How do you come to terms with the fact that you might never be among the best in your research community? I am currently a PhD student advised by a new (and awesome, in my opinion) theoretical computer scientist in the field of optimization. This was my dream ever since I took a class on convex optimization a few years ago during my MS.

However, I don’t have a math or CS background. My master’s and industry experience have both been in applied signal processing. When I recently looked at the kind of grad students who work in my current choice of research area, I realized the level of competition I am up against.

These are all from amazing institutes around the world and had been the brightest kids in their colleges, the ones with medals in olympiads, top Putnam scores, etc. I am from a mid-tier college in my country and never won an award for excelling in math/algorithms.

How do you come to terms with the fact that you might be doing research in what you love with an amazing mentor, but you’ll just never be the best in even your research community? How's that not discouraging?

If every swimmer were to compete with the latest 20 year old Olympic gold medalist, they would soon give up. That's why we have different leagues. They provide more relevant frames of reference to compare different athletes. Thus you need to:

Shift the frame.

Adjusting a bad frame:

You are a PhD student who completed some regular college and an outsider to your field. But you are comparing yourself with your supervisor and with "the brightest kids" in the world and, what is more, with scientist who specialized in your field from the get-go. How can that not be disappointing?

What about: You are an up-and-coming young researcher with real-world experience and a background that is not the usual run-of-the-mill in the field you are working in. You have an amazing supervisor who trusts your work and you are at least as successful as the other PhD students in your cohort. Perhaps you are the only one from your college who made it to graduate school in the last couple of years. You still have plenty of time as a researcher to develop your own profile according to your interests. Don't be fooled by the impostor syndrome.

Dropping a bad frame:

Never mind what I said in the beginning. Science is not a competition -- at least it shouldn't be.

If you're doing research mainly to outcompete your colleagues, to improve your social status, to feel pleased with yourself: you're doing it wrong. Then you are extrinsically motivated, and this is neither sustainable nor does it make you happy. Have you ever delved into a problem and forgotten to drink or eat until the sun went down? Have you ever felt deeply frustrated because you just couldn't wrap your head around some strange finding, only to realize later that it completely makes sense when you look at it from a different angle? Experienced the enthusiasm that came with that discovery? Do you deeply feel that you have to understand this? Then you know the feeling of flow that really only comes from intrinsic motivation. Forget the competition; enjoy the game.

What counts are the results you have obtained. Even if you're the dumbest of them all, if you find an interesting results and get it published, you'll have been the first person that has ever lived on this planet to have found that result. This is then analogous to you being the first successful climber of, say, Mount Everest. Many other people have climbed more mountains than you? Yes, but none of them have managed to climb that particular mountain you have climbed. So, even from the point of view of competition (and I agree here with the other answerers that this perspective isn't all that useful in academia in practice for many reasons), it's not the same as in sports where different competitors are trying to out-compete each other.


What are the super cool tricks to getting published in high impact journals? I am starting a post-doc in Cognitive Neuroscience and I am interested in publishing my work in high impact journals (e.g., Nature, Science, Behavioral and Brain Science). I have already published review articles in not-so-high impact journals, and I would like to know your thoughts and tips for publishing in high-impact journals. I will be responsible for submitting these papers to these journals and I will be seeing them through to the end. Ay helpful advice and tips would be greatly appreciated!

High impact journals, or in other word, top ranked journals (based on IF) are those publishing the state-of-the-art research works with high percentage of novelty and originality. In my own opinion following tips are very important in getting into the high impact journals:

Select a real challenging problem whose solution/amendment significantly impacts on the domain.
Formulate the problem (using mathematical modeling, visualization, or empirical experiment depending on the domain) and let peers/reviewers see the significance of the problem.
Propose a solution with high degree of novelty in a way that has not been undertaken before for the same problem.
Throughout the research try to follow the conventions of research in your domain in the highest possible level, especially when it comes to evaluation and validation of your work.
In data collection phase, try to follow the most appropriate approaches and use accurate tools to measure/quantify. Maybe looking at similar papers can help you in this.
Avoid silly mistakes. Usually reviewers do not expect to see silly mistakes in the work. If you make small obvious mistakes, how can reviewers ensure the rest of your work is error-free.
Show high level of confidence in understanding and expertise over the domain. If you need to review related works in your paper, try to select those closely related to your work; not any work.
Present your work nicely. Avoid English errors (no grammar and no spelling). Use professional drawing tools to draw high quality figures, draw nice tables, use proper sizing for objects in the paper, not too big, not to small.
There is an approach by some young authors that leave some works to be done in revisions stage, which is not correct to me. Don't send incomplete work to any high quality journal. There will hardly be any chance to correct mistakes. The review is more to evaluate the significance of the work, the novelty, relevance to the journal, and research practice presented in the paper. Reviewers are not English proof reader and their job is not to correct you.

There may be lot more tips that I will compile as I noticed. Hope it works.

1) Produce good science
2) Go to groups which already published in Science, Nature, etc.

Both conditions are necessary (especially the second).

Slots in journals with IF>10 are practically "inherited" (you can publish there sth if your PI already published there etc.) - thus you need be very selective in case of where you want to do PhD, postdoc.

In simple words, if you are independent scientist without publication record in Science, Nature, Cell, ... Editors will reject your manuscript in one day without reading it (you will get this nice courtesy letter, that your work is nice, but does not have wide impact ble ble). Sad, but true.

This is hard rule, I know only one exception in which one scientist broke it, but it is single case in the 20-year history of science in my country and it was celebrated almost as national holiday, but he was already established scientist, EMBO member etc).


Is it normal that a peer reviewer would ask for an executable file in order to check my results? I have just received a decision letter for my submitted manuscript to an Elsevier journal. It was a revise and resubmit. However one of the reviewer asked for an executable file in order to check my results. (I felt distrust from his comment..)

This is regarding a computer science paper on testing the efficiency of an algorithm on a set of instances from the literature. I compared the results of the algorithm with those of other authors.

I don't know if it's normal, but it should be normal for all reviewers to make reasonable efforts to verify that the claims authors make are correct, so to the extent that it's not normal, I can only commend the reviewer for being willing to make an effort that other reviewers don't make. What you sense as "distrust" is the reviewer doing their job, nothing more or less (and it is probably somewhat accurate to say that a reviewer's job is to distrust the author's claims, so I don't see the idea of being distrusted by a reviewer as something to be ashamed of or offended by).

By the way, it should also be normal for authors to make available any software (including source code whenever possible) needed to replicate and verify their results. So if you are unhappy with the reviewer coming back to you with annoying requests that delay the decision on your paper, next time around you can preempt such issues by releasing your source code (or at least submitting it to the journal) alongside your manuscript. I am sure the reviewer would be much happier and ultimately everyone would benefit, including you.

It is an idiotic request on his part.

He could catch a virus.
There is no realistic way he can check that the executable implements what is described in your paper, ergo no way the request has any scientific value whatsoever.

He should be asking for the source code, and that is all you should agree to give him.


Is it acceptable to publish student names with the label 'stupid question', on a publicly-visible website? While I was browsing faculty websites, I came across this  page (new link: http://www.pdmi.ras.ru/~iaroslav/teaching.php?screen_check=done&Width=360&Height=640).  Near the bottom there is a section called Top 6 Most Stupid Questions & Remarks That I'he Heard from my Students where one can find a question and the first name (followed by one letter) of the student who asked it!

Just in case the page is eventually taken down here it is on archive.org

No. This is completely unacceptable. Sometimes faculty rant on social media and email lists where they do not think students will see the comments. Even this is frowned upon if the student could realize it is them being made fun of. It is completely inappropriate to make fun of students on a public website with students names.

1) First of all, it seems that the leading question of the discussion "Is it acceptable to publish student names with the label stupid question?" is not correctly formulated. A part of the the question contains a statement which is actually faulty: the names of the students are not revealed, only the first names are mentioned, which are all very common ones. The format like Donald T. or Emmanuel M. does not permit to identify the person, so that the anonymity is fully kept (hence, GDPR has nothing to do with this). Moreover, such a format of names is usual in classic literature. Actually, to name the person only with her/his first name means precisely that you do not want to reveal the identity of the person.

2) I don't think that the objective was to ridicule the students, but rather to make them attend more or/and to make them understand that they are simply too lazy (since they do not recall even basic notions). In engineering schools, as was remarked earlier by @A Simple Algorithm, students should have at least basic notions of the trigonometry (the trigonometry is usually covered in high school before the university), because it is used throughout all the university curriculum. Same remark concerns decibels: this is a very basic notion, which is covered during the 1st year of studies. So (@J.R.) nobody mocks. After all, it ain’t funny to have students with such a poor level.

3) In France, the higher education is free, so that it is easily accessible even for the lazy students. Don't you think about those students from other countries, who have a talent and would like to study, but can't do this because their parents can't pay??

4) Also, I don’t understand why it is acceptable to widely rank teachers and professors on the Web sites, and why it is not acceptable to do the same with the students (thought on this Web site the rank of the students is not published)? And on the Web sites, the professors are fully named, not as Antoine W. or Sven F. So strangely, nobody thinks about GDPR or FERPA for the professors and teachers.

UPD: the initial question was modified so that now it is clear that the actual names are not revealed on the website in question.


What is the best repository for Engineering research work in pre-print format? I'm a civil engineer myself and found no options for depositing engineering related pre-print papers in any online repositories. Is there any easy solution to this? For example, academia.edu lets one upload their papers but other people must have account to download the paper which is kinda turn off.

In short, I want a repository like ArXiv from where people can download anonymously and also with easy submission procedure.

EDIT: This is about already published articles in journal or conferences, so that people can download the pre-print anonymously.

Update 2020: There is still no widely used preprint server for engineering articles.

There are (now?) a few engineering categories on arxiv, e.g. electrical and computer engineering. Everything that has anything to do with machine learning or data analysis is a good fit, anyway. I have uploaded a few biomedical signal processing papers on arxiv as well. See https://arxiv.org/ for the list of categories.
Very recently, IEEE introduced its own preprint server, "a preprint server for the global technology community": https://www.techrxiv.org/. I could imagine that with the backing of IEEE, this could become reasonably popular in some time.
Of the three preprint servers I mentioned below in 2016, https://engrxiv.org appears to be the only one that's still reasonably active.
https://www.preprints.org/subject/browse/engineering also appears to be reasonably active.

It appears that there is currently no widely used preprint server for engineering articles. Interestingly, there appears to be a bunch of platforms that have all been launched very recently, and which all target (among others) engineering preprints:

Launched in July 2016, there is now (currently only in a preliminary version) engrXiv, which is a dedicated preprint server for the engineering sciences. It is supported / advocated by the center for open science.
There is the Self-Journal of Science which provides an innovative, open peer review process and also allows for publication of preprints.
Finally, there is The Winnower which also provides a platform for an open peer review process.

Unfortunately, in all of these, activity is currently rather low, probably due to the novelty of these platforms. Time will show whether one of these will become really popular.

the best source for scientific papers is American Society of Civil Engineers witch you can visit at: http://ascelibrary.org

second source is ICE Virtual Library at this address
http://www.icevirtuallibrary.com

anyway, many publishers have journals in field of civil engineering, but as you said, most of them require subscription (personal or via university)

also, you can find some journals in Directory of Open Access Journals


Plagiarism / citation standards in non-/less-scientific works Yesterday night, a renowned Dutch newspaper published a long article on a former rector of one of the largest universities in the Netherlands. Research conducted by the paper shows she didn't take regular academic plagirism / citation standards into account in various important speeches, such as the ones for the university anniversary. Although it differs per speech, the paper has in some cases traced almost 60% of her literal text back to the work of others.
Citing the newspaper directly (well, translated):

Based on research of NRC it shows that, XXX, former rector of the University of Amsterdam, has used texts in speeches and in her dissertations without clearly indicating these were the work of others.
The plagiarism is remarkable, as the rector herself took various measures fighting plagiarism.
According to XXX, her speeches are unjustly compared to academic standards.
The university will start an investigation whether former rector XXX has violated standards of academic integrity.

Focusing on the accounts of plagiarism in speeches got me wondering what the citation standards are in non- or less-scientific work, and how that might differ per type of work. Specifically, I'm interested how this might differ in:

technical reports, written in a company context
policy documents
official speeches
blogs, columns, and other more personal writings

I'd personally say that attribution is required in all cases, but when is "as John Doe has put it: research is interesting" good enough, and when would you a proper academic citation, including a full reference (either in a bibliography, or in a footnote)?
In addition to the explicit standards prescribed by professional organisations or codes of conduct, I'm wondering to what extent reality indeed matches these standards -- or whether pragmatism at some point takes over. (That might be a little opinionated, but I'm hoping the community will allow it.)
Regardless of whether she was right or wrong, I think everybody will agree these actions are clumsy at best - as they in any case raise questions nobody would like to be raised. That's not what I'm hoping to discuss or establish here. Similarly (although I think this goes without saying here), I'm not interested in opinions on whether she is or was wrong, as we don't have all the facts to determine that.

You cannot include citations in speeches; no-one in the audience would stay awake if you tried to do so. And footnotes would be impossible.

The essence of plagiarism is passing off someone else's work as your own. You avoid that in an academic paper by giving full citations. In a speech it is enough to make clear that you are not claiming originality. "As Smith has shown...". "Numerous studies support the view that..." and so forth.

For legal compliance, any written document---e.g., technical reports; policy documents; and blogs, columns, and other more personal writings---must abide copyright law, which would seemingly forbid many instances of plagiarism, e.g., verbatim copying without attribution.


Should I mention my blog in a postdoc application? I am a PhD candidate in Physics, and I am applying to some interdisciplinary postdocs that deal with economics/climate science/etc. I have a pretty good academic publishing record, but also own a moderately successful blog that deals with economics, politics, science, etc. from a Left perspective.

Would it be sensible to include my blog in my CV or research statement to show that I am interested in that sort of interdisciplinary work and that I have good communication skills?

Some of the posts have a couple of thousands reads etc,  which implies I have an audience.  My issue is that, because it is a partisan blog it has obviously some strongly worded opinions, so I am not sure if it would be professional to mention it. The reason why I want to include my blog is that my PhD is in pure  physics, and I want to show I can "work" in other environments as well.

tl;dr-  While a good blog could be a professional asset, the given description sounds like something that probably wouldn't enhance an application.

Blogs can be professional assets, even with political content

A good blog can be a professional asset.  Such a blog could even touch on topics that others might consider politically sensitive; for example, it's entirely respectable to write a technical piece on forecasting climate change using data science techniques.

You can even write a heavily political blog in a professional way.  FiveThirtyEight's a great example of this: they're heavily involved in political analysis, but they're quite professional about it.  I'd imagine that its writers would generally do well to include a reference to it in their future job applications.

Then there's a grey area when it comes to the interfacing with politics in one's own field of expertise.  For example, if a climate scientist were to maintain a blog devoted to their research on climate change, then it wouldn't seem like the worst thing in the world if they occasionally included a political perspective piece in which they maintained an objective tone while expressing personal political opinions.  However, it'd be important for such opinion pieces to be substantial in terms of content and analysis.

Political rants tend to come off poorly

Political rants can cause the reader to think less of the writer.  This can be true even if a reader shares some of the same opinions.

I suspect that a lot of factors go into this.  As a partial list, in no particular order:

Readers get into the habit of filtering content from politically charged sources, so if the writer starts to sound like a source of politically charged content, it makes sense to put less trust into their assertions.
Strong political positions can reflect on a lack of political knowledge (Dunning–Kruger effect), professional focus, emotional inclination toward objectivity (stability), or/and reasoning skills.

  The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.

  -Bertrand Russell, on BrainyQuote

The willingness to engage in political rhetoric in professional venues (e.g., a job application) negatively reflects on one's general professionalism.

As a consequence of factors like these, many'll tend to respect a writer less for their political rantings even if they would tend to agree with the opinions expressed in those rants.

Overall, probably best to not share this blog

For the reasons given above, sharing a "partisan blog" that has "some strongly worded opinions" would seem like a bad idea.  While it's not impossible that a reviewer might actually enjoy it, I'd expect it to generally have a negative impact if anyone takes the time to check it out.

In general, folks'll be more likely to think well of your ability to operate in other venues if you're able to conduct yourself with the same sort of professionalism that you'd approach Physics with, keeping a level and objective perspective throughout.

Although I personally do not agree with the left slant on climate science, I don't think that it should not be mentioned, but with a caveat: check what is the bias of the department you are applying for.

If the lab/department itself is hugely biased or partisan, and values politicization of science they would perhaps love your blog and you would stood better chances of being accepted.

Now, I am not proud of giving you that advice, but we see more and more fields of science being blatantly abused with PR that has nothing to do with science (AI has gotten really bad recently in that respect) and I would expect that such groups love people that would be engaged and spread the faith in addition to doing research work. Strange times we live in.


Writing an email to a professor for teaching assistantship for the second time I am a graduate student and I had asked for TA/grader position, with a few professors at my institution in fall semester. But at that time there was no position available. Now I want to send another email to them again, asking for a position in spring semester. Should I reply back to the previous email that I had sent, or should I send a new email? How to remind them that I had approached them earlier?

This is a highly personal opinion due to an individual's emailing habits, but I would not attach pre-existing email on something more than a month old.  If you talk to the professor about the opportunity in the future, just add relevant information to the current email.  No need to add the entire backstory, unless it has important information that cannot be conveyed otherwise.

"Hello, I had previously inquired about such and such back in the Fall and nothing came of it.  I was wondering about any potential such and such for the upcoming semester."

In my experience, in the U.S., whether to provide support to a student, through a teaching assistantship, is decided at a department level, and the person to approach is the administrator who supervises the teaching assistants.  The department secretary could clarify for you exactly who this would be.

Here's what I have seen: there are a certain number of students who are guaranteed TA work each year.  But when the department finds that there are still some uncovered courses, and funds are sufficient, they give support to some unsupported students as well, and these decisions are made on a year by year basis in late August.  I can imagine that in some departments this might occur on a semester by semester basis.

When you write your email, proofread it very, very carefully.


How would it look like from reviewers' point of view if one submits off-topic works for application to phd programs? By a scientific work I mean any work of mine that either belongs to my field or belongs to some related fields of my field. A work that is not a scientific work is called off-topic.

Since I occasionally (but seriously) compose poems and popular songs, I am wondering whether it is suitable to integrate these off-topic works into the collection of my scientific works that is prepared for application to phd programs.

My principal concern is that I am unsure about how this act would look like from the reviewers' angle? Would it be deemed an affectation? Indeed, my wish is merely to present more of me.

Hope ladies and gentlemen (preferably with experience as a reviewer for phd admission) would share me your thoughts, much appreciated.

If answering this question requires more information, please feel free to state that.

Being a mathematician, I must address a logical loophole: I will assume that your field is a STEM field and thus poetry and songs are actually off-topic (and not just called off-topic).

  How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.
  -- Abraham Lincoln

Assuming this: no, I would not submit such creative materials as part of an application to a STEM PhD program.  I wouldn't go so far as to say that submitting such things would be deemed an "affectation": however, unless you make a clear connection to your chosen field, they are simply not relevant.  Including irrelevant things is not a disaster, but it does indicate that you don't have a clear understanding of what is relevant information in the consideration of your own prospects in that program, which is not great.

Most such applications have a personal statement.  Mentioning somewhere in the personal statement that you write poetry and songs sounds about right to me: from one human being to another, that is interesting, and personal statements are often not so interesting.  But be careful here: a "personal statement" is not a statement about you as a person!  It is really an essay explaining why you would be a strong candidate for the program, so things which are not relevant to that should not be dwelled upon.

Many programs do look at the personal statement as a writing sample -- and good writing skills are very relevant in any PhD program, probably more so than any other single quality -- so if you are an unusually good writer the personal statement would be a good opportunity to show your superior skills.  However, trying to do that in the genre of either poetry or song would be so risky and open to negative reactions based on personal taste that I wouldn't recommend it: after all, in most STEM programs you need to be able to write prose, not poetry, and you are not really permitted to burst into song.  This is probably a "color between the lines" situation.

Added: I spent four (recent) years on the committee in charge of graduate admissions in the UGA mathematics department, and I still read some PhD applications every year.

Admissions people are looking for deep thinkers, hard workers, well-rounded individuals, who can collaborate well and communicate effectively.  You can send them a CV that has a section containing secondary things that you're proud of, but which aren't directly relevant to the studies you propose to do.

My experience going to grad school as a returning student leads me to believe that good graduate programs look at the whole person.


Does copyright restrict how I can adapt papers when compiling them into a thesis? I am starting to put together my PhD thesis. The bulk of the thesis will be reprints of papers I have published during my PhD. I am wondering about presentation style.

My personal preference would be to reformat all of my papers into a single LaTeX document so as to have consistent style throughout. It's a bit of extra work, but I would prefer this approach. In several cases my papers have supplementary info which would not fit in the constraints of the main manuscript in the published version, but which could (and probably should) be coherently woven into the main text.

Are these acceptable options? Assuming I get reprint permission from the publishers, is it acceptable to change or partially reorganize the text for the sake of a coherent narrative within the context of the larger thesis? Or do copyright laws require that my reprints be exact reproductions of both content and style as compared to published versions?

I disagree with part of the other answer, in that the copyright holder of a work is not always the creators/authors. For some journals when you publish with them and sign the licensing agreement, you transfer the copyright of your work to the publisher. Then it is up to the publisher to decide how you can reuse your paper. I would advice reviewing the copyright/licensing agreement you signed with your publisher for limitations for reuse, and if still in doubt, contact the publisher.

Just prepare your thesis the way you see fit and don't think too much about publishers or copyrights.


My advisor demands second authorship, but my collaborator contributed much more than him. I don't want to be unethical, what should I do? My PhD supervisor has contributed 0% to my research and he even does not know the basics of my research. On the other hand, I have a collaborator from another university who has contributed significantly to my work. Now that the manuscript is ready to submit, my supervisor demands to be the second author, after me as the first author and before my collaborator. My colleagues recommended that I do whatever he asks because he can easily screw up my life for few years by delaying my graduation. The reason he claims for the second position is that my university pays my scholarship, not my collaborator's university.

I am confused and worried. I do not want to be unethical .... Any idea?

Just and update :
According to my university authorship guidelines
"Acquisition of funding, the collection of data, or general supervision of the research group, by themselves, DO NOT JUSTIFY authorship. "

But if I remind him the ethical issues, it's like a declaration of war!

Your supervisor sounds most unreasonable.  "The reason he claims for the second position is that my university pays my scholarship not my colloborators's school." Perhaps you should add the president of your university as the second author.  (Of course, don't actually do that: it would expose your supervisor's immature behavior in a very passive-aggressive way.)

My feeling is that given the callowness of your supervisor, you should consider yourself fortunate that you are first author. Isn't that what really matters?  That's not a rhetorical question, because in my field ordering of authors is strictly alphabetical, but I don't know of a field in which being second author means much.  So it may well be that your supervisor is just being petty without really harming any of your collaborators.  Anyway, it seems to me that you have already discharged your ethical responsibilities by suggesting what you think is a good ordering of the coauthors.  If the coauthors other than you disagree with the ordering among non-first-authors, isn't it really up to them?  If your other coauthors are among the ones who are advising you to put Professor Immature as second author: under the circumstances, I would go with that.  If on the other hand they object: well, of course they have that right, and they should hash it out with your supervisor.

It sounds like you want to fight this, the best way is always through a lawyer.


Include Disability in Statement of Purpose Should my disability be included in my Statement of Purpose?

Background:

I've recently received my masters degree in mathematics and I'm looking to transfer for my PhD.

I had an undiagnosed neurological disorder for most of my undergraduate career. It wasn't managed until partially into graduate school. It would manifest itself through frequent migraines and even occasional blindness. Consequentially, I would have semesters with low attendance and there would even be the occasional test that I wouldn't attend or that I would attend but be effectively useless.

When it was diagnosed I had it documented with the school's disability services, but I never requested accommodation.

My advisers think I have a shot at some decent schools without knowing about this.

Thoughts:

I don't want to be treated differently at a new school. Especially since it's well managed now and I don't need any accommodations. I also don't want my current advisers to think of me differently. However, it also seems absurd to avoid talking about something that has had such a strong impact on my academic career.

I've seen this question: Graduate school and students with learning disabilities . I didn't feel like it applied to me because I am not requesting accommodations and my disorder is no longer as serious of a problem to me.

Mentioning your disability in your statement of purpose can be helpful to faculty.  Often faculty are trying to ensure there are opportunities for students with disabilities.  To do that, they need students with disabilities to identify themselves.


Seemingly-irrelevant papers, all with author in common, suggested by reviewer I recently received a decision letter calling for minor revisions prior to acceptance. One anonymous reviewer was extremely knowledgeable and provided many helpful suggestions to better explain and clarify my work which I have implemented. However, the other anonymous reviewer simply listed seven papers to include, suggesting I make a "theoretical comparation" and to "plesea [sic] compare them."

I noticed all seven papers listed had one author in common, and none of them are relevant to my work. Given that their review was two sentences with typos followed by a list of papers, I assume they spent little time on my manuscript and perhaps are trying to get their own papers cited.

How can I best politely reject these suggestions? May I address them all together? Could I email the editor with my concerns? Can I request another reviewer to assess my paper?

Think of the review process as a debate between you and the reviewers, with the editor as jury. You would like to convince the reviewers, but ultimately, you want to convince the editor. The editor has called in the reviewers as domain experts so will listen to what they have to say. But ultimately the editor makes up their own mind. It's just that the editor is most likely to give their go-ahead if you and the reviewers come to an agreement. But it's possible that the editor decides to publish even if a reviewer is not positive.

Also, consider that editors are basically the experts on the subject of "reviewers".

I would write three responses. The responses addressed to the reviewers are also passed through the editor (after all, the reviewers are anonymous).

One to the first reviewer, thanking them for their good advice and noting how you'll apply that. This helps to show to the editor that you're taking the review process seriously.
A second one to the second reviewer where you explain why you don't think those seven papers are relevant to your paper. Don't put any accusations here, just give your considered, good-faith view on the relevance of those seven papers.
A third note to the editor only, where you express concern that the second reviewer's review was rather short, that you don't really see the relevance of the papers, and that you noticed that they all have a common author. Ask for the editor's advice on how to proceed.

At that point the editor will probably take a second look at the rather poor quality review, and compare the author list of the proposed seven citations to the name of the reviewer. And advise you on how to proceed.

This answer might not be liked by most, but I would advice against rejecting reviewer's suggestions at this point. It's best to consider benefits and risk of your actions and by setting yourself against the reviewer you may just be making things much harder for yourself.

Instead, do as asked and and add couple of citations to suggested papers and try to get your work approved. After that, if you sill feel like it, you can bring up your concerns as suggested by other answers, but while having a much less to lose because your paper is already approved.

In other words, minimize your own risk and pick a battlefield that is advantageous for you.


Dating former student? Here's the situation: She was an undergrad, I was a grad TA. At that point, our interactions were totally professional and limited to the classroom.  However, she and I both since graduated and left the college/city where we got our degree.  I now am at another university working as a postdoc and she is working outside of academia.  We ran into one another and started spending time with one another.  Our relationship has been platonic, but I get the sense that it could go further, which I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to. I can't imagine that there would be legal problems with pursuing a romantic relationship, but would there be ethical or professional concerns (as an early career academic)?

There are professional/ethical rules at many universities relating to dating between students and staff, but these do not extend to imposing a permanent moratorium on dating between people who have previously attended that institution.  Essentially you are asking if there are any professional or ethical issues in dating another adult who has no connection whatsoever to your current employer.  I cannot see any issue.

I see no problem with it, as long as your employer is fine, which I don't see why they wouldn't be. You're working in an entirely different city than where you worked/graduated, and now work for a different college that she's not affiliated with at all. I see no issue with that whatsoever.

If you want weird/moral/ethical dilemmas, try this on for size: my wife (happily married 7 years and counting) used to be my little sister's babysitter/chauffeur. She's 6 years older than me and lived down the street when we were younger.

Cue my parent's divorce, and getting us 3 kids to school was a challenge due to now only one parent, no one being old enough to drive, the buses not coming near us, etc. I was a freshman, and the high school was close enough to walk to, but the middle and elementary schools were further away, so my little sisters needed a babysitter/chauffeur

My mom hired the girl down the street (future wife) to drive my sisters to and through it all, we started hanging out as friends. Junior year came, and the weird talk about feelings came, etc, etc, etc. Because of this, she chose to quit taking care of my sisters for moral/ethical reasons (she wasn't fired; my parents didn't even know).
I graduated in June, proposed in November, and we were married by May of the next year. Still going strong, though we weirded out my family a bit at first ;)


Why do many talented scientists write horrible software? I am a software engineer and I have been working with people with academic backgrounds for several years. Many times, I've noticed that (even otherwise brilliant scientists) produce code of extremely low quality (unless their background was precisely Computer Science).

Since those people are very good in doing their research - and eventually obtain remarkable results - it seems they are clever enough to write decent code. Is it just that they don't think it's worth the effort? Plain arrogance? Lack of time?

Examples

It seems to me that in academia the most popular languages are C/C++ and Python (neglecting MATLAB and other vendor-specific languages). The language where I have seen the most amazing pieces of junk is actually C++. The main points are:

Really, really naive C++ code. They claim they chose C++ over Java/Python/whatever because "it's faster", but they new everything, even an array of 3 floats that is deallocated few lines later, where 3 is known at compile time.
They have learned pointers from C and they use only them.
Some of them (not most of them) have read some random blog posts about OOP and now put virtual everywhere, using abnormal levels of abstraction.
They are convinced of pointless optimization choices.
They lack proper memory management.
They copy/paste massive amounts of code from project to project and within the same project as well.

And in this list I am omitting the problems with the process, rather than the product. Scientists use:

no version control,
no automated builds,
no documentation,
no software process at all (neither agile, nor traditional waterfall).

The workflow is:

  I devise the algorithm, I write it as a massive 10k LOC piece of C++ and I click build somewhere.

As this assessment could be probably biased by my own experience, I have inspected some open source projects run by researchers (and maybe a few software engineers) and cited in many important papers. Virtually all of them were:

crashing on corner cases,
had ugly GUIs,
and the code - in my opinion - was ready for a complete rewrite.

I'll have a go at this. This is mainly my personal view based on my use and implementation of academic software. Like many of the comments already mentioned, I don't think bad software is specific to or even more frequent in  academia. That said, I think there are a few reasons why it occurs that are specific to the field.

Software is not a priority

In academics, the key performance indicators are all about paper publications. Software, while highly useful in my opinion, has very little value. More often than not, software implementations are side tracks or proof-of-concepts at best used to bump up the citation count (ofcourse exceptions exist).

As a software engineer, I am sure you are aware of the knowledge, time and effort required to produce quality software. Given the publish or perish mantra in academia, this time investment is often spent writing a new publication. It's a risk-reward consideration.

My personal point of view is that quality software is very important. For example, often, the first step in comparing a new algorithm with previous state-of-the-art is reimplementing the state-of-the-art due to a lack of implementation. Obviously this introduces a time delay and can cause a series of bugs. That said, I think in general little will change until software gets valued by performance indicators somehow.

Researchers are not programmers

Most researchers have little or no programming experience, though YMMV depending on the field. I think it's fair to say the majority of researchers learned to program by themselves when confronted with problems where they need it. Superficially learning a language is typically not the problem, but you need more than superficial knowledge to produce quality software (choosing data structures, design patterns, deep knowledge of the language, ...). This is a hurdle for self-taught programmers without a computer science background.

Another problem that less experienced programmers face is not realizing when refactoring is necessary. You can find countless pieces of poorly structured software. In research, this is a natural consequence of iteratively implementing while designing an algorithm which evolves into a monstrous piece of software full of hacks. That monster might still do what it was meant to, though, if you know exactly how to ask it nicely. For many researchers that's where the story ends: get the results and put the beast away forever. It often takes a serious time investment to wash the monster prior to talking it out for a walk in public. This is not always worth it.

Trends in machine learning

My field is machine learning, in which software is being valued increasingly. Examples of this trend include a growing software repository and a position paper by some big names in the field. I am very happy with this evolution, because quality software allows the field as a whole to progress faster and increases reproducibility.

A current patch to the problem is being able to publish papers about peer-reviewed software implementations. I know this is possible in machine learning and statistics. Such software is usually of higher quality.

Qualities that make for a good scientist don't always make for a good software programmer (except, as the OP pointed out, when the "science" happens to be computer science.

Computer coding is a highly precise art. Many people, including good scientists aren't sufficiently precise to write good code easily. This is particularly true of the more "intuitive" types of scientists.

Many scientists find computer programming "boring" and for this reason, don't do well at it. It's true that "regular" science requires detail work, but not to the degree of programming, which many (including yours truly) find "mind numbing."

Basically, if there is zero (or a very weak) correlation between a good scientist and a good programmer, you will get the whole gamut of programming ability, good, middling, and terrible from a population of scientists.


How can I tell if an honor society is legitimate? I recently received an acceptance letter from a honor society (I am leaving off the name for now but can include a link to the website).

The offer said I qualified because of my grades or a nomination. I read a little into it and it a lot more like a sales pitch. Offering discounts, exclusive scholarships, and career services in exchange for a biannual fee.

The website does look very professional. I am not sure if it is a scam, a profit driven real honor society, or what else. Aside from intuition is there any ways to tell what an invitation entails without all the hype?

Also, even if they are a profit driven business is it likely worth time to invest in a short term membership?

In all of my experience: no one within academia cares about honor societies whatsoever.  To expand on that: in academia we routinely (closer to constantly) evaluate people based on their academic qualifications, in a very serious way: i.e., the "winners" get offered substantial scholarships and/or jobs.  Not once have I ever heard anyone mention membership in an honor society in any of these decisions.  Not for faculty hiring, not for graduate admissions, not for picking TA's...never.

When I was an undergraduate I did join Phi Beta Kappa (junior year: whoop de frickin' doo) and Sigma Xi.  The way I recall it, I was moderately encouraged to do so by my undergraduate program.  And I must say that the amount of money that I gave to these people -- if any; maybe my school paid it themselves? -- was truly negligible: at most $40, or something like that.  Based on this money, for many years afterwards I got:

Regular newsletters from the organizations that made what looked like reasonable attempts at giving me some kind of scientific / academic contacts.  (Not that I read them...)
Semi-regular very strange calls offering to sell me gold-laminated books and other such frippery.  Often these were done with enough of a "hard-sell" solicitation to get me a little steamed: one caller spoke breathlessly about the gold-laminated books and at the end asked me how many additional copies I wanted to order at a discounted price.  I mentioned that she skipped an important step, and she asked what that was.  I revealed that at no point in the conversation had she asked me whether I was even the slightest bit interested in buying anything from her.  The rest of the conversation was brief but tense.

Based on these experiences, whenever any student asks me whether they should join an honor society -- the ones which are not supposed to be scams, like Phi Beta Kappa -- I say "I do not advise you to do it if you have to pay more than the most negligible amount of money."

However, I have occasionally talked to other faculty and university personnel about this issue, and their experiences are not always as negative as mine.  What I suspect may be true (but I have unfortunately never had the occasion to find out!) is that: academic honors societies may be useful for people who are leaving academia, by providing some kind of modest continuing contact with the academic world.  I mean, the idea that I need to open up a bi-annual newsletter and read about what other academics are doing makes no sense for me: I learn about what other academics are doing by going to work.  But for people who go off into industry -- or something else -- maybe it is valuable.  On the other hand, I have to imagine that, as with so many things, the internet makes this kind of thing largely obsolete: the amount of access that any citizen of the world with an internet connection has to current academic activity is greater now than what any professor had twenty years ago.

One final question: does anyone care if your CV says you are a Phi Beta Kappa (junior year!)?  I suspect not -- as someone else mentioned, these awards are given for your GPA, and you put your GPA on your CV anyway.  But I would, as ever, be interested to hear other perspectives.

People do care about honor societies.  That includes prospective employers, your peers, your teachers, your family and friends, as well as you.  I've seen an endless amount of these types of discussions on the internet as well as within groups of people I know in college.  And, there are always very similar responses from two distinct groups: people who are actually in them (both the legitimate ones and the less prestigious ones), and the other large contingent of people who are not invited and who just outright know next to nothing about the honor society being discussed.

There's always going to be noise from people who neither put in the work, nor have the successful mentality to appreciate the role of rewards when persevering through long stretches of almost unthinkable difficulty in school.  My advice is to ignore these people.  They will exist throughout your entire life and will never cease trying to convince you that your success is unnecessary, and that you should lower your standards to match theirs.  I promise you.  These people will exist in every nook and cranny of your life from now until you die.  It's best to shoo them away and bring in other success-minded people who lift you up.

There are indeed some hokey honor societies out there who don't have the history or structure to hold any weight.  Golden Key was the best example of this at my university.  I couldn't find a single person who could recommend joining.  Although their requirements are so-so (I believe it's upper 10% of your class), no-one thinks highly of this.  And, there's very little practical incentive to join like scholarships, discounts, etc.  Despite being invited, I did not join this group.

But, there are in fact many honor societies that will incite looks of approval from esteemed professors, directors, chairs of departments, and potential employers.  I know this because I have personally experienced it.  There are professors teaching your classes who were not invited to join honor societies.  Many partners at firms I've interviewed with are not members and were not invited.  Acknowledgement of my membership in these honor societies is a frequent point of discussion and I've never had anything but positive feedback about my involvement with them.

Aside from the hokey honor societies like Golden Key I am excluding, there are two major types of honor society you can join: major-specific like Beta Alpha Psi which is specific to accounting majors, and large, interdisciplinary honor societies like Phi Kappa Phi and Omicron Delta Kappa.  These two different types are similar, but serve different practical purposes.  I'm an accounting major, so I've been involved with Beta Alpha Psi for almost a year now. The requirements aren't that demanding: 3.0, involvement in a BAP committee, and 20 professional/service hours per semester.  But, the rewards of involvement are HUGE for a prospective CPA.  I've been heavily involved with all large and small firms (both local and big four), and I've been interviewed and offered jobs frequently.  (And on a side note, there is nothing more academically rewarding than being able to constantly turn down offers for both internships and FT jobs.)  I am good friends with many of the top notch students, and casually acquainted with most accounting firms.  This is an immense advantage and it's directly linked with my involvement with Beta Alpha Psi.

The other two I mentioned, Phi Kappa Phi and Omicron Delta Kappa, have a completely different criteria for joining and thus, serve a completely different purpose.  These are a traditional "honor society" that most people think of when these talks come up.  But, there are very specific reasons why I both wanted to join, and actively pursued fulfilling the requirements to join when I first started college.  First, they are exclusive and prestigious.  At my university, these two are the only two honor societies formally recognized when you graduate.  Second, they have high standards for joining.  Phi Kappa Phi is based off how high your GPA is in relation to yours peers and only invites juniors and seniors.  Since I was invited as a Junior, I know I have a higher GPA than 92.5% of the people in my class.  Despite what people will attempt to convince you in discussion forums, this is something to be very proud of.  Omicron Delta Kappa has what I feel are even stricter requirements.  At my university, you have to maintain above a 3.3 gpa, but also demonstrate 3/5 leadership skills by active involvement in your university, community, etc.  This was the HS I was most proud to be invited to, and I happily joined.  Third, both of these HS' are over 100 years old, have many successful, very well recognized names among their ranks like past presidents, politicians, artists, scientists, etc., and are pretty much universally acknowledged as being an honor to join.  And finally fourth, you get to wear honor cords and/or stoles when you graduate.

So to sum up, try to avoid getting caught up in the net of bitter people who don't encourage you to enjoy your success and rewards for hard work.  Again, they will attempt to buzz around and distract you for the rest of your life.  Whatever people try to convince you, no-one is getting rich on some obscure concept of an honor society scam.  These organizations run on a shoestring budget consisting mainly of volunteers and charitable donations.  If it is a "scam," it's the worst scam in history created by some of the brightest individuals available.  It doesn't hurt to have these on your resume, but it's also very rewarding to be a part of something that rewards and encourages excellence.  Most of the people who matter will think highly of your membership as many of the people teaching you weren't invited or are not members.  Good luck!  I hope this sheds some much needed light on your decision.

p.s. As someone above me mentioned, being involved in a leadership role will always be more advantageous than just being a passive participant.  But, it just depends on the nature of the HS.  I'm running for an officer position at the end of this semester in Beta Alpha Psi, but I have virtually no involvement in the others.  I know this is a huge boost to my resume, but it's more of a practical decision that is slightly outside the topic of discussion here.


Whether to tell his prospective employer that a new male post doc opposes affirmative action for women in academia? I personally know a male graduate student who works in a different area (in STEM) than mine and who has a potentially controversial view.  He opposes to affirmative actions for women in academia and outreach activities for female teenagers conducted by a university.  He's repeatedly and openly expressed his idea on his public Facebook post, in his (and my) native language, which is not English.

This particular student is soon graduating and has been granted a post as a post-doc at a very prestigious university in the U.S., from (I suppose) this fall on.  I don't think that whoever in charge of hiring him knows his view, since, albeit they are public, his posts are not written in English.

While I don't know if his beliefs should prevent him from being hired, I do think that this may be a potential concern to his future employers.

Obviously I'm really concerned about his views and feel that, since they are expressed openly, it might be appropriate to make sure his prospective employers know about them. Is there a professional way to do this, or is it the case that no matter how baleful and publicly expressed the views may be, I should play no part in informing his prospective employers?

Corrigendum: I should have been really, really careful as to how to put my question.  For one thing, I don't see his view anti-feminist.  The word anti-feminist appears there (with quotation marks) because I couldn't think of a good adjective.  It could have been anything else.  Since so many people are distracted by this, I remove the word completely.

Mind your own business.

If you believe that your colleague poses an actual threat to someone, it is of course your duty to warn them.  But opinions are not threats.  It is entirely up to your colleague who he shares his opinions with.  Revealing your colleague's opinions to his future employer, no matter how offensive you may find them, would be a violation of his privacy.

I can argue this both ways.

On the one hand, I do believe that while public speech should be free, people are also free to react to that speech. So if you really believe that this candidate should be rejected for shooting off his mouth, you're entitled to say so. (Exactly as entitled as he was to make the comments in the first place ... which comparison may indicate why you might not want to do so.)

On the other hand, a person's views -- however obnoxious you find them -- are their own. If they act on those views, including voicing them in a way/time/place that creates a hostile workplace, that's a problem and should be addressed at that time.
Until then, they're entitled to disagree even if you find that disagreeable.

I guess my answer would be: If asked, you can certainly voice your concern. I'm not at all convinced it's appropriate to do so if you aren't asked. Remember that the folks accepting/hiring this grad student are perfectly capable of websearching him themselves, and these days have probably done so as part of their HR process. If they've taken him anyway, odds are that you won't change their mind unless there's more going on than you've told us.

And really, how important is it for you to sabotage him, and why? Let him get himself into trouble, if he's going to. Or let him learn how not to. It really doesn't sound like he's a danger to anyone.


Is a PhD degree from a European university considered equally valuable as one from the US? I earned my PhD in continental Europe. Except going to a few conferences outside Europe, my network, collaborations and events were all in Europe so I was pretty much living in a European bubble. I am still here, but now that I am in a faculty position I started collaborating with people from everywhere and travel quite a lot outside Europe. As much as I try to avoid generalizing and I am aware that much is field dependent, there are some things I noticed about the general perception of European PhD degrees (and this can probably be extended to universities in general) outside Europe:

Students from Asia (especially from China and Korea) I met said that they prefer going to the US for a PhD, and Europe is only a second option because of less prestige.
When I was considering applying to positions in the US, a few people told me informally that I don't have good chances as those who apply with PhD degrees from US universities, without even considering my CV.

But my experience is conflicting and makes me confused:

I visited a few universities in the US, and noticed that people doing a PhD are treated as students rather than as employees, financially they struggle and most of them have to work on stuff other than research (taking courses, teaching). Frankly the whole system looks miserable to me. In many European countries they would be employed with a decent salary and benefits, focus only on research, have a better travel support, among other benefits. If one was given the choice between the two, I don't understand why anyone would go to the US to do a PhD instead of Europe (no hard feelings) and consider it a better option.
Judging from job applications I get from fresh PhD graduates around the world, on average those with a PhD from the US are not better than others (I am aware that this might be biased because good PhD graduates in the US often prefer staying there).
American PhD theses I have seen are not as good as those from Europe. For example, in the Netherlands most PhD students must publish a few journal papers before they graduate (some have 4-5, and this doesn't include conference papers). The theses are usually of high quality, and are even published as books. Looking at recent PhD theses at elite US universities like Stanford, Harvard, Berkeley and MIT, I cannot help but consider them less good and with less contribution.

This will likely strongly depend on the field, but in general I find that the average PhD experience, student wellbeing and quality of work in Europe is no worse than in the US, if not better. Yet, people worldwide seem to favor US degrees.

Is a PhD degree from a European university considered equally valuable as one from the US?
If not, why is there this gap and lower perception of PhD degrees from Europe?

One simple answer is no, the two aren't equally valued, because the two are also not even regarded as equal.  As a trite example, consider that many European countries (especially the German-influenced ones) are very picky about which letters you can put before or after your name.  I have a dual-degree, so I am "allowed" to use Dr. as a legal part of my name in Germany; but my officemate with a solely American Ph.D. cannot.  The way in which doctorates are made is also vastly different-- the U.S. requires coursework and then research, (often) mixed with lots of (often underpaid) teaching duties, while European doctorates typically frontload on the research and are light on teaching responsibilities.  Those different experiences produce different palettes of qualificiations and skill sets.  It's no wonder that if you're primarily paid to do research, you'll probably produce a better thesis than someone who had to perform teaching duties 20 hours a week.

However, there's also the danger of regarding "Europe" as a monolith.  I've heard anecdotes from some Italians who struggled to get funding to finish their degrees without taking on big teaching duties. (But see comments by @MassimoOrtolano.)  Croatia, Romania, and Bulgaria all suffer from "brain-drain" as young folk go west for education.  And I get the sense that when people say "Europe" in the context of academia, they're almost always, knowingly or unknowingly, referring to Germany, France, and the UK.  Few other European entities have as much economic, political, or historical influence as those three.

Along the same lines, Europe comprises dozens of different languages and cultures.  Asian students are more likely to already know English than French or German (or Dutch or Polish or Finnish...) and therefore will seek a degree in an English-speaking country.  American culture and accents are more familiar to the world than, say, British or Australian, because of the movie and music industries.  (The UK is also not super stable in terms of immigration standards at the moment.)  Seeking a degree in the U.S. is then just plain easier-- you don't have to spend time learning a new language or adjusting to a new culture.  For these students, it may be that because English is the de facto language of science, the notion of what's considered "prestigious" just followed blindly.

I got my Ph.D. from a small university in Northern Ontario (Canada).  I have been working in the private sector and know very little about getting into academia.

To the best of my understanding, your likelihood of success is determined by the quality of your publication record.  Then the pedigree of your education comes second.

I've found there is always one-up manship that goes on between Europe and the US - and not just on the basis of academics.  European patents are purportedly harder to get than those in the US.


I found published results of my mentor to be wrong. How to tell her? For the last few days, I have been trying to reproduce things in a published paper (in quite a reputed journal) from my field. My postdoc mentor is the last author of the paper and the main work was carried out by her collaborators from a different institute and a first author is finishing his Ph.D.

When I saw the paper, I immediately got skeptical because they had missed some obvious things, so I rewrote all the code from scratch and, after a week's extensive checking and cross-checking, confirmed that their results are completely wrong. I told two of my trusted colleagues and they asked me to tell my mentor this. However, I am quite uncomfortable and confused about this.

The student who is the first author has based a big part of his later work on these results. This means that the later work by the student might also be completely wrong. My question is how to proceed from here? Can I ask my mentor to retract their paper? Or should I ask her permission to write a comment about the paper? If I do either of these (or something else which reveals that those results are wrong), would I be considered guilty of destroying the thesis of the first author guy?

I really appreciate any type of help in this matter. Thanks in advance.

Edit: All the answers and comments here are very helpful and I thank you all for them. However, I think I was slightly vague while asking. I very well understand that I could be certainly wrong. But the question is what do I do if I am not? In that case, what should be done? (As things stand, they have surely got at least one plot wrong because it directly goes against a famous fundamental theorem. I got this confirmed from a few people in the field.)

As a matter of fact, I believe there is no such thing as guilt or ruin
for other people's work when it comes to the academic aspect of the knowledge.
Actually, if you do not share this with your mentor in order to be fixed, you
may ruin many other further research...

I suggest you do this respectfully and carefully. You can go to your mentor and talk about this problem. You can show her your code and your understanding from the paper, then confirm whether or not you are right. Let her decide what she can do about this. There is also a slight chance you have made a technical mistake while investigating their work, so keep this in mind when you discuss the issue.

Right now, you don't know that your mentor's paper is "wrong." What you do know is that your results differ from hers.

Because she is your mentor, I would approach her in this spirit, and say, "I was trying to replicate your paper, and came up with entirely different results. One of us is doing something wrong, and it's probably me. Could you explain why your results are so different from mine?

It's possible that she'll point out some error in your logic or code, and you'll be saved the embarrassment of making a false accusation. It's also possible that you are correct, and by treading softly, you will keep her on your side. If you are right, you will give her the chance be a "hero" by contacting the others involved with the paper and suggesting that it needs to be corrected. Inwardly, she will be grateful to you for saving her from embarrassment.


Is IRB approval required (by publishers or otherwise) for volunteer human subjects research? Update: Thanks for the answers. I reworded and numbered the questions for clarification.
As a volunteer endeavor, I want to do online survey and education research. I am not being paid for the work, and the research participants are also not being paid. I am in the United States.

Legally, do I need to obtain IRB approval to conduct the research?
Legally, can I self-publish (e.g. blog)?
Would any reputable journal accept results obtained without any IRB approval?
What might the legal consequences be for not obtaining approval?
If I'm not associated with any IRB, how would I get approval?
Does it matter what my job is if I do the research in my personal time?
What about a collaborator at a university who is helping as a volunteer researcher in their personal time?

Many journals have policies that require authors to have obtained IRB approval (or its equivalent in countries other than the US) as a condition of publication for any paper that involves human subjects. Here, the consequence of not obtaining IRB approval would be that your paper isn't published.

If you are employed by an institution that has a policy on human subjects research than you may be required to obtain IRB approval for any research project involving human subjects by your institution's policy, whether or not the research is sponsored by the institution or makes any use of the resources of the institution.  Here, the consequences of not obtaining IRB approval could include being fired from your job.

There are Commercial Institutional Review Boards that provide review and oversight for research involving human subjects outside of an institution with its own review board.  These are used, for example, by companies that do human subjects research as part of the development of new products.

If you can, it would probably help if you could find an academic partner interested in the study. This way you could apply with the ethics board at their institution, and it would probably strengthen the impact of your survey.


By what title should I greet assistant and associate professors in emails and letters? By what title should I greet assistant and associate professors in emails and letters? I study in the UK and for post-doctorands up to senior lectures one uses "Dear Dr. X", but for professors one uses "Dear Professor. X".

Assistant and Associate Professors in the US can be formally addressed by "Professor" or "Doctor/Dr.". There should be no offense given with either salutation, and either is appropriate.

Assoc. Professor X is how. After the first email may it be ok to use first names if they sign off as such or if the tone of the email suggests it is fine


Code hosting platform that allows sharing through link I am finishing my thesis (Physics) and need to add a link to all the codes I created to do the analysis presented in the manuscript.

The codes are not polished and they are intended to be public eventually but not just yet. So I need a platform that will allow me to have a private project that can be seen through a link for the review committee and for other students to see only. Github and GitLab do not offer this and can't find a webpage that does.

There are a lot of codes and they are separated by folders to distinguish the different areas in which they were used. So whatever webpage needs to be able to have a similar structure than GitHub.

Does anyone know where I could find this sort of feature? Thanks!

PD: If you know of the appropriate tags to use in this question I would appreciate you letting me know which ones those are.

Option 1

Based on your requirements, it doesn't seem that you need the code to be directly accessible from a browser. So the traditional solution would be to create an archive (e.g. zip file) protected by a password, and make this file accessible for instance through your institution website or Google Drive, Dropbox etc. Then you give the link and the password to whoever you want and they can download and browse it on their own computer.

Pro: protected and accessible through link
Cons: not accessible from a browser

Option 2

As an academic, you can have private Github repositories for free (probably also on other platforms). The people who need to access your code will need to have an account themselves, and you will have to explicitly grant access to them in the Github interface.

Pro: protected and accessible from a browser
Cons: requires people to create an account if they don't have one already

Option 3

Since your code is meant to be made public eventually, you could simply create a public repository and give the link to the people who need to access it. It doesn't really matter that the code is not polished or even finished, Github and other platforms are designed for projects under active development anyway (and you can  mention "work in progress" in the README file to make this clear). Additionally it's quite unlikely that anybody would find your code among the millions of repositories, unless you advertise it in a paper or webpage.

Pro: accessible from a browser, no need for an account
Cons: accessible to anyone who finds it

Option 4

I hesitated mentioning this one since it's kind of hacky, but for the sake of completeness: Overleaf is a platform meant for sharing Latex documents. Like github, it is backed by git, so as far as I know you can actually create a directory structure and push any file there. Then you can share the repository as a link, which contains a long random key so it's impossible for somebody to find it by chance.

Pro: private, accessible from a link, no account required for people to access it
Cons: kind of a hack

If you just need to share a single file of code, and the file directory of the project does not matter, www.pastebin.com allows you to publish text files onto the Internet and share them with people by giving them links.


Should I inform the journal that I'm the actual first author? It's been about 2 years since I've left academia, partly because of the kind of deeds that I'm about to describe to give a bit of context to the question.

About a month ago I was CCed in an email exchange involving my former PhD supervisor and one of our collaborator, a Post-doc in Mathematics (from now on referred to as the Post-doc). The email said that one of our papers, that we submitted to a journal about 2 years ago (that's right) was finally rejected (better late than never I suppose).

Recently, I have received a letter from the Journal of Functional Analysis that informed me that I have been indicated as a co-author of a publication recently submitted by my former supervisor. It is of course yet another attempt to get the paper published somewhere. Although the fact that the choice of journal is a questionable one (JFA is published by Elsevier, which I would gladly boycott, but this is a whole different matter I won't get into), what startled me was the fact that the Post-doc has been indicated as First Author.

Now, a clarification about the paper is due in order to understand the situation better. Most if not all of the original draft of the paper was written by me, and it pretty much contained most of my research work, which then turned into my PhD thesis together with some later results that I have obtained. There have been times when I got stuck on some points, in which cases a few chats with my supervisor helped overcome the problems. The contributions from the Post-doc towards the final version of the paper are, to say the least, very questionable. One way to summarise them is perhaps with the expression unintentional sabotage. The Post-doc kept changing sentences in the paper because he thought we was improving it. I'm not an English native speaker and nor is the Post-doc, but his English was definitely worse than mine and, as a consequence, I had to spend hours reverting his changes, over and over again. Not to mention his competency with the mathematical content of the paper itself. A good part of the time we spent in meetings to discuss the contents at the board, it was basically me (a PhD student in Pure Math with a degree in Physics at that time) recollecting basic school maths facts (literally) for the sake of the Post-doc who didn't seem to remember them (or know them altogether).

Don't get me wrong on this though. I am in no way implying that there is an voluntary attempt at bad deeds here. Knowing my former supervisor, this is what I think it is going on with the paper submission. Given that I am no longer in academia, it benefits nobody if the paper is submitted with me as first author. Hence it would make more sense to indicate the Post-doc as first author since he is still somehow making his way in the academic world.

Whilst I would totally support this decision in general as very sensible, I find it hard to go by it in this particular case, given the scenario I have described above. By allowing the Post-doc to be first author, my former supervisor is (I believe inadvertently) helping someone to be where he's probably not supposed to be, taking the chance away from someone who is more qualified. You wouldn't believe how many successful applications the Post-doc has had, given his actual knowledge on the subject. The only explanation that I could come up with is that, somehow, people are happy to offer the Post-doc a place at their departments to enjoy of his buffoonery (possibly his only positive aspect).

Now, after this long introduction, here comes the question: Should I notify the journal that I am the actual first author?

I think you've misunderstood the situation.  It appears to me that this is being handled properly by your co-authors, and any action on your part would be inappropriate.

As you've clarified, you and your co-authors are following the usual authorship convention for pure math, which is that authors are listed alphabetically, with the corresponding assumption that all authors contributed equally to the paper.  (Of course, this is often a polite fiction, but you're on board with it now and so it doesn't behoove you to denigrate their contributions.)  You say the alphabetical order here is Postdoc, RecentStudent (that's you), Supervisor.

From the journal's point of view, "first author" just means literally that: whose name should be printed first on the title page?  And since you've decided to use alphabetical order, Postdoc is indeed the "first author" in that sense.  So it is absolutely correct that he's identified as "first author" in the journal's paperwork.  Nobody is playing any funny games here.

Any significance attached to the ordering of the authors, or who comes first, is in the minds of the authors and the readers.  The journal doesn't want to get involved in the question of who is the "primary" author, or who did the most work, and they really don't care.  They just want all the authors to agree on what should go on the title page, and which name should be printed first, second, third, etc.  Any way is fine with them so long as the authors all approve.

If it helps, the submission form for JFA has a section that looks like this:

You click the little arrows to change the order.  Note that "First Author" is automatically attached to whoever is first on the list.

You definitely should not tell the journal that you're the "actual" first author.  They'll interpret this as a sign that you want to be listed first, and thus the authors are not in agreement about what should appear on the title page.  They'll put the whole submission on hold until they can be assured that the three of you have worked it out.  This will greatly annoy your co-authors, especially since it seems to have already been understood that alphabetical order was to be used.

If you really wanted to be listed first (i.e. out of alphabetical order), in principle you could open that discussion with your co-authors, but I think it would reflect poorly on you, especially at this late date.  I don't advise that.  In any case they'd have to agree.  The journal won't settle such disputes for you.

As a side remark, your co-authors really should have asked you before submitting to a new journal.  It sounds like it's not worth making a fuss about it now, but you might ask them politely to involve you in the journal selection process in case it needs to be done again (which is not unlikely; JFA is pretty selective).  They may have assumed that, since you're no longer in academia, you wouldn't really care and would rather not be bothered - not really a valid assumption, but perhaps understandable.  As for the boycott, it's a fine point to bring up in a discussion, but I think most people feel it would be poor form to insist if your co-authors don't feel the same - especially if, as in the Postdoc's case, they're at a career stage where "getting published in the best journal" has to take precedence over idealistic considerations.

If it is you who obtained the central data and wrote the manuscript, there is no doubt that you should be the first author.

I think before you contact the journal, it is better to first talk with your former supervisor about your concern.


Is it plagiarism to use other people's phrases / formulations / wordings? Is it plagiarism if I use other peoples formulations and phrases? What if I do so massively? Or let's say, the structure or rough form of their essays?

(I think it should be, but I would like to know what most people think, leaving aside that it might be difficult to discover it when somebody just copies someone very roughly in form)

There's no hard-and-fast rule that if you copy 6 words, that's okay but 10 is not but, copying the substance of someone else's work, making only cosmetic changes is called "close paraphrasing" and would likely be considered plagiarism even if the source is cited.  If it was, as you say, "massive" or if it omitted any citations to the original work, then, without doubt, that would absolutely be considered plagiarism.  As an instructor, I know that if I discovered it in something a student submitted to me, I would certainly report it as suspected academic misconduct and I would expect my report to be sustained.

Here's an article you may find helpful:  Successful vs. unsuccessful paraphrases

The case you point out is plagiarism; it just fits (almost) perfectly with the definition of that concept. To have a definition, go on the fallowing link: http://www.plagiarism.org/plagiarism-101/what-is-plagiarism/

You should at least try to reformulate, and to resume the works of the ones you are taking sentences from. Also, you can quote them, and add at the end of your paper a bibliography section, were you refer to them.


what is the best software for drawing mechanical mechanism? I want a software which I can use to draw mechanisms like this picture:

Update:
the author told me that : "the figure was made in Adobe Photoshop/Illustrator by tracing the hand-drawn kinematic diagrams."

This type of request is usually something authors will gladly address. Since this images comes from recent paper (2018), you should write to corresponding authors or journal editor, asking how this image was produced. In fact, providing such information is part of obligation when people publish work, your request will not be unusual at all.


What exactly is "campus security"? I read this question where a teaching assistant asks how to deal with an aggressive student.

In her answer, the user Nicole Hamilton gives advice to call campus security. Now, in my naive foreign thinking, whenever the word "campus security" came up, I imagined this to be similar to a discotheque's security people: a single strong person (or a team) who would be in the university building during its opening hours, helping de-escalate conflicts and throwing out aggressive people.

However, the user "apparente001" advises the OP to "do not hesitate to call campus security for an escort while leaving your building at night" (in a comment). This suggests that campus security is more: A university employee apparently may call these security people at any time to any (reasonable?) place to escort them (I assume, provided that some incident happened like the one described by OP). From the Wikipedia article, I understand campus police (is this the same as campus security?) to be police officers who only serve in university.

However (at least in my country), I could not simply call the police to escort me at night when something "vague" like the incident described in the question happened. (I do not want to say the the incident is not serious - however, I doubt a police officer would escort me at night if I told them that very incident).

So I take it that campus security/campus police must be something different: an organisation any university employee can call at any time. Can you tell me more about this concept?

In particular, the question which interest me are:

Is campus police/campus security the same concept?
What exactly does campus police/campus security for university employees? When can they be called and for what purpose?
Can university students (if they are not at the university building) also call them? If yes, to what extend do they help them?

While the original question specifies no country, I have the feeling that the OP and the user "apparente001" are talking about US or Canada. (I may be wrong, through.) Therefore, I also would be (mainly) interested in information about these countries.

Many universities (both public and private) in the US have campus police.  These are actual police officers who can carry guns and have the power to arrest someone or write a citation.  On a large campus with tens of thousands of students, this can be a quite sizable police force.  The campus police typically have jurisdiction limited to the university campus, but in some cases, they share jurisdiction with local police in the area near campus.

Other universities have campus security.  These are security guards who operate much like the security guards you might find at a sporting event or concert.  They don't have full police powers, but they can certainly remove someone from campus who is misbehaving.  When an incident becomes serious, they'll call in the local police force.

"Security" is often used as a generic name for these forces, whether or not they have actual police powers.  On many campuses, there is a mixture of police (more highly trained and paid more) and security guards (less trained and less expensive) that are assigned to deal with different kinds of situations.

So,

Not exactly.  Campus police have full police powers (to arrest, use
deadly force, etc.)  Campus security typically has less authority.
Campus police or security are typically the first responders for criminal activity (robbery, assault, etc.)  They enforce campus rules that may not carry criminal penalties.  Campus security can call in the local police for more serious incidents.   Anyone on campus (students, faculty, or staff) can call in the campus police or security, although making a frivolous complaint could get you in trouble.
Unless there's some jurisdiction agreement between campus police and the regular local police force, it wouldn't be appropriate to call the campus police to respond to an incident off campus- the campus police would transfer your call to the appropriate police department.  Note that "campus" might include all university-owned buildings, even if they're physically distant from the main campus.  In particular, university-owned housing is typically "on campus."

At another level, most campuses in the US have their own set of rules for student conduct and an administrative process for judging students who are charged with violating the rules.  This is separate from the legal system.  It gives some leeway to university administrators to deal with infractions that might be crimes if they were handled by the regular legal system.  This can be controversial, particularly when it extends to more serious offenses such as sexual assault.

P.S.

Some large campuses in the US also have their own staff to provide firefighting and emergency medical assistance.  When there are science and engineering labs, it's particularly important that firefighters be trained in how to deal with emergencies involving hazardous materials.

Many campuses in urban areas have free escort services- a student (or even a staff or faculty member) calls up security to request an escort to walk with them (or give a ride in a car) from one part of campus to another. You can't expect instant service, but a typical wait time might be 20 minutes.   The escort might be provided by a campus police officer who is already out on patrol, but it's more common for there to be a group of non-police employees and vehicles dedicated to this. These services are mostly used late at night- if you've been working in your lab until 1 am, you might want an escort back to your dormitory or the parking garage.

In the US, the Clery Act requires colleges and universities to prepare an annual report with statistics on crimes and other incidents (such as fires) that occur on and near campus.  Potential students often read these reports to determine whether a campus is "safe."   This has made campus safety an important concern to administrators.

You're running into a side effect of a capitalist system.  For the most part, US universities, both public and private, are run as businesses, and the main customers are the parents.  If the parents believe that a particular university is not safe, well there are plenty others to choose from.

Therefore the campus police/campus security will do whatever is needed to make the students feel safe, within reason. As faculty you will benefit from this approach, so yes, if you don't feel safe, don't hesitate to call them.


Existing hypothesis, same country, but different years and setting – is it plagiarism? I am working on a master-thesis research paper. Recently, I have chosen a research topic and found a related survey dataset to work with. However, just now, I have found out that other authors did the same work for the same country, but used a different survey and for years earlier. Now, I am confused about what to do. If I would carry on the research, would it be considered as a plagiarism, even though I will use another survey for later years, and work in a different setting?

Plagiarism is selling somebody else’s idea as your own. Therefore as long as you properly cite the other paper, you are in no danger of committing plagiarism. The worst that can happen is that you are reproducing an existing study¹ instead of doing something novel. Whether this is a problem, is for you and your supervisor to decide, as you know the differences in detail.

On top, suppose you hadn’t found out about the other study: In this case you would not have committed plagiarism since you cannot possibly use the ideas of others without knowing them. Had you published your paper in this case, you would perhaps² be guilty of sloppy literature research, but not of plagiarism. However, the evidence may (incorrectly) point to you being a plagiarist and thus you still want to avoid this situation.

¹ which scientists almost universally agree on being done too rarely.
² if the other paper is sufficiently easy to find

Probably not.  However, it is not possible to be certain without reading both studies.


How do I deal with an old reference letter from an advisor for job applications? I wrote my graduate advisor asking him to updated his reference letters for me, but he has yet to respond. I e-mailed him again, but he and I did not have the best relationship, and I am worried that now that I have graduated, he may not do this for me. I was curious about I should do in the situation that he refuses to update it.

I have been told it raises questions when a letter is not included in applications.

His old letter is stored on mathjobs.org, and the last date was probably April of this year. I was curious that, if I have to, would it look bad if I use the old letter?

If anything, since I have deadlines coming up, can I use the old letter as a placement? I was told I can mention that a letter should be updated soon in my cover letter.

Not exactly an answer, but a couple things to note.

Letters on MathJobs expire eventually; I think you can see the expiration date on the "cover sheet" page. It will be very awkward if it expires partway through the application process.

Also, note that your advisor will be able to remove or update the letter at any time, which could be a problem if he is really vindictive - he could replace the letter with something unfavorable.

So in short, regardless of how an old letter looks to the committee, it may not be wise to use the letter against your advisor's wishes.

Using an old letter of reference might not be so effective, due to a variety of reasons. Firstly, most of position holders expect to have the most recent status of the applicant from the presented information within the letters. So, you should not wonder if such committees will not take considerable attention to a letter, does which consist of the explanation about you, corresponding to some long time ago. Secondly, even if no date has been inserted within the letter and the committee would accept it, you better not to use such letter. Because, your current situation could be, noticeably, better than that time and the more recent letters will, totally, reflect a more up-to-date overview from you.

In a positive perspective about the advisor's behavior in this story, you could assume that he might not consider himself as a qualified referencing person for you, anymore. He knew you and your characteristics for some times ago and could not be sure to depict you as well as that time. Therefore, he might be no longer to act as a right reference for you, now.

It is, however, inevitable to use the old letter, if your time up to the deadlines are restricted.