Should I include web pages in the references I am doing a course in a university. Course has 60% of weightage alloted to the project (which involves implementing algrithm to solve a problem), which we may turn into thesis if at all we succeed to find out something new (we have only one semester duration). I have to write a initial document of the work. I want to know if its ok to specify webpages (which I went through for some related information, not strictly of referred jornal papers, but some articles on some site) as references. I have never seen any journal paper to include webpage URL in the references. But, at least now, mine is a project and not a thesis (not yet come up with something new). So, I was thinking whether should I include webpage references.
Q.1 I was thinking I should include them as long as its a project (implementation of existing algorithms). Once I come up with something new, I can skip webpages and specify only non webpage references (books and journal papers which helped me find new algorithm) in the thesis. Am I correct with this?
Q.2 Also if I have to include webpage as a reference, in what format should I?

The general rule for such things is that if you use the work of others for things not commonly known, then you must cite them. So, yes, cite web pages as needed and quote, formally, from them also when needed. But cite them even if you paraphrase things.
You also probably need to do more than just include a list of references at the end of the paper. The reason for including a reference should be made clear, usually in the text itself. There are exceptions to this, but it is better to be clear about why you include a reference and to be specific about what you have used within any referenced article.
The form of the citation/reference is a bit less important than the fact of it and unless you are given some specific format, use examples from things you read. Use something similar to what is used in Wikipedia or a textbook if you have no better source.

One note about citing web pages. Since such things can change without notice, the correct thing is to include the date at which you last read/used the web page. "Last accessed 29 Jan 2021" for example

The answer is a definitive YES. We live in the information age and fully connected to the internet 24/7, where everything is a web link address.
One may ask the question differently: the web address is long and ugly. In such cases, the writer should try to find a more standard and commonly used address link. For instance, use links of type DOI when referencing a published article.
For example, http://doi.org/10.3352/jeehp.2013.10.3
An example of a reference in APA style is as follows: (boldface type added for emphasis but not included in the reference):
Morey, C. C., Cong, Y., Zheng, Y., Price, M., & Morey, R. D. (2015). The color-sharing bonus: Roles of perceptual organization and attentive processes in visual working memory. Archives of Scientific Psychology, 3, 18–29. https://doi.org/10.1037/arc0000014.
As last resort can use an address shortener, as long as a clear description is made before including the link in text paragraph (otherwise you may leave the reader wondering what is the link for)
Remember that all the style manuals are especially picky about how citations are formatted and those styles can change over time, so when you’re including a Web address in a citation, be sure to check the specific style you’re supposed to be following. For example, the current APA style is to not put a period after a URL in a citation. Their rationale is that the specific alphanumeric sequence is important because it is what points readers to the reference.
The Modern Language Association style guide also recommends using the short URL in running text—simply Forbes.com instead of http://www.forbes.com, for example).


Professor's weird behavior I have just started a thesis-based masters degree.

My supervisor has asked me to help with another student's project. So I am working with another student of my supervisor. We work together and send him a report weekly. We send reports on time.

One time our report had a mistake, the professor got mad at me (at that time I sent the report to him). He told me unpleasant things and I got really disappointed at that moment and it happened two times. It was weird because firstly he was very good with me and this behaviour was very unlikely. Secondly, he was not mad at my colleague (another student) we were working together.

Both of us wrote and sent that report and both of us made that mistake. Why he was not mad at him? did he tell any bad thing about me to the supervisor?
What should I tell to my professor? I feel very bad. He made me feel that I am useless.

I heard that my colleague has a bad reputation of gossiping about others to the supervisor.

I should add that my colleague, thinks that he is the boss in the lab and he sometimes bullies me and tries to correct me in everything even when we are filling a form which is not related to the project.

How can I handle this situation?

It sounds like an unpleasant environment to me. But still, this is one incident, right? So it might make sense to wait a little longer and see if this was a one-off or fits into a pattern.

If this turns out to be a pattern, you shouldn't stay in this lab beyond your Masters degree. If you really need a publication from your Masters degree (something that's not at all required in my field, for example), you should actually consider going to a different lab. If you feel like your supervisors anger, or your colleague's backstabbing, is too much, go to another lab as well.

While you are in this lab, there is surprisingly little to 'handle' about the situation. Just do your work, as separate from your colleague as possible, ignore your supervisor's anger but do try to get as specific feedback from them as possible, finish your Masters on time, get your recommendation letter and leave.

This answer sounds incredibly jaded and that's because it is quite self-centered: this is just a way for you to get through your Masters as painless as possible.

Writing your Masters on a supervision, is a higher level thing than your previous studies, it is like as if you would be a professional member of the faculty. Of course you aren't, but with the eyes of the people working there is it some similar. This is why you are in deep water now, and this is why you are surprised by the suddenly hardened expectations.

First, you can't be sure, if your partner is gossiping. Even if he does, what could he say to the prof? The contact between the prof and your partner should be surely very fragile. He likely doesn't have anything what the prof would really need, but both of you need something very strongly, to which the prof is the gateway: your Masters degree. No, his position isn't better even a little bit, than yours, even if he is gossiping.

Second, doing masters' supervision is a higher thing in the eyes of the prof as leading the ordinary lectures, but not too much. You are not important. You are part of his daily work, and surely not a super-important component of his wannabe Nobel medal.

Furthermore, you are doing Masters in the first time in your life, while this prof is working with students since years, or decades. He is surely a much stronger player as you could imagine.

On these reason, I think it is improbable that the partner is gossiping. He has simply nothing what the higher levels would need.

However, the critics of the Prof have probably a factual part: what he said, what his problem is with your work. You also suspect an unsaid part. You have no way to know, what is it, even if it exists.

The rational thing to do: fulfill everything what the prof said. Fix the problems of the said part. Doing that, you might likely induce him to revalue his thinkings about the unsaid one, too. In any organization, if you are working well for it, it should provide a protection for you. If you do your task well, there won't be important any more, what your partner did (or not).

P.s. It might be a personal matter of taste, but I was always surprised, what could be useful in doing papers in pairs or in groups, even in the rare cases if it is allowed. It will be your note, your degree, so it should be your work. Maybe if there is something, what no one can do alone, it is okay, but there should be very clear distinction, what are you doing and what the others.


Could you get a doctorate based solely on a thesis written in your free time? I am a very enthusiastic person academically and I love to gather new (sometimes irrelevant but useful) knowledge about my field in my free time. I am now at the point where I would like to start writing a paper on something in my field of interest and based on my own research.

If my paper is credible, contributes to my field and fulfills the standards that apply to any PhD thesis, would I be awarded a doctorate if I applied for the degree and publish the paper?

As an undergraduate, I don't know much about a PhD program. From what I know, it's simply you and your research that counts. I understand that, in the last analysis, it is the contribution to your field that counts. Am I missing anything?

Just write your paper, as long as the writing does not distract you from your undergrad studies. If the paper has merit, you may be able to present it at a colloquium of your university, at a workshop, or even at a conference. If you put some more work into it and are lucky, you might eventually be able to publish it in a journal. Certainly, your paper will open up more questions than it answers. Now you have a research trajectory that you can follow up and that may lead to a PhD thesis, based on but surely not limited to your first paper.

In other words: There is no reason why you should not start to work on your PhD topic already as an undergraduate, but it seems to me that you underestimate the time and work it takes to finish the PhD. And since PhDs require a lot of work, there are PhD programs, which facilitate the process and in which most PhDs are actually produced. In that sense, writing your PhD outside of the designated framework is a bit like digging a well with a spoon. It can be done, but it is not too efficient. On top of that (as others have said already), at many institutions, the written thesis is only one requirement among others to be awarded a title.

The front page of every PhD thesis states "Submit as Partial Fulfillment of the Degree". So, a thesis is a must but not all for a PhD degree. The degree requires years of academic training, not as simple as just one thesis, or several published research papers.


My current PI is telling me that I am a very shy person and he is really pissed off, what I should do? Today in the lab we had a birthday, I had participated, but not so much as I feel anxious in crowded areas. I felt very shy and that's true, so I withdrew from the party after 15 minutes and wished everyone well.

Later, my PI informed me that he is extremely pissed off and did not like the fact that I am a very shy person. I am supposed to select a potential supervisor; the one whose work I am interested in also has also a shy person. The PI (head of the lab) informed me that he cannot assign two shy people to work together (me and the prospective supervisor) as he thought we are going to fail to make significant work.

The ugly truth is that I am an indeed shy girl for many years and I lose many social opportunities, likely marriage opportunities because I don't interact so much as other girls. However, I look very confident in voluntary works, teaching and giving talks.

I know it sounds controversial, however, I began to lose my self-confidence and esteem although I had a strong character.

The question: How I should react towards this?

This answer will only focus on long term strategies that might help you avoid such situations as you move forward.

To succeed in academia you can't really seem to be shy and certainly not seen to be less of a contributor because of it. No matter how good your ideas are, if they don't get considered then you have very little impact.

However, that doesn't mean that you can't actually be shy, or introverted. Many successful scientists are very introverted and even some are quite far out on the autism spectrum. Shyness isn't a defect or a flaw, it is just a personal tendency. Introverted people, in fact, often are extremely productive as they gather internal strength from reflection, consideration, and thought.

But the trick is to learn to act as if you have a different set of preferences than you actually do. You can act like an extrovert naturally would even while remaining an introvert. You play a role in public situations that lets your thoughts and needs get notice in the deliberations and conversations.

But it is a skill that can be difficult to learn. I know, and I did it. The "face" that I show to the world has evolved over time. I once suffered from an "inability" to speak up when I should have and it cost me extra years in a doctoral program. But after that, I learned how to play the role so that my ideas weren't ignored by those with a bigger mouth.

In fact, you aren't limited by your shyness unless you let it overcome you. You can look people straight in the eye and explain your ideas to them. You don't need to defer to louder people.

One person, a friend, who is very prominent in the CS community and is a marvelous public speaker is naturally, and in person, extremely quiet and has some characteristics of autism. But he taught himself to do what needed to be done to have his ideas accepted and to act in public in a way that seems to others to be comfortable, even if it is not. One of his tricks was to join an acting group in which he learned how to "put on" a role and act within that role.

Some people just freeze when confronted. Other people explode into inappropriate behavior. Both of these need to be avoided. Practice is what you need to overcome them if you tend to do that. Preparation for meetings, with notes on what you might want to say can help.

Finally, let me note that people reading your several posts here probably don't think of you as a shy person. In your writing, you are able to say what you want to say. Some of that is the anonymity that the site affords. In a sense, you can hide the "real you" behind a certain invented persona. The trick is to learn to do that same thing in person. Invent a persona for yourself and act in the way it suggests, hiding your "real self". Yes, I do the same thing here as Buffy.

End of the day, you need to buckle down and do good science.  Run experiments.  Write them up.  Publish.  Be a little motor that churns and works and moves forward.  Not one that is always asking questions.  [This is the answer to "what should I do?" Which is the actual question part of your story.]

P.s. On the marriage concerns, this site is very persnickety about off topic posting.  Personally I think there is nothing wrong with your wanting a mate.  I feel ya.  It is a natural human biological drive.  Our hearts are programmed for it.  All that said, I doubt you will find reflective advice in many corners of the Internet.  But if you want killer advice, I recommend joining a running club.  The odds are good.  And the goods are...good.  [And I would avoid the "somebody was mean to me, what do I do" in any discussions with potential suitors.]


Geographic differences in bioethics and effect on experimental research in biology Cultural heritage may have influenced views on life, consciousness, etc. Does it mean that bioethics is different in different countries? And does it mean that e.g. in  Israel (Jewish culture) it is possible to carry out experiments forbidden in India (Hindu culture)?

More generally: How do bioethics vary in different countries?

The short answer to your question is yes, there are differences in local laws related to bioethical concerns in different countries (and even different states in the same country).

For example, consider the difference in local laws related to stem cell research. According to Wikipedia (I don't know how up-to-date this is):

  These laws have been the source of much controversy and vary significantly by country. In the European Union, stem cell research using the human embryo is permitted in Sweden, Finland, Belgium, Greece, Britain, Denmark and the Netherlands; however, it is illegal in Germany, Austria, Ireland, Italy, and Portugal. The issue has similarly divided the United States, with several states enforcing a complete ban and others giving financial support. Elsewhere, Japan, India, Iran, Israel, South Korea, China, and Australia are supportive. However, New Zealand, most of Africa (except South Africa), and most of South America (except Brazil) are restrictive.

More broadly, the International Compilation of Human Research Standards (compiled by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) lists relevant laws and guidelines on human subjects research around the world.

Regarding

  does it mean that e.g. in Israel (Jewish culture) it is possible to carry out experiments forbidden in India (Hindu culture)?

Civic and legislative systems are highly complex, as are the degrees and the ways in which they are affected by cultural and religious influences.
So reducing Israel to "Jewish culture" and India to "Hindu culture" is not a particularly useful way to reason about what is permissible in each country.

It does not, since the fundamental ethical desideratum is whether the research subject understands what you are doing to them, and can freely decide whether to participate. It would not be unethical per se to have Jewish subjects eat pork, as long as they understand that is what they would be doing, and have the capacity to make a decision (e.g. comprehend the language, have adult mental capacity, are not coerced). There could be a factual interaction between local law and ethical considerations, for example participation in a particular experiment in a certain country could, by law, threaten the well-being of the subject because of oppressive laws in that country, in which case the case could be covered under the rubric of excessive risk, but the relevant consideration isn't religious or cultural differences, it is what the local laws and related risks are.


Is this psychological abuse? Should I switch supervisors? I am in the third year of my four year PhD, which is funded by the department. My supervisor a week and a half ago called a meeting with me, after an email complaining about sending off an updated version of a manuscript to a conference without full approval. During the course of this meeting, when two others were present, he said a lot of things. However in this meeting he stated that I was on a "final warning" to be kicked out of the university (I had not received any previous warnings, and I'm not sure he has the capability to do this) and also his research group. He also said that he was engaging in a 'strategy of intimidation' so that I would be scared to make similar same mistakes in the future. I found this to be very worrying.
Following on from this he was especially nice via email, asking whether I would like to collaborate with a prestigious professor abroad. Indeed, the next day he spent 2 hours helping me prepare this manuscript, along with a postdoc.
This is part of a pattern of behaviour from this gentleman. Two months previously, after he said I shouldn't apply for IRB approval only weeks before, he had stated that I had committed severe ethical violations and that I should scrap the paper that I had worked on for the previous 7 months due to these violations. He also asked me whether I would like to go to jail for these violations.
Apart from this, my publication output has been relatively good. I got into a top journal in my field in my second year as first author.
I am very close to trying to switch supervisors and am just wondering, is this a stupid idea? Am I being overly sensitive? Is this psychological abuse?
Clarifications:

My aim here is not to raise a stink, I would be subtly switching supervisor, not reporting this to anyone, giving vague excuse of differences. I still have a lot of respect for the advisor as a scientist and fear of him.
If not clear enough in the initial question, part of my problem is that I was told not to go through the ethics process, then latterly reprimanded for not applying for ethics and committing unethical research. There may be a point here with regards to ethics in the first place.
I am thankful for some of the more hostile responses here, as they have made me aware of things that I may not have considered . Indeed they have made me aware of how this would be likely to be perceived. It has also made me slightly more cognizant of my own role in this.
I am a native speaker and have copied the quotes verbatim.

One final clarification:
Being asked too many questions here, will leave thread as is and not reply further. Thanks for all replies.

You write that your advisor said that you "committed severe ethical violations."  But you don't say anything about what specifically you did, whether the accusations are true, or how you responded to that accusation.  We simply cannot give you good advice without knowing more about these violations.  Honestly it sounds like you don't understand what the accusations were, which is extremely worrisome!
It's sadly common that there are advisors who are abusive bosses, but this is not one of those common situations!  Either your advisor is completely disconnected from reality and is making up ethical violations, or you are a serious danger to your research group because you commit bad ethical lapses and don't bother to understand what you did or how to avoid it in the future.

TL;DR. Get out, get out, get out! If you can... I don't what field you're in. Changing supervisors may not be feasible. Is there a suitable alternative supervisor whom you could work with?
Fair or not, these are statements that need to be considered before making a definitive move.
That said, I am very sorry for this horrible, abusive situation you are in.
It is not fair on you.

Intimidatory behaviour is not acceptable. There are arguments as to whether parents should be allowed to discipline their children like that---I am not commenting on this---but certainly a supervisor should not behaviour like this towards a student. Trying to scare you with "go to jail comments"---disgusting.
I worked with someone who treated me extremely badly during my PhD---although it sounds nothing like as bad as your case! Sometimes we had disagreements about whether to look into certain questions; he wanted to investigate something, but I didn't. This is fine by itself, but he explicitly told me that his time was more valuable so I should investigate it and get back to him. The fact that I didn't want to didn't matter. He told me that he's the senior collaborator so I should do it. Incidentally, he was a postdoc when we started and had just got a permanent position when we finished.
I won't go into further details regarding his behaviour---it's not relevant to your question. I should have tried harder to end the collaboration earlier, in hindsight. I really regret this. His behaviour made my life miserable for months and months. I'm done with the collaboration with him now and I am so much happier! I've found lots of other people to collaborate with who are not toxic and treat me with respect.
This person wasn't my supervisor, but rather a collaborator. My supervisor went "supervision-AFK" with me about 1.5yrs, so I was working with other people therein. I'm in maths, so choosing with whom I work is relatively easy. I didn't even have the option of working with my supervisor for half my PhD, as I said. Changing supervisors is more of a big step than changing collaborators. I don't know exactly what field you're in, so I don't know how easy it would be to just not work with your supervisor but work with others instead? Not a perfect solution, but perhaps better than your current scenario.
Unfortunately, there's very little accountability in academia. People who hold power have little to no training in utilising, not abusing, this power. You can report this, but I highly doubt you have proof that he said these things---after all, who gathers proof of all interactions? I don't. It can also negatively affect people's perception of you. Lots of people will have had only positive interactions with this guy---not all toxic people are toxic all the time---and will try to defend his behaviour. Just look at other answers here. Imagine the response from his peers?
One answer suggests that you intentionally didn't get his review on your work because you thought it wouldn't hold up to his critique. Quite where the answerer got this information, I have no idea. You say it was an updated manuscrip without full approval. There was no indication in your question that you were intentionally. His behaviour is abusive, regardless of your mistakes.
In a fair world, you would report this person, their behaviour would be investigated and they would go on some type of supervisor-training programme. Alas, in a fair world...


Should I send a letter of recommendation directly to a student? I teach at a U.S. community college, and commonly write letters of recommendation for students applying subsequently to either bachelor's programs or graduate school. I am accustomed to sending such letters directly to the school/program in question. Looking at other Academia SE questions, this seems to be the general practice.

However, once in a while I get a student who says something like, "No, this school requires that I include the recommendation with my application packet; give it directly to me." I may or may not be informed as to the school or program in question. Should I comply with such a request, or decline?

In general, this is a generous thing to do, if you are comfortable with the student.  I would make sure to ask what school/program it is being sent to, and then you can double check (and decline if it's fishy). You can ask this question without acting suspicious, just say you want to tailor the letter for the position.

I have had to include my letters for a few postdoctoral positions I applied for (in Italy and Croatia), and I cannot be more grateful for the fact that I had some senior researchers who were willing to send the letter directly to me so I could include it with my application materials.

I believe that you should hand the letter to whoever asked you for it. You aren't handing in some super secret document that no one but the school is supposed to read. It's a letter of recommendation.

Back when I was in school and asked for such letter, professors would even sit down with me and write it out, asking me what I thought. One professor told me:

  Let's cut the mumbo-jumbo. You're an adult and you know what your qualities are. Tell me what you think you think about yourself and then I will show you what I wrote in the letter. Let's compare notes and see if you value yourself as much as you should or if I think you need to change a few things before you go to this school.

They then printed out two copies. One to send directly to the designated school in question and one for me to keep.

While I know this is not what you're used to doing, I think you have to treat it like what it is; a letter.

I will add that several schools I applied to all wanted the letter to be sent in by me with my application or brought in personally by me when applying in person.


How to interpret quality of computer science journals that charge publication fees? I usually publish my research work at conferences in the field of Computer Science, I do not have so many papers and the question that I am doing here it might sound foolish for some (or maybe a lot) of researchers in different fields. A situation has arosen when a colleague of me wants to publish a co-join work that we have done in a CS journal. For my experience conferences charge a fee for authors when their work is accepted, but I have some doubts about the fees that I found for some journals in the field:

Some journals I have seen are free and have an open access so that everybody could read or access a research work
Other journals charge some fees for accepted works that range from 200 USD to 600 USD, they are indexed in Scimago
Other journals that are indexed in Scimago in quartiles Q1 and Q2 can charge like almost 2000 dollars for accepted article, I have seen those in an Elsevier table, or maybe am I wrong?

I mean according to some PhD students that I have talked, they told me that usually good journals do not charge publication fees, but why for example the aforementioned editorial does that? I mean sometimes a journal could be accused of predatory because it charges for publishing, but it is not almost the same with some respectable journals in the field that do the same?

Bottom line, should one aim to publish only on free fee for publishing journals? Or one should better look out for the quality of the articles accepted within a journal instead of the fees charged for publishing?

From a comment of yours, you seem to be specifically interested in the Journal of the Brazilian Computer Society.

From the website it appears that this journal is part of a set of Springer journals with an open access policy (Springer Open). This is also clearly stated in the fees and funding page:

  Open access publishing is not without costs. Journal of the Brazilian Computer Society therefore levies an article-processing charge of £695/$1085/€885 for each article accepted for publication.

Among the reputable journals there are usually three different publication policies:

Closed-access journals. Authors don't pay a dime, or they pay only if their paper is longer than a certain number of pages. Here the publication fees are covered by those -- typically libraries -- who subscribe to the journal. Only the subscribers can access the journals' content. Actually, many publishers require institutional subscribers to buy the subscription to a large number of journals, with very high subscription costs (can be in the range of 30 k$/yr).
Journal with mixed access. Here the authors choose what type of access they want. If they opt for closed access, they don't have to pay, but their paper will be accessible only by subscribers; if, instead, they opt for open access, their paper will be accessible by anybody but they have to pay a fee, which can be as high as 2-3 k$. The fees should, in principle, pay the article-processing costs (something that is questioned by many people).
Open-access journals. Here authors have always to pay a fee which covers the article-processing costs. The articles are however free to access to anybody.

I would highlight two points from the fees and funding page that may be of interest to you. First:

  If the corresponding author's institution is a Member, the cost of the article-processing charge is covered by the membership, and no further charge is payable.

And the final paragraph:

  It is the wish of the JBCS team that all quality articles will be
  published in the journal independent of the funding capacity of the
  authors. Thus, if the authors are unable to pay the APC charge, we
  recommend that they contact the editors. The JBCS team will provide
  support to find alternative ways of funding. In particular, a grant
  from the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee helps sponsoring the
  publication of many JBCS articles.

This is less a response to the main question than to one of the answers, which says, "[At full or non-hybrid OA journals] authors have always to pay a fee which covers the article-processing costs."

It's not true that all OA journals charge publication fees. In fact, it's not even true that most charge publication fees. On the contrary, most (about 70%) peer-reviewed OA journals charge no fees at all, and about half of all articles published in OA journals are published in the no-fee variety.

To find no-fee OA journals in CS, go to the Directory of Open Access Journals < http://www.doaj.org/ > and look for journals in CS < https://goo.gl/imUOGt >. To learn whether or not a given journal charges a publication fee, just click through to the DOAJ record on that journal.

BTW, even when OA journals charge publication fees, the fees are seldom paid by authors. They're usually paid by the author's funder (59% of the time) or the author's employer (24%), and only 12% of the time by the author out of pocket. See the SOAP study < http://arxiv.org/abs/1101.5260 >, Table 4.


Is it rude to visit a professors office during the summer if they have not responded to my email? I understand that a somewhat similar question has been asked before, but my parameters here are slightly different. Essentially, I have been emailing a professor since early April about joining their lab. They have responded and inquired what sort of projects I would be interested in. They also remarked that they would be interested in meeting after the semester is over. Well, after final grades were input I sent an email and... no dice after two-ish weeks. This is no surprise, given that I know a student who got a response from them months after sending an email. The thing is, I am trying to join their project over the summer and well, precious summer days are about to start passing pretty fast.
In summary, I am moving close to campus next week, and I am wondering if it would be rude or brutish to go to their office location physically to follow up. Is this a bad idea? The difference between this situation and the last person who asked is that this is during summer and COVID times. I also just finished my freshman year if that matters.
EDIT: as a corollary, I could also try calling the office. Though that almost seems more incessant than showing up in my opinion. Thoughts?

It's not rude.  It quite probably is futile.

Many faculty are not in their offices very often normally.
Many faculty are in their offices less in the summer - in particular, they are unlikely to have scheduled office hours.
During a pandemic, you might not be able to go into the building anyway.

If the professor does not feel safe meeting in person during a pandemic, they'll just tell you to contact them some other way when you show up.
Do not go to a professor's office if you are sick.  Also, do not go anywhere, except for medical care.

Rude? probably, especially in these times of "the less people I meet, the better". Futile? almost certain, for the reasons given by @AnonymousPhysicist .
Professors have secretary/secretaries. Call them, set up an appointment, they know the professor agenda and can tell you exactly when you should appear to talk with him, after having agreed a time.
Professor are not super-humans, but they have a huge load of work and the same 24 hours/day as the others.
Your request is not so important in professor's eyes, so it did not get the proper attention (i.e. time). You are on the right path to understand that talking in person will be very effective, so it is time saved for both you and the professor, but you are pursuing that meeting the wrong way.
It is a good lesson to learn to show what you care for in the proper&smart manner: it is important to you, you need 15 minutes to express the importance to the professor, the professor needs 15 minutes to evaluate you and will likely allocate 15 minutes only for that, so you should prefer to have him in a good mood. Set up a proper appointment through the secretary.


Is it common to cite the numbers of results a search engine yields as evidence for the prevalence of something online? Is it common in academia to include the number of results a Google search on a keyword yields as an evidence for the prevalence of something online?

I'm not intending to base my research paper on this evidence; it is just a supporting point in a paragraph.

For example, I'm writing a research paper on Stack Exchange; one of the paragraphs is about how popular Stack Exchange is in the internet.

In one of the paragraph, I would mention that a Google search on the keyword 'Stack Exchange' yielded about 49,600,000 results, which shows how popular it is among netizens.

Do not do this. The "approximate" number of hits Google reports is completely worthless. To see why, look at this number on both the first and the tenth page of Google hits:

First results page

Tenth results page

When I just did this, I got "approximately 9,010,000 hits" reported on the first results page... but only "approximately 48 hits" on the tenth page.

Your results will probably vary, depending on your search engine bubble (another reason why this number is useless).

The popularity of a web site is only very loosely related to the number of search engine results. A better approach is to use traffic statistics, such as the web site's Alexa ranking:

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/stackoverflow.com

This places StackOverflow at rank 53, which means that only 52 sites are visited more frequently.

Either way, StackOverflow is so ubiquitous within the programming community that you probably don't need to qualify your claims of its popularity unless your paper is intended for non-programmers.


Should prospective cheating be reported Over the past 3 months due to Covid-19, many of my peers have pinged me during exams asking me for answers to questions. I, of course, turn them down (albeit after I'm done with the exam so even if I sent it they wouldn't gain much due to the limited time left). I am usually at the top of my class, so I don't suspect that they ask many more people after me. So far, I've only reported cheating that I knew is actively taking place.

Should I also be reporting this type of prospective cheating where the other student doesn't actually receive any benefit? It feels wrong to me to punish those that gained no benefit, yet a friend I was causally talking to said that these people should be reported too.

These students are attempting to cheat. “Prospective” is not the right word here. They have already crossed the line from just contemplating cheating to actually doing something. The fact that they derived no benefit (as far as you know, that is), while perhaps relevant to the significance of the offense and the punishment they might receive, does not change that fact. It’s clear misconduct and not at all morally grey.

To put it differently: if you saw someone attempt to rob a bank but fail, would you think you needed to report it? If you saw someone attempt to kill another person but be foiled by a lack of assistance from someone they turned to for help, would you report it? Etc.

Just to inform you that there is another perspective...

If you can "cheat" in an exam, then the examination itself may be flawed. I remember open book exams, take-home exams during my undergrad studies that even if someone "cheated", they had to learn at least something during that.

I consider that approach lazy at best.

I have no idea about US culture (and THAT level of competition) but my view on cheating is:

What would happen if some are cheating? Did they learn anything? If yes, that can even be considered "group study" by some stretch. Do you think you learn anything significant in undergrad? Whole undergrad can be covered in a year of M.Sc.

Will they really have a competitive advantage over you? Assuming they did not learn anything, you have the advantage. You know, they don't. Build upon that. Instead of losing your time asking this question, reading answers, you could have learnt a couple of things already. See the big picture, try to reach higher, read some papers or books.

I wouldn't care if a student A had higher grades than student B. I would choose B with lower grades if they have read a bunch of articles, have some questions about them and can think of novel ways even if naive.

Do whatever your code of conduct or whatnot says to be a "good citizen". Study further instead of pondering over petty details to be a "good scientist". Yes you can be both, too. I am not that interested in former though, I just care about my studies.. People are people.

I am not saying you should close your eyes to unjust. I am just saying that what you see as unjust is just a kid stealing another one's toy in a playground. Yes it technically is unjust but...

My best advice would be to go as much as forward you can so that world's best cheater can't reach you. Find your passion.


Can I use open-source code for a simulation for my research? I am working on a paper and I found open-source code that I could use for running a simulation. Should I write my own code for that simulation? Will it be enough if I refer to the code in my citations/references section?

Yes, open-source code can be used for research if it is cited everywhere you use results from it. You may first like to verify that the code is indeed open-source by verifying that the license is one of these: https://opensource.org/licenses

This should be listed clearly on the website/repository/license/readme file. If this is not available, try contacting the author to verify that it is indeed open source.

Certain licenses additionally allow you to freely modify the code for your specific purpose; the link above contains details about this.

You'll need to conduct due diligence to ensure that the code generating the simulation is accurate and that you fully understand how it is working; otherwise other peoples' mistakes become your own.  Personally, I would take that code and deconstruct it to the point I understand how it works, then re-write it on my own.  That said, nothing prevents you from using open source code, just be sure to document accurately and be confident it is doing what you anticipate!


How can one differentiate between Dr. (PhD) and Dr. (MD or DO)? Reading the question posted here left me with a more general question:

Given the professional title and name: Dr. (First Name)(Last Name), is there some way to differentiate between the holder of a philosophical doctorate and a medical doctor? Wouldn't it be more appropriate for a PhD holder to have the title (First Name)(Last Name), PhD?

You can't immediately tell from the title, but then titles are not typically used by an individual to broadcast their occupation - we don't have variants of "Mr" for plumbers, bank managers, or rock stars - despite their very different occupations. Rather, the title is to be used by others when addressing that individual, in order to signify a degree of respect, typically for a particular level of training, qualification and responsibility, or else for a particularly respected position in society. Even the term "mister" is a meaningful sign of respect that historically would not have been as widely applied as it is today - the ratchet of etiquette has gradually eliminated everything below it.

The actual title "Doctor" means "teacher" (from Latin "doceo", "I teach"). This title is more often more relevant to PhDs than MDs, so you probably have your suggested solution backwards. That said, the solution is really neither necessary nor appropriate. Much like "Master" (from Latin "magister", in this case "teacher"), "Doctor" signifies that an individual has not only gained enough competency to practice in a particular field, but has developed enough expertise to instruct others. An individual who is sufficiently qualified to practice but not teach would historically have been known as a "journeyman", roughly equivalent to "professional".

In short "doctor" refers not to a field of expertise, but rather to a level of expertise.

Incidentally, most UK surgeons drop their title of "Dr" and revert to "Mr" after joining the Royal College of Surgeons. I've heard through a friend of at least one surgeon who reacted quite angrily at being addressed as a mere "Dr", which in such circles, due to a collision between traditional titles and modern medical training, could be unkindly translated as "trainee".

In French (maybe other latin countries too), but I don't know about English, you can make a small difference by adding ès : Albert Einstein, Docteur ès Physique.

Then twice in a row you have specified that he was a scientific doctor (not a medical one) and his field of research.


Writing someone else's master's thesis: Unethical and illegal? It is really difficult for me to decide on this situation: when someone calls me and asks for work-for-hire for his/her thesis. I don't know what to do. I want to help and earn money but I think this way of earning money is unethical.
I think that receiving the title of thesis and giving back prepared manuscript is the intention that some people have, when asking for their thesis to be written.
There are plenty of websites offering such services!

The question is that: Is it legal and or ethical to write someone else's master's thesis as work-for-hire?

Think about it this way: Eventually one of those people for whom you write the thesis will be working for your stockbroker and influencing your investments, or working for your doctor or a hospital and influencing your medical care, or working for your government and influencing permits and regulations, or ...

Leaving aside the potential immediate consequences for your "principal" and yourself, you would be making the world a worse place for everyone.

Does that answer your question?

While being able to write up your own work is an important part of the education, the students who use these thesis writing services are not going to stay in academia, they only need to have a degree as a pure formality to get a job outside of academia. Usually, only a fraction of what they learned is of use to them. With very high tuition fees to deal with, these students often have multiple jobs and suffer from sleep deprivation as a result. From their perspective, it's quite reasonable to cut corners to get the degree they need asap.

We also need to keep in mind here that someone doing the thesis writing work won't be able to do a lot of nontrivial research work for the student. This means that if the student is able to outsource the bulk of the total effort for research and writing to a thesis writing service, then it follows that the research part is quite trivial. We can thus safely conclude that the academic value of such a degree is quite low, we're certainly not talking about Ph.D theses in hard sciences like physics or chemistry, instead it could be a master thesis in a soft science like sociology. But in practice, as I pointed out above, it's typically going to be used by students who need the degree as a pure formality.

As far as pure academic work is concerned, it is uncommon for people to not write up their own research work, but there are exceptional cases e.g. if a scientist suffers from dyslexia. Also, non-native English speakers may have difficulties writing up their scientific papers, Elsevier has a professional scientific writing service for such scientists.

Niels Bohr is a notable example of a great scientists who was so bad at writing that his mother had to write his thesis for him:

  Bohr could never master the language he spoke or wrote. In fact in his school, Bohr’s worst subject had been Danish composition. It is said that even for writing a postcard Bohr would first prepare a draft. Bohr was not at all comfortable in writing. He dictated his entire doctoral thesis to his mother. While Bohr’s father thought that a PhD student should write his own thesis but his mother firmly believed the task was hopeless. Most of Bohr’s later work and correspondence was dictated to his wife and his secretaries or co-workers. He took long time to write a paper. Seven or eight drafts were very common. Bohr shaped his ideas while orally communicating with other fellow physicists.

In conclusion, while at first sight it may not look ethical to work for a thesis writing company, if we take into account the context in which these companies operates, that should lead to a different view. Context matters because it's no good applying very strict ethical norms selectively, e.g. if you don't want to work on ethical grounds for a thesis writing company and instead consider getting a job at McDonald's, are you then going to consider the ethics of selling Big Macs to obese people?


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You can write a paper and attempt to get it published. If your friend has researched the subject exhaustively, they will know exactly which journal they should use for publication.


What to do if one has had an unsuccessful PhD (because of others' fault)? I was talking to a friend of mine, and he just feel in a deep depression due to finishing his PhD.

He will be defending in the coming weeks, and there is a high likelihood he will pass.

In his words, he doesn't really feel he has learned anything PhD worthy, he only has one Journal paper and no conference papers (in his area conf papers are not worth much anyway). According to him, one of the postdocs kept his research at bay by denying him access to the machines he need to do experiments (something CMOS related, not really sure what). And in his own words, the same guy basically did the same experiments he was planning and wrote a couple of papers.

Of course he tried to tell his professor, but apparently he couldn't care less.

By now, he just feels that he lost 3 years of his life doing a PhD. And he mentioned that he might sue the Professor/University for this.

I take his word for all of this, and I have no real means to corroborate it to be truth. But it kept me thinking about one thing.

Is a student entitled to sue/demand a reimbursement/etc if he/she feels like the past years have been an utter waste of time?

Is there any mechanism in your universities to do this?

I've heard of similar cases of professors abusing of students in the same way in some US Universities (big/fancy ones by the way)

There sure are cases, every now and then, of researchers (professors or other) abusing students in various ways. As everyone, I have heard stories, and I know at least a couple of people who have been put in dramatic situations during their PhD. However bad the behavior of the advisor is, it turns out that there are multiple venues one can try, during the PhD, when the alarm flag is raised. These depend on the institution and type of employment, but they include:

Going to see the PhD program director, explaining your situation (diplomatically) and asking for advice (read: help).
Finding a friendly researcher/professor in your department, and ask him for advice (and possibly help) with your issue. They know the people and local “politics”, and might have efficient advice.
Your employer's HR department
Going to your professor's hierarchy (department chair, dean, …). As a last recourse, file a formal complaint.
Get someone to speak for you: a union representative, a member of the local “PhD association”, etc. That can help if you are worried about the fallout of intervening directly.
Changing your plans to work on a more “independent” research. In your example, your friend was denied access to a given experiment. If the experiment had broken down beyond repair, he sure could reörient his research, so the same thing could be done in the case at hand (I'm not saying it's easy).
Walking out (or, as JeffE would surely say: don't walk, run!)

Regarding legal action: I don't think this avenue can lead anywhere, unless there is factual evidence of gross misconduct or unethical activity. The burden of proof relies on your friend, and I think it will actually be harder to complain after the fact if he did not raise his concerns formally during his PhD.

Strangely enough it depends on the legal system, as that describes the burden of proof. My advise is go see a lawyer... But...

I have had a harrowing experience with what l can best describe as a macho thesis advisor, a personae dramatica. Much of the assault was verbal, but that does not mean that there is no evidence. I have annacodotal emails, he even sent me threatening Emails and lied to my mum! shitty behaviour.

Instead of attacking the problem as if it's is you against the world, think about it differently.

Does the school have a contractual system in place with the student and thesis advisor? In my previous UK school, that is not the case, so in most common law jurisdictions and quiet a few civil law jurisdictions too, that is a no no...
Case law, yes ask your lawyer to look into case law, in fact it's so easy nowerdays, you can do it by yourself. You need to find some precedent, even in civil law, which generally has a rule, that says contracts that cause undue hardship are illegal, and when there is no contract, and you have suffered undue hardship because you were unable to complete your thesis, tends to be sufficient evidence.
Malpractice suites in medicine and the police turn around the expertise embedded in a expert, or someone with special skill and experience. The school has a greater duty of care under common law and under certain civil law jurisdictions, that is an avenue to pursue.
Increasingly in many jurisdictions, when it comes to experts as thesis advisors, the burden of evidence has come down, and you can use here say, and indirect evidence. So this line of mechanistic thinking is wrong. The law is not black letter, and if it is, then it would surely be unjust.
What are you aiming for? Be like a Vulcan and think about it logically. My thesis advisor, was sure of his superior position, and that he could bully me around, and lie to me in my face, that is a breach of conduct, and that is easy to prove. If it's sexual, then it's even easier. You should not think about suing to win, you should think about suing to damage someone's career and the reputation of the school instead. It's a bit like opting for a constant stalemate, like in chess, to prolong the game, and await your opportunity to strike. Then, mind the Star Trek cliche, a legal case can said, to be revenge, and that is best served cold.
You should look at the schools previous record with dealing with thesis advisor problems... Like in my previous school they swept everything under the carpet, even plagerism, and used the data protection act in the UK to avoid dealing with a problem, you have them! When a institution hides behind privacy issues, and does not deal with the real issues, they are not fair or just.
Read through the student booklet and if it says, that they will fairly and justly deal with complaints and they have not, even with small complaints then they are breaking their own contract with you. In our student book it says, l must go to make the complaint to a staff member, and and and... And they would resolve it fairly, but if they blame you, and don't listen, in your and other peoples case, there is a pattern of political game playing and failing to do the right thing. A lot of the contractual relationships can not be put down on paper, and is open to interpretation. You may not be able to sue your thesis advisor, but you can sue the school for they employ him, on grounds other than the thesis advisor.
Think about it this way, you can damage your opponent. A lot of the education you receive, is based on an unwritten contact for services. And even if there is a contrAct, you can poke holes into it. Maybe you can sue them for an unsafe work environment, and force the lab to be closed down. If l were a school, l would be very upset, but you, as an innocent whistle blower with a slightly alter our, but ethically just motive, well the law will see you in a good light. Also if the school fails to give you an adequate answer to a problem, or does not help you, but protects the to hear that is a good grounds to sue on.
Remember in law nothing is the way it seems... Smoke and mirrors.

you are thinking about it all wrong, remove the emotion, and think about maiming and hurting your opponent. My thesis advisor is very confident he is safe because of his position, well he has another thing coming. Not through anger and emotion, but through cold hard logic, find a flaw in the system and pursue that, and do it to damage the schools reputation. If they damage you, you damage them back using the law, and above all doing the right thing, because as institutions they must not think they can get away with abuse.


Mimic lecturing on blackboard, facing audience I teach mathematics at MSc and PhD levels. My preferred method of teaching is old-fashioned: talking and writing on the blackboard at the same time.

Why? Because it has many advantages:

Handwriting: imposes few restrictions on notation and illustration. (Complicated figures I could project from my laptop, but I have no need for this in my courses.)
Flexibility: whenever this is useful, it is easy to 'deviate from the script'.
Natural speed: it imposes a natural speed on the speaker. Preparing slides using LaTeX or PowerPoint and just clicking through them, I find myself proceeding way too fast.
Parallel displays: having several boards available for writing makes it easy to keep some text/examples on display on one board, while writing on another.
Dynamics: referring to information on the different boards allows me to move through the room, adding a more dynamic aspect to the lecture.
Ease: it is a low-tech way of achieving all these things simultaneously with easily available means.

The main disadvantage of this method is that I spend a significant amount of time of each lecture with my back to the audience.

Question: What would you recommend as a means of communication that combines the six features above (most importantly, the handwriting and parallel displays), but facing the audience?

Obviously, a low-budget solution would be appreciated, but my institute is usually pretty generous in investing in technology that improves teaching, so don't let that restrict you!

What I tried: Many things, including writing by hand on tablets (iPads, Digital Paper, reMarkable, etc.) and projecting this in the classroom. Perhaps I haven't found the optimal device for this yet, but it often comes out pixellated, delayed, and less readable than my usual handwriting on paper or the blackboard. Using a document camera to project my handwriting on paper works well, but can project only about half an A4 paper at a time to keep it readable for people in the back of the room and, like other approaches, has the disadvantage of not having parallel displays: it's hugely important to be able to keep definitions, examples, theorems from earlier on for easy reference.

Do not assume that facing the audience is actually better.  It depends on the type of content.  For example, if you are explaining a diagram (detailed hydraulic system for instance), you want the audience to concentrate on that, not the presenter.  The audience is still getting plenty of stimulation by having a live human voice along with visual content.  You actually don't want the presenter to distract the eyeballs from the intricate content.  (I see this wrong often with recorded talks where the video operator concentrates on the podium versus the charts, or shows both but with inadequate scale to see the slide charts.)  If you are doing math (as opposed to history or literature), the content is more intricate and you should have the audience concentrating on the formulas, not the speaker.
Take some occasional time to address the class when that is appropriate.  Examples are a "sea story" about test performance or industrial application of the math.  But these will be a minor amount of time within a math lecture.
I mean, if you really wanted to, you could write backwards in grease pencil on plexiglass like in an old Navy combat information center.  But really what is the point.  People concentrate on the status (content), not the writer anyways.  The one advantage is that you don't have a body blocking part of the board.  I believe there are now electronic versions that would flip this around for you (or you can use an OHP).  But still I think you lose a lot from having a lot less screen space than board space (especially with sliding boards).  So, the small advantage of facing is at the loss of huge amounts of content physical space.

I had such a math teacher in college. He would walk in, start writing on the board, and not stop until the end of class, then walk out. It was horrible. Everyone in the class hated it. A few complaints later, and he started turning around periodically to see if there were questions, and if the class was keeping up.
Spending a significant amount of your time with your back to the audience isn't a problem, as long as it's not all of the time. Just check in with the students, and make sure that they know it's ok to interrupt you when your back is turned (assuming you're ok with that).


Is there a university website that lists all books used/recommended per course in order? That non-enrolled people can access, of course.

No, there is no one single website holding book information for every university and course everywhere.

Each course will have some information that they consider appropriate located somewhere but it won’t be in the same location for all.

In the US, universities are required to provide information on the web about required textbooks to students so that they can purchase the books from wherever they want without necessarily having to buy the textbooks from the college bookstore.

A search on Google using the name of the university and "required textbooks" will typically take you to a website that has this data.  You will probably need to cross-reference this information with the course catalog to know what courses are taken in what order within the academic program you're interested in.

In some cases, instructors will use materials that they've developed themselves and that students access through a course management system.  In that case, it's quite likely that the materials won't be visible to you.


How do I email my co-authors asking them to review a manuscript very quickly? I feel really bad asking for my co-authors, who are also my dissertation committee, to provide edits on my paper so quickly, but it looks like it needs to be done.
I submitted a paper to a journal a few months ago. They got back to me a month later with "major revisions" recommended. I got a lot of great comments, but they will take me some time to complete. The journal gave me only a month to get it done and send it back in. Due to the other things on my plate, this was extremely unrealistic. My primary advisor said it is impossible to do with everything I have going on. So, I asked the journal for an extension. I emailed them multiple times. They did not reply. The submission date came and went and I still didn't hear from them. As a result, I assumed I was not granted the extension.
However, I received FINALLY an email from them about a week and a half ago stating that I have been granted a new deadline of August 5th. Again, I still have A LOT on my plate and those revisions are not my top priority. However, I got a major portion of my thesis finished yesterday so now I have time to work on these revisions. My primary advisor is aware of this new deadline but wasn't sure if it was feasible. However, we had a meeting today where we discussed it. The game plan is to hand it into the journal a week late and hope they accept it (she said many journals are OK with this and won't have an issue). August 5th is still unreasonable. And my department and my advisor are very supportive of mental health and having a work-life balance so they would never want me to work overtime on this (my advisor even stated today that I should not kill myself over this as research is supposed to be fun and remember to take a lot of time during the week off). In my department, most students work from 9-5 or 8-4 since it's strongly encouraged that we have downtime and a life.
Anyways, now that we have a game plan moving forward, I need to let my other co-authors know what will be happening. I will need to ask them to review my edits to this paper over the course of a week. A two-week turnaround is standard in the department, but I will request only a week. My committee also has another paper of mine to review at the moment and there may be some overlap there, so this is a lot to ask and I feel guilty (even though it is not my fault) and bad about asking them to review something in such a short period of time. In addition, my secondary advisor is a lead researcher in the country for COVID-19, so she is extremely busy with that as well.
My question is: what should I say in the email to my co-authors / committee? I really do not want to sound like I am expecting them to review it in such a short time and that I do not value their time or understand they have a lot of other things on their plate?

It's much more important to send something right away, so that they have as much time as possible to look at it, rather than wasting precious hours finding just the right words.

State clearly and concisely what you are asking them to do, and when you need it done by

Explain briefly the reason for the short deadline

Apologize for the rush and acknowledge that they may be unable to do it in time

Have a backup plan in case they cannot meet the deadline.   You can always ask the journal for another extension.  Given the amount of effort they have already put into reviewing your paper, and the promise they evidently see in it, they have an incentive to work with you.  The worst case is they say no, in which case you may need to withdraw your paper and submit to another venue later.  That is annoying but not the end of the world.

authors
I would like to submit a review article, titled " xxxx "
Please find the attached documents and send me your valuable comments within next week.
Sincerely,


Can I ask my supervisor how long would it take to complete my PhD before beginning my PhD studies and post getting acceptance letter? Can I ask my supervisor how long would it take to complete my PhD before beginning my PhD studies and after getting my acceptance letter? If so, what would be the best way to do so?
Country: US/Canada
Duration: It is not open ended like Europe. Depends on Professor here.

This question doesn't really make sense, the supervisor has relatively little control over how long it takes for a student to produce a thesis.  Questions you could ask which do make sense:

How long is funding guaranteed, and in practice what happens when students run out of guaranteed funding?
Do you have any additional standards or requirements for a thesis, such as requiring it to include an accepted paper, or requiring it to consist solely of singly-authored material?
How long have your students typically taken to graduate, and what factors played a role in that time?
How does a students career choices effect your advising process?

(The reason the last point is relevant is that if you want a research job it's quite simple, if you have good enough research to get a postdoc and you've actually written pages then you'll graduate.  But for a student with teaching or industry career goals there's more flexibility in trying to get a student out more quickly with a more minimal thesis.  Some advisors may be more understanding about a student's prioritizing getting out quickly for career reasons rather than produce the most compelling thesis.)

Yes, you can, but you can't trust him. That's my experience of professors. It takes just as long as he likes, and that depends on your personal qualities and the needs of the lab. Of course, this may be different in the US if the period is limited by the university. Then a good guess is that it takes just as long as it can.
College life is full of as***les, and you should accept that fact, if you embark on this career. Later on, if you make sufficient friends and establish yourself, you can gain success pleasantly fast, but do not accept that in the start of your career.


Do academicians routinely face discrimination in industry job searches? I spent sometime recently at a HR department of a government company (in the utilities) in the US.

I accidentally found a file that listed out interview outcomes for new applications for a technical position (spreadsheet jockey - nothing fancy)

Out of the 10 applications, 2 of which had a PhD, 1 with a masters degree and the others unknown.

One of the PhD (call him PhD A) had spent considerable time doing research at a university, the other (call him PhD B) just recently finished his PhD program.

The comments to the interview outcomes as follows:

PhD A:

spent considerable time in university, have academic (not real world) experience
might have difficulty adjusting to a new environment
may contribute to discussions
not likely to be followed up

PhD B:

fresh out of university, have less experience than PhD A
research is too narrow

What I found funny is that very few people who actually works at the organization have PhDs (or masters for the junior staff), you'd think they would get a staff rotation just to improve upon their overall knowledge level.

Do you also feel that people with higher degrees are not welcomed with open arm in the job market? Why do you think that is the case? Have you personally faced discrimination or prejudice when applying for a job that is not too academic in nature?

I think of a PhD as "vocational education for researchers", not as the "highest level of education". So if a company is looking for a researcher then a PhD should be an advantage, but if a company is looking for a "spreadsheet jockey" as in your example then there is a mismatch between the education and the job and a company should take that into account.

On top of that there are large cultural differences between companies and universities. Such differences can lead to frictions, and if you can hire someone without such frictions then that will be an argument.

Personally, I liked the university. They gave us money and facilities, we didn't have to produce anything! You've never been out of college! You don't know what it's like out there! I've worked in the private sector. They expect results.  - Dr Ray Stantz, "Ghostbusters"

Basically, the discrimination is not against someone being an academician. The discrimination is against someone having zero industry job experience - and that includes intangible but important things like different priorities, balances and tradeoffs in academia vs the for-profit workplace. You can do research but produce no results in academia. You can research pretty much anything you want. Doesn't work that way in real company.

In other words, an academician who just got his PhD is treated exactly like a fresh BS graduate - nameley, like a guy with education but no industry exposure. (The difference being that BS analyst level fresh hire isn't paid a lot and doesn't have trust and responsibility in their first job that would have majors consequences because they are unused to "real world" and the needs of the business, so they pose a lot less risk).

An easy way to falsify your theory is to compare the employability and level of interest in someone who has a PhD vs. someone who has a MS or PhD and after that worked in the industry for at least a year. Personally, when I do hiring recommendations, no-experience person has no chance by comparison, all other qualifications being equal.
In certain cases, having a PhD isn't of any help (doesn't hurt, but it isn't a research position, or even one requiring super-high-IQ).

As such, a PhD would be a hindrance since PhD holder would expect to be compensated higher merely due to holding his degree (since on average, PhD does lend itself to higher pay if you look at labor market statistics). So, why would a company overpay someone for a useless skill/resume point?


Is there any advantage of putting source tex file on arXiv? I don't really like other people seeing my source file. Are there good reasons to upload the source file (.tex) on arXiv over uploading just the PDF?

Arxiv mandates uploading the source of any PDF file generated from Latex code. You will not be able to upload only the PDF version in this case (unless you succeed to game the system).

Why do the require the source? This saves quite a lot of space (50k-100k source vs. 500-900k PDF) and there are some additional reasons. As the other comments mention - the full explanations are in http://arxiv.org/help/faq/whytex

At the start, I'd like to direct attention to @Noah Snyder's comment on the OP: http://arxiv.org/help/faq/whytex

If for no other reason, I'd be happy to see ArXiV and others steer away from the ubiquitous PDF format because it's proprietary (see various places in the Wikipedia article).

One GPL alternative I've had experience with is the ultra-lightweight DjVu format.


Can I contact the referee if I know their identity after a double-blind reviewing process? The referee process is technically double blind but I managed to figure out the identity of the referee by writing style. I am 100% sure about this finding.
The referee rejected my paper and I cannot understand several points raised by the referee. May I send a very polite and humble email gently ask for a little bit further comments? To my understanding this action does not break any rules.
Will the referee hate me for this, or if the referee later complains to the editor about my email, will the editor punish me?
Re: This thread is not about referee identification. Besides writing style I have one other ethical source to confirm that identity. I almost never claim 100% but in this case I can claim this.

If the review is unclear, you should contact the editor for clarification, and not the referee.  This would be true even if the peer review was not blinded.  The editor is in charge of peer review.

Yes you can contact the referee, and this is probably your only chance of getting useful feedback. The referee's reaction to such an unusual request very much depends on their personality. The worst that can happen is that your email gets ignored.
A similar situation happened to me once. I was the referee in that case. But the author raised the subject orally, a long time after the article was rejected, and was shy about asking direct questions or claiming explicitly that I was the referee. So I did not confess and dropped the issue. If I had been contacted in writing with specific questions, I would surely have answered.
Contacting the editor is hopeless. Most probably, the editor does not know your article in enough detail to say anything helpful. And editors tend to be very busy.


Would adding paragraph about the motivation provided by someone who doubted me to my final year project acknowledgment be unprofessional? In my final year project, and since it will be my last postgraduate year, I want to add a taste of truth in my Acknowledgment, where I think it's the personal part of the project, where you are allowed to express yourself.

After thanking my professors, supervisors, parents in a very formal and professional way, I am eager to add this paragraph at the end.

I had a period where I was the underdog in the high school, I was treated badly, and I lost motivation to study because I wasn't encouraged, all my work and even good results in exams were not even appreciated. I was called the stupid dude, the person who thinks he knows but knows nothing, and ... and all of the this was by my math teacher, not my colleagues.

After that I was accepted in one of the top universities in Lebanon, in one of the hardest entrance exams, with an acceptance rate of not more than 15%. And after entering the university I was a top student.

For that I have written in the last paragraph of my acknowledgment:

  Since it’s the end of the years I spent in the Lebanese
  University-Faculty of Engineering, I’m glad to thank the math teacher
  who once told me: "you will never pass the entrance exam of the
  Lebanese University-Faculty of engineering, my nephew failed surely
  you will fail ". Thank you dude, you were my motive, and proving you
  wrong was one of my goals.

Would this be unprofessional?

I would refrain from adding this to the written/electronic version of the project report. It's very personal and uses colloquial language that should be avoided in a formal report, even in the acknowledgement section.

Having said that, you may still give to that particular teacher a copy with your personal hand-written dedication.

Btw, great example of negative motivation (or what it's called): a negative comment with positive result.

Personally, I would include the comment, or something like it. I think it needs some re-wording (the word "dude"seems inappropriate, to me, for example), but the basic sentiment is OK, in my opinion. Clearly these thoughts are important to you, and they deserve to be expressed.

But note that I said "personally". In other words, this is just my own approach to things, and it may or may not work for you. I'm often considered direct (abrupt?), outspoken (harsh?), innovative (undisciplined?), and undiplomatic. I'm sometimes accused of being "unprofessional", and I actually regard that as a compliment, because, to me, "professional" typically implies stuffy, formal, and humorless.

So, short answer ... some people certainly will regard your comments as "unprofessional". That label doesn't bother me at all, but the key question is whether or not it bothers you.


I Plagiarised, what punishment can I expect? I am a university student, doing a scientific bachelor study. I plagiarised multiple exercises from multiple homework sets for three different classes, all in all about 50% of all the homework for those three classes. I passed the final exams of those three classes. Realizing what I have done, I am considering turning myself in, unless the punishment would be too severe. What do you think?

Edit: I actually got caught once before for plagiarising on a single homework set.

Edit2: I calculated that redoing the courses would cost me at least $7000, this is also a consideration for me personally.

Edit3: I actually copied the homework of a friend who gave it to me because he trusted me. I broke this trust, and now he terminated our friendship. I asked him about it and turning myself in is the only way to earn back his respect.

I'd like to know from more people what kind of punishment I could expect. If I turn myself in, I would find it fair to only have to redo the three classes.

I am considering turning myself in, unless the punishment would be too severe.

You are describing an extremely serious violation of most university's academic integrity policies.  The most likely punishment is that your credit for those classes would be revoked, your grades would be changed to Fs on your transcript, and you would be suspended or expelled.  (That would certainly be the most likely result at my university.)

Nevertheless, I believe you should turn yourself in.

Ari gives a good summary of the ethical argument, but there is also a selfish practical argument.  Since you mention being caught once, there is good reason to believe that your work will face additional scrutiny.  If you get caught before turning yourself in, the result is much more likely to be permanent expulsion.  If you admit your plagiarism, the punishment will be slightly less severe; in particular, even if they decide on expulsion, the university will be much more likely to readmit you after 2-3 years.

Even if you decide not to turn yourself in, I recommend taking a short break from university, if you can afford it.  The amount of cheating you describe indicates that something is very wrong — maybe you were overwhelmed, maybe you were scared, maybe you were lazy, maybe the homework were insultingly stupid, maybe you just didn't want to be there — but something was preventing you from engaging in those classes as a responsible student.  You need to figure out what that something is and address it, or you'll just fall into the same pattern again.

For whatever your reasons may be, you choose to submit someone else's homework as your own and received credit for being able to do so. In the real world that is not any different than benefitting from work given to you by a volunteer or an employee. These things happen thousands of times day in the normal course of life.
The important thing here is that you passed your exams on your own demonstrating that you had a mastery of the material, which is the purpose of education, isn't it? Your exams reflect your own ability and since those were done without cheating, you should simply continue on with your life.
If you've resolved not to continue this behavior and are done with it, I see no reason to submit yourself the school or any of its representatives.  They have your money, You have the knowledge. The transaction is complete.

Einstein was a "poor student" yet revolutionized physics. Henry Ford, had no college degree yet revolutionized the fledging auto industry. What matters here is not what school, "a self appointed authority" thinks of you, but what you think of yourself.
If you can resolve to work harder at your studies, or find something you're actually interested in and can change your behavior so as not to put yourself at risk, I suggest you are done and should quit punishing yourself for the past.

As much as they would like us to think otherwise, schools are a very poor place to learn most of the real knowledge you need to survive and prosper in real life.
Let it go.


How should I react to seeing another student cheat on an exam? Today I took my midterm exam for one of my classes.  I saw that a student next to me was using her phone, and as I turned my head she hid it. At the end of the exam I wrote a note to my professor, I didn't mention the person's name, but I said that such type of behavior is not acceptable and that he should notice it next time.

I am kind of nervous that I will get in trouble for it, Did I do the right thing? What if the professor penalizes me?  I studied really hard for this exam and I figured that it wasn't fair for my classmates and I to see a cheater get a good grade, and us a lower grade.

You were right to inform the professor of cheating, and you shouldn't be penalized for that: your grade in the exam should depend only on what you wrote in your answers and nothing else.

However, I don't understand your motivation in writing the note. You should consider what you were trying to achieve by writing it. The way you describe it, the note sounds like it was lecturing the professor on how to do their job, rather than doing anything about cheating. You describe cheating as "unacceptable" but, by not naming the cheater, you show that you're more willing to accept cheating than the consequences of standing up to it. But, of course, it's your choice and your evaluation of the consequences is the most important.

You should perhaps consider other ways of dealing with the cheating. Other options include writing an anonymous note naming the cheater to the appropriate administrative staff. If you're worried that that would still leave you identifiable because the cheat knows you saw them, you could just start discussing the issue with other people in your class. If it becomes common knowledge that some unnamed person was cheating in the exam, peer pressure might stop that person cheating in the future.

I understand you could feel angry seeing someone cheating and getting away with that, but I don't think reporting it to a teacher, professor or any board would be good. I believe it's good you didn't tell the professor which student had done it. To me naming such a cheater and reporting them to anyone would sound like informing. It's the person's responsibility and matter of conscience. If you are sure they cheated and are really angry about it, you could always tell the person you didn't like it. However, the person might just reply that it was not your business. Also, if it was a single occassion and the person just glanced at a phone once, I really wouldn't make fuss about it.


How can a new PhD Student objectively evaluate how well they are doing? I'm a relatively new PhD student, and I'm faced with a new (for me) situation. Before, I always had grades and the likes to tell me how good or bad I was doing: if I was at or near the top/bottom of my class, if I passed my exams or not... were all more-or-less objective indicators to tell me how I was doing.

But now that I've started to do research, I have none of that anymore, and it's quite discouraging. It's not that I need constant validation to boost my self-esteem, but rather I'm afraid that I'm not working hard enough, not learning enough... and that it's all going to crash down on me at the end ("welp, your funding has run out and you've produced nothing good enough, no PhD for you"). I sometimes find results, but they always feel rather insignificant. And the fact that I used to be good as a student whose only job was to learn about well-established topics from good professors doesn't mean I'm good enough at research, either.

I've read several Q&A's here (How should I deal with discouragement as a graduate student?, “I've somehow convinced everyone that I'm actually good at this” - how to effectively deal with Imposter Syndrome) and they've been helpful, but simply telling myself that maybe it's just the impostor syndrome talking isn't helpful – maybe I'm really an impostor, too...

Of couse I can ask my advisor from time to time, but if I start asking every month I don't think he's going to appreciate it, and if I ask that bluntly he may not want to hurt my feelings and tell me the truth. So how do I, a PhD student, can evaluate how well I'm doing?

The reality is that it’s impossible to evaluate how you’re doing in an entirely objective manner once you progress beyond the stage of doing problem sheets with well-defined answers. Once there’s no objective right and wrong, it becomes a question of what is valued and who assesses it. For example, people try to assess PhD students in terms of all kinds of things:

How many papers they’ve published.
Where their papers are published.
How many people have cited their papers.
How much impact they’ve had on their field.
How often they’re invited to give talks.
Where they’ve worked.
How successful their collaborations have been.
If they teach, how successful their own students are.

The reality is that all of these things measure something, to some extent. Different people will value different things, and assess them in different ways.

If you want to go into academia ultimately, and you’re asking because you want to know what the people who will assess you for academic jobs will value, a good place to look is at academic job specifications - they’re often very detailed and make it quite clear what they’re looking for. You can also ask your supervisor, who will probably be able to give you a good idea of what’s involved.

If you want to go into industry, they may be looking for very different things - again, you can find out by looking at the job specifications, and the skills of the people who work at the relevant places.

Ultimately, this is a good point in your life to realise that now you’ve moved beyond standard taught courses, you’ll never again have the same kind of “objective” outside feedback that you once did. Thus far, you’ve been optimising towards someone else’s objective function; from now on, you have to find your own. Other people can tell you what they value, or even what they think you should value, but no one can decide what you value but you.

Your research has an ultimate goal. You divide the long way to the goal to X stages. Then you complete each stage, moving from one to another. Your success can be assessed as Y/X*100% where Y is the number of successful steps.


Multiple accounts of plagiarism (?) during literature study: are my standards too high or should I take action? I'm currently doing my literature review in preparation for my graduation (masters degree) thesis work at a Dutch university. The past semester I worked as a student assistent on a first-year project, that had quite a heavy focus on learning to properly cite and refer to source material. Together with the project supervisor, we'd run all student reports through plagiarism checking software. If we found anything wrong or suspicious, we confronted the students and explained them that their current practice was not the way to go. For example, when a group failed to put quotation marks if they'd literally copied something, we gave them a warning, even though they did include a reference. We upheld high standards.

Fast forward to my current work doing my literature research, in which I'm trying to figure out and document the exact workings of a number of software programs - in order to make a detailed comparison supporting selection of a subset of these programs for inclusion in my thesis research. Some of these codes are well-known and open source, others are quite obscure. Especially for the less-known ones, I'm coming close to the point of having read (or at least: knowing about the existence of) all sources there are on that program, and where I'm able to basically guess what paper a numerical reference points to - simply based on content.

Today, I've come across a PhD-thesis in which a full paragraph was directly copied (not formatted as a blockquote or similar) from a journal publication, not written by the PhD-candidate or supervisors. That paper is mentioned (on a previous page), but quotation marks are absent from the copied paragraph. This is not the first time I've seen something like this (also noted a few conference papers doing this) and it leaves me quite confused.

If this is acceptable, aren't the standards I used to teach to my student groups ridiculously high? I'm also adhering to these standards, which not always comes easy. For example, I'm sometimes going through hell and back again to find the original source of something and/or including secondary references, other times including lengthy footnotes on how I think contradictory information might have been mangled up in a chain of citations and pointing out potential errors in peer-reviewed publications. Similarly, I feel I'm walking the line when putting "The information in this section is obtained from reference X, unless indicated otherwise", rather than including a reference after every individual sentence in that section.
If this is not acceptable (and the 'high' standards are indeed the standards), what should I do about the plagiarised texts I have come across - and might come across in the remainder of my review? Accept it, shrug it off and do better myself, or take this up with somebody from university?

I realise there might not be an absolute, factual answer to this question - but I'm hoping it is 'allowed'. Other knowledgeable sources that I know are employed at this university and I'd rather first get some external advice/ideas - before becoming the whistle-blower or wrongly accuse people.

Edited the first and second paragraphs (italicized parts) for clarity.

It's also worth noting that conventions on citing and quoting are not universal, and can vary between academic communities.  For example, in mathematics, it is quite common to copy definitions or statements of theorems verbatim, or nearly verbatim, from other papers.  The precise wording and notation can be critical, so wholesale paraphrasing is risky.  However, the convention in this field is that quotation marks are not used in such cases, though a citation should usually appear.  Likewise, if a definition or statement is "common knowledge", it might be that every paper discussing it uses almost identical wording (maybe without citations), even though they have not consciously copied from each other.

(I don't really know how this practice arose, but one point is that it often happens that you want to state a theorem almost verbatim, but modify the notation to match what you're using in the present paper.  Now it's not an exact quote anymore, so you can't strictly use quote marks, and noting your amendments with brackets could be very confusing when mathematical notation is involved.)

This can add up to several paragraphs or pages of "copied" text over the course of a paper.  A newcomer to the field might see this and be horrified by the blatant "plagiarism", but within the field it's regarded as perfectly proper.

Additionally, it's completely normal in mathematics to write things like "The material in this section comes mainly from [3]" without adding [3] to every other line.  It's more about common sense than following rules.

So, the moral is to make sure you're calibrating your standards properly to the specific discipline in which you're working.

I've always believed in keeping myself to a higher standard than I expect of others. That said, if I care for that person than I might bring it to their attention privately. If the result of the plagiarizing would result in harm to another then I would feel obligated to report or publicize it. As to quotations, it is lazy to simply not rewrite the paragraph in one's own words however the end result is the same. I have a low opinion of Academic honesty due to too many ridiculous journal articles that in theory went through "peer review" by those preeminent in the field. An example was one of my professors, who came to question one of the truisms in our department's teaching program. She showed that the senior academic who had published the research of the truism was incorrect (honest error?). I mean truism in the sense that many younger academics had based their research on this truism, as well as even younger academics had based their research on that research. And this is not the only case of incorrect or outright fraudulent (discovered well after publication) journal articles becoming the basis of subsequent significant works. Considering how well those who cheat and lie seem to make out in this world (e.g. the US President), the plagiarism you mention may be a start to a great career for them.


What if the lecturer is not rigorous? I study mathematics as my major subject and theoretical physics and statistics as my minor subjects. I found that, sometimes in physics or statistics lectures, the lecturer makes mistakes, like forgetting to prove that a series converges, or computing multi-dimensional integrals by using only one path. Once I spent three weeks to find a correct reasoning why one particular series converges. Should I say anything about these mistakes to the lecturer?

In physics we deliberately do not prove the series converges, because we are not interested in teaching concepts like convergence.  Physics courses are not intended to be mathematically rigorous.  It just is not one of the goals.

Generally, you better assess yourself well enough to call out a lecturer publicly, otherwise, there's plenty of opportunities to make corrections privately.  That is generally the more politically-correct path.  Beyond that, you should know that by choosing to address it publicly, you are  (consciously or not) engaging in a battle of power.  Such a battle can have positive or negative outcomes.

More specifically, I have questions for you:  why would a lecturer have to prove that a series converges?  Further, shouldn't multi-dimensional integrals always have the same answer regardless of the path?  Otherwise, there's a deeper problem in the formulation of the expression (like including terms from a domain that doesn't belong there).