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thread-31394	https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/31394	Is it appropriate to call professor?	2014-11-08T07:49:49.610	# Question Title: Is it appropriate to call professor? I exchanged an email with a professor on Thursday and he asked me if I am available to call him on a specific time next Monday. I replied the email to confirm the time but no reply from him. Therefore, I resent the email on Friday to re- confirm that he knows that I will make the call. However, no reply as well. So I am wondering if it is appropriate for me to call him at the time he indicated next Monday even without his reply? # Answer > 12 votes Sure. You have booked a time, make the call. If you want to be sure, ask him over the phone if it is still a good time. Academics are busy and slow responders, so since you confirmed your emails may have been given the lowest priority. # Answer > 2 votes When he has asked you to call him by phone; call him in the office hours to the provided phone number. May be he knew he won't have access to his email on the following days and he asked you to have a telephone conversation instead. That may be why he is not responding your email too. --- Tags: recommendation-letter ---
thread-31406	https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/31406	Is it OK to only invite one of three co-authors of a previous joint paper to do another joint paper?	2014-11-08T13:10:29.107	# Question Title: Is it OK to only invite one of three co-authors of a previous joint paper to do another joint paper? I have co-authored one paper with Professor A, PhD student B and PhD student C. B left the best impression on me as the most friendly, productive and hard-working. Now, I want to do a joint paper again. Same as last time, the subject is not in A's area of expertise (nor B's or C's), though it's highly related, but I am hesitant to work with A as he tends to rush and push to publication before getting the paper to perfect (or very near perfect), and he is usually busy so I doubt that he will spend much time on it anyways. C is OK, but probably can't contribute much to the paper. Besides, I think two authors may suffice and be optimal. Now, A is B's adviser (maybe C's too) and was my undergraduate mentor. I don't want to induce any hard feelings to A and C if they find out they, but not B, are left out of this joint venture. In the end, I did present my draft to A and gave glimpse of it in a presentation where A, B and C were present. Another reason why I choose to work with B who is a PhD student is (this may sound silly) because I think this will actually help her career, as opposed to working with a professor or working alone, as I don't intend to pursue an academic career and am just doing this for fun. Plus, the second author can act as a serious peer reviewer, so this will benefit my paper as well. How should I do about this? # Answer It is absolutely fine to not work with A and C as long as 1. all the work and ideas in your paper are yours (and B's). 2. your preferences on who to work with are based on academic and research skills, Making decisions based on their race, gender, ethnicity, nationality, etc. is discriminatory and hence unacceptable. I feel it is dishonest to add A and C to the list of authors in your paper just to keep them happy. > 8 votes # Answer It indeed is perfectly fine to collaborate with only B on a specific topic/publication. What you might want to keep in mind is that, depending on the field you are working in, it might be common to include the supervisor of a PhD student in the list of authors, as long as that supervisor contributed -even little- by advising his PhD student also on this topic. As you wrote "my undergraduate mentor", I assume you are a PhD student yourself. So if you have your own supervisor as last author for example, it could become a problem not to include A in general. I agree with not adding A as an author just to make him happy. Keeping C out of that paper does not seem to be a problem, as long as you don't use research done by him. But you would want to communicate that to B as well. > 3 votes --- Tags: mathematics, etiquette, collaboration, colleagues ---
thread-31410	https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/31410	Asking authors for details of algorithm implementation when no explanation is provided	2014-11-08T14:24:00.610	# Question Title: Asking authors for details of algorithm implementation when no explanation is provided I am reading a paper where they cite "Apply the X Algorithm on the result" after a series of operations on "result" in the algorithm. The rest of the algorithm is clear in what it asks to do, but the "X Algorithm" and "applying" it are not clear in what is supposed to be done. Also, there is no other place in the paper, nor any citation to another paper, where the algorithm is cited. Looking up "X Algorithm" online does give an explanation to how it works, but the result does not seem close to what the expected results are. For example, the explanation online gives results that are always integers, when the result is supposed to be a real number normally distributed between 0 and 1. Is it suitable to contact the author(s) of the paper directly and get an explanation/access to implementation of the algorithm because it is not explained in the paper? # Answer > 10 votes This is a perfect example of a case in which one should: 1. contact the authors with a polite request for additional information, and 2. fiercely and privately curse to yourself about the inadequacies of peer review. --- Tags: publications, citations ---
thread-31386	https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/31386	Using a letter of recommendation from freshman year professor?	2014-11-08T05:20:04.897	# Question Title: Using a letter of recommendation from freshman year professor? I am an electrical engineering senior, and I am preparing to apply to Master's programs in three different fields: communications engineering, embedded systems, and computational engineering. I need two LORs for each program. The problem for me is that my best recommenders are professors from my freshman and sophomore years. My grades, classroom-interaction, etc. actually deteriorated after that point. I have identified four potential recommenders, but I ruled out one of them (a comms prof) because he indicated to me that his letter will not be very good. My remaining options are: 1. A Microwaves professor with whom I have taken several courses and gotten A-,B+, and B. I got the A- in a 300 level course I took as a sophomore. 2. A networking professor with whom I got a B+ recently, and had at least minimal interaction. 3. A math professor with whom I got an A in a 200 level course (multivariable calculus) as a freshman, and had plenty of interaction. Math was my passion at that time. The prof also encouraged me to become a math major. My dilemma is: a LOR from number 3 is possibly so much more positive than 1 and 2, but it is for a 200 level course that is not engineering. I don't think it is very relevant to any of my target fields (communications, computational engineering, and Embedded systems). And, I took that course three years ago. I was a different person, socially, academically, motivationally, philosophically, etc. Should I rule out number 3? # Answer > 1 votes In short: if you don't have better letters of recommendation, then you should go with the ones that you have available. If the best letter you can get is from a non-EE person, I wouldn't rule it out on that basis alone. If the person can comment on your potential as an EE, that would make things better still. --- Tags: recommendation-letter ---
thread-31393	https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/31393	Can people in western countries do graduation and post graduation in two completely different fields?	2014-11-08T07:35:37.637	# Question Title: Can people in western countries do graduation and post graduation in two completely different fields? It might be possible here in India too, I haven't researched on it, but in one movie I have seen the guy is studying mathematics in MIT but his future plan was to study medicine at Harvard. I kept wondering how could he do that. Here at India at 11th class we have to usually choose either Mathematics or Biology and then our eligibility changes accordingly. # Answer Some universities require students to have similar bachelors degree, some other do not require similar degree and do not have specific policy on this; while others need a related or so near bachelors field. For instance, for a masters in engineering degrees; one with bachelors in applied mathematics or physics will also be able to study masters of an engineering field. Answers to your question varies in fields and countries, and different education systems. My general advice to you would be to see the minimum requirements of the university you want to apply for to see whether their admissions office have any regulations on having related bachelors degree to the masters or not. If they are not providing you information on this, I recommend you to contact them by email and ask your questions. > 2 votes # Answer At least in the USA, yes. The US education system allows the individual student a great deal of freedom in the choice of field(s) of study. You can do your undergraduate degree in one subject and your graduate degree in another. Of ocurse, to get into graduate school in a particular subject, you have to have sufficient background. Thus it is relatively uncommon for someone to get, say, a degree in history but decide to go to graduate school in physics instead. It is possible, however. In some cases people pursue jobs in one area and gradually develop an interest in another topic, perhaps gaining research experience in the private sector or taking classes informally in order to get the background they need for grad school. Also, getting an undergraduate degree in a particular subject in the US does not mean you only study that subject. You can take a wide variety of classes outside your nominal area of focus, and in some cases thereby get enough experience to apply to grad school in an another subject. Also, you can "double major", completing more than one official course of study. Thus someone may study multiple subjects in undergrad, and decide on one to continue in grad school. Switching fields between undergrad and grad is not that uncommon, especially if the fields are closely related (e.g., math BS followed by physics PhD). I've personally known quite a few people who have switched fields from undergrad to grad, sometimes with a long detour outside of school. For instance, one fellow I know got undergrad degrees in political science and Asian studies, spent more than a decade as a corporate executive, and eventually went back to get a PhD in linguistics. > 1 votes # Answer In the US, medical school does not require any specific major. The specific requirements are one year each of biology, physics, and English, two years of chemistry (including organic chemistry), and a standardized exam (the MCAT). While it's most common for medical students to major in a field like biology, it's entirely possible for someone majoring in a completely different thing to complete the premed requirements and learn enough to do well on the MCAT, and a fair number of medical students in the US come from outside the sciences entirely. > 1 votes # Answer > Can people in western countries do graduation and post graduation in two completely different fields? In principle yes, however: speaking from my alma mater (central european large public university, unrestricted access to most programmes, i.e., no need to convince an admission committee), the main hurdles to do a graduate programme based on a different undergrad degree boil down to two factors: * Formal requirements, as discussed by the other answers. In my university, this was really a design decision that each degree programme individually could decide. Many (especially humanities programmes) are by design very open to all comers. Others, especially technical fields, require either some technical degree or even one of a very few, closely related degrees. Exceptions could be made on a case-by-case basis, usually with the obligation of additional fundamental course work. * Practical issues. Even if you are allowed to, say, do an electrical engineering MSc based on a business informatics BSc, you are still expected to have the electrical engineering knowledge of a good EE BSc graduate right from the start. If your entire EE education was 2 credits in "Engineering for Computer Scientists", you will likely be in really bad shape and absolutely nobody will help you or feel bad for you. The consensus opinion will be that you had to know what you get into, and that you would now need to see how to handle this yourself. To emphasise the second point again: I have seen a few cases where people tried to argue that, as their degree was sufficient formally for the graduate programme they enrolled in, we needed to accommodate for their very basic subject skills. This line of argumentation never works, and it should not. If you do a graduate in any subject, you are expected to have a least above-average knowledge of the things that you learn in the undergrad major of this subject. How you do it is mostly up to you. > in one movie I have seen the guy is studying mathematics in MIT but his future plan was to study medicine at Harvard. This would specifically not be possible here. Meds is, due to its sensitive nature, highly regulated by law, and there is as far as I know no sidestepping the formal study progression here. The other direction (Meds -\> Maths) may work, but I am not sure. > 0 votes --- Tags: graduate-admissions, undergraduate ---
thread-30031	https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/30031	Impact of the visit weekend weather on the admitted graduates' grad school decision in the US	2014-10-15T21:47:46.257	# Question Title: Impact of the visit weekend weather on the admitted graduates' grad school decision in the US US universities typically organize visit weekends for newly admitted graduates, after which the latter confirm or refuse the offer. Is there any research/study/survey that looked at the impact of the visit weekend weather on the admitted graduates' grad school decision? # Answer > 4 votes I'm not aware of any research, and we've actually debated this some in my department. Anecdotally, the biggest factor in whether a prospective grad student decides to attend is whether they come to visit. Of course, that's hard to establish as causal, since students who are inclined to turn down the offer are much less likely to visit. Moreover, we know of a few students each year who already accepted our offers who come for the visit weekend(s). *I suspect weather* is pretty low on the list of reasons to decline a program.** We've polled students who declined our offer and generally the reason is either that they preferred an advisor at another school, or preferred a higher-ranked program. I don't have the spreadsheet, but I think that was ~75-80% of the respondents over the last two years of polling. (In our chemistry department, the incoming grad student class is ~30-40, so the statistics are reasonable.) I do agree with the comment above about significantly negative experiences. We sometimes took students to eat at a cool restaurant that used to be a church. One student, who was evidently, extremely Catholic, was offended, even though we explained the church performed rites and was very pleased with the resulting restaurant. In short, I'd say major negative experiences and then logical sorts of reasons are much more likely causes. (Now, if you're talking about a hurricane, tornado, freak blizzard, or other "major negative experience" due to weather.. that's a different story.) # Answer > 3 votes The short non-scientific answer: YES My answer is just based on anecdotes and I am not aware of any methodological research on this subject (it is not my field of research). I've listened to an episode of This American Life about this subject, in which they interview professors on the admission committees of different universities. According the the interviews, visiting a university is a good indication that the student is interested in the school and is more likely to attend the school if he/she is admitted. This is episode "504: How I Got Into College" of the podcast, which you can find here (http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/504/how-i-got-into-college). P.S. I tried to post this as a comment to the question but it was too long. I apologize if this is not the answer you are looking for. --- Tags: graduate-admissions, united-states, reference-request, visiting ---
thread-31435	https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/31435	Submit to arXiv with a different order of authors	2014-11-08T22:58:51.280	# Question Title: Submit to arXiv with a different order of authors Recently I have published a paper with my adviser and, although I was the main contributor, for some issues with our university my adviser became the first author (Seemingly, he couldn't get any credit from the paper if he was named as second author). I mean, there was no doubt or conflict between us about me being the first author. Now, I want to submit a preprint of the paper to arXiv. I was wondering if I can name myself as the first author in the arXiv submission. My adviser is OK with this, but I wanted to know that: * Is it acceptable according to arXiv's rules? * Can I somehow show my real first authorship by doing this? # Answer I don't think there are any rules against having a different author ordering on the arXiv version, but I'd recommend against trying this. The author ordering on the published paper would be regarded as "official", and doing things differently on the arXiv would certainly not be considered to demonstrate the real first authorship. Instead, it could easily be misinterpreted: 1. People may assume you were careless about author ordering in submitting to the arXiv, which wouldn't be good for your reputation. 2. Worse yet, they may assume you were dishonestly changing the author ordering, which would be a disaster for your reputation. 3. The best case scenario is that they would assume the author order changed between the preprint and the published paper, because the authors changed their minds about who should be listed first. The only way to avoid these dangers would be to add an explicit note explaining the change, but I assume that's out of the question. After all, if you deserve to be first author on the arXiv paper, then you should have been first author on the published paper as well, so such a note would just raise ethical questions about the published authorship. It sounds like you should have been first author all along, since author ordering should not be determined based on how much credit the university gives. If it is still possible to fix the author ordering before publication, that could be the best approach, but the arXiv is not a good way to fix it after the fact. > 18 votes --- Tags: paper-submission, arxiv ---
thread-31433	https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/31433	How comes over 25% of retractions fail to explain the reason of the retraction?	2014-11-08T22:39:38.857	# Question Title: How comes over 25% of retractions fail to explain the reason of the retraction? Steen, R. Grant. "Retractions in the scientific literature: is the incidence of research fraud increasing?." Journal of medical ethics (2010): jme-2010. claims: > Many retractions are cryptic as to the actual reason(s) for retraction; 8% of retractions were for unstated reasons and up to 18% of retractions were for ambiguous reasons. How comes over 25% of retractions fail to explain the reason of the retraction? # Answer One reason is that it can be a face saving technique. Sometimes there are suspicions of fraud or other misconduct that are difficult to prove, or the authors strenuously disagree with each other about who had responsibility for something or exactly what happened. Instead of fighting about the explanation, the editors and authors may agree to retract the paper while giving only a vague reason that everyone can agree to. This is not ideal as far as scientific clarity goes, but sometimes finding the truth is genuinely difficult, and even when it's possible it may not be worth the effort. As a general heuristic, if a paper is retracted with no clear reason, then the reason is probably not good (or at best it's complicated or debatable). After all, if there were an explanation that sounded good and was clearly true, then why wouldn't they include it? > 7 votes --- Tags: retraction ---
thread-31439	https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/31439	Should acronyms always be expanded?	2014-11-08T23:50:49.633	# Question Title: Should acronyms always be expanded? When writing an academic paper should you always expand on acronyms that you use even if the acronyms are universally understood, for example; * IT (Information Technology) * WWW (World Wide Web) # Answer > 4 votes You may often be surprised how often a "universally" understood acronym turns out to be either ambiguous or not quite as universal as you believe. For example, look at all of the alternate expansions of your example of IT (some of which are even reasonable). I also find that if I wouldn't say the acronym (e.g., "WWW"), then it makes for smoother reading to use the words instead. As such, I personally find it best to start by writing out a name in full before giving the acronym. In fact, when there is a short prose alternative like "information technology" or "web," I prefer avoid the acronym altogether. The exception to this rule is those acronyms that have made the transition to become words (e.g., RAM, laser, radar) or that have no real expansion, such as GNU, which is more of a recursion joke than an acronym. --- Tags: writing ---
thread-31430	https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/31430	Omissions of undergraduate information	2014-11-08T21:53:13.667	# Question Title: Omissions of undergraduate information I am new here. I was wondering since many of you are learned professionals what your opinion on this is. I have recently returned to further education (as an undergraduate) and have been there for a few years. In my original application to the university, I filled in the previous academic background section as much as I could. Since there have been a large number of years since I left a course I did not finish, I was wondering if - ethically and perhaps code of conduct wise - forgetting to include that I did not finish said course at a 'partner college' to the university I am currently enrolled at would come back with implications down the line. Would it be best to bring this to attention? It is worth mentioning that the results for which my current undergraduate course was deemed 'conditional' from, are not related this course I accidentally omitted. Any opinions? # Answer You should have been asked for transcripts of all your previous work, and those transcripts will fill in what you may have omitted. > 2 votes --- Tags: ethics, university, undergraduate ---
thread-31447	https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/31447	I am applying to many universities, how should I ask my professors to re-write recommendation letters?	2014-11-09T04:50:08.307	# Question Title: I am applying to many universities, how should I ask my professors to re-write recommendation letters? I applied for PhD but I have not been accepted, and now I want to apply for another university and I want to request recommendation-letter from the same professors, what should I write in my email to the professors to request recommendation again! # Answer Asking for more than one recommendation is perfectly normal. Unless you've given them specific details about a particular position, once a reference is written it isn't too hard to send it out again. However, it is polite to keep the effort required from your referees to a minimum. It is quicker for them to send out 5 references at once, than to do one a week for 5 weeks. Exactly what you ask for from your referees will depend on how references are requested - are they actively sent with the application, or will the place applied to write to referees? Even with the latter, one of my referees said they needed explicit instructions to respond to each. > 3 votes --- Tags: etiquette, recommendation-letter ---
thread-31440	https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/31440	Is it a good idea to express my gratitude to a co-author with a gift card?	2014-11-09T00:22:11.863	# Question Title: Is it a good idea to express my gratitude to a co-author with a gift card? I am an undergraduate level student planning to put out a research paper for publication. The second author is a PhD student who has helped me to do much editing (including re-writing my entire paper into a concise and expressive form, and also the numerical simulation part). I think he helps me a lot. My friend suggests to me to buy him a gift card at the end to express my gratitude. I am wondering would this be a good idea or not? # Answer Others may differ in opinion, but I personally think that gift cards are a poor choice for expressing personal gratitude. The problem is that gift cards are effectively cash with spending restrictions. Your colleague has invested time and energy in helping you, and giving cash would essentially be saying how much per hour you feel their time is worth. Instead, I would recommend offering something like taking them out for a fancy lunch, which invests your time and gives the two of you a chance to do some informal bonding and building of your professional relationship. Unless, of course you don't actually want to spend time alone with this colleague (many possible good reasons for that), in which case I would still recommend looking for some way to express gratitude that shows an investment of time and caring beyond just money. > 8 votes # Answer I would probably kindly reject such a gift, since it is essentially giving money and I do not want to receive money for this type of thing. I would be fine with a bottle of wine or a similar thing. It is not money and the "price" part of it is not that important (I, after all, don't even know the price). Another choice is to invite the person for whatever you think (or know) they like: sushi, good burger, NHL match, ... Just don't "overshoot it", you're younger and they need not be exactly interested in coming for an NHL match with you, because they may plan to go there with someone else or whatever. Use some sort of common sense for this. Last but not least (and I consider that the best option), invite them for a beer. In my country (Czechia), you even say "Thanks, I owe you a beer" when someone does something good for you (mostly like in your case: spending their time on your project with no reward expected), and quite often the people really end up having a beer or two. I think you can invite them for a beer in most countries in the world. > 4 votes # Answer If I was the person who helped, I would indeed be very positively surprised to receive anything at all from you (unless it's something offensive). You don't have an obligation to do it and so most people would appreciate whatever time or money you spend into expressing your gratitude. That said, for the choice I would try to avoid "objects" which are usually rather useless and tend to end up gathering dust somewhere. Food and/or drink are good choices in my opinion. My mother in law knows I like beer and I love it when she gets me four or five different styles when she makes me a present. > 0 votes # Answer Another important issue is: do not overdo it. A present of value, say, 50 or 100$, can not only make the recipient uncomfortable, but it might also be against the regulations of the university. There are often anti-corruption regulations that prohibit university employees from receiving gifts, excluding very small token ones. > 0 votes --- Tags: research-process, etiquette, research-undergraduate, gifts ---
thread-31457	https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/31457	Is it necessary to provide links to the mentioned softwares' websites on my CV?	2014-11-09T09:19:43.133	# Question Title: Is it necessary to provide links to the mentioned softwares' websites on my CV? I am writing my CV and, in the Skills section, I have listed the name of the softwares that I've worked with. Some of them are well-known softwares, but some are open source codes that may not be known to many people. So I linked to the softwares' websites when I felt is necessary. I wanted to ask if this is appropriate, and is not insulting (presumptuous) to, say, the professor who is reading my CV. # Answer > 1 votes Unless the software is very specific to the role for which you're applying (in which case, one would hope that anyone reviewing applications would be familiar with it...) you should probably not go into this level of detail. --- Tags: cv, software, website ---
thread-24049	https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/24049	Is there any requirement to cite recent literature in publications?	2014-06-27T17:51:41.787	# Question Title: Is there any requirement to cite recent literature in publications? Recently I submitted my first paper to a philosophy journal and got a rejection. This is of course nothing unusual, but as someone with a STEM background, I was surprised by the reason for the rejection: While there were no complaints regarding contents or correctness, it was felt that the paper failed to cite and engage with the recent literature on the topic. The latter is indeed true: I did ignore the latest papers in the field and only referenced a handful of "classic" papers from the last century. But I also thought this was okay, as it seemed to me that the recent literature didn't add much to what was already covered by the classic papers, and was in any case not essential to the discussion. Now, I'm not here to complain about having my paper rejected, or to argue about who's wrong or right. I just would like to know whether the requirement to cite the recent literature is a humanities-specific thing, or whether this is a common requirement in most fields. For instance, I imagine that if I had submitted a maths or computer science paper that referenced only a handful of classic and old, but relevant papers, my own paper, if correct and substantial, would have been accepted. Note: Since people seem to misunderstand me, a bit of extra clarification: I don't have a problem with citing recent literature, if that's what it takes to get a philosophy paper published. I just want to know if this is more or less the same in most fields, including maths and CS. In the latter, so I believe, it's less of a big deal to cite the latest papers as long as the submitted paper correctly solves some well-known open problem. # Answer > 27 votes This question seems to be based on a common misconception about the role of citations (see this question for a related issue). Citations aren't just there to list content your work builds on; they're also there to provide the reader with context and motivation. The reason you should be citing recent work is to help the reader. If you were familiar with various unsuccessful solutions, it's likely that some of them motivated the successful one, even if only by identifying things that couldn't work, and that merits a citation. Even if not, many of your readers are likely to be people who've thought a lot about one or more of those unsuccessful approaches; you're in the best position to explain how your approach differs. (I'm writing from the perspective of mathematics, by the way.) # Answer > 15 votes Your assumption is wrong: The requirement to cite the recent literature is a valid reason for rejection on many fields as well and is certainly not a humanities thing. Why? You give the answer yourself: > my own paper, if correct and substantial, would have been accepted But how can the reviewer judge that (the substantial contribution at least) if you do not cite the recent papers? Perhaps what you propose, has already been done before and even in a better way that the one you propose in some recent papers. Science is not rebuilt from scratch every year and reading just a classic textbook is not enough to address the state-of-the-art in any field. Also, not acknowledging the recent works is not only lazy (since you have not done the necessary "homework" regarding your scientific area) but it can also be intentionally misleading (perhaps you hide the recent papers because you know they are much better than yours). At the very best case, it is just ungrateful on those dealing with the same problem as you, since you seem not to consider their work significant enough for citing them on your paper. If you take into account that those reviewing your papers are also moving around the same problem area as you, by ignoring their work, is a sure way to get your paper rejected. # Answer > 9 votes In applied computer science, not citing recent literature (and in this case, "recent" really means "the last couple of years") correlates very strongly with rejection. Essentially, when I review a paper where all references are old according to the standards of the field, the reason can be either that: 1. there is newer related work, and the author is not aware of it or wilfully ignores it 2. there is indeed no recent related work; this is at least an indicator that the problem is either solved or deemed irrelevant by the community 3. the paper has been written a long time ago and has been rejected at multiple previous attempts at publication 4. the paper author is just a crank, who believes he has redefined (for instance) the concept of object-oriented programming Points 1 and 4 warrant rejection on their own. Point 2 and 3 are at least a strong indicator that a paper should be rejected. That being said, I cannot remember ever rejecting a paper only for failing to cite recent literature. In all cases that come to my mind, this was just a minor sidenote and the paper actually got rejected for much more fundamental issues. # Answer > 3 votes Citing papers is primarily to provide reference to the source of information gained from sources other than yourself in the study you are writing about. There are some instances where reference is made to works that provide background to the topic, in my field often review papers that summarize knowledge up to a point in time or papers that discusses methods and similar cases that can shorten your own description of some aspect of your manuscript The main question is not so much if the latest material is cited but rather if the right material has been cited. Most research builds on earlier studies and is located at the cutting edge of knowledge so it seems unlikely that references to new or the latest findings within a subject would not have its place in a paper. That said, I would add that there is often a lack of historical knowledge as well. People (again in my field at least) reference papers from within the last five years for findings that were done half a century or more ago. This lack of knowledge about the origins of ideas can sometimes be problematic since one trusts someone else's interpretation of the original work when referencing new material that builds on the original. So reference the right material, old as well as new, and be aware what the papers you cite actually say and from where they in turn sourced their information. # Answer > 3 votes You asked about maths and CS in particular. xLeitix wrote about CS; I am going to write about math from my perspective publishing in the field. In math, there is much less of a need to cite "recent" work - although there is still some need, as I will explain below. In many areas of math (perhaps not all), the referee really can verify the arguments by logical reasoning, so references are less important to verify that the argument is correct. (Of course, if you use previous results, they will need to be cited.) For this reason, citation practices in math are well known to be different than other fields. We publish less and have fewer citations on average than some other fields (so our journals have lower impact factors) and our citations are, on average, to "older" papers compared to other fields. As a perhaps extreme example, I published a paper in 2010 with 14 references, of which 11 were published before the year 2000. The paper is in a respected, selective journal (an "A" journal in the Australian Math Society ranking). This paper is an outlier, though, compared to my other papers. My most recently accepted paper has 8 references: 1 is still a preprint, 2 were published in the last 4 years, 2 are from the 1990s, and 3 are from the 1970s. I don't think that is very far from normal in my area of mathematics. When I referee papers in math, I look for references that: * Provide appropriate links to background material (these are particularly helpful for non-experts who read the paper). * Give appropriate credit for previous work. * Motivate the new work by showing how it relates to previous work. The 3 "newer" references in the paper from 2010 that I mentioned were exactly for this purpose. They showed how the problem we were studying had been posed by others, and how our work was related to published open questions in another area of mathematics. When someone submits a paper to a selective math journal, the referees and editors will look for all these things. A paper that is full of brilliant technical results, but for which the editors can't see any motivation or interest, may end up being rejected because there are other papers that also have brilliant technical results, but which have clear motivation and are likely to be of interest to many others. Because journals have space limitations, correctness on its own is often not sufficient for a paper to be accepted. At less selective math journals, correctness on its own may be the main criterion, but I would still expect a referee to comment on a under-referenced paper. --- As for the situation in the question, it helps to remember that philosophy is generally focused on the types of problems that cannot be solved by mere logical reasoning. The same holds for many areas of the humanities, as well. In these fields, one cannot simply prove one's argument from commonly held axioms - the problems being studied are not amenable to simple logical analysis like mathematics problems. Each paper is viewed as a contribution to a discussion about the topic. This leads to another key difference between citations in math and in some other fields. In mathematics, we usually try to cite the original source of an idea, to give credit to the first person to define or prove something. In other fields, the practice is instead to cite the most recent references on the idea, because they give a better representation on the current state of the discussion about the topic. # Answer > 1 votes It's dangerous not to cite works from the present. Most reviewers live in the present and have a "frame of reference" there. Your best shot would have been to hope for a bunch of reviewers who are now at least 45-50 years old, who remember "the good old days" of the past century. Apparently that didn't happen to you. It's possible that there are some fields where, for whatever reason, the work done before the turn of the century was better than the work that was done after it. In that case, you might have to rely heavily on the pre-turn of the century work to critique the more recent work. But at least cite the recent work. A paper or idea, even if meritorious that is not "modern" already has one strike against it. The damage is "double" or more, if you haven't considered (or at least appeared to have considered) the recent ideas in the field. I found this out the hard way with my book "A Modern Approach to Graham and Dodd Investing" (Wiley, 2004), that preached that a "modern" version of the (1930s) ideas of Graham and Dodd would be more useful than the ideas that were then in vogue. But at least I couldn't be accused of "ignoring" them. # Answer > 0 votes I will try to add another perspective (I hope I don't repeat anybody else, if I do, please alarm me). One of the measures that can be used in pre-review to see if the article is suitable are the references. For example, if your article cites only low-quality journals, it is presumed that it will be cited only in low-quality journals. Similarly, if it doesn't cite anything newer than X years (where X may vary from field to field), it is presumed that it is not interesting for the community and it will maybe not cited ever. If the editor sees the article, doesn't find it very interesting, and moreover it has this problem, it may get rejected without review. --- Tags: publications, citations, rejection, literature ---
thread-31465	https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/31465	Is it acceptable to submit more than one papers to a conference?	2014-11-09T16:05:47.877	# Question Title: Is it acceptable to submit more than one papers to a conference? I am an undergraduate and am new to paper writing. I have been writing papers with professor A at another university since I was in high school. We are writing a paper together for an upcoming conference (which is pretty big). I have been also writing a paper with professor B at my current institution for the same conference. I am also writing papers with some graduate students for the same conference. But - in total, I will be submitting about 5 different papers to the same conference (all with different people!). I don't know if this is acceptable in academia. That is, will there be any sort of consequences for submitting a lot of papers to the same conference? # Answer > 20 votes Yes, it is acceptable, particularly since the author lists will all be different. Go for it! One word of warning: The papers themselves must have clearly different content. If you submit five nearly identical papers, the editors are likely to accept at most the best one and reject the rest. That will annoy your other co-authors mightily. # Answer > 18 votes It's not a problem per se. Many professors with larger groups submit multiple papers to the same major conferences every year. However, the fact that you are an undergrad and, as you say, new to writing papers and you are still handing in five papers simultaneously to this conference sounds concerning to me. Make sure that: * the papers are all individually good quality - even writing 5 good papers would take me multiple months of work, and I have plenty of experience. And that's not even talking about the time required for doing the research that the papers talk about. * the papers are actually about different research, not just the same basic idea sliced up differently. # Answer > 7 votes It's not a problem as such - for example, I see in the proceedings of a recent very large conference an author that shows up on 9 papers (LREC2014, Núria Bel), the only question is if the individual papers are strong and novel enough. "Salami publishing" is frowned upon, and if there is significant overlap in the topics it might be more useful and more likely to get accepted if you combine two smaller papers in a single better one. # Answer > 3 votes There's a big difference between a large national conference and a smaller regional workshop. When you have 5,000 to 10,000 talks plus posters at a meeting, with 50 parallel sessions, there's likely not a problem with the number of abstracts on which you're an author. If it's a small meeting of 100 to 200 attendees, with only a single session at a time, you probably can't submit more than one or two talks. There is also a difference between being an author and being the presenter. Many big conferences do not have limits on authorship, but do restrict the number of presentations any one person can give as the "first author" (or, depending on the conference, "presenting author"). For example, the APS has the rule that the first author should be the presenter, and there's a limit of one contributed (and one invited) talk per meeting. --- Tags: publications, conference, undergraduate, research-undergraduate ---
thread-31476	https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/31476	Is it appropriate to submit a previously presented workshop paper to a peer-reviewed journal?	2014-11-09T17:36:51.960	# Question Title: Is it appropriate to submit a previously presented workshop paper to a peer-reviewed journal? I have a paper that was presented at an NRC workshop and was not peer reviewed. Moreover, although this work is accessible at an NRC website, it is clear from reading the literature that search engines do not discover the paper and no one is aware of its existence. Is it ethical to submit this paper to a peer-reviewed journal for publication? # Answer > 3 votes Different journals have different standards for what counts as prior publication. For example, most computer science journals happily accept "extended journal versions" of existing papers that are intended to supersede the prior publication, as long as there is at least 30% new content and the relationship to the prior paper made explicit. Some high-ranked biology journals, on the other hand, are so obsessed with "novelty" that they will consider a submission improper even if only an extended abstract has previously appeared. Check the policy of the journal(s) that you are considering: either it will be listed clearly online, or the editorial staff should be able to give you a quick answer about their policies. # Answer > 2 votes A lot of journals give their politics for conference paper in their websites. It is mostly like following: * Journal of Machine Learning Research We will consider research that has been published at workshops or conferences. In these cases, we expect the JMLR submission to go into greater depth and extend the published results in a substantive way. Some of them give numerical new content like %30 new material. Find suitable journal which accepts such submissions. Clearly cite this is an improved version of your workshop paper. Improve your paper as suitable and submit. As long as reviewers and editors are aware that your submission is an extension of workshop/conference paper, this should not be issue. --- Tags: publications, paper-submission, plagiarism, workshop, self-plagiarism ---
thread-31468	https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/31468	What would be considered a "competitive" application for mathematics postdocs in the US?	2014-11-09T16:30:46.653	# Question Title: What would be considered a "competitive" application for mathematics postdocs in the US? What are the factors that make an application competitive for postdoc positions in pure mathematics at top tier universities (e.g. MIT, Harvard, Princeton, UC Berkeley, Stanford) in the US? Clearly, one needs * Good recommendation letters * Interesting research articles * Some teaching/service experience. In what proportion are the above needed? E.g. how many good articles, how many courses taught, etc. make an application competitive? Is there any other important factor I haven't mentioned above? # Answer There's no simple answer. In particular, there are no quantitative standards for how many papers you need. For postdoctoral research positions in mathematics at top departments in the U.S., it works roughly like this. (For those from other fields, note that these positions are filled by departmental search committees, not individual professors, and they often involve some light teaching but are focused on research. The postdocs are independent researchers, not under the direction of any professor.) 1. Teaching experience and the teaching statement don't matter much for these jobs. The department will want to know that you aren't a truly terrible teacher, so you won't raise tons of complaints or create a serious problem if you teach a class, but they won't really care whether you are an excellent teacher or just minimally adequate. (At best that would serve as a tie breaker between otherwise equally impressive candidates.) Just write something sensible and uncontroversial for your teaching statement and don't worry about it much. 2. Quality matters much more than quantity for research papers, and trying to write more papers at the cost of writing worse papers is generally a bad trade-off. In practice, the typical number of papers varies a little by subfield. In some cases (such as theoretical CS), it would be very unusual to have only one paper, and it had better be amazing if you want to get a job that way; in some other subfields, having half a dozen papers might make people suspicious regarding their quality. To gauge how your application compares, you can try looking at the CVs of people in your area who have recently started the sort of job you'd like, but keep in mind that counting papers won't reveal their quality. 3. Strong recommendation letters are absolutely crucial, and getting good letters is worth a lot of time and thought as well as preparation in advance, for example by talking with potential letter writers so they are familiar with you and your work long before you apply for jobs. Choose your recommenders carefully, and don't limit yourself only to people at your university. > 5 votes --- Tags: mathematics, application, postdocs, united-states ---
thread-31295	https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/31295	Is differentiated instruction permitted by universities?	2014-11-07T03:53:46.790	# Question Title: Is differentiated instruction permitted by universities? In primary and secondary school in the US, some teachers will adjust homework so that it is a better match for students. For example, a teacher might give a strong math student more advanced math problems, while a weaker student might be given more remedial work. I am currently teaching some 100-level undergraduate courses. While my assignments seem appropriate for the majority of students, I discovered a few that are really not ready, as they came from rural high schools that did not offer the necessary background. It is unlikely that these students can develop their skills to the same level expected of other students within the span of one year, unless I make significant adjustments to their work. As my assignments are too difficult for them, they have given up hope. The students are too few to warrant a recommended creation of more remedial courses. I'd like to apply some of the differentiated instruction methods that are common in primary and secondary education. At the very least, I would like to: (1) offer these students alternative homework better suited to their level and (2) offer them exams more appropriate for the level that they can realistically achieve during the first semester of the two part course. * Do universities permit teachers to differentiate their instruction, or must every student be given exactly the same assignments and assessments? * If this is not permitted, is there some other approach or way of framing the homework and assessments as to make this seem fair for everyone? # Answer It would be very unusual, in my experience in the U.S., for one group of students in a class to be given an "easier" exam than other students in the same class. When the students who took the "harder" exam found out about it, they would have a valid grievance that the faculty member would be unlikely to win. If a colleague asked me about this, I would strongly discourage giving different exams. At the same time, it is perfectly reasonable to give individualized instruction before the exam. This is more feasible with small classes than large ones. At smaller schools, it is common for faculty to meet one-on-one with students, explain background material, and suggest additional problems to help those students self-remediate. Whether this is possible for you on how much time you have available to do it, and also on whether you can convince the struggling students to put in the extra work that will be necessary for them to succeed. Unfortunately, some students are unable to do that, or choose not to. --- I also want to give some more personal remarks, because I empathize with the spirit of the question: not wanting to leave students behind when they arrive underprepared for a class. I also teach at a school where some students have clear potential but were underserved by their high school and don't have the background that is expected when entering college. The question mentioned being "fair to everyone". This has many meanings. You want to be fair to each student - which means both recognizing where they are currently at, and not sending them forward without the background to succeed in their next class. You want to be fair to the other students by making the class similar for everyone. And you also want to be fair to future professors, by sending them students who have the appropriate background. Sometimes, you will be in a position where you can't do all these things. Perhaps a student has real potential but simply can't get to the necessary level by the end of the course. Perhaps the student could get there, but has personal or family obligations that occupy their time. Perhaps a student is just not quite mature enough to put in the work needed. This can be one of the more difficult situations for a professor. But it is also very common, particularly at institutions that are not extremely selective. If you talk about it with your more experienced colleagues, they will have their own experiences with it, and they will be able to give you advice and support. > 16 votes # Answer While I am sure different universities will have different policies, the ones I am most familiar with would require that all students end up being taught the subject at the same level and given the same (likely departmental) exam at the end, especially for 100-level undergrad courses. This is mainly due to the fact that the next-level of class would require a certain level of knowledge, and anything less would hinder the students further. Most professors that I know would attempt to solve this by assigning large amounts of reading and allowing students who are already familiar with the materials to simply gloss over it, but being very clear as far as what they will need to know on the test via homework and quizzes, such that they can study according to their needs. I would be very careful about assigning different work to different students, however suggesting optional reading/assignments for the entire class would be safe, and mentioning that you think they would be a good introduction or something that you can go over more personally via office hours for those who you think are struggling would be a good compromise. If you still want to assign certain individuals extra homework, I would suggest creating a pre-test and assigning it only to those who do poorly (tailor it such that they only need to do work relevant to the parts they did wrong). Instead of creating a remedial class for the few students, perhaps the university (or department) policy could create a self-paced course for those students, or require those who score less than X on whatever entry exam is used (SAT?) in the subject to take an "entrance test" in order to make sure that they are ready to succeed in the class (and of course provide them the means to study in order to do so). > 4 votes # Answer ## Differentiated Instruction Differentiated instruction is based on the premise that students learn better when they are pushed just beyond the point where they can work without assistance. Teaching methods and presentation of material should be calibrated to the student's level of understanding so that learning is optimized for the entire group, regardless of differences in ability. --- Is it fair? The best way to "seem fair" in a college-level course is to make every effort to be impartial and objective in evaluating students ... under most circumstances this probably means they should all be subject to the same required work and examinations. However, it's perfectly natural to offer extra homework, practice exams, and additional instruction to students that need extra help. Often, you can help by encouraging/organizing student study groups -- which can be helpful both for engaging students with the course material and connecting those that need help with a wider network of support. --- Is it permitted? Aside from rules set by the legal statutes that govern the region (i.e., city, state, and federal law), what is permitted by a university is entirely up to the policy makers of the institution -- commonly the president, provost, and board of directors for the school (often with advisory from the faculty). So the short answer is, it varies ... you definitely need to check with your particular institution. In addition, this will depend on the level and aim of the course. For instance, 100-level courses are building the foundation for higher level topics, so there is much less leeway for instructors to change the amount of material to be covered or the course content to accommodate different students. Differentiated instruction doesn't seem to be widely used in higher education. The issue was discussed in a recent article \[College Quarterly, 2013\]: > While a few higher education faculty members have embraced the notion of differentiated instruction, the assumption is the majority of college instructors will focus on the traditional teacher-centered strategy of disseminating information in lecture form (Burke & Ray, 2008; Chamberlin & Powers, 2010; Handy, 2005; Smith, 2006). > 1 votes # Answer As others have already said, alternative exams are fraught with danger for you, and especially for students who go into the next course believing they are prepared for it. It sounds like you are prepared to do extra work. (Good.) Reserve a room and announce a study group, open to all students. For each session, start with easier problems/examples and show how they lead to results at the level expected for the course. Many, perhaps most of the students who are motivated to succeed will show up for every meeting. There will be some motivated students who cannot attend due to either class conflicts or job requirements. The best you can do is pick a time that suits the majority. The non-motivated will self-select out, and you will have learned something about them. You've said you cannot get these students up to level. If you can get them through with enough preparation that they can master succeeding courses with extra effort, you will have done them a great favor. That is far better than contriving a passing grade that will cause them to fall on their faces later. Anecdote: One such study group got me through a particularly hideous master's course: Distributed Database Systems. We met on Sunday mornings, sans professor, and figured out just WTF he had told us in the previous week. > 1 votes # Answer This does not answer the title question which, as others have said, depends on the university, but shows a possible approach to "give them hope". You can give students the choice between two exam papers, an A-series paper which allows them to get an A grade, and a simpler, B-series paper which allows students to get at most a B or C grade. The choice between the two types should be done by the students before the beginning of the exam without seeing the exam papers. I applied this approach many years ago in a course where the situation could be considered similar to yours: I can't say it was entirely satisfactory but at least eased the life of those students who, for lack of background (and willingness to catch up), couldn't aspire to get an A. > 1 votes --- Tags: teaching, exams, policy ---
thread-31482	https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/31482	Is participating in professional meetings helpful from a CV point of view?	2014-11-09T18:30:31.350	# Question Title: Is participating in professional meetings helpful from a CV point of view? My professional society (a physical sciences one), arrange an annual meeting where almost 10,000 people attend and almost one third of them present. The benefits of participating are overwhelming, but I was thinking whether or not such participation is useful on a CV, especially that what you present is not going to be published (although normally you present your work which is to be published or has just been published). Note that this is a meeting, not a conference. EDIT: by participating I mean presenting. # Answer > 1 votes The key factors here are that it's a contributed presentation (not invited) and it's in a huge meeting with many presentations of differing quality. It sounds like you may be talking about the APS March meeting, but similar things are true in many other cases, such as the AMS/MAA joint meetings in January. How valuable such a presentation would be on your CV depends on how far along you are in your career. If you are coming up for tenure, then you'd better have far more impressive things to list on your CV, and presentations like this would be inconsequential. (The only value on your CV would be in demonstrating continuing scholarly engagement if your job is almost entirely focused on teaching.) If you are a college sophomore, then presenting at a meeting like this would be noteworthy. To a first approximation, if you're an undergraduate then these presentations are worth highlighting on your CV (unless you are lucky enough to have something more impressive to emphasize), while if you're a grad student they are worth listing but probably won't be very important. However, it's worth asking a mentor for personalized advice. --- Tags: conference, cv ---
thread-31495	https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/31495	How should I express theorems without a proof in a research paper?	2014-11-09T22:13:02.013	# Question Title: How should I express theorems without a proof in a research paper? What do you do when you have a conjecture, and you run experiments that confirm your conjecture, but you are unable to provide a formal proof (perhaps because it's too complicated)? Do you name them as conjectures or observations or... what? This is in the context of a CS theory paper. # Answer > 15 votes In mathematics and TCS (which is really a branch of mathematics), if you don't have a proof, you don't have a theorem. (You write "experiments", which I will assume means "computer calculations". Please let me know if this is not the case.) Doing some computer calculations can be interesting and even sometimes publishable, but it does not constitute any kind of proof, formal or otherwise. (Added: Well, unless it does, of course. You can prove a theorem by reducing it to a finite calculation and doing that calculation by hand or by computer or some of both. You can't prove a theorem which pertains to infinitely many cases by doing finitely many of them and claiming "and so on".) Also, although the word "confirm" is often used in this way in empirical science, in mathematics to "confirm a conjecture" means to prove it. I see two possible questions here: 1. How do I write up computational evidence for a result that I cannot prove in a paper? 2. Can I publish a paper in which I do not prove my conjecture but only have computational evidence towards it? The first question is more straightforward. You state the conjecture -- i.e., the statement that you think is a theorem but can't yet prove. Some discussion of the provenance of the conjecture is probably a good idea but is not strictly necessary. However, if you got the conjecture from somewhere else you must indicate that. Then you document the calculations you made. Finally, you probably want to make some remarks about why the calculations make you confident in your conjecture (if that is the case). Here sometimes informal reasoning can be helpful: e.g. if your conjecture is that for two sequences of integers a\_n and b\_n that a\_n and b\_n are always congruent modulo 691, then if you check this for the first 100,000 terms then in some naive sense the probability that this happened by accident is (1/691)^{100,000}, which is vanishingly small. The second question is much more complicated. It can be hard to publish papers in which you do not prove a theorem but "only" give computer evidence...but not as hard as it used to be. Mathematics is slowly becoming more enlightened about the merits of computer calculations. I would say though that you need to understand the field much better to be able to predict whether a paper primarily containing computations would be publishable than to publish a more "theoretical" paper: many, many referees and journals will say "no theorem, no proof, no paper", so you should expect to work much harder to sell your work. # Answer > 10 votes The important thing is to be honest and clear. In any proof-oriented subject (including theoretical CS), you should carefully distinguish theorems you have proved from conjectures you believe but have not proved. It's reasonable to give evidence in favor of your conjectures (such as your experiments) or to discuss possible proof techniques that might work, as long as you are clear about what you have or haven't done. What makes this awkward is that sometimes beginners are tempted to be a little unclear in dishonest ways. Suppose there's something you are pretty sure you could do if you had more time, and it's embarrassing to admit that you haven't yet been able to work out the details. It can be tempting to write something vague like "These techniques apply to case X as well" and rationalize it by saying it's not technically a lie, since you never actually said you applied them to complete the proof. Nevertheless, it's unethical since it misleads readers into thinking you've done more than you have. Even if you don't feel this temptation yourself, it's important to avoid even the appearance of impropriety, so it's best to be extra careful about anything near the borderline of what you have or haven't proved. > Do you name them as conjectures or observations or what? Conjecture sounds like the appropriate name here. Observation might make sense if this terminology is commonly used in your subfield, but it sounds potentially problematic to me. It sounds a little too much like something you could prove but are omitting the details for, rather than something you have been unable to prove (so if you use that terminology, you should be careful to make this clear). --- Tags: research-process, mathematics, computer-science, theory ---
thread-29250	https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/29250	Is there a polite way to rescind a request for recommendation letter?	2014-10-01T00:36:42.713	# Question Title: Is there a polite way to rescind a request for recommendation letter? I am reconsidering whether I want a professor's (call him X) letter of recommendation for a PhD program. The basic facts are these: * I took Dr. X's class and did well. He encouraged me to apply to a PhD program in his field, and I took his advice. At that time, he offered to write me a strong letter of recommendation. * More recently, I requested via email a letter of recommendation from X. I'm certain that he expected this request, and we are on good terms. * He did not respond to my request. I managed to find him in person to ask; he said that he's already responded to my email and agreed to write it, and brushed me off in a somewhat impatient manner. I found this interaction off putting and certainly unexpected. This is my rationalization for what happened: * X is very busy and does not want to write me a letter. But he promised in the past and I remained in contact with him since. * Moreover, I already have stronger recommendation letters that I can use. Here is my current plan: * I will see professor X at least one more time to give him materials for the recommendation. I plan to see his reaction then, and how to proceed. Question: Is there a polite way for me to ask whether he wants to write the letter, and possibly "let him off the hook"? (I don't even know whether this is the right question to ask, because honestly I don't what the right thing to do is.) The problem is that I don't want to second-guess him, but I don't want a negative letter either. Additionally, if he's already written a letter, I don't want to waste his time. I am based in the US, if that matters. # Answer The key thing here is that you say that you have stronger letters already. If you no longer need him to write a letter, just reply to your own email to him saying you don't need one anymore. Something like this should do: > "Thank you so much for agreeing to the write the letter. Another professor just got back to me about writing a letter so I should be all set for letters in this round of applications. I really appreciate your offer and I will be in touch in the future if I need one though. Thanks again!" Keep in mind that most people won't write a letter until they have a deadline in front of them. That said, it is certainly more polite to let any potential letter writer know as soon as you know you won't need it just as it is polite to let them know well advance of when you will. You frame this question as about "rescinding" a request and seem to be worried that the professor is going to be upset. You should understand that for professors, writing letters of recommendations is a thankless chore. Although this is generally the case, it is particularly the case for undergraduates that we only know through a single class. Writing these letters takes hours on aggregate. Worst of all, because we also sit on the committees that read these applications, we are also all deeply aware that the letters will be read by a few people on a graduate admission committee if we are lucky. Seriously though, he is not going to hold it against you. By agreeing to write a letter in the first place, he was offering to do you a favor. By letting him off the hook, you are doing him one. Although it's not part of your question, I think you are spending too much time trying to unpack and interpret what really happened. Maybe he was busy or in a bad mood? Maybe he was emailing with somebody else and was confused? You say that you don't want to second guess him but that is exactly what you're doing. If he encouraged you to apply for a PhD program and said he will write a letter, it seems extremely unlikely that he's trying to sabotage you. > 10 votes # Answer Remind him that he's busy. I'd do it like this 1. Greeting 2. Appropriate amount of pleasantries. 3. I know you're busy, so thanks for taking the time to see me/read this. 4. A few weeks back We spoke about a letter for my application to program x. 5. Do you expect to have time in your schedule to fit it in in the next few weeks? I understand if you're going to be busy. I think you know me well, so it'd be great if you could manage it. (1/2-1 second silence) but if you cant it's really no big deal, I can manage. Something like that. > 2 votes --- Tags: graduate-admissions, etiquette, recommendation-letter ---
thread-27330	https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/27330	How can I cite interviews for radio and TV on CV?	2014-08-19T06:13:19.640	# Question Title: How can I cite interviews for radio and TV on CV? I have many contributions related to interviews in radio, TV, web magazines and print magazines, and would like to know the different ways it might be "cited" in a scientific CV. I was thinking about adding them at the end of my CV is some section called "dissemination of research results" or something like that. # Answer > 6 votes ## Interview section in your CV If you have significant amount of interviews or you want to bring them in your CV, I did not find any special tip to bring interviews in a separate section; but you can open a section like `media appearance/interviews` and list your interviews in this section. ## Citation style By googling your question, I found many related links in which the citation of the interviews are clearly presented. I bring some of them here for you. One may find a good resource for citation of interviews in bibme website. In this website, you will find the format, examples and notes on correct citation. ## MLA > PUBLISHED/BROADCAST INTERVIEW: > Last Name, First Name. Interview by First Name Last Name. Publication Information. Medium. > > PERSONALLY CONDUCTED INTERVIEW: > Last Name, First Name. Interview Type interview. Date Interviewed. ## Chicago > PUBLISHED INTERVIEW FROM PUBLICATION: > Last Name, First Name. Interview with First Name Last Name. Publication Title. Publication Information. > > PUBLISHED INTERVIEW FROM RADIO/TV PROGRAM: > Last Name, First Name. Interview with First Name Last Name. Program Title. Network, Call letters, Date Interviewed. > > UNPUBLISHED INTERVIEW: > Last Name, First Name. Interview by First Name Last Name. Interview Type. Location, Date Interviewed. ## Turabian > UNPUBLISHED INTERVIEW: Last Name, First Name. Interview by First Name Last Name. Interview Type. Location, Date Interviewed. ## APA Although, in the above link, there is no guide for citing in APA format, as indicated `Interviews are not supported in bibliographies by APA. Please cite it as an in-text citation.`, but I have found the following guide in the apastyle website for citation of interviews. > An interview is not considered recoverable data, so no reference to this is provided in the reference list. You may, however, cite the interview within the text as a personal communication. ## How to easily cite your documents? By the way, I encourage you to use the softwares like JabRef, Zotero and Endnote to prepare your citations and resources. Also you may use some online websites like easybib and citethisforme for easier preparation of your citations. # Answer > 14 votes "Media Appearances" sounds better to me. Then I think I'd cite each appearance as if it were a conference talk: > "How to Solve the Problem of Evil," WFUV Radio, 29 February 1904. or > "Why I am So Clever," The Today Show, National Broadcasting Corporation, 9 August 1999. Maybe insert some descriptive language if the citation is unclear. # Answer > -1 votes I advice you use this citing tool at http://www.calvin.edu/library/knightcite/ If it shows an error search for knightcite in their search bar...the tool helps you cite your work properly --- Tags: citations, cv, research-dissemination ---
thread-31387	https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/31387	In which countries must college professors be cleared to work with minors?	2014-11-08T05:30:23.360	# Question Title: In which countries must college professors be cleared to work with minors? I knew some college students in the U.S. who were \<18 years old. In which countries must college professors be cleared (background-checked, certified, fingerprinted, etc., like U.S. K-12 teachers) to work with minors? # Answer Any special requirements or background checks regarding working with minors are a matter of employer policy or local law, and there are no standard rules across different jurisdictions. In particular, there's no way to give a definitive answer without knowing the exact circumstances. As a general rule, though, these sorts of background checks are rarely applied to college faculty. Even in locations with unusually strict laws, there are often exceptions for college professors, despite the fact that some students may be under 18. For example, the University of Sydney policy explicitly says "Where University staff or affiliates have direct contact with University students under the age of 18, this is not regarded as child-related work under the Act." > 10 votes # Answer I'm not aware of any countries where background checks are required specifically to work with minors. There are places where background checks occur as a general condition of employment, but it's just because everybody gets a background check, and not just because they could work with minors. As AM points out, in general, minors enrolled in universities are treated like everybody else, so there's generally no reason why there would be special background checks. > 0 votes # Answer A quick google gave me several US university that have policies on the issue. For example Georgetown's policy says staff involved in programs involving minors should do some training and that supervisors of those programs and those that regularly spend time alone with minors have to have a criminal records check. I think the situation in the UK is similar with staff in one to one contact or on programs aimed at minors having to do a DBS/CRB check. See Imperial's policy. I'm not sure but I expect the situation in at least western Europe is similar. > 0 votes --- Tags: professorship, legal-issues, policy ---
thread-31501	https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/31501	Reverse-engineering results in a published research paper	2014-11-10T00:02:03.757	# Question Title: Reverse-engineering results in a published research paper I am trying to implement work in someone else's published IEEE research paper, to verify its results and observe some data. To fully implement what was done, I will need to implement the published algorithm - this will involve some reverse-engineering of what was done in the paper. Normally, when I face particular programming problems, I might use Stack Overflow or other sites to ask specific questions. Given that doing so it this case would reveal that I was reverse-engineering published work, are there any specific professional or ethical issues around the reverse-engineering aspect of this? # Answer > 3 votes Reimplementing published methods is a perfectly valid and common thing to do. Research papers should describe the utilized methods to enable other people to reperform the experiments and verify the results, so I don't see a reason not to speak publicly about what you're doing. --- Tags: publications ---
thread-31405	https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/31405	Would a 5-year prison sentence totally ruin one's academic career?	2014-11-08T12:11:52.637	# Question Title: Would a 5-year prison sentence totally ruin one's academic career? For committing a crime considered very severe in the U.S. and in some countries (hence the 5-year minimum sentence), but not as severe (but may still lead to imprisonment) in many other countries? He does not have any record of academic dishonesty or anything like that; in fact, he had a solid record of publications and was still building on it before he got arrested. Can he still publish papers that are taken seriously, and obtain academic positions, in the U.S. or in some other countries, once out of jail? UPDATE: I only know what he pleaded guilty to according to news. It is not something noble like an "honest crime". I have confused conviction with indictment, so now I think the crime is most likely real and hardly disputable. I want to add that he is a first-time offender, so I don't know if his prison sentence can be converted to probation, and if that matters to whom may hire him in the future. @xLeitix's comment: > I cannot think of one crime which results in a five year sentence where I would hire that person. Maybe the crime of failing to notify the town of L'Aquila of a 2009 earthquake that killed at least 309 people? Fortunately for those scientists, the initial court ruling was overturned about 2 years later. # Answer > 46 votes A five year prison sentence would damage an academic career in at least two major ways. The obvious way it would damage it is from the possible stain on a person's record. In the U.S., at least, being a convicted felon can be very difficult to recover from, no matter what the crime, due to general societal prejudice. Add to that the fact that most crimes indicate either dishonesty or being a threat to others, and you've got a serious problem. It does, however, strongly depend on the crime. For example, if the crime is an "honest crime" that derives from ones intellectual inclinations (e.g., the notorious example of Timothy Leary, the sad case of Aaron Swartz, or the youthful recklessness of Robert Morris) then it may be "forgiven" from an academic point of view. The other, perhaps less obvious, source of career damage is from the interruption in ongoing work. Typically, any working scientist has a number of simultaneous multi-year projects at different stages: preliminary work, proposal, execution, publication. Each of these fuels the others, e.g., papers from more mature projects help support proposals for new projects, pieces of ongoing work in project execution include preliminary work that leads to new proposals, etc. With any major career gap, this "pipeline" can empty, and there is often difficulty in restarting it. This can be a significant problem even for academics who take family leave; a multi-year gap for prison would be much bigger to overcome. Either, however, can be overcome with time and help from supportive colleagues. # Answer > 23 votes I would think having a felony on your record is poison for any career. In academia, it may be even worse because, in addition to the general stigma of being a convicted criminal, you will need to fight through the following issues: * You have a career gap that is very hard to overlook or paint in a positive light. * Job searches in academia are always competitive, so that even smallish taints on your resume can become major issues. Having a major taint such as a felony will make it very hard to succeed on the professorial job market. * Some jobs may be unavailable to you anyway, for instance those that require security clearance. * You may even objectively be less qualified after coming out of prison. 5 years of (presumably) low intellectual stimulation are a long time, and many technology fields move quickly. So, yes, to be honest, I think that the career of this person would be pretty much "totally ruined". And, no, I don't think it matters much why he was convicted - I do not think that there are crimes that can lead to 5-year sentences that would not be considered a big deal by any search committee. # Answer > 16 votes In short, no. And if you have time... When I was young I was charged with number of crimes in US. I took plea bargain and ended up serving few years in California state prison. Although now I think I made mistakes back then, I do not feel ashamed at all of what I have done because I believe the cause was just. It took me about six years after release from prison to be able to do research in another country. I feel pretty content with my current position. What I would recommend to your friend is not to think about the distinct future but rather get himself mentally-and physically-ready for what's to come during incarceration. I was in level-4 yard for 1 year and the rest in level-3, and the magnitude of violence one must face is probably nothing like you have ever encountered. Be polite, social, observant, and extremely violent when the appropriate moment comes. Most likely your friend will do time in much more comfortable places. I heard it's pretty peaceful in other places such as Federal prisons, other state prisons, or lower level prisons in California, but I don't think I can speak for what I have not experienced. There will be plenty of time to think and even read if someone send in books, however, so it could be a great opportunity depends on how you see it. I actually had pretty descent time in there(although I wouldn't purposely get incarcerated again). I had physics background so I never really had a chance to extensively study philosophy even though I had always wanted to. Prison gave me time to thoroughly study most of the classical works I was interested in, and I believe such experience gave me quite a boost when moving onto other field later on. Everything must perish eventually. Isn't it already amazing to be able to entertain intellectual matters even for a short moment such as human lifespan? # Answer > 7 votes I know a case where someone spent several months in jail (mostly awaiting trial) after college, but was convicted only of misdemeanors (not felonies) after plea bargains, and subsequently moved to another state and got a doctorate. (AFAIK, grad schools, unlike employers, do not have background checks, or they didn't back then.) The person garnered a decent publication record during the PhD, and then moved to another country for an academic career (which, last I heard, is going reasonably well). # Answer > 3 votes One thing that there was no mention of here is that society does change, and some things which were considered totally "wrong" before can be easily overlooked today, and it also goes the other way around. So it is very possible, that although today this particular crime seems to be rather destructive to a person's career, it may be less important by the time one regains the freedom. Of course, this doesn't help with the simple fact of not being engaged in the field for some period of time. # Answer > 2 votes I'm studying Philosophy and literature and in this field it's not rare to find people who has been to prison or has been condemned for some reason (the first and more famous case is Socrates). Dostoyevsky has been to prison, even G. Pascoli, has been convicted for taking part to a socialist demonstration (and he was quite a quiet person).. But I guess that if someone enacts behaviours that damage the academic society or harass other members of the society then his life will not be that easy. However I presume that if the research has a strong content then it still has its possibilities. Although I know about some researchers who didn't had at all an academic career till someone else discovered their papers. So I would suggest that if that person has something to say, then he should try saying it, and writing it (intellectual connections are important but the content is available if you know how to search for it and do a complete research). That person should even try fixing it's problems with the law. We all do what we can and we all do mistakes. # Answer > -7 votes If the he/she can come back stronger from it more disciplined it could be a blessing in disguise, wisdom comes at different stages for different people. --- Tags: career-path, legal-issues ---
thread-31517	https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/31517	Write to professor or secretary?	2014-11-10T09:48:55.723	# Question Title: Write to professor or secretary? I would like to contact a Professor to ask if he might be interested in my research project. I can find his email contact and also the contact of his secretary from his personal website. I would like to write him directly, since I am not asking for something bureaucratic. Do you think am I right? # Answer If a professor has posted their email publicly online, then it is an invitation to contact them directly on technical matters. In my experience, very few professors are unwilling to be contacted directly, and those who are unwilling typically clearly state who is the appropriate alternate contact person on their personal website (the institution may, of course, still list them in their directory). You might not, however, get any reply. Just because somebody is willing to be contacted doesn't mean they'll respond to everybody who does so. If you don't get a response within a few days, then contact the secretary instead, and if you still don't get a response, then it is best to assume disinterest and move on. > 6 votes --- Tags: professorship, etiquette, email ---
thread-31507	https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/31507	How to cite different chapters of a book in the same paragraph?	2014-11-10T02:19:39.720	# Question Title: How to cite different chapters of a book in the same paragraph? Background: I'm writing a master's thesis with APA citations. In one paragraph, I cite two unrelated pieces of information that happen to come from different chapters of the same textbook. It's obvious from the chapter titles where in the book the second piece of information is located, but it's not obvious where the first piece is located. For the reader's sake, I'd like to be able to write something like: > Here's what I'm doing. Here's an interesting fact (Trout, chapter 2, 1946) and this is what it implies in the context of my research. I then fit this interesting model, described by e.g. Trout, chapter 8 (1946). > > References: > Trout, Kilgore. (1946). Ice-9 and its Applications. Ilium, NY: Slaughterhouse Press. I've never seen this done before and I couldn't find anything like it in the Purdue OWL APA style guide. Another idea would be to cite each chapter separately, as in: > Here's what I'm doing. Here's an interesting fact (Trout, 1946a) and this is what it implies in the context of my research. I then fit this interesting model, described by e.g. Trout (1946b). > > References: > Trout, Kilgore. (1946a). Why ice is nice. In Ice-9 and its Applications. Ilium, NY: Slaughterhouse Press. > Trout, Kilgore. (1946b). Containment methods. In Ice-9 and its Applications. Ilium, NY: Slaughterhouse Press. How should I cite this? Is there an established convention for this? Am I worrying too much? # Answer > 1 votes I would suggest the following: > Here's what I'm doing. Here's an interesting fact (Trout, 1946, Ch. 2) and this is what it implies in the context of my research. I then fit this interesting model, described by e.g. Trout (1946, Ch. 8). > > References: > > Trout, Kilgore. (1946). Ice-9 and its Applications. Ilium, NY: Slaughterhouse Press. However, you should consider whether citing pages would point the reader more directly to the fact than an entire chapter. Only you can judge this but it is rare that a fact needs an entire chapter to be stated. If you cite a theory or some larger concept the chapter may be an appropriate entity to be cited. If pages are better suited your references would look like, for example: > Here's what I'm doing. Here's an interesting fact (Trout, 1946, p 56) and this is what it implies in the context of my research. I then fit this interesting model, described by e.g. Trout (1946, Ch. 8). # Answer > 3 votes If the chapters are part of a unified work (e.g., a textbook or monograph), then it's appropriate to use one citation, and to say the chapter in the text: > Here's what I'm doing. Chapter 2 of (Trout, 1946) presents an interesting fact. I then fit the interesting model, described in Chapter 8 of (Trout, 1946). > > References: Trout, Kilgore. (1946). Ice-9 and its Applications. Ilium, NY: Slaughterhouse Press. I'm not quite sure of where APA puts the parentheses; my point is about handling chapters as prose. On the other hand, if the chapters are separate pieces of a collection (e.g., contributed texts in a "recent results in..." book), then each should have an independent entry in the bibliography. # Answer > 1 votes Chapters and page numbers are not included in in-text citations or the reference list for monographs in APA style. The APA style guide is comprehensive and definitive and my understanding is that deviations are not allowed, even if they are helpful. Both of your examples deviate from APA style. The APA compliant way is: > Here's what I'm doing. Here's an interesting fact (Trout, 1946) and this is what it implies in the context of my research. I then fit this interesting model, described by e.g. Trout (1946). > > References: > > Trout, K. (1946). Ice-9 and its Applications. Ilium, NY: Slaughterhouse Press. You need to decide if you want to give the reader all useful information or stick strictly to APA style. --- Tags: citations, citation-style ---
thread-31532	https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/31532	As an undergraduate, should I have done research on all of my research interests listed in my resume?	2014-11-10T12:14:47.713	# Question Title: As an undergraduate, should I have done research on all of my research interests listed in my resume? I am an undergraduate student, writing my resume for application to grad school. During my undergrad I have done research on some topics through internships and research projects. However, there are also some interesting research topics that I have read about them and explored their goals in research groups' websites, but have not done research on them myself. These subjects are among my interests to pursue in grad school. Can I list them in the Research Interests section of my resume? I mean, is it necessary for undergraduates to have done research in all of their research interests when applying for graduate school? # Answer > 7 votes Yes, include potential research interests that you are interested in and not just those you have participated in. Graduate schools like to know your goals and where you want to go with your graduate degree, so including what research would be interesting helps them know if they have faculty that can guide you in that direction. --- Tags: graduate-admissions, research-undergraduate ---
thread-31034	https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/31034	Who should be provided as an academic reference for job applications?	2014-11-02T18:31:18.243	# Question Title: Who should be provided as an academic reference for job applications? I am instructed by my university to offer 1 academic reference and 1 work reference for industry work (I am doing a year-long placement). However, all attempts to actually get suggestions on who to use from the university have been useless as they appear to be dodging my questions by not responding. As my course is quite large, I seriously doubt any lecturer or demonstrator will even know my name, let alone me as a person and therefore cannot give a personal reference. But, as we have to give somebody, who should it therefore be? # Answer Your academic reference should be a teacher you have taken a class from or worked with in another academic capacity like a research assistantship, an academic internship, etc. For students very early in their careers who have only taken large lecture classes, this can be challenging. Some teachers of large lecture classes have concrete guidelines for when they will recommend students in these classes (e.g., I might have a policy of recommending any student who achieves more than a 3.7/4.0). You might look at your professors websites or ask them. The professor will likely review your work in the class before writing a letter so you will be wise to pick a professor of a class you did extremely well in. Alternatively, you might be able to ask a post-doc or graduate teaching assistant that you worked with more closely with who is familiar with your academic work. I wrote these letters for undergraduates when I was a graduate student. Graduate student letters would be inappropriate for applying to a graduate program but should be just fine for intra-University programs and placements. > 2 votes # Answer Real world employers mostly want to confirm that you have ability to work independently as well as on a team, which is evidence of self-discipline and good communication skills. For this reason I would suggest, if possible, to ask a lecturer/professor in a class where you did some type of project which required working over a period of time to produce something tangible like a presentation or a paper or a design. Preferably in a team, and ideally where you had some leadership role or were responsible for a good chunk of the work. Ideally this lecturer would have acknowledged your project as of especially high quality and well done. When you meet to ask them, bring some evidence that will help them remember your work (they deal with hundreds of students and it may be challenging to recall any one individual's accomplishments). Anecdotal evidence is always great in this case because it gives them something specific to talk about. You can also bring a hard-copy sheet with a bullet list of your accomplishments (grades, projects, extracurricular work) that will give the lecturer some raw material for the reference. Help them out, and they will help you. Good luck! > 0 votes --- Tags: job-search, recommendation-letter ---
thread-31522	https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/31522	How broad should the research Interests of an undergraduate applying for grad school be?	2014-11-10T10:24:37.930	# Question Title: How broad should the research Interests of an undergraduate applying for grad school be? I'm an undergraduate student applying to grad school. In my Research Interests section in my CV (or somewhere else), I wonder how broad should my interests be. For example, I have worked on topics about plasmonics that fall under condensed matter physics. Now can I write condensed matter physics as a research interest? I actually like most of subjects in condensed matter physics, and have quite accidentally worked on this specific subject plasmonics. Limiting the research interests to just plasmonics may limit my choices for application, while being too broad may cause me look like someone who has not even explored current research areas. As an applied physics and engineering student, how broad should by research interests appear on my application? # Answer > 2 votes I personally make it a little more specific to the department. Something like, "condense matter physics, in particular, the faculty Prof. A and Prof. B looks interesting in that (etc)." --- Tags: graduate-admissions, research-undergraduate ---
thread-31516	https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/31516	Internship to Grad School	2014-11-10T08:05:52.037	# Question Title: Internship to Grad School Last year I did a year long Quantum Chemistry internship at a very prestigious university. Towards the end of my internship I met another principle investigator from the same institution and got interested in their work (Material Sci). I didn't get time to develop a relationship since I had to move for college in less than a weeks time(transferred from a Junior College into my junior year), but I wanted to try to intern in their lab this summer, and if they liked me enough, go there as a grad student upon graduation. I was wondering if there is anything wrong with this plan. For example, I've heard often that universities want you to go somewhere else for your grad school than undergrad in order to "meet more people in your field". I wanted to know if this custom also tends to apply with internships done in undergraduate years. Edit: I am a physics major in case you are wondering. # Answer > 1 votes I don't think it's so much that universities want their grad students to have attended other schools for undergrad, it's more about achieving a broader experience for yourself which will be especially helpful after grad school. In my experience, professors (and departments and universities) generally want to attract the best students they can for grad school. The top students in an undergraduate program may be heavily recruited for graduate programs at the same university, especially if they have been participating in research with a professor and he/she is impressed with their work. It can be difficult to judge applicants' grad school potential based solely on application materials and a professor having personal (positive) experience with a student can lead to very strong recommendations and near-certain acceptance. On the other hand, if you should choose to go to graduate school, it is in your best interest to choose the best (for some definition of best) situation for you. I think this is where it's often beneficial to change institutions. Attending multiple universities broadens your contact base, exposes you to new resources and ways of doing things, gives you perspective on multiple departments, and better prepares you for future moves to new locations/institutions/etc. I think that the importance of developing a broad network of contacts for your postgraduate career is incredibly important and changing institutions for different degrees is almost guaranteed to help you there. In your case, where you've done an internship at the school you're considering, I would not worry much about potential negatives if you decide to apply there for graduate school. I think an internship is a great way to get a feel for the institution and the professor. It's also a potential way to get yourself a very strong recommendation and an "in" to the department. --- Tags: graduate-admissions, graduate-school, internship ---
thread-23655	https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/23655	Why do I have the "required reviews completed" status on my submission in Elsevier?	2014-06-19T06:59:41.393	# Question Title: Why do I have the "required reviews completed" status on my submission in Elsevier? I had submitted my paper in an Elsevier journal one year back. Now, status update on the submission tracking says "Required reviews completed." However, for the last two weeks still there is no change in the status. Should I ask the editor what is going on with my submission? # Answer > 16 votes To expand on Dirk's comment: The status you see means that the reviewers have submitted their reports to the online system, and the handling editor has received an email about this. Now she has to read the comments (and likely look at your manuscript again to see if they comments are relevant), come to a decision, and write a corresponding letter to the author summarizing the comments and justifying the decision. This will in general not take more than an hour. But you should keep in mind that yours is not the only manuscript (nor, in all likelihood, the only journal) the editor has to deal with. In addition, this is both the end of semester and conference season in many parts of the world, so it is reasonable to assume that the editor is just very busy with more urgent deadlines, or isn't even in office. (Remember, editors are unpaid, so this work is on top of the regular duties of teaching, advising and doing their own research.) In some cases, the final decision even involves two editors (associate/managing editor and editor-in-chief/communicating editor), which doubles the chance of other things getting in the way. In light of that, I would say two weeks is definitely too early to worry and start contacting the editor; give it at least a month. (Although I know how stressful the wait at this stage of the publication process is...) # Answer > 4 votes One year is a very long time for a paper to be under review, at least in the social sciences. Indeed, the change of status is promising, but I think following up with the editor on when the reviews will be complete is reasonable in this case. Indeed, as suggested in the comment (by Dirk), being polite is key. # Answer > -10 votes If the paper was in review for a long time (over a year as you mentioned), it is a very bad sign. Being polite is an obvious solution, but, I am afraid, it may not help. Most likely your paper will be rejected. One of the reasons, the reviewers, who are in the same area of research, are not interested in publication of your work. They will find "convincing" excuse not to publish it. Unfortunately, you've lost a lot of time. Still not late, however. Go to another journal, not necessarily to highly ranked one, and submit it ASAP. Another good option, go to arxiv or vixra and make submission right away. Be wise, something is better than nothing. This is the best what you can do now. --- Tags: publications, research-process, elsevier ---
thread-31475	https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/31475	How does a software application idea become a research project?	2014-11-09T17:21:54.137	# Question Title: How does a software application idea become a research project? As a software developer just starting out in research (working for a lab) I have this idea of a software application which is meant to target a specific need: specifically to help users query data using specific and novel methodologies (navigation languages and autocomplete methods). Anyway, I know that ultimately I want to do science and not engineering. By that I mean that ultimately I don't want to build a tool (although it could help prove my idea) but that I want to investigate (that's really what research is about isn't it?) about how the navigational and autocomplete methodologies are important for querying data (for example) So I'm a bit troubled wondering how I can transform this application idea into a more scientific research project. Should I look at the novel parts of the application (such as the autocomplete functionalities) and investigate how that might make querying better for users? Is that even research? I guess overall I'm puzzled on how to make the idea of my software application stand on its own. How do I make my software idea contribute to the current body of human knowledge? Does software even count as knowledge? I guess I'm trying to convert the idea of my software application into a piece of knowledge. Any help/clarification? # Answer Your software idea may be able to become a piece of research if you can come up with a few things: * Research question. Ask a question relating to your software idea - for example, "How can we do X?" "What is a better design for X?" etc. Check the literature to see what has been said about this question (and related questions) by others. * Research result. What is the actual, novel contribution of your work? Is it a new technique that hasn't been done before? A rule of thumb for designing certain kinds of applications? A much better way to do a certain kind of task (for some reasonable definition of "better")? * Validation of research results. What kind of convincing evidence do you have that your result is sound? Depending on the type of result you claim, your evidence may be in the form of performance benchmarks of your technique relative to state of the art, user studies from users of your application, or something else entirely. The best way to get a better understanding of what constitutes a research question, research result, or evidence, is to read a lot of papers in your field of interest. > 10 votes # Answer Your desire to do research is commendable. But although you are a seasoned engineer, you are still an undergraduate at research and you need to slow your pace. Although you have a headstart in relation to your peers, you still need to develop some research maturity which takes time or a mentor who might give you a push to the right direction. I was also an programmer first and went into researcher later, so I understand where you are coming from. But like me at first, you do not really "get" it. Autocomplete is not research. Period. A tool that shows a nice graph of semantic data is not research. Period. It is a DEMO and you can submit it to a demo track of a conference or a smaller workshop and that is it. But even then, unless the tool does something unusual it will get rejected. Unless you want to built the new Virtuoso or the new Neo4j then your tool is not research. Period. And developing a GUI tool is something that I would not easily recommend, because making a GUI tool that is good enough for showing to others, takes a lot of time. That is why developing such GUI tools, is usually reserved for MSc thesis projects and students like you and is not something like a PHD student undertakes on his own. Of course there are always exceptions, but this is what I have seen. On the other hand, developing a new, better index for autocomplete than e.g. a trie is research. But even then, building the autocomplete module is not proof. You need experiments, related work section, literature review, proofs, complexity analysis, knowledge about data structures, which you may have but probably you have not. Conclusively, you are now a good programmer. But that does not automatically make you a good CS student. You need to build a theoretical background to formalize research questions. And that I am afraid requires time and/or guidance. > 7 votes # Answer Your first step should be an extremely thorough search of the scientific literature, in order to explore what's already been done in the area covered by your application - that is, assess the originality of "the idea" and its theoretical underpinning. > 2 votes # Answer For software to "contribute to human knowledge", it needs to advance human knowledge -- a new algorithm, a new human interaction technique, a new approach to coding (often embodied in a new language tuned for that purpose, for clarity, though almost all such can be implemented in older languages with a bit of work)... If you have a really new approach to performing or using autocomplete, that probably counts. If you're just using autocomplete in your program in a place where it's obvious to an experienced practitioner that autocomplete would be appropriate, it probably doesn't. You could do some legitimate research on measuring exactly how much difference which kinds of autocomplete help which users -- but that's human factors engineering, not software engineering per se. Programming is just a tool. If you use it to conduct research, you're doing research. If you aren't, you aren't. Writing may be a good analogy -- you need to be able to write well to communicate, but "writing well" is usually not the creative act unless you're someone like e. e. cummings who can create a new way to approach writing itself. Deciding what to communicate and how, or finding ways to measure the advantages and disadvantages of varying approaches to communication, is usually where human knowledge is advanced. > 2 votes # Answer I would start with a quality blog post, with references to other approaches, justification of claims. If you can accomplish it, this piece of software might be a candidate for a paper. In a journal paper you need to have something novel concrete to show, to support it with evidence and reference with other research. But it needs to be something concrete not "it is a great app, because I think so, my friends and it got 10k likes". More like "new algorithm allows to compute X with 7% less error...", "we introduce a new statistical model for classification of words based on Y..." or "75% user accomplish goal of Z with autocomplete vs 53 who...". Software engineering and scientific research (which topic? algorithms, statistics, linguistics, psychology...) are different skills. > 1 votes --- Tags: research-process, software ---
thread-31404	https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/31404	Is it better to add a transcript of a non-completed degree for a master's degree admission?	2014-11-08T11:23:55.583	# Question Title: Is it better to add a transcript of a non-completed degree for a master's degree admission? Im getting my degree this year (in june presumably) in physics. And while I was getting it I was at the same time getting a degree in mathematics. (By degree I mean completing undergraduate studies in both of those things, I'm from Spain and I'm not sure about the equivalence...). Now, I dedicated to physics full-time and by the time I will have finished physics (june as I said) I will have approximately 50% of my degree in maths. Independently of the maths degree, next year I will apply to some post-graduate studies outside of my country and I would like to know if I should apply with my physics degree or if it would make any significant (and positive) change in my application to say that I've also been studying half a degree on maths and include a transcript of what I've studied in that degree. The problems is what I commented on BPND answer, plus the fact that transcripts are 30€ plus 80€ the sworn translation, and if I can keep expenses down, that's a plus. My question is if the difference by including it will be positive. The average grades are 9.24 (GPA 3.9) and 9.2 (GPA 3.82) in physics and maths respectively, out of 10. The GPAs were calculated with some online converter I found, using all the subjects and the credits for each one. # Answer > 5 votes Many universities will demand a full transcript of your academic history, so, in that case, you will need to attach both (or a combined) transcript(s) to your application. Even if they only ask for the transcript of your main studies, you might want to attach the transcript for the math lectures and exercises. Especially in this case, where math acts perfectly as a supporting discipline for a phyiscs major. # Answer > 1 votes Answer: You should apply with both of your degrees unless you did poorly during your math studies. However, the honest applicant would apply with both no matter what, as both of these degrees are part of your academic history. Reason: Academic institutions want to see you have accomplished a lot. The more you appear to have done, the more likely you will be to get in, as long as you did well during you math studies. Furthermore, as was stated previously, universities often require a full transcript. --- Tags: graduate-admissions, masters ---
thread-31558	https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/31558	How to treat the results of symbolic computations in a paper?	2014-11-10T23:36:51.890	# Question Title: How to treat the results of symbolic computations in a paper? I am working with quite complicated (i.e., numerous) trigonometric functions. Let’s say one equation does not fit on an A4 sheet of paper. Rewriting the expressions by hand would be extremly tedious, but thanks to computer algebra systems, I managed to do a symbolic computation and arrive at something like f (0) = 1 (for the sake of the example) as a final and main result. How can I explain such a thing in a scientific journal (in mechanics)? A few possibilities, that I considered: * > The calculations yield f (0) = 1 But I feel guilty because I did not make the calculation by myself. * > Using ComputerProgram++, we showed that f (0) = 1. But should I provide the code in this case? # Answer In an engineering paper, it's not appropriate to have lengthy, non-novel symbolic computations in the body of the article. The requirement however, is that your readers are able to reproduce it in some way. Here are a few options: * Write all symbolic computations formally in an appendix to the paper. * If you obtained the results with a software (free or commercial), give the exact name and version of the software you used together with all the necessary parameters you used in the methods section. I don't think there is anything to be 'guilty' about using a faster, controlled way of solving maths providing you know what you are doing. * If you obtained the results with a piece of code, make it available in some ways (like a public repository or your institution's website). This can sometimes also be done by submitting it to the journal with your article, but few engineering journals host code. This being said, it's very uncommon to see symbolic maths solved with software in the engineering literature (I don't think I ever read it in any paper). Generally either the concept is well-documented and does not warrant a formal proof in the context (e.g. don't copy the Fourier theorem every time you do an FFT) or it's application-specific and should be written formally. > 8 votes --- Tags: writing ---
thread-31328	https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/31328	Is it ever appropriate to correct a non-native teacher's English?	2014-11-07T13:15:26.350	# Question Title: Is it ever appropriate to correct a non-native teacher's English? Four of my Japanese teachers are, as you would expect, Japanese, and they all speak English fluently. But now and then, there will of course be slip ups: I often see small grammatical errors in one sensei's handouts. They don't affect the quality of the communication, but is it appropriate to point out these errors to the sensei? I know that if I were in Japan, I would always want for native speakers to correct me if I made a mistake; more so in the written form. However, this particular sensei has been at my uni for something like 20 years, and her English is perfect in all other regards; I wonder if it wouldn't be a little insulting to point out otherwise negligible written/spoken errors. Nonetheless, I'd like to know what some teachers think. EDIT: When I say my sensei's English is perfect, I mean that she is able to communicate effectively, not that her speech or writing are free from grammatical errors. Like any non-native speaker who hasn't learned from a very young age, she will sometimes say or write things that sound jarring in English grammar. # Answer > 30 votes It depends on how much interest she has expressed in being corrected or trying to improve and how close your relationship with her is. Any corrections should be generally mentioned to her respectfully and in some form of one-on-one conversation. If she has asked in class for mistakes to be pointed out, then I would not hesitate to offer the occasional correction. Frequent corrections are probably not welcome. If she has not expressed interest in being corrected, I would only mention corrections if the mistake could potentially lead to misunderstandings either in message tone or content. A gray area might be if the mistake is in formal communication (e.g. grant applications) and you work closely with her. In that case, use your own judgement. # Answer > 20 votes In Japan, correcting a teacher's mistake is pretty unwelcome and humiliating. Several visiting professors from Japan are complaining that American students are very impolite: they ask questions. Serious. Even asking a teacher a question is an insult (they feel like they are being tested or mocked). Since your teachers are not visiting ones, but people who have lived for years in the country, I assume they are far less sensitive to American ways of teaching and communication and more open to being corrected. However it is hard to guess, and potentially it can hurt an otherwise good relationship. So if your teacher has indicated that he/she wants to improve his/her English, feel free to help. Otherwise I would let it go. If you really think it is necessary, try to do it as indirectly as possible like during a short chat when you ask him/her how he/she learned such good English. Some praise always helps. If the answer is that people helped by correcting and teaching, then you can spin the topic into the direction if he/she needs any help in proofreading. Good luck. # Answer > 10 votes You say that her English is perfect in all other regards. There may be grammatical errors in the handouts because they are written in a tight schedule and she has different priorities (e.g. writing papers, grant proposals, etc.) The point for me is: do you think those errors are due to some lack of knowledge about English or just lack of time? Do you think she could spot those errors by herself if she cared and could find the time for that? For how many years are the handouts going to be re-used? That makes the difference, IMHO. On the one hand, if this is all due to lack of knowledge about English, then providing this knowledge would be welcome. On the other hand, if this is because she doesn't care and/or doesn't have the time for that then pointing at it and forcing (or suggesting) her to spend time and take care of that is going to be perceived negatively. # Answer > 5 votes The teacher has been there twenty years now, which is plenty of time to learn a language. She is a teacher at a university, communicating in English. Her English "is perfect in all other regards", and these are "otherwise negligible written/spoken errors". At this point, I think you should forget that she is Japanese, forget that she had to learn English as a foreign language. She's way past that point. It's insulting to consider her as someone who is learning English. Native speakers aren't perfect either. So the question becomes -- would you correct a teacher if "now and then, there will of course be slip ups", if they were a native speaker? I feel you wouldn't, based on how you describe the mistakes. # Answer > 3 votes It sounds like no, and this has nothing to do with Japanese culture. Why would you correct someone's grammar? 1. You both want the communication to be formally correct. This would apply if your teacher wrote an honor code you needed to sign, and it frequently applies between grammar nerds who get some enjoyment out of using "less" and "fewer" correctly. 2. You fear the communication may be misunderstood. From your question, it sounds like you're not talking about this case. 3. You think they want you to correct them so they can learn. For a 20 years' experience teacher, this fails the "common sense" test. He or she is communicating fine (and very successfully) with small "mistakes", everyone knows what they mean, no one cares. Yes, I do think it is rude to decide for your teacher that they are "working on" English. That's not how learning language really works; at some point you have your accent and your mistakes and that's how you talk and essentially your dialect. You don't correct a French speakers' pronunciation do you? No, it's their accent. So... no, don't do it, generally. # Answer > 2 votes I would say it is more polite to ask first if your teacher is fine with being corrected. After all, we do not know who is gonna be offended by this seemingly "unoffendable" thing. I have met a native English speaker, who asked me if I am okay if she corrects my English so as to make my English more natural. Frankly, though I do not care that, I appreciate her asking before acting. To me, it is a general etiquette to ask before act. Indeed, you can only win the recipient's respect if asking first. # Answer > 2 votes Different cultures look at such corrections in different ways. I won't pretend to understand all of them, and I know I'm misunderstanding some, but tread carefully. In some cultures (though not Japanese culture, I think) corrections in public can be considered humiliating. Say what you want in the privacy of an office, one on one, but not in a group of people. In some cultures, what an elder has to say carries much weight, and correction from a younger person must be handled delicately. In other cultures, politeness is key, and some things can just be considered rude that an American would never imagine to be so. It took me some time interacting with students before I realized that the answer to yes/no questions is yes, because no is rude, and I think that putting someone in a situation where they have to say no might be rude too. I find that avoiding yes/no questions in situations like this helps. For example, the answer to "can you do this?" is "yes", but the answer to "How well will this come out if you do this?" might be "it might not work at all"!! I imagine that a sensei who has been teaching language for decades is used to just about every interaction there is. If you're interested in Japanese, though, I'd approach this as an opportunity to learn about cultural sensitivities. Approach your teacher with this, explain that you understand that there are different sensitivities with respect professional interaction, lay out the issue, and ask how this would be handled in Japanese Culture. Japanese experience is TREMENDOUSLY VALUABLE in the worlds of business and technology. The more you learn, the more valuable you become. # Answer > 0 votes No, it is not appropriate and additionally not a good use of class time. * If you could not understand what your instructor said, ask for clarification. * If you can offer the instructor a correction, then you probably understood what they said, and therefore, you do not need to waste your class time and the time of your classmates on corrections. * Be aware that error correction is not as simple as you may think. It is unlikely that the teacher would benefit from having a student correcting them in such a setting. If your goal is to improve the class sessions, you are not going to notice a significant improvement in your instructor's overall English ability, as a result of your corrections, unless they are only using a very tiny range of language during your lessons. # Answer > -1 votes Directly confronting a teacher infront of others can be seen as an attack. I would advise against this especially towards people with a Japanese background because in Japanese culture showing conflicting opinions is generally regarded as rude and is so implied in a very polite way instead. Also, respect is important so correcting a teacher might be seen as attacking the authority of the teacher. Confronting the teacher in private might be a better alternative as long as the teacher is open to this, it is done so in a polite way and is not done too often to annoy the teacher. Indirectly correcting the teacher by bringing up the correct way to say the thing the teacher made a mistake with is also possible. If doing so, I would advise to not bring up the mistakes, instead only the corrections, and not too often as it could be seen as condescending. However, this can be a better way when cultural differences mean that being conflicting is taboo. In any case, it is best to be polite and careful about what you say. As a side note, the Japanese and English languages are very different(much more than just vocabulary) and I can say from experience that going from one to the other is a big hurdle. Even if you do succeed in getting the point accross they might still make the same mistake because it is awkward to them and hard to get used to. Pointing out a mistake that can be easily corrected generally won't be taken negatively because it is of benefit, but pointing out a mistake that won't might just cause annoyance and so should be proceeded carefully. # Answer > -2 votes In your class, will you lose points on an assignment for grammatical and spelling errors? If so, then you are not being rude by pointing out these mistakes. My advice is to mention these errors one-on-one – absolutely not in front of another student, and show as much respect and humility as possible. You don't want to embarrass your teacher. --- Tags: etiquette, language ---
thread-31567	https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/31567	Is it advisable to use formal citations in a statement of purpose?	2014-11-11T06:27:16.643	# Question Title: Is it advisable to use formal citations in a statement of purpose? In my statement of purpose, I am using certain arguments by scholars of my field (IR). Will it be advisable to use referencing, or might it be to my disadvantage as an unnecessary attempt to boast on my knowledge in that field. # Answer > 2 votes If you're going to use others' ideas or arguments, use citations. If you use someone else's ideas in any piece of academic writing, always include citations with sufficient detail for your readers to locate the source of the ideas. To do otherwise would be plagiarism. Correct attribution of ideas is not boastful; it's a basic requirement of writing. # Answer > 2 votes > Will it be advisable to use referencing, or might it be to my disadvantage as an unnecessary attempt to boast on my knowledge in that field. I can hardly imagine an admission committee that would hold it against you that you already have knowledge of the field you would want to get into. You should be fine. Also - it is an application, a certain amount of (rightful) boasting is certainly required. An SOP is not the right place for understatement. --- Tags: graduate-admissions, citations, masters, statement-of-purpose ---
thread-31570	https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/31570	If the status of a paper under review changes, should schools I applied to be notified?	2014-11-11T06:57:36.993	# Question Title: If the status of a paper under review changes, should schools I applied to be notified? I am applying to doctoral programs in the US. I have a paper currently under review, and, it seems that the status will remain under review after I submit my application packages. My question is: If my paper is accepted or revised or rejected, then should I notify the schools to which I am applying that this paper was accepted or revised or rejected? # Answer > 2 votes Short answer: no (don't bother). More nuanced answer: it depends. Is your paper of earth-shaking significance in some way? Is it going to appear in some renowned journal (Nature, PNAS, Lancet, Journal of the ACM, etc.)? If not, it is little more than a waste of time to try to add the information to your application. Late information is rarely added to application packets (which these days are anyway handled almost entirely online -- convenient in certain ways but makes for an additional hassle when it comes to adding to or correcting an application or supporting documentation). However, if you have corresponded with some professor you would like to work with at the grad school that you are applying to, and have reason to believe this professor might be interested and able to influence the admissions committee, then I would certainly take the time to send a polite e-mail to this person indicating that your paper was accepted in such-and-such notable journal or conference. I would however avoid bringing up a rejection, and would also not take the trouble in case of acceptance of a less important article (or one in a less-respectable forum; e.g., an op-ed in your college newspaper). --- Tags: publications, graduate-admissions, united-states, paper-submission ---
thread-31505	https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/31505	In a scholarship application that asks about "overcoming challenges," does this refer to financial challenges or other kinds?	2014-11-10T01:54:54.160	# Question Title: In a scholarship application that asks about "overcoming challenges," does this refer to financial challenges or other kinds? I am applying for a university scholarship program, and as part of the application I have to write some essays but I don't understand what they want exactly in the first essay. The question is written like this: > Household information and Statement of Need > > Describe the challenges you have faced in your path to education until this point. Please include the following: > > * Who has supported your academic achievements until now? (financially and/or other) > * Which challenges did you overcome during your secondary education? So my question is: when they ask "Which challenges did you overcome during your secondary education?" are they only asking about financial issues/challenges or also other kind of challenges? Is it OK if I talk about family problems(non financial) that have negatively affected some moments of my education? I would like also to ask if anyone could give me a link to an article or some other other online resource that has tips to writing a good essay, I have already googled but I can't find anything very useful. # Answer > 5 votes They're leaving the question open-ended intentionally. They will use your answer to judge whether you're a good fit for the school's culture. Generally when you see questions like this for things like admissions essays or in interviews, the interviewer wants to give you an honest and complete answer. You can discuss any kinds of challenges here, be they personal, financial, or strictly academic, but only bring the challenge up if the way you responded to it either taught you something or reflects a positive character trait. The goal for your essay should be to show the reader why you deserve the scholarship or why you are most likely to use that money in a better way than another recipient might be. Because of this, keep in mind the kind of scholarship it is. If it's a minority scholarship, for example, remember that the scholarship is, at its core, designed to help underprivileged kids have the opportunity to go to school, and those kinds of scholarships are especially relevant to bright kids with decent test scores who come from places with limited academic resources or families with low income. That kind of situation might give you all sorts of stuff to talk about, from disrespectful kids and xenophobic teachers to insufficient access to technology and school supplies. If you can show that you faced some or all of these kinds of challenges but still got a 29 on your ACT (because you worked hard and applied yourself, naturally), the Minority Office might be more impressed with your application. Review the mission statement of the department that will be receiving the recommendation before writing it, and always tweak essays for other departments before you send out the letters. # Answer > 4 votes It's hard to know for certain without knowing more about the particular scholarship that you are applying for, but many scholarships are designed to very specifically target particularly disadvantaged students and try to turn them into success stories. If you, for example, faced discrimination and prejudice, or other institutional barriers, that would likely be an excellent thing to talk about, as this is the sort of problem that many scholarships are designed to help mitigate. If it is a more personal thing, e.g., you had an older brother who you just didn't get along with, that may not be as compelling a narrative. --- Tags: funding, application ---
thread-31545	https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/31545	Interdisciplinary PhDs?	2014-11-10T16:54:05.210	# Question Title: Interdisciplinary PhDs? Is there such a thing as an interdisciplinary PhD, where the student chooses the fields, courses, etc.? If so, which U.S. universities offer such a thing? # Answer For a while I was a graduate student in the math department of Portland State University. At Portland State, the Ph.D. program in math requires students to have an "allied area" (field of study other than mathematics). The student's thesis must be related to this allied area, the student must take about 25% percent of their courses in the allied area, and the student must pass a qualifying exam in the allied area. Thus the whole program is designed to be interdisciplinary from the get-go. (Side note: The actual name of degree is "Ph.D. in Mathematical Sciences", and it definitely differs from the traditional math Ph.D.) > 5 votes # Answer In general, every Ph.D. is officially within some formal department, or other program, and a Ph.D. student will need to do at least whatever courses that program requires. Some such programs, however, are extremely interdisciplinary by their nature: some nice examples are MIT's Engineering Systems Division and Media Lab, where participants have the opportunity to take a wide variety of different courses connected to different disciplines. Every program has some (often relatively loose) expectations about what a student will do, however, so you're unlikely to find anything where you just get to pick whatever you feel like. Beyond a certain point, however, a Ph.D. is not about coursework. Once you start to focus on your research, then you can do anything that you and your advisor agree is appropriate... > 3 votes --- Tags: phd, united-states, interdisciplinary ---