful articles should (in theory) make it in, driving the impact factor of the journal up.

Now a preprint repository is explicitly designed to not be selective - Every paper gets in (possibly under some conditions that are hardly comparable to peer-review). As such, the impact factor of such a repository would not measure anything of interest.

The whole point of the preprint repositories is to provide an outlet for new results that bypasses the peer review system without offering an alternative to it. Since preprints are not peer-reviewed, they should not be cited (otherwise the whole peer review system would be broken, and we might as well cite Wikipedia). As they are not cited, they cannot contribute to an impact factor.

The most a preprint can receive in terms of "impact" is exposure via social media, and most preprint archives offer such metrics (bioarxiv for instance). This can be nice to look at, but ultimately it really means very little about the traditional impact of the paper, the same way that a newspaper writing about some research does not increase its credibility or scientific importance. It can also give a false sense of achievement.

From my experience the media hype around preprints is not related to the repository but rather the authors sharing it via twitter and it being picked up by sufficiently connected users. Again, this doesn't say anything about the impact of the paper but rather how "viral" it is.

Why are you publishing a preprint? What would be your motivation to choose one repository over another? I can't see any reason not to go with whatever repository is respected in your field. If you are publishing a preprint to avoid scooping, or out of sheer altruism, it shouldn't matter so long as the information is publicly available. If you want publicity, it also doesn't matter (as explained above).


Sharing an old (never used) Phd Proposal with another student Can I share a Phd proposal that I wrote five years ago with a potential student, who is currently applying for a PhD? Please note that I never used my proposal to apply to a PhD program till this moment? The person asked me to share it wants a real example of a proposal. But I feel it is my effort. Is it ok to share it? Thanks

If you are applying with that proposal, then you should not share it. How would you feel if they present it better than you and get a post while you don't? It is your work, present it and use it yourself.

Why not offer to read and help them edit their proposal? But let them write their own.


Should I send a follow up mail to my potential PhD supervisor? I recently applied for a PhD position in Europe. The deadline for applications was the 30th of September (so almost a week ago) and the starting date for the position is January 2021. I won't graduate until June 2021, but nevertheless, I decided to send my application since I'm really interested in the position. After sending my application (3 weeks ago), I contacted the professor with the question if it's possible to start later, after graduation, and he told me that they need to discuss this and that I could apply.
I would like to send an email to ask if they already decided if it's possible to delay the starting date and to ask when I can expect to hear back from my application (there is little information about the admission procedure on the website). I don't want to be pushy, but I really want to show that I'm really motivated. Should I send an email or should I just wait until I hear back from them? How long should I wait?

Always insist on what you want. But: Always be polite. Never be too pushy or write too quickly if you can avoid it. 1 week seems too quick.


Should student or supervisor be corresponding author for publications based on student research? Papers published from an academic project (MSc or PhD) usually have two authors; the first author is the student who mainly conducted the research, and the second author is the professor who supervised the projects.

The corresponding author is the one who take the responsibility of a paper, and thus, some believe that students are not yet prepared to take this responsibility.

Ideally, who should be corresponding author for papers published by MSc or PhD projects?

I understand that it mainly depends on personal agreements and preferences, but I want to know which case is more reasonable from academic logic?

"The corresponding author is the one who take the responsibility of a paper". I've never heard this before. For example: http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_magazine/previous_issues/articles/2010_04_16/caredit.a1000039 says "The corresponding author is the point of contact for editors, readers, and outside researchers who have questions about the contents of the paper. Often, the corresponding author is also the last author, but she or he may be listed first or even in the middle of the author list."

All authors take responsibility for the paper (or should). The point of the corresponding author is who to contact if you want to correspond about the paper. If this were someone who was likely to move institution (because they are finishing, or have finished their study), they are going to be hard to contact, so make it someone who's likely to hang around for a while. I've never seen anyone take any notice of who the corresponding author is.

Most of the time students never know how, what and where to write,they purely depends upon their supervisor,who is directly involved in this exercise.Paying regards is another factor that is also linked and making a segregation in teacher and taught is a good practice.Supervising any task is not easy,it requires complete involvement in form of legal, responsibilities & other issues as well.Therefore CA deserve proper place with dignity in research papers as it also carries a message.


How to manage publications on a local computer I would like to find a better way of naming publications which I store on my local computer as PDFs. So far I have been doing something like this:

Albano R., Sole A., Adamowski J., Mancusi L. (2014) - A GIS-based model to estimate flood consequences and the degree of accessibility and operability of strategic emergency response structures in urban areas.pdf

This presents a couple of disadvantages:

Titles can be extremely long. This causes problems in certain operating systems or software such as OneDrive. You can only have so many characters in a filename...
Not all publications can follow this format. The above is OK for journal papers and theses, but not so much for books or other kinds of publications.

I would like to have a consistent way to manage such a database. I thought of keeping the publication metadata such as authors, date of publication, type of publication and type in a separate text or excel file and naming the PDF files by ID, like 1.pdf, 2.pdf, etc. This could work, but it would require referring to and managing a spreadsheet which would contain all the meta data.

Is there a simple method or perhaps lightweight software that I can use which can help me with this sort of task?

EDIT

I didn't really like the way @Jonas Stein's script is set up, though I do owe him the inspiration and indication to use JabRef. Here's my alternative script:

import bibtexparser
import os
from shutil import copyfile

filename = 'db.bib'
out_folder = 'out'

with open(filename) as bibtex_file:
    db = bibtexparser.load(bibtex_file)

for entry in db.entries:
    print(entry['file'])
    id = entry['ID']
    file = entry['file'].split(':')[1]

    copyfile(file, os.path.join(out_folder, id)+'.pdf')

print('done')

It's much more compact and does the job.

For the filename, I use a system that I plagiarised from my PhD supervisor:

aaaadd_xxxx_jjj.pdf

where:

aaaa: name of the first author (variable length)
dd: 2-digit year of publication (fixed length)
xxxx: first word of title, minus articles and other small words (variable length)
jjj: abbreviation of journal of publication (variable length, but short)

I then use the same without the .pdf as my bibtex key (with an added :).

For example:

T. Penguin et al, a Survey of Antarctic Leasure Activities, Journal of Improbable Results, 2025

would be

penguin25_survey_jir.pdf

with the bibtex key penguin25:_survey_jir.

I like this system because:

I'm used to it
Filenames remain compact and UNIX shell friendly
The encoded information is usually enough for me to identify the paper

It doesn't cover tagging or categorising.

This applies well to journal articles.  For conference proceedings articles or books, the journal acronym is replaced by an acronym of the conference or the publisher, or perhaps the full name of the publisher; I'm not fully consistent there.  But I don't usually have entire books as PDFs anyway.

My method is to name each PDF file as:

year, authors, title.pdf

E.g.:

2020, Abc Def Ghi, The letters of the alphabet.pdf

I work with Ubuntu and never had problems with these filenames, although they contain spaces and commas.

Putting the year first makes it easy to sort papers by year in the file explorer.

Putting the title in the filename makes it easy to immediately see in file explorer what the file is about.


Remote work employment opportunities for someone with chronic health problems I have a PhD in physics, and my career path of choice has always been in physics. Unfortunately, I have been struck with a series of chronic health problems which have caused me to be fired and homebound much of the time. However, as physics research is mostly a mental activity, I am still able to work remotely from home, provided I am also given flexible hours. The problem is, despite my continuing ability to continue working from home despite my chronic health problems, no employer so far has been willing to hire and pay me. The resulting financial problems have forced me to leave my chosen career path for the past few years, which only makes me look worse and worse on my CV, when coupled with being fired.

Do you know of any organization or employer willing to hire researchers remotely? Thanks.

As you are asking this on academia.SE, I am assuming that you are looking for an academic job as opposed to working in industry. In that case, I am afraid your assumption

  However, as physics research is mostly a mental activity, I am still able to work remotely from home

may not be true for higher (post-graduate) academic jobs. I would say, being a postdoc or higher in physics is to a large extend a social activity, as much of your job will consist of teaching, training the next generation of researchers, and networking. In general, all researchers after a certain stage find that they spend preciously little of their time on actual research (which you may be able to do from home, depending on your concrete subfield). Most of the time is actually spent on activities that require physical presence, at least some percentage of the time.

That being said, many research labs are quite flexible in terms of working hours and (partial) home office. In my lab, for instance, I would not assume that anybody would take issue with an employee working about 50% of the time from home (under the assumption that one would actually work at home, of course). However, the remaining 50% would probably require physical presence, simply because the tasks would require it.

If you are in US, you can apply for disability. You can also get plenty of tax rebates. I am not sure, if full time employees can work remotely all the time but contractors can, for sure work. I am sure there would be companies out there hiring contractors for short projects and letting them work remotely. You can work on one short project after the other.

Also, if you know computer programming, you can work as a software freelancer. There are plenty of freelancer jobs available.


What should be included in a support letter? I would like to know is there any format or things have to be aware when writing a support letter?

The letter is to support the application of a student to an award.

A great letter of support for a student will include the standard elements of a recommendation.

Your relation to the student (lecturer, lab supervisor, academic mentor, etc.)
The student's significant contributions to the school, the community, and the specific program.
The student's academic excellence
Other important factors. (Why are you being asked for this letter of support? What do you know about this student that supports their suitability for this award?)

In all of these, be specific. Don't just say "X is an excellent student". Say "X is an excellent student, as evidenced by their insightful participation in class, their strong paper (won an award at [student conference in field]), and their continued dedication to learning. I was impressed most by x, y and z."

If you work with them, write about how good they were in the office, how they did work and how it helped the company.