Why do most science classrooms use similar black-covered desks? Why is it that most science classroom desks seem to be built out of wood, but have the desk area covered in some black material? I'm talking about desks like this:

http://st.hzcdn.com/simgs/ab3174c201c9cc49_4-9532/midcentury-desks-and-hutches.jpg

To "prove" its pervasiveness, I Googled "science classroom desk", and the image results have quite a few of these types of desks:

Without knowing an answer to the basic question, it's hard to flesh out my other questions, but here's a basic list:

Is that black material inert in some way, so as to not react to any of the chemicals a student might use in class? Is it just easy to clean?
Why the standardization? I've seen these desks in public and private schools in a number of different states in the US
Is this US-specific? Do other countries have their own standard desks?

(Note: I'm not sure that this is the correct StackExchange website to post this on, so I'm open to suggestions. It seemed to be the closest fit to education/school. There are some sites for specific scientific disciplines, but I thought someone in academia in general might know an answer)

I found an article that explains the reason quite clearly: the black top is a resin laminate that is chemical and stain resistant.

Not all bench-tops are black: there are alternate materials that are white or metallic. Presumably those substances have different resistances for different purposes; for example, some of the white benches I saw while searching were anti-static materials for electronics work.  For anything with biological and chemical substances, however, it seems that the black resin laminates are often the preferred material.

Simply put: it's easier to see things - paper, objects, clear scientific equipment, and so on - against a black tabletop.

Furthermore - and perhaps more importantly - a black tabletop makes it easy to see spills and other potential hazards.  This makes cleaning easier and more effective.

And finally: black tends to hide wear and tear better than other colors (especially in the presence of scientific experiments).  So schools can hold off on replacing their equipment longer and still look nice in the press photos :)


As a lecturer, can I use the same problems used in another course in my own course? I will be teaching a new course for the first time.
Fortunately,
I found a massive open online course (MOOC) on edX
which is similar to the course that I want to teach.
However, the difficulty of the MOOC is significantly higher than
the level of the students at my institution.
Consequently, I will be teaching
4 basic topics which I will develop own my own,
in addition to 4 topics which I will adapt from the MOOC.

For the 4 topics which are covered both in the MOOC and my course,
I am thinking of using some of the same or similar material
(e.g., ideas + slides + assignments) from the MOOC.
There are two advantage's of this approach:
It will lessen my workload,
but also reduce the chance that something will go wrong.

Are there any (copyright / ethical / other) issues with this?

Edited in response to comments

[Karl] claims that "There's surely nothing wrong with borrowing some problems like you say in your original question, but just using a complete existing course is very low. How big do you think the chances are you will have time next year to put more work into it?"

I have edited my question to make it more clear that
I am adapting the existing MOOC rather than copying wholesale.
However, is there a problem with using very similar material
for the topics which are covered in both the MOOC and my course?
Brian Borchers
mentioned one potential problem which is
"that students can find solutions to the problems in the MOOC and submit them in response to your assignments. Mixing up the sources of your questions is one way to stop this kind of cheating."

To complete the assignments,
I will ask the students to submit both the code as well as the answers.
I could also change some of the problem parameters
so the answers are not found directly in the MOOC.

Check if the MOOC has a license assigned to it. If it is for example Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) you are allowed to use the questions as long as you give a reference to the original creator. You don't need to ask the MOOC in this case. CC-BY-NC (non-commercial) might be a difficult case, because you teach this course as a business and earn money for it.
A second option is to directly ask the MOOC creators.
Adapting the question significantly is a third option, as long as you don't copy directly texts from the original question and just base it on the general idea this would be fine.

"some of the same problems" - fine and then you add others, re-work some to highlight some specific parts of the course and before long those ones you started with are in the minority...

You can even mention, if you want, where some problems come from - if the solutions are not supplied in the book or maybe that is an advantage... That all depends on how you see the students working - copying / regurgitating existing solutions by rote or having to apply themselves...


How can I hire a professor to write a research paper? I'm part of a trade group that's looking to hire a professor to write a whitepaper on our industry. We plan to release and promote the study to help people understand our business. What's the best way to do that? Find a professor in our niche and reach out to them directly? Or do you go through the department chair or some other means? Are professors generally receptive to this sort of for-profit work? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Yes, some professors are available for consultancy work. Find one or two in your specialty, and approach them: some universities have directories of experts listed by subject, to help you identify suitable researchers. You'll find they're typically lower-priced than the equivalent grade of management consultant, as well as doing better work.

However.

Though you're paying the piper, you won't be calling the tune (with the exception of a handful of rogues).

Which means that they'll publish what they find. It is highly likely that there will be some of it you don't like, which will mean you won't want to publicise the final report. They will write one or more papers based on what they've found, and if the university's legal team has done its job properly, you'll have no say in the content of those papers, nor how the university promotes them, so it will be out of your control.

If you want to learn something about your industry from an academic angle, you will get your money's worth, subject to real data being available. Academics are sometimes able to get access to information that others could not, precisely because of the pressures on them to remain independent and treat data impartially. However, the fact that you're funding them may impair their access.

Do bear in mind that an academic will typically put a lot of work into describing the uncertainties: so on first skim, the impression you'll get from the report is that it mostly says "we don't know this, and we can't know that; there are indications of those. More research is required". The report may take some digesting, as a lot of academics are very experienced at writing, but surprisingly few write lucidly and accessibly.

If you're looking for promotional material, this really is the wrong tack.

Ask the professor to collect together the most respected opinions on the question and summarize their results for you.  Don't tell them anything that would make it seem that you want one particular answer.

Problem solved.  (Unless someone just can't take a solution as an answer.)


Course design: basics first or teach "as you go" I am going to offer an elective course which I am free to design. The topic is a bit special, but we can assume I give a robotics course. I will teach a fair amount of probability theory which I need to solve problems in robotics. Therefore I have to teach both and there are, I think, two ways:
1. Teach probability theory first, then robotics.
This is what all my professors did as I was studying. The problem here is, that there is no concrete application to robotics at the time I teach probability theory. Examples are "made up" and so is the homework.
2. Teach robotics and introduce the necessary probability theory when needed.
The students see immediately why it is necessary to learn probability theory. They can directly apply the theory to solve their real problem in robotics. However, it interrupts the robotic topic. The first time I need (parts of) probability theory takes two weeks. Then we would do robotics again and apply the new concepts. Then, after 2/3 of the course comes probability theory again, as we need a further different topics to solve more problems. Maybe once more.
Are there any good resources on howto teach courses like this?

I assume you know your students better than I do, but this would depend to a certain amount on what sorts of things they expect. At base, it seems like they are expecting/wanting a course in robotics. Starting out with something different might disappoint them and turn them against you in a way that could be hard to "make up" later. This implies doing statistics/probability "just in time".
However, students who are used to, and comfortable with, highly theoretical courses might be fine with "basics first."
But another alternative is to give them, early on, a set of readings on probability that you advertise as being essential a bit later in the course, while you focus on the robotics part. The better students might spend some time scanning, at least, those readings, making it easier to do the probability stuff when it becomes essential. You might even be able to find a vehicle for responding to questions on the readings without cutting too much into the time you spend on robotics early on.
And, of course, if their expectation is that robotics is just "applied probability" then theory first would likely be better.
But, think first of the student expectations and work to satisfy that as much as is reasonable.

The evidence-based approach is to do both:  If you teach something early and teach it again later, students will build long term memory.


Should I attend a job interview after I've already accepted another offer? I applied for several postdoc positions recently. One made an offer which I accepted. Since then I've been invited for an interview for one of the other positions. Is there any benefit to attending? Is it an opportunity to make potentially useful contacts (in a relatively small field)? I should add that I have no experience with academic interviews (the position I secured was through contacts). Expenses will be paid.

Once you've accepted a job offer, you are supposed to inform other places that you've applied that you would like to withdraw from consideration.

If they still want to invite you over to give a talk knowing that you can not be considered for the position, go ahead. But, you must tell them.

To do otherwise would be a serious breach of ethics. You do not want to gain a reputation as someone who engages in unethical behavior (don't assume they won't find out).

I personally don't see the harm.  However, if that interview went well and you were to be offered the job, accepting it would obviously be a crappy thing to do.

But I don't see any issue in going for an interview, even with no intentions of accepting the role.  Experience in interviews is really important.  And on the plus side, you don't have to go in completely nervous because you've already got a job, so it'd be easy for you to sit back and relax!


Are vacations counted for student research assistants in Germany? I'm working as a student research assistant (HiWi) at a research group in a German university. My job is based on hours and it's mainly programming. In my contract I have to work 20 hours a month. Since I can work anywhere, then I usually work at home. Also things are so flexible, so some days I work 5 hours a day and other times 2 hours a day. My supervisor trusts me, so basically I just tell him how many hours I worked a month or so. Because sometimes I work less hours in one month but then I have to compensate for it in the next month.

However, when I'm counting my working hours I usually don't count the days where we have vacations. If you divide 20 hours by the days of the month then I would usually need to work 1 hour everyday. So if I was working in a normal job, then I would have that day off. But because of the flexible way of the job, then I'm not sure if I should subtract that time-per-day vacation time from my official working hours.

Does anyone know if HiWis in Germany are subject to vacations? Or should we work the full working hours mentioned in our contracts regardless of how many vacations are there in the contract?!

Edit: yeah I know that I can ask my supervisor, but I don't want to open such a dialogue now with him. I know that HiWi contracts are standard in Germany so I guess any professor or postdoc in a German Uni here can answer this :)

Student research assistants in Germany (studentische Hilfskraft, or HiWis) are paid according to a fixed number of hours per week worked throughout the semester. They are therefore expected to complete a set number of hours over the course of the semester.

In principle, HiWis should work the same number of hours every week. However, at many universities, the contract only says that HiWis are paid the same amount each month, with no further subdivision demanded. The factor (at my university) is 4.348 weeks per month. So the number of hours expected to be worked in principle does not depend on the presence of holidays.

With respect to vacations, HiWis are allowed the fraction of time proportional to what a full-time employee would earn. If you worked 8 hours per week, you would be entitled to one-fifth of what a full-time employee earned in vacation time per year (roughly 3 hours per month).

(It should be noted that there has also been discussion that HiWis should not try to concentrate their workload too much, as there is the possibility that by doing so, they may work too many hours in too short a period, in which case in principle their income would become taxable under German law.)

On  your first question: Yes, research assistants (studentische Hilfskräfte) in Germany are legally entitled to vacation. The number of vacation days varies by region, in particular it depends on whether or not they are covered by a collective labour agreement (Tarifvertrag). Thus, in Berlin, there are 31 days, whereas in the remaining states (Länder) the legal minimum of 24 days per year applies. Have a look at your contract!

On your second, implicit question:

  I'm not sure if I should subtract that time-per-day vacation time from my official working hours.

The fact that you are entitled to holiday does not mean that you can take a week off whenever you like. Typically, you have to hand in a formal application for leave. That means you can't simply deduce the vacation form your working hours without prior notice. The procedure depends on your local administration. If you don't want to bother your supervisor, ask her secretary.

You may also ask your local student board (AStA) for more information.

If you speak German, have a look at this trade union brochure:  https://www.gew.de/studium/studium-und-job/


Would you submit your paper that got rejected in a top-tier venue to a lower rank conference? My question is simple: If you have a paper that got rejected two or three times (border-line* rejects every time) from top-tier conferences, would you polish it and resubmit it again to similar or another high rank conference or would you try some lower rank venues ?

* Border-line reject: every time got 2 good reviews and 1 bad review.

P.S. Every time the paper got vague suggestions like: compare with this or that. And the first and second time we DID in fact address all concerns, but another concern showed up next time.

P.P.S. I am concerned with CS conferences.

Thank you.

I would not continue submitting the same paper to top-tier conferences after three rejections.  The Universe Has Spoken.  Move On.

Many of my colleagues do submit such papers to lower-tier conferences, but I usually just send my papers directly to journals after two conference rejections.

It is a very common practice to start from submitting the paper to the high end journals but then submit to lower level journals if rejected for not being "flashy" enough. If the paper is further rejected, it may be converted into poster and presented in some conference. If it does not make into top tier conference, then still might be good enough for a small local conference.

A good professor can tell at glance where in this scale the work stands and is it possible to improve it and get higher. However professors mostly gain this experience from the known accepted and rejected submissions.


Is it ethical for a student to edit the Wikipedia page of his advisor? I have seen quite a few students editing the Wikipedia page of their advisors. I wonder what the view of the academic community are on this. There might be some conflict of interest since promoting one's advisor can be seen as indirectly promoting oneself, but at the same time it can be argued that a student (especially graduate student) may have a decent amount of knowledge about his advisor.

It is not ethical, and is, per Wikipedia guidelines, a conflict of interest.

  If you have a personal connection to a topic or person, you are advised to refrain from editing those articles directly, from adding related advertising links, links to personal websites and similar, and to provide full disclosure of the connection if you comment about the article on talk pages or in other discussions.

There is an exception. For example, let's say Dr. Potato is listed as a life-long sprout, when he is actually a tuber.

  An exception to editing an article about yourself or someone you know is made if the article contains defamation or a serious error that needs to be corrected quickly. If you do make such an edit, follow it up with an email to WP:OTRS, Wikipedia's volunteer response team, or ask for help on WP:BLPN, our noticeboard for articles about living persons.

Other examples of non-controversial edits would be like fixing spelling and grammar errors, or linking to an article on Wikipedia that may be missed.

It is also encouraged that, instead of providing edits and information, you provide:

  Those with a potential conflict of interest are encouraged to upload good-quality digital media files that are appropriately licensed for Wikipedia and that improve our coverage of a subject.

Images and media that are non-controversial can then be used by others to be cited, as they wouldn't express an opinion.

Examples of non-controversial stuff would be like a picture of the person, preferably doing nothing controversial.

The other answers to date seem to be focussed on what Wikipedia says about the ethics of this action. But you do not owe anything to the biased, rotten edifice that is Wikipedia (in fact, I sometimes add a few bits of deliberately false information to Wikipedia articles, so that I can quickly spot when undergraduates have relied on Wikipedia instead of checking the literature!), so my answer will focus on the ethical issues of publishing information about a colleague/superior on the world wide web.

Privacy

First, it is really important that you do not add confidential information about the subject, unless you are entitled to do so or have permission to make it public -- in particular, do not disclose anything about:

his/her family (some people do splash photographs of their children all over the place, but others prefer to keep even the existence of any children secret -- whatever your views on this, it is not your place to decide on someone else's behalf which course of action is right for him/her);
a "protected characteristic" (exact definition varies by jurisdiction, but this would usually encompass religion, sexuality, marital status, race, disabilities, medical history), unless the information is already published with the consent of the subject on a www page accessible to anyone (again, whilst some people will talk very openly and publicly about "protected characteristics", others do not want anybody to know about them, often for very good reasons -- for example, if you are looking for a job or applying for a big grant, you might not want anybody knowing that you have just recovered from a serious illness or are about to get married).

Accessibility vs discoverability

Secondly, keep in mind the difference between accessibility and discoverability. For example, it may be possible to access someone's address or date of birth on the internet (in the UK, if someone has ever been a company director, such data are likely to be available via the Companies House online register), that does not make it a good idea to publish such data on a highly discoverable website such as Wikipedia.

Not distracting unduly from the public persona the subject wishes to cultivate

Thirdly, you should probably refrain from writing anything that is unrepresentative of the subject's professional life, or likely to cause the subject significant embarrassment/distress, unless there is a strong public interest. You are under no obligation to care how Wikipedia feels about anything, but you should consider the feelings of the subject, since a Wikipedia biography is likely to have a significant bearing on his/her reputation. If a subject is notable for one thing (e.g.: a controversial article; being the victim of a notable crime; campaigning on a social/political issue), you should ensure that any coverage on a highly discoverable site also gives a balanced overview of his/her professional profile overall. A Wikipedia article is likely to be very near the top of a search engine's results, and may well end up higher than an official university profile page. From the subject's perspective, writing an article about the big notable thing will make the professional persona he/she wants to convey less discoverable, and may result in less attention going to the great research/teaching he/she is doing.


Does academia have a lazy work culture? I'm a rising sophomore at a top US university, and I've become really fascinated with the world of academia over the past year -- so much so that I'm considering doing a PhD after I graduate and entering it myself. But there's something about academia that bothers me.

I'm doing a summer internship at a research center at a university where I'm in the company of several PhD students and post docs as well. I've noticed that the work culture here is a bit lazy. I understand that academia isn't the most "organized" area (unlike the corporate world), and that one great thing about academia is the flexibility you get to do your work however you want. For instance, I've spoken to professors who say they do most of their work at night -- which, obviously, is impossible in a regular job. But I've observed this getting translated into laziness. People will only come in to the center for 3-4 hours a day, and sometimes not even every day in the week. I also see people often passively sitting on their computers and not really actively doing their work.

I completely understand that academics are less "robotic" than people working corporate jobs in that they don't follow the same routine every single day, but it just seems to me that a lot of people lack the drive, intensity, and seriousness that I see in my romanticized version of the world of academia. Thoughts?

Different areas of work look differently. A mechanic, a tailor or a miner perform visible physical operations and deliver an objective and measurable result by hour. Compared with them, office work may seem lazy: people sit at their desks, they are not sweating, can have toilet and drink breaks whenever they want, etc. Also, the result of their work seems less tangible: we do not see goods or materials produced, only papers, and looking from outside, we often can not understand how good the  result is without taking their manager's word for it.

Academic teaching and administration work is very much like office work in a company. Teaching-focused colleges and universities often seem very similar to corporate organisations (with one important difference that they have  less support  structures and security for academics).

Academic research work seem even less organised and the results seem even less tangible. People either appear sitting at their computers idly (while they are in fact thinking on the problem), or stay at the whiteboard scribbling unreadable equations (still thinking on their problems), or stay at home (thinking about their problems). If you look around, you will see the result of their thinking process (e.g. a computer or smartphone in front of you, as well as many many others). But the results do not jump out of their heads in the same visible way how an ore appears from the mine.

Corporate culture portraits an idealised worker as an energetic, serious man in suit. There are many, many problems with this idealised picture, for example, the fact that it is relatively easy to make such an appearance without any real skill, knowledge and desire to produce a meaningful result. Academia, partly, shares this problem: there is an idealised image of academic (a person excellent in everything, highly introvertial but excellent in communicating complex ideas to different audiences, etc etc), which has little to do with the real academic culture. Many academics visibly change their behaviour when they have to present their results for promotion or appraisal. However, in their natural habitat, they still focus on solving their problems in the way which is most effective for them, do not act to impress you or match your expectations about how this process has to look.

Not to dismiss your concerns but I think this is a local phenomenon more than something due to acedemia specifically. I've been in industry for several years and I've seen people who are even lazier than you describe above and others who are some of the most hardworking people I've met.

You should maybe look around at other teams and see if they have a different work ethic that suits you.


Is it common practice to insert images at the top of a page? This is not a question about how to insert images at the top, but rather asking whether or not this is common practice.

The template I've received from my university automatically inserts figures at the top of a page if no other flags are given using \begin{figure}[t] as default.

Personally, I find it a bit awkward to be introduced to a certain image before reading about the respective explanation within the text. But I got a feeling that top-positioned images are the way one usually writes LaTeX documents.

At the end of the day, it's a question about preference, but I really want to know which of the two following is "the way to go": Left or right?

You are asking a question about page layout. What is common may not be what is best for readers to understand. One of the issues with having a picture in the middle of text is that you often end up with a few lines of text above or below the figure. As a consequence, the eye often has difficulty distinguishing between what's part of the figure and what's part of the regular flow of text. That's particularly awkward if it's just one, two, or three lines of text. This does not happen if you put figures at the top or the bottom of the page, and consequently that's what most style guides recommend.

I would say it isn't common. As you suggest it is a bit awkward. Perhaps the intent is just to get the figure onto the correct page of the manuscript, expecting that you will make adjustments.

However, since you were given the template by the university, you should probably inquire from them why it was done that way and if you are bound to it in any way.


Should I Disclose Mental Health Conditions to a Potential Advisor Before Applying to the Program? I know there are a lot of questions about whether or not to disclose mental health issues to advisors, but the difference is that I'm asking whether to disclose these conditions before they agree to supervise me. (Thus, I don't think this is a duplicate of To break mental health condition to potential new advisor because in that post, the professor had already agreed to supervise the student.) Also, unlike the other posters who are primarily concerned with diminished productivity and/or having to take time off, my condition hurt my relationship with a professor.

Here's what happened: How Would You React If a Student Complained to the Dept. Chair About You but Later Apologized and Disclosed Mental Illness?

Most of my problems stemmed not from the grievance itself but from persistently trying to have it dismissed, which I do not regret. However, since the university sent me a cease and desist letter (and all faculty know about the situation, or at the least know to forward any communication from me to the General Counsel's Office), they may mention or allude to this in a letter or recommendation. So it may be best for me to explain everything  prior to applying.

Anxiety also affects me in other ways. For example, I fear flying. Since advisors often encourage their students to travel for research/conferences, she should probably know about this phobia as well. Best case scenario, she's understanding and uses this information to better communicate with me and help me avoid stressors. However, she could also decline to advise me. (If it's relevant, this is for a master's degree.)

I fear flying.

Nearly all PhD students go to conferences.  They usually go there by flying.  There is no way to hide that you fear flying.  Therefore, I suggest disclosing so that your advisor can arrange for your to participate in conferences without flying.  Disclose before you enroll, and find out if your advisor can help you be successful before you enroll.

Should you disclose before you apply?  It depends.  If you can disclose in a way that shows you will be successful in the program (e.g. "Following treatment, my symptoms are improving so I expect my future achievements will be better than my past achievements...") that may increase your chances of admission.  Show you have a plan for success.  If you disclose and indicate you cannot be successful in the program, then you probably will not be admitted.  But why would you apply if you cannot be successful?

Anecdote:  One of my colleagues disclosed a fear of flying to me when he was a PhD student.  He is now an assistant professor.  He does fly from time to time.

A bit different from the other answer.

Do not disclose any mental health trouble. Disclose you fear to flight only when you are successful enough to envision your attendance to conferences and not at any earlier stage.
When eventually it will happen, present your fear as very focused fear and do not mention anything else.
I can't think of any real trouble as far your PhD is concerned.
Do that when and if necessary in a strict way.
Your supervisor or a coworker can present the work on your behalf if a particular conference is strategic for the group/supervisor.
As already said by others there will surely be a conference that you could attend without flying.
Consider that, yet and unfortunately, attending overseas conferences is still difficult for many people in the academy worldwide. So it won't be particularly problematic for your supervisor to only "send" you to locations reachable by train.


How to cite a TED Talk with Youtube URL in MLA 8? How do I do it? I've already googled the heck out of it but all the answers were incomplete.

The URL is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2tOp7OxyQ8

Write the name or username of the compiler. If the user indicates his or her real name, use it. Otherwise, use the compiler's username or screenname. If citing from YouTube's official channel, specify the username as "YouTube." Follow with a period.

Doe, John.
Sephora.
YouTube.

Name the video. Put the title in quotation marks and follow it with a period. Capitalize the first letter of all major word (that is, anything that isn't an article, conjunction, preposition, or "to").

  YouTube. "Top Searches on YouTube: August - November 2012."

Specify the format of the citation. Indicate that you are citing an "Online video clip." Follow with a period.

  YouTube. "Top Searches on YouTube: August - November 2012." Online
  video clip.

Indicate that the video came from YouTube. Even if the video was pulled from the official YouTube account, you still need to indicate that the video was pulled from YouTube. Italicize the website's name, and follow with a comma.

  YouTube. "Top Searches on YouTube: August - November 2012." Online video clip. YouTube,

List the posting date. Type out the date in day-month-year format. Conclude with a period.

  YouTube. "Top Searches on YouTube: August - November 2012." Online
  video clip. YouTube, 21 December 2012.

State that the video came from the Web. This may seem redundant, but MLA format requires you to specify whether each source is electronic or print. Write "Web" and follow it with a period.

  YouTube. "Top Searches on YouTube: August - November 2012." Online
  video clip. YouTube. 21 December 2012. Web.

Indicate the date you retrieved the video. Write this date out in day-month-year format. End with a final period.

  YouTube. "Top Searches on YouTube: August - November 2012." Online
  video clip. YouTube, 21 December 2012. Web. 31 December 2012.

P.S: Source: WikiHow.


Is submitting two papers with identical introduction and methods considered plagiarism? Our research (me being one of the co-authors) consists of two main sub-cases which are too long to be in a single paper. So, they were divided into two parts--Part1 and Part2. Both of these papers contain the same text in many places (theory,introduction,procedure). The authors for both the papers are also the same.

If we were to submit this to two different journals, is it plagiarism?

If we were to submit this to two different journals, is it plagiarism?

Reusing text from another paper (even a closely related paper) without explicitly saying so would generally be considered self-plagiarism.  Unless they have exceptionally permissive publishing agreements, you would be in violation of your agreements with both publishers if you didn't get explicit permission to do this.  Even if the journals have the same publisher, they would probably still be unhappy, because this is a violation of scholarly norms.

If you feel your particular case is reasonable and would be considered acceptable in your field, then all you need to do is to be clear about it.  Include a sentence like "For the convenience of the reader, Section 2.1 is copied verbatim from [citation to part 1]" and explain the situation to both publishers when you submit the papers.  If they are OK with it (and you are honest with the reader), then everything's fine, but you certainly shouldn't submit the papers in this state without comment.

For this to work, you'll need permission from both publishers.  In mathematics that would be an unusual request, and I doubt you would receive permission, but things may work differently in your field.  In any case, you may come across as naive or eccentric if it doesn't work the way you expect, but at least nobody will be able to accuse you of being dishonest or manipulative.

No, it would not be. The gist of plagiarism is that you misrepresent the authorship or originality of a work. So long as there is no misrepresentation whatsoever, there is no self-plagiarism and no plagiarism. So long as the later paper properly cites the former paper, there is no misrepresentation whatsoever.

Note that avoiding plagiarism by being honest about the duplication likely won't help you. You'll still have problems with getting the journals to accept the papers. The first journal will not be happy that you plan to publish a lot of the same content through another journal. The second journal will not be happy that much of the content has already been published in another journal.


Workaround for Horrible Thesis Title on Academic CV I am writing an academic CV for artificial intelligence PhD programs. However, when it comes to mentioning my master's thesis, I am embarrassed at how horrible the title is. It was even criticised in my feedback for the work.

The title is:

  INVESTIGATING THE EFFECTS ON THE FLEXOELECTRIC RESPONSE AND SWITCHING SPEEDS OF LIQUID CRYSTAL MIXTURES DUE TO THE ADDITION OF VARIOUS ADDITIVES

Is it bad to simply mention your thesis topic, and not the title itself? Is this going to haunt me for the rest of my academic career?

For example could I use:

  Thesis topic: Flexoelectricity in Nematic Liquid Crystals

when discussing previous projects on my CV (as I do not currently have my name attached to any publications).

You could use a summary statement like the one you've proposed as your thesis topic - and I'd assume that it was for brevity and clarity rather than because you hate the title.

That being said, that title is far from the worst paper title I've read today, let alone something in need of outright hiding from the world.

Sorry, but the thesis title is the thesis title. Until it gets so famous that, like the "Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica" came to be known as "Principia", it is known by a shortened title.

Good luck with that.


How do you become a referee for a math journal? I am in the early stages of my career (post PhD) and I would like to referee papers to (1) get the experience and (2) be exposed to unpublished writing to learn to improve upon my own writing.
How do you become a referee? Can you register?
Edit: I'm not asking about reviewing.

Generally, you would publish in Journals, and the Section Editors will descend on you like vampires in search of fresh blood asking you to do reviews.
If you have trouble breaking in, talk to a mentor, and ask them if they can recommend you to the section editors (in place of themselves) for any refereeing jobs that are really up your alley.

If the editor knows you and sees a paper that you might be a good fit for reviewing, he or she might e-mail you and ask if you want to review it.


"You are paid to answer my questions!" - how to handle silly questions? How do I handle silly questions? By silly, I mean questions that are unrelated to the material of the course.

First, I am a TA. Recently, a student asked me a very silly question at the end of a lab session. I say silly because:

it was not related to the lecture,
it was asked at the end of a lecture - and the classroom was already full with the students of the next class, and
I have previously talked about this issue.

The student insisted that I answer his question many times. So, I told him: "It is already late, but let me know about your question" .. when he asked it, I told him: "You can't be serious, this is not a question!"

He got upset, and he told me: "You are paid to answer my questions!"

I got angry, but how should I handle similar situations?

"I have previously talked about this issue." -- Yes, I talked about this issue even though it is not part of the course and the lecture. I talked about it to add more applications to the course material.

I got angry, but. . how should I handle similar situations?

Got angry? No good!

You're not necessarily paid to answer his question but you are paid to help advance knowledge and learning.

Unfortunately, the tone of your answer doesn't let us know exactly how "silly" the question was (was it silly because it was personal question that had no bearing on the course? Was it silly because it was not relevant to the course material but possibly relevant to the overall subject? Was it silly because you had already covered the material in class? Was it silly because he was asking at the end of the lab session?) so unfortunately the exact way in which to respond might vary, but you might try:

If it's a matter of time and you can't answer it because you have to clear the room, tell him, "Give me a few minutes to pack up my things to get out of the classroom." Clear the room, entertain question.
If it's a matter of you having another appointment, then get him to submit the question over email or in writing or before next class.
If it's silly because it's not related to the lecture, I usually do my best to entertain these kinds of questions because it sometimes means the student is interested in other topics around the material. If my class is on object-oriented design and programming in Java, but the student asks me about "how can you use design in procedural programming languages like C?" I'd probably give some ideas on how it could apply to that situation.
If it's a personal question that you don't want to answer, you can say, "I don't feel comfortable answering that", "It's none of your business", "I can't talk about this", or similar.
If it's a stupid question because it's sooooo obvious or because you covered it before, then, sorry, it's not a silly question but is something the student needs explanations for. Get him to visit you over office hours for extra help.
If it's a matter of the student talking on and wasting time with questions, then you can ask the student politely to keep questions for after the class. If the student is trolling you with questions and is otherwise being a nuisance this option usually works as well.

Yes, it is rude for him to declare "You are paid to answer my questions!" but it's also rude to say that "Your question is silly". You are the teacher, the role model, the example, so you should be more patient with them than they are with you. Besides, if you tell them  you'll answer it later, you can simply say, "Just wait - I haven't answered your question yet."

Technically the student is wrong regarding the payment part. You are not paid to answer any question at any time. And I'd be more interested in how to handle impolite students/clients, if this is the case, than in the silliness of their questions.

However, I doubt that your account is accurate. At one place you claim that you have already dealt with the issue during the lecture and at another you claim it was not related. Besides that, you find it acceptable to post the reaction of the student, but do not find acceptable to disclose what question he asked, which would have been essential to know how to react towards it.

So:

If the question has a truly obvious answer, or if the student is truly lost, follow a Socratic approach, asking questions to make him realize how easy would have been to him to know the answer. This part is probably somehow related to your job, which is to educate people.


Requested *contact information of two references* in application for a PhD I just find an interesting call for a PhD position. In order to apply one has to submit, among all the standard thing as cv and transcript of records, also contact information of two references. I don't know what does this mean. Does it mean that I have to attach in the email also the contacts of two of my professors?
Regards

You have to supply the contact information.
So:
Address (postal)
Email address
Telephone number(s) landline definitely, mobile not always
This is so that the admissions / adjudicating committee can get a reference according to their policy. That could be a 5 minute chat or asking the referee for a personal letter, or sending the referee a particular form to be completed.
Whatever they want, you need to supply the contact information. Be sure that if you don't then it will negatively affect your application, even to the point that it gets binned immediately. They have too many to waste time coming back to you "oh, you forgot the contact info for 2 referees"...

Yes. Give them their name, postal address, position, the lab in which they work and their mail.
They might need to contact them if your appliance is great.
Asking to your references recommendation letters is a bonus, but it is important in case they don’t know who to take.


I feel lost with my master thesis When I sit and start writing my master thesis, I write the first couple lines, then I don't know what to write and get stuck.
I feel like I'm not creative enough for writing.
The questions are. How to get around this blockage? How to organize the ideas? How to stay focused? Is this think typical?

I have to assume that you have done the required research and are now just at the writing stage.

This could be a lot of things. But one piece of advice is to not try to write it from the first word to the last. Work from an outline. Fill in the outline in such a way that it seems like a blurry picture becoming clearer and clearer.

In other words, if you have some idea about methodology, work on that section for a bit. If there is something about the conclusion that comes to you, write that down. Go through whatever notes you have made and add ideas to appropriate sections as you go.

Another technique is to use index cards effectively. Carry them around with you and add new cards or modify old ones as ideas come to you throughout the day. Index cards can be better than a notebook, since they can easily be rearranged and even discarded. As you mine the notes you have, write index cards for the ideas there. Rearrange as necessary.

Ultimately a deck of index cards could, in some sense, represent the entire work.

This isn't the only possible way to attack it, but a piecemeal approach might be able to help you avoid some forms of writer's block, such as being overwhelmed whenever you sit down.

Of course, this method will require heavy editing for continuity as you get closer to the end.

There is a more extreme method that was once mentioned to me by an English professor in an intensive writing course. He had a lot of contacts who were writers of various kinds. He mentioned one person whose method was to "make one page of progress" every day. The person would work until the current manuscript, including revisions, was one page longer than the day before. This results in a short story every three weeks or a novel every year. But, I suspect that it takes a certain sort of personality, somewhat obsessive, to manage that. And one page of progress is not the same as one page of writing. And it was creative writing he was speaking of, not scientific writing.

There are some really good suggestions already, but you could also consider getting help in real life. Most universities (in Germany at least, but I'd think the same applies to other countries as well) offer courses to address this problem or have a person one might contact.

From my experience the people providing these services are really competent, but your mileage may vary depending on your institution.


What are your thoughts on epigraphs in theses? I am wondering if there is a general consensus as to the suitability of epigraphs in a thesis, either a single one at the start of the document, or an appropriate quote to begin every chapter.

For example, at the start of a technical chapter describing some code, I could write

  Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. - Donald E. Knuth

I am lucky to have complete freedom over how I choose to typeset my thesis (Master's thesis in astronomy) and I like the idea of a thematic quote to begin a chapter. However, I am wary of seeming unprofessional or tacky so I am curious to get some more thoughts on the matter.

Well-chosen, non-frivolous epigraphs can enhance a thesis.

Epigraphs are never suitable. They are distracting and unprofessional. Stick to the subject of your thesis and nothing more. Time spent researching epigraphs is time better spent researching and writing your thesis. If a quote is relevant to your work, such as the Knuth quote, then put it in the thesis and explain its relevance to your subject.


How can a would-be researcher overcome slow comprehension, obsession and poor communication skills? I m a current master coursework student in engineering major and I’m planning to do a PhD after graduating from this course. I want to know how to become a qualified researcher. There are several shortcomings that I think may stop me making it:

I understand things very slowly. When I read or listen to others, I can’t get the idea very quickly. Sometimes there is even an unexpected blank or distraction in my mind when I’m getting some information and I have to get it again.
I like delving in solving a certain question I’m interested in, but I often get stuck there for a long time until I solve it, which really have a severe negative effect on exams. In addition, this kind of obsession is a short-term effect, rather than perminant one. That’s to say it’s hard for me to stick to one thing for a long period of time as I’m easy to get obsessed in another thing once it appeals to me.
I’m not good at explaining or illustrating my idea to others. They often don’t understand what's my point and I need to explain it several times. The situation is worse in speaking. I often get a blank mind and forget the next point to connect to my current point when I express my idea orally. It’s very hard to organize my idea well when speaking.

Since I have no experience of being a researcher, I want to know if those problems are likely to be a barrier to becoming a qualified researcher? How can I overcome these problems?

As @ff524 mentioned in comments, it's hard to give advice to you after only these few lines, for no reason more than that what you describe as holding you back might equally well be a sign that you share certain characteristics very common among academic researchers.

As to 2), you essentially say that you like digging into a problem until you have a solution that pleases you, while forgetting the world (exam) around you. That ability, or obsession, must be one of the most important for a researcher, whatever the source (it could point to some excessive OCDness). It currently probably leads to you having crack answer to a few exam questions, while none or marginal ones to others, and so might prevent you from ever being a researcher. All it seems to take though is to keep reminding yourself to not obsess: write an answer outline to all questions, and then allow yourself to drill deeper. It's essentially an inability to multi-task, and there is lots of advice online how to address that.

The difficulty to orally communicate you mention in 3) is extremely common among professors. Your ability to speak can be improved in rhetoric classes, but being a poor speaker is often linked to issues such as anxiety too, and so is tricky. Communicating clearly in writing though can be easily improved in self-study. Get yourself a copy of Strunck&White, skip the 4th chapter, and ignore those telling you it's outdated. Zinsser's On Writing Well is even more helpful. It was a real life-changer for me.

Your issue 1) is unclear for someone not knowing you in person as well. You understand slowly. Says who? By comparison to who? Does the person explaining things to you suffer from your issue 3) as well? You might just be too hard on yourself. I had few teachers who truly helped me understand what I had to learn better, so few that all these years later they and what they said stick out in my memory. In terms of comprehending from reading, you seem to say that to truly learn, you need to re-read your books. That isn't too uncommon either. Additionally, from what you say in 2) which might allude to some OCDness or similar, you might be too harsh on yourself in judging when you have "learned" something. To this day, when I read a math book I have to fight feeling that I didn't read it carefully enough if there is any proof in it I couldn't provide on the spot. That's counter-productive.

I hope some of what i wrote actually fits your situation, or at least helps you maybe view it in a different light.

I did laugh a bit reading your post. I did really feel that you were talking about me.

I got a Phd in electrical engineering as a foreign student in Japan last March.

I don't think what you describe can hinder you seriously. Being a researcher is mainly a matter of self-discipline. You can already solve problems on your own. You just have to keep "physically" away from distractions. (Just the time to get the requirements for PhD graduation).


Why do papers not have a table of contents? Most papers (at least in maths, but I believe this applies to other subjects as well) don't have a table of contents (TOC), but dedicate the last paragraph of the introduction to essentially the same purpose. What's the rationale behind this?

I think TOCs are a much better solution. They minimise the burden on the author (no need to come up with creative ways of structuring a TOC in plain text) and are easier to skim as a reader (I know precisely what information to expect in a TOC, as compared to plain text where the author might hide additional information among the TOC stuff).

The purpose of an overview paragraph and a table of contents are different:

The table of contents serves to quickly find a specific section of a document so you can start reading there or extract a specific information. This is something that rarely makes sense with most papers, except if you start at the conclusion/discussion, which is however easy to find anyway. Even if you want to do this, finding the table of contents would cost you more time than it saves you, given the shortness of most papers. So my answer to your titular question would be: Because there is no need for it.

The main exception to this are long review papers, which however usually have a table of contents.
The overview paragraph serves to briefly summarise the paper and explain its semantic structure to the reader, usually somebody who is reading the paper from back to front. This serves to address certain expectations the reader may have had after the introduction (“don’t worry, we didn’t forget this important aspect”) and draw connections between sections (“our work in Section 3 provides us with a framework to evaluate our method in Section 4”). All of this is not possible in a table of contents.

Now, some papers just have a straightforward structure, and there is nothing about it that needs to be elaborated to the reader. In this case an overview paragraph would indeed be nothing but a written-out, tedious-to-read table of contents and should be skipped in my opinion.

A submitted Paper should not have a TOC, and even if it has one, it will be discarded by the publisher.

A Scientific Paper, is not a Book.

Scientific Journals which publish a collection of submitted, and previously peer reviewed Papers create their "ToC" by extracting Paper approved Abstracts.

Serious Journals will also publish Separats. Which are standalone articles of the current volume being published. Alongside they may publish a leaflet of abstracts which you can receive and make a decision if you're going to get the whole Journal or just a Saparat: a single Paper you are interested in, on the field of your research.

Because a Paper deals with one theme; one subject; or one particular problem alone. Two of them, make two separate papers. And will be reviewed separately. And therefore will require a separate entry on ToC of the journal being published.

Why on earth should or would a Paper of a given scientific article have a ToC of its own?!

A typical structure of a scientific paper will or should contain:

TITLE;
Author(s);
Institution(s);
[keywords];
Abstract.

Intro (to the subject);
sampling, material(s), method(s), and other technicalities.

Procedure;
 Explication;
Discussion;
 Result(s) (+graphs, tables, figures... ).

Conclusion(s) / Summary.

Bibliography.

of which, few are mandatory and an optional 2nd, or 3rd language abstract.
And that's all.


How to preempt plagiarism accusations In 2006, when I was still in grad school, I wrote a paper that went through the usual motions: I discussed it with my advisor, I presented it at a peer-reviewed conference, and then published it as a refereed chapter in an edited volume. Right before the volume came out, I was explaining the paper to a friend from another university and he went: "oh, I think Professor Bigshot said something similar in his semi-obscure 1970 dissertation!". I checked the dissertation in question and, indeed, what I wrote is essentially what Professor Bigshot wrote in 1970, give or take some minor variations in the formalism.

Something to keep in mind here is that this is not plagiarism. I came up with the idea totally on my own, and I didn't reference Professor Bigshot's dissertation because nobody (not my supervisor, not the conference audience, not the chapter referees) told me about it in time. What worries me is that other people might think I took the relevant dissertation passage and plagiarized it. So far, nobody has happened, but I'm want to preempt plagiarism claims in the future. Obviously, nothing can be done about the published chapter, so I have modified the downloadable preprints in both my website and the go-to repository of my field, adding a note that explains the situation and giving proper credit to Professor Bigshot.

Is this enough, or is there anything else I can do?

It is hard, if not impossible, to pre-empt accusations of plagiarism. The key is to be prepared to defend yourself. People rediscover stuff all the time. I would make sure that you keep all of your notes, drafts and any literature searches you may have done. I think keeping them privately would be fine, but if you really wanted to, you could make them publicly available in an archival manner to demonstrate that it is really your work.

There is absolutely no doubt that your publication constitutes plagiarism, but - importantly - of the unintentional rather than the intentional kind. It is still plagiarism however. The only proper course of action is indeed the one you have already taken; if the professor is still active, it might be a good idea to let him know directly.


What to do when you notice that a value in your paper is wrong, once it is accepted but before it is published? 8 months ago, I have submitted my paper to the top journal in my field and finally it got accepted. Unfortunately, I have found one wrong table entry (Experiment Section), which is not a logical value at all. More precisely, I was copying from my raw data (in cm) to the paper (in mm) and I forgot to convert one value. Actually the mentioned value is not possible at all and the change does not affect the conclusion of neither the corresponding subsection in the experiment section nor the conclusion of the paper. This paper is very important for my PhD which will take place in few weeks.

I am pretty sure that reviewers did not deeply examine that table, otherwise they would find out the error because it is too obvious. Now, I am wondering how to deal with this issue.

Ps. Another problem is that in the policy of that journal, the paper which needs another major revision will be rejected. Now, I have one week to provide the final revised version.

This is not a major revision. Just change the value in the final version. (And explain to the editor in the cover letter that you are correcting a typo. A misplaced decimal point is essentially a typo.)

You are not misrepresenting yourself in any way. Because you're explaining the change in the cover letter, you are giving the editor the chance to reject the paper if they deem the changes are big enough to count as a "major revision". However, any editor that rejects the paper for that reason would have to be totally insane. Typos get fixed in the final version of papers all the time.

... This paper is very important for my PhD which will take place in few weeks.
I am pretty sure that reviewers did not deeply examine that table, otherwise they would find out the error because it is too obvious. Now, I am wondering how to deal with this issue...

Presumably your PhD thesis duplicates the error and is already with your examiners, and your defense is in a few weeks? This isn't an issue. If asked, then you can explain to your examiners that you are aware of the problem and that you fixed the problem in the published version. (I don't know whether it is advisable to raise the issue yourself.)


How do I judge a professor's quality while choosing a PhD? How do I judge a professor's quality while choosing  a PhD?

I have completed my Masters in Pure Mathematics.
I want to work in fields which involve Algebra,Functional Analysis,Complex Variables.

I also have my own funding to pursue my research.I have passed a qualification exam which will fund my studies for 4 years.

But I have the following questions:

Most of the questions asked here for example How to judge the reputation of a potential advisor or research group for good quality research for PhD? asks to visit the labs.
In Mathematics we don't have any labs.
I searched some Professors working in the areas I have mentioned.
Some of the Professors had great citations in the period 2005-2010 but now they don't get enough citations hardly 1 or 2.
Also should I try to join a reputed University as I believe all professors will have great publications there?
Or should I not judge a Professor on where he/she teaches?
Also it is not possible to visit every Professor personally

In other words I am confused.
I don't understand what to see and what not.

Can you kindly say how I should judge a professor or what factors should be taken into account ?

Disclaimer: My answer rather aims at underlining that judging which Professor is the best for you depends on your long-term objectives.

You might want to choose your supervisor for two reasons. They sometimes do not align (i.e., it's either-or).

Choosing a Professor for during the PhD: You might want to choose a good supervisor for the time you are PhD student. In such case, you are looking for someone who has already supervised PhD, has time, has research focuses aligning with your research topic/motivations, etc. This will ensure you have a "nice time" during your PhD, with enough support and guidance. Talking with former PhD students might help. Note that in this case, the institution (in terms of courses, funding, support, etc.) matters too.
Choosing a Professor for after the PhD: However, sometimes, what you focus on is the next step. It may vary from one field to the other (I don't know about math at all), but I know first-hand that sometimes, what matter the most for getting the position is recommendation letters (more precisely, who wrote them). Having the right (meaning "well established and acknowledged, with large network) connexions helps you getting visiting PhD/PostDoc positions more easily. Don't get me wrong: you won't get those positions if you are not doing good research. However, when you have reached a certain "enough good" level  (except in some rare case where you're extraordinarily brilliant), my opinion is that the quality of your work matters less than who recommends you — for junior researcher position, at least. So in such case, working with a Professor that has an above-average impact factor, published in renowned journals, and, most importantly, have "sent" PhD students in prestigious institutions (what they — the Professor — can easily do because their best buddy is PI there) and "landed" former students in cool positions is what you are looking for. Even if they might be less good mentors during the PhD. So track where are currently working their former students.

In both cases, look for a Professor that is interested in what you are doing.

Remember also that it's just like houses or spouses: there is no such thing as a ideal positions. You want to find the best "good-enough PI" that would accept you, even if they are not perfect in some aspects.

Finally, please consider that you are choosing a position that will significantly impact your life for the next 3–6 years. Don't neglect your personal needs/requirements (a very good position is not worth anything — in my opinion).

Go off their paper importance.  And then your impression of them, based on conversation if possible, or popular writings.  In addition to their math skill, you will need someone that is a good advisor.  In particular ask previous or current students about the reputation for getting people done quickly (or at least not the converse) and for getting people into good jobs.  And for personal relations.
I think this might be a little less important in math than in the sciences.  You're going to discover your own theorems regardless.  It's not like you need an active lab group.  As long as the fellow still has prestige in his field you should be fine.  Also often older advisors are kinder.
Going to a good university is key.  You need to include it in the calculus.  People will consider where you were able to get into.  You still need a good advisor too--don't go with a jerk or a weak one at a name school.  But I advise against going with a big fish in a small pond. In addition, peers will be better at the name school.  Also likely it is in a bigger town (more fun).  You also have better fallback options for other advisors.  More people come to talk there.  You might even collaborate with other professors.  The undergrads are smarter.  It's just better all around.
Be selective.  Even if you miss some you still learn just from going through the process (what you care about, what are factors, etc.)  If there is a key, key one, reach out by telephone or email or mail.  Obviously let the person know that he is a key one, not just you trying to talk to all, so he gives you the time.

Caveat:  I am not a mathematician.


Graduate student with abysmal English writing skills, how to help I am a math professor at an R1 university. I have taken up a new graduate student (my n'th for n<=10), who is mathematically quite strong, but whose writing skills are a couple notches below what I have had to deal with so far.

We have a new result, which he currently is writing up. He is relatively new to English, and his native language is much unlike English. Though one can understand what he says in a conversation, writing a paper is a real struggle.

Most research students that I have worked with start with poor mathematical English skills. Their first drafts have several major problems, and require many rounds of thorough revision. However, there is always at least something which is right from the start. In contrast, this student's drafts appear nearly unsalvageable: they have hardly a sentence in common with any proper exposition. I have lost the track of revision number, but it is likely to be in double digits now.

The student is working hard, and the draft is showing some signs of improvement. However, I cannot shake the feeling that there should be more that I can do than provide extensive feedback. I am also worried that if this continues for another few months, the student can get much discouraged.

I believe that a part of the problem is the sudden jump in writing difficulty. The mathematical content of the paper-in-writing is more complex than it is typical for a first paper of students that I have supervised so far. This makes the writing task harder. I wish only that the student could practice on a simpler, shorter paper first, to provide a smoother transition from writing homework exercises.

I am looking for suggestions. Note that I would like to avoid writing the paper myself (which would be far less work for me than this), for I want the student to learn how to write himself.

What I have done so far:

extensive comments on drafts, with some verbal explanations
suggested some mathematical readings which I know are well-written (to learn by example)
provided general encouragement

My wife, who was a writing coach for scientists, once had great success with a native speaker of Japanese whose written English was poor. She suggested he write the first few drafts in his native language, so that he could be sure he had the main ideas right. Then he translated his own work into English as best as he could, ready for revision.

Another possible strategy with a similar goal (getting the structure and basic ideas right first) might be for you to sketch a first rough draft, with the theorems in place and some of the expository scaffolding. Then the student could work on fleshing out the proofs and adding details - to be revised, of course.

(I wish I could check that second strategy out with my wife.)

TL;DR

Suggest him to write a blog or more simple content, like technical reports.

As you said:

  I believe that a part of the problem is the sudden jump in writing difficulty.

This is a big challenge. Writing regularly on a blog will help him to gain experience and writing skills. He might start trying to explain his work for a non-math audience, and then try to go deeper and details and complexity, as the paper requires.

You can also ask him to summarize his weekly work/research in a report (article-like or free form), just for getting used to different writing styles and contexts.

For now, if there is no hurry with that paper he can keep iterating or if the paper is unsalvageable, you can kindly suggest him a different paper structure to start from or divide it into more manageable parts for him.


Are PhD Students and PhD Researchers the same thing? Similarly to how a Postdoc researcher is a researcher, I think that a PhD student should be considered a researcher. Especially when:

A salary is obtained for the research that is done as part of the PhD studies. Per definition, I would say that students pay, they are not paid.
A research master has been studied before and there are no lessons, classes, exams, etc. So in fact the person is not a student, but "at least" an "apprentice".

I know that naming things in one way or another may not make a big difference for those in academia that read the CV, but it may evoke different ideas for those out of academia that read it.

AFAIK, they are absolutely equivalent, even if one is more used than the other (mistakenly, IMHO). Nevertheless, I would like to get confirmation, if possible from an authoritative source (like a dictionary for titles), and at the same time I think that the question may be useful for many people.

I don't see the point in your distinctions in either bullet. Some students get a salary, some do not. Neither of these is determinative of whether a student is a researcher. Not every PhD student did a Master's degree before the began their PhD studies. I certainly did not.

Why do you care if PhD students (who I agree do "research") are "researchers" or not? Of course they are researchers because I think that anyone who does research is a researcher (paid, student, or otherwise). Are you looking to validate your ego, to overcome an officious rule that says that only "researchers" may do some thing or other, or are you looking for something else? Except in a few places, titles matter little. If titles matter where you are, then find the law or bureaucratic codes that define "researcher" and follow them. If you don't like the answer you find, you can either live with that, find a workaround, or fight (presumably through a legislative body if that place has one) for change. You haven't given us enough detail about why you care for us to helpfully answer your question.

Perhaps the difference is in what Masters and PhD entail in different countries. I've spoken to several people in the US who have very different course content in comparison to what we have here in the UK. In the UK, Masters level research is of higher quality and rigor than a Masters in the US (the same can be said about Bachelors in the US and the UK). By the time we finish our Masters here in the UK, we are quite familiar with how to do research. We are no longer students of research. From this perspective, I believe those who are doing PhD are researchers, not merely students. Someone who is already granted a PhD is a post-doctoral researcher, not a doctoral researcher.


How to avoid procrastination during the research phase of my PhD? I just finished all of my coursework for my PhD program, and am entering the research phase of my degree with a topic already in mind.  I've already started the research, but I'm already finding that I end up procrastinating a lot of my time away.  When I was taking courses, I felt like i didn't have time to procrastinate because of the pace of the classes and I felt like I had to always keep up with the pace.  But now that I have no specific constraints, I feel like its harder to pace myself.

Of course, I know it's a bad habit to procrastinate and I should probably devote most of my waking hours to my research.  Sometimes, (especially when I get stuck) I find it's so easy to get distracted on the computer (websites, youtube, text messages, etc.).

What are some effective strategies to avoid procrastination during this research phase?  How do you stay on task, especially when you get stuck?

I have found (and continue to find) two kinds of strategies that have some success in preventing me from procrastinating.

Silly, but scarily effective:

As silly as this might sound, implement a blocker like Leechblock or Chrome Nanny and block sites that you waste time on. I used to scoff at such things, but once I installed them, I found myself being forced to spend more time working.
Along the same lines, disable email alerts. Once I did this, I found that I could spend many hours working without getting distracted by random emails.

Less silly, and also less effective

Much of the procrastination when starting research in grad school comes from the lack of clear structure (as you indicate). So the trick is to create structure. For example, if you're working on one problem, and you've spent a little time generating a few ideas, write them down, and methodically start working through each of them one by one, going as deep as you need to go in order to test out an idea. When you're doing so, try to forget about the larger problem, the context, your Ph.D, your future career, and all other "big picture" matters.

More likely than not, the idea won't pan out (most don't!). In that case, move on to the next one.

The problem with early-stage research is that it doesn't look like you're making any progress, so it's easy to slow down and waste time. But if you can measure progress not in terms of "papers published", but in terms of "ideas tried", you'll get some sense of the amount of effort you've put in, and that can help motivate you to try more ideas, and so on. All these failed ideas are teaching you valuable things about your project, and they will eventually be useful because of what you've learnt.

Here is a concrete piece of advice I have heard recently, which has been surprisingly helpful:

Try to allocate 2 to 3 hours every day of unbroken time to devote to your most pressing task.

I like this advice because it simultaneously does a few things:

It keeps your expectations realistic. Like many graduate students, I have often find myself plagued with the thought that (as you put it) I should probably devote most of my waking hours to my research. This attitude is not only discouraging, it's completely unrealistic and actively harmful. Even very successful professors end up with so many meetings, emails, teaching duties, etc., that 2-3 hours of time to devote solely to their research can be rare, and is always very welcome.
It helps you prioritize.  Unwisely, I often start out the day with a list of 3-5 big, pressing things to do. Then I feel like a failure if I do not accomplish them all, or (just as likely) I manage to procrastinate and accomplish none of them, which fuels further discouragement and procrastination. Thinking of it in terms of 2-3 hours of unbroken time makes me realize I cannot do all of them at the outset, so I pick 1 or 2 things to get done, instead of 3-5.
It ensures a little bit of progress every day. Ensuring merely that one 2-3 hour task gets done is often enough to prevent a project from standing still. I would rather make a little bit of progress every day than spend a week procrastinating followed by some long late-night hours trying to catch up.

It is a hallmark of chronic procrastinators that we start out with vastly inflated expectations, followed by long periods of no work and short bursts of way too much work. We would get more done if we just set our expectation consistently at 2-3 hours per day.


Can you get a tenure-track position in philosophy with a J.D.? As stated in the title, I'm wondering if someone could shed some light on whether it is possible to land a tenure-track position in philosophy with a J.D. By way of background, I double majored in philosophy and psychology, and I am heading into my 3rd year of law school. A life as an academic sounds more appealing than it did a few years ago when I chose law school over a Phd., and I'm curious if a J.D. could suffice. Any helpful insight on this topic would be greatly appreciated!

Realistically, no.

There's more philosophy PhDs looking for jobs than jobs available in philosophy, and your undergraduate experience while helpful probably won't make you stand out as an expert in philosophy. Or to put it another way, while you've been earning your J.D. which prepares you for law, philosophy PhD earners have been studying the very subject material they will teach.

But you might be eligible for positions where they are looking for someone in philosophy of law. Specifically, if they want someone with practical experience (but then they wouldn't want you straight out of your J.D.). Probably a good way to ask this question would be to e-mail Brian Leiter (or someone else) who works in law and philosophy.

The fact that you are a freshly graduated JD, and not a PhD cries out loud that you don't have any substantial research in the chosen field (neither other academic field). I don't think it is a good sign...


Can I publish a source code containing potential copyright violations that someone gave me at a university (updated)? During my Ph.D. work at a university, I followed up on someone else's doctoral work (I am no longer associated with that university). This person provided me with the source code for his work. I subsequently discovered that this source code is a slightly modified copy of some publicly available sources, which have a GPL license. The modifications are mostly some instruction toggling/rebracketing and variable renaming. Just a few instructions contain slight modifications (that I personally do not find any more justifiable than the variable renaming). Moreover, in the versions that this person gave me, the authorship headers of the original authors are replaced by his own and the copyright mentions of the university in question are also added. The GPL license notice, which is present in the original sources, is removed from all but one package.
I had reported these observations to my supervisors (who also supervised the work of the person in question), but they sought to suppress the matter and warned me of legal actions if I reported this matter any further (hence I am not reporting it directly to the university, which by the way does not seem to have an ethics committee). I'll note that these observations in the source code are part of several issues that I observed in this person's work (that involves several publications and his doctoral dissertation; I'll probably ask for advice regarding that in separate questions).
Is it legally safe if I publicly share the source code provided by this person along with the links to the online available original sources? The code was transferred to me by this person through a sharing link that is no longer available. I can only prove that I reported my observations to my supervisors as well as to this person (he responded by reaffirming that the source code was developed at the university in question and refused any further communication). I'll note that an engineer at the university trans-coded some of the source code in question for use in a commercial product for which the university had a collaboration with a private firm.
Update:
I am also a co-author of this person in a couple of publications. This collaboration was supposed to be a sort of transition/continuation, at the beginning of my doctoral program and the end of his, of his reportedly high-functioning work. When I discovered several anomalies, I requested my supervisors to get these publications retracted. My detailed response is at the  PubPeer page of one of these publications. In my response, I have also shared some of my email exchanges with my co-authors. These exchanges lend support for raising the issue about the source code, without actually sharing it.
I was quite shocked when this person suggested that he not only did not have to acknowledge the use of the existing ideas/solutions but also considered their mere mention to be optional (his exact words: "You do not have to acknowledge but you can cite them"). Concerns about the acknowledgment of the sources, the soundness of ideas, and various peculiarities in results are raised on the PubPeer pages of his several publications.
Considering my question about the legal aspect, the comments about this being a legal question are right. However, I would also like to know if publishing this source code would be objectively helpful (a part of it was given to me with the GPL notice intact). Some comments on the above-mentioned PubPeer pages compare long extracts and a large number of equations from the publications to point out something that can be noticed in a glance by comparing the source codes.
Thanks for the discussion in response to my query! Depending on the input in the comments, I might post this part as a separate question.

With the caveat that I am not a lawyer, the answer is "no".

You have:

code A, which is GPL-licensed
code B, which is a derivative work of A and not GPL-licensed.

The GPL license requires that all derivative works are also GPL-licensed. As B does not carry the GPL license, it is a copyright violation and (depending on jurisdiction) it is probably illegal for you to distribute it.

If the changes needed are small, your simplest way forward would be to take code A, and modify it yourself as needed to make code C, while keeping it GPL-licensed, and release that.

EDIT: As noted in the comments, it is possible that A had two licenses: The GPL, and another license granted specifically to the author of B which permitted them to change the names and redistribute without GPL. This seems very unlikely, but you should consider the possibility if considering accusations of any sort.

As I haven't seen either code, and as a university professor myself, based on what you have mentioned, I would recommend that you consult with the GPL licensing authority.... They can decide about the proper respond both legally and ethically


Can a professor force you to buy a book, for use in his exam? I'm a first year law student in the UK. For our EU Law class, our professor declared that we must bring an unannotated physical copy of Blackstone's EU Treaties & Legislation 2018-2019 to our exam and use it. Thus we must buy it.

Our Prof admitted that these laws are free online. But we obviously can't bring our own printouts to the exam, as the invigilators can't check each student's printout.
The professors for my three other classes don't require us to buy any book for the exam, as they'll provide us with the legislation for the exam.

Thus why don't the EU Law professors do the same? I wonder...laziness?

Our professor ought to provide the legislation, because the book

is a waste of money. Statues and legislations change yearly, and this book's going to be outdated. In fact, scroll down the Amazon page, and you'll see that the book has a new edition  published yearly.
is too eco-unfriendly! 1 sheet/2 pages  x 696 pages x 200 students = 69,600 sheets! And the professor has been requiring this book for many years.
may be unaffordable. It's £14.99 + £3 VAT, which is under the poverty threshold.

I emailed our professor many times, but he never replied. I prefer to stay confidential, and not to confront him or the administration face-to-face. I emailed the administration, but they just keep repeating the professor's order to buy the book.

As user2768 already pointed out in a comment, the question is not whether the prof can force you (no, they can not), but if it is reasonable / fair to require a specific book for an exam.

The answer can depend on many factors:

Is the professor the author of the book? If yes, I would see an issue because this would boost their personal income. This does not seem to be the case in your situation.
Can the exam be completed without the book? E.g. in technical fields, it might be helpful to have a formulary, in languages a dictionary, etc. In most cases, it it just reasonable to use such a book because otherwise you would have to memorize too many facts / formulas, etc.
Is the book a pre-requisite for doing the exam? I did not study law, but from my understanding, one of the natures of law is to derive conclusions based on written text (especially laws). Therefore, it is impossible to do the exam without access to the original law text. So in your specific case, I would say the professor has to require the book, otherwise it would be impossible to do a proper exam.
Is the price / effort unseasonably high? In your case the short answer is "no". In fact it is extremely cheap.
Are there reasonable alternatives to a printed book? Electronic versions of the text would provide an unfair advantage over students using he paper version since they are searchable, in addition it is difficult to guarantee the sanity of the device. One solution might be to provide each student with a computer holding a local copy of the law text and having the internet connection disabled during the exam. The university would need a tremendous infrastructure for that.

To make a long story short: Buy the book. And don't throw it away after one year ;-). Maybe you can hand it over to a student next year.

One additional idea: If you are having some sort of students association: Ask them to organize a bookshelf for such kind of literature.

In general, it's probably not acceptable for a lecturer to assume all his or her students can buy a specific book. It may be acceptable to expect them to obtain a copy though, especially if they make arrangements with a University or departmental library.


How important is the TOEFL speaking score? I am a student from China, and I want to apply for (pure) math PhD this fall, in the USA. Now I have a TOEFL score which has 102 points in total but only 20 points in speaking section. I am hesitating to take another TOEFL test.

What I want to know is, how important the TOEFL speaking section score is. Does a 20 speaking score will make me rejected? Also, I want to know how the professors view applicants' TOEFL scores. Some universities, such as the UCSD, said that "Our department also looks critically at the speaking scores of the TOEFL and IELTS. It is strongly recommended to have at least a 23 speaking score on the TOEFL and a 7 speaking score on the IELTS.". Does this means I have no chance to be admitted? Should I try to get a 23 score in TOEFL? I think it is not very easy to me, and a TOEFL test is somewhat expensive...

Another question that I really want to know is, even if the university said that they only require a minimum score in total score of TOEFL, will a low speaking score undermine my possibility of being admitted?

Anyway, I will appreciate anyone who can help me. Any advice is welcome.

The level of the TOEFL or IELTS speaking score is important as a hard criteria for admission to graduate schools in the US because it is an effective first step for the university, the department, and the advisor to police against allowing specific situations to go wrong.

You may be supported by the department as a teaching assistant. In this case, you will have to interact with undergraduate students in labs, in recitations, or as they visit you to discuss their homework assignment or grade. Your ability to speak coherently and clearly is critical in all of these cases, but especially in the first two. Otherwise, the students will evaluate you as being unable to carry out your duties as a teaching assistant because you are unable to speak English.

You may be supported by a faculty member as a research assistant. In this case, you will be required to provide your advisor with verbal reports on your research progress and likely also to give oral presentations about your work. Here again, you ability to communicate coherently and clearly is critical. Otherwise, your advisor may evaluate the situation and decide not to continue to support you because the extra effort he or she requires to communicate effectively with you in English will delay achievements on the project beyond reason.

As a graduate student doing research in the US, you will be expected if not required to be able to communicate the results of your work to the community of researchers in the US in English. This means you will be asked if not required to give oral presentations at local, regional, or national conferences. Your ability to speak coherently and clearly will reflect positively on you. The inverse case is often more dire. When you cannot speak well in English, the net result will reflect poorly on you but can also be taken to reflect badly on your work or the quality of your project.

Graduate programs in the US also require students to take courses. The teaching approach in US graduate courses often if not always demands that graduate students interact verbally with the instructor and with their peers. Your ability to communicate effectively in English can and often absolutely will determine your level of success to complete homework, do project assignments, and pass quizzes or exams.

In summary, you must meet the required verbal score because not doing so is a sign that you can and likely will fail at one or another of your required duties to communicate effectively in English as a graduate student in a US degree program. Universities, departments, and faculty are not interested to support such cases of potential failure. They have enough applications that meet or exceed the speaking requirements that they do not need to waste their time on those that do not.

One possible exception to the above must be acknowledged. In some cases, the admission criteria to the university could state that verbal scores below the cutoff may be admitted but that, in such a case, the applicant (you) will be required in the first year to pass courses offered at the university in English as a second language. In such cases, university policy may disallow you to be supported as a teaching assistant until you pass the courses. Alternatively, faculty may not wish to support you on their research funding until you have passed the courses. The English language courses may run for a full academic year.

In conclusion, as one who has reviewed many applications to graduate programs in science and engineering, I offer you little to no hope to continue your application process until you bring your TOEFL or IELTS verbal score to the levels that are demanded in the admission requirements of the universities where you intend to apply. The best alternative is to have a faculty member in the department who will make the case to the department and the university to support you as an exception to the rules.

They will tend to look at the speaking score in terms of you making presentations at conferences and also teaching classes as well as helping in workshops etc.

So they will take it into account - may not be the only thing looked at but still part of the application.


Is a professor allowed to require me to give him permission to speak with my doctor before letting me make up an exam? I study in the USA.

Can a professor ask me to waive my right to privacy so he can talk to my doctor about my medical condition? He says he needs that in order to allow me to take a make-up midterm for an exam that I missed, even though a medical note certifying my illness is provided.

Also, the doctor that gave the note is usually a nurse practitioner (NP), but he instead wants a note from a doctor of medicine (MD).

That sounds like a big no to me, but that comes from Germany with very strict rules on privacy. Your medical condition is your thing, and yours alone. If you have a document that certifies your illnesss, that should be enough.

Check your university policies, what you need to provide in case off illness HAS to be written down somewhere. If it states there that a written thing is enough, it is enough. Point your professor to that document, if that does not help talk to faculty cousellors. They should be able to help you.

Since this sounds like a disability, talk to your college/university's disability office. Get an accommodation letter that allows you to make up classes and exams. In every college I have attended, this letter is sufficient for establishing that you have a disability and the professor would be violating university policies if he were to require more information on the medical condition.


Credit, recognition, or compensation for reviewing an accepted article as a native english speaker? I have been asked to review a paper that has been accepted for publication in english because I am a native english speaker. This request is coming from the director of a center. I am still a student. I don't technically work under this person or this center but I do have an affiliation. The review is going to take a couple hours of work. Is there any appropriate recognition or compensation for doing this review?

I would expect no direct compensation.  However:

This is a good networking opportunity which will improve your reputation if you do a good job.
Tell your supervisor about it.  They may later mention it in a letter of recommendation.
When applying for jobs, you will be asked to give evidence you have great communication skills.  "I edit papers for senior professors who are English language learners" is one way to do that.  It also works as evidence you can collaborate with diverse people, which is another common hiring criterion.  Do not name the person you helped in a job application, as that could be viewed as criticism.

If I was the author, I would offer you an acknowledgement in the paper in the form of either a footnote on the first page or a sentence in the acknowledgement section.

In my opinion not offering you this acknowledgement would be rude and ungrateful, but this kind of contribution is definitely not enough for co-authorship. About compensation, I doubt you can get much more than a free coffee: academia is not exactly the ideal environment in terms of fair compensation in my experience. However the "team person" image you give to the people involved might bring you some good karma later, for instance if the director remembers you positively they might be more likely to think about you if a funding opportunity arises.


What contents should I put on my academic website? I'm planing to setup a personal academic website. From visiting other researchers websites I have a rough idea of the things I want to put on it:

- Research interests
- List of articles & conference contributions
- CV
- Links to affiliated institutions
- Contact information

Would you agree that this list constitutes the information an academic should put on his/her website? Is there anything else you would hope or expect to find? Would you advise against putting any of these pieces of information on the website?

At the very least, you should have your name, contact information, and a bio of what you do. That's the minimal advertising necessary to serve as a useful "see my site for more details on what I do".

Given that almost everyone who visits your site will either be looking for someone's name or a paper you've previously published, the next most useful information to include would be:
- Lab members contact info & bios
- Publications with downloadable links

I would definitely recommend putting pictures up as well, so people will recognize your face when they see you at conferences. Same for lab members.

Links to other affiliations is nice, but almost certainly not important. Practically no one will follow them. Whether to list your CV is up to you; people who need it will often ask you, but it won't hurt to have it live. Depending on your research, you can have a "recent news" section where you advertise any particularly notable publication or mention in the popular press.

Finally, if you teach, I recommend putting links to the course website (which may or may not be part of your academic website), as many students will find your page by googling and will be looking for course info.

I'd love to see conjectures and open problems.

This is a good way to advertise for your field, and maybe someone knows a solution/related problem.