Common knowledge doesn't need to be cited. The threshold for what counts as "common" varies: My rule of thumb for a scientific publication is that if it is taught in the intro lectures of your discipline, it's common knowledge. I sometimes mention Planck's law at the start of a Methods section, and don't give a citation. Exceptions are of course if your paper is about the history of the law itself, or a related topic, in which case you would be interested in specific historical formulations and usage contexts anyway and should cite a source. (Or for example in the pedagogy of physics, if you want to compare textbook formulations - cite them.) Another case is if you use something that's common knowledge in a different discipline. I find this to be the case with statistical and machine learning techniques which a reader in my (geosciences) area might not be familiar with, but which would need no citation in a statistics paper. In this case, I found a widely used textbook to cite (with "e.g." before the reference).

References have a purpose. You can ask yourself: Who is my reader, and would they either know this or recognize it as background knowledge that they can look up in standard basic references? Pythagoras theorem - taught to every teen in the country, so needs no cite.

For a class paper, you should probably ask the instructor about where the limit for cite-worthy lies. I've found that "what was taught in THIS class and its immediate predecessors" is usually considered common knowledge. If you want to cite something, a standard textbook will do.


How do I determine if my contribution to an area of research merits publication?

If you don't submit a paper, you're never going to find out it's publishable—unless someone beats you to it. Basically, if you and your colleagues believe you have a publishable advance, then write it up and submit it.

On a related note: have you solicited feedback from colleagues in the field? Has it been presented at a conference somewhere? What have you heard and done to "talk the work up" with colleagues? Has anyone told you it is (or is not) publishable?


How do academia and graduate advisors deal with the fact that the cost of living is dramatically higher but graduate wages is stagnant?

This might prove controversial but I'm going to reverse the question: why do PhD students accept being underpaid? As long as academic institutions find candidates willing to be underpaid, they have no reason to raise the wages. If the PhD students themselves don't defend their claim to a better compensation, who will?

In some countries PhD students are staff with a proper employment contract (I'm aware of at least Germany and France, probably others as well). The advantages of this system from the PhD student perspective are:

Access to health, pension and unemployment benefits in accordance with the country regulations
The PhD counts as a professional experience
The salary is usually indexed on some public employment salary scale
Symbolically improved social status, e.g. when being vetted for an apartment or a mortgage.

Obviously this option is more costly for the academic institutions, which means that they had to reduce the number of PhD students hired in order to increase the salary.

In France, the transition from student stipend to work contract happened at the beginning of the 2000s. The movement originated from the PhD students themselves and was driven by the Confédération des Étudiants Chercheurs (students researchers federation, later appropriately renamed as the Confédération des Jeunes Chercheurs, junior researchers federation). The central claim was that even if PhD students are researchers in training, they actually carry out productive research work, as illustrated by the fact that 50% of scientific publications have a PhD student as first author. Therefore legal cases were brought that their work qualifies as regular employment, and that the student stipend system was simply illegal according to labor laws. Institutions and funding bodies reluctantly complied over the next decade or so, for fear of legal challenges and/or bad publicity.


Should I quote Wikipedia if I can't rephrase it?

Yes.  If the important thing is the facts (and not the phrasing), then forget what Wikipedia said, read the source cited there, and work from that to find your own wording.  But if Wikipedia has a better phrasing than anyone else has, and you want to copy that phrasing, then you need to credit it to Wikipedia.  You shouldn't use this phrasing while trying to disguise the fact that it came from Wikipedia, or try to modify it just enough that nobody can be sure of its origins.  You should either credit Wikipedia or rewrite it from scratch.

If the quote is genuinely great, then using it makes sense, and nobody will care that it came from Wikipedia.  (It's reasonable to question Wikipedia as a source for facts, but that's not a reason to avoid crediting it for good writing.)  However, I'm not convinced this quote is so obviously wonderful that quoting it would look natural.  Would it be that much worse to say something like this?  "Schroedinger's book was written for a popular audience, but it was nevertheless highly influential among scientists.  For example, it inspired Crick to take up the problem of the physical basis of genetics."  (Note that the Derry reference you mention never says it inspired Watson except via Crick.  Wikipedia cites Watson's book "Avoid Boring People" for its influence on Watson, but I haven't checked what he says there.  Derry cites "The Double Helix", but I haven't checked that either.  In any case, you'd need to check these references, see how to incorporate Watson, and add a suitable citation.)  I'm not saying this phrasing is ideal, but it could be good enough, and I bet you could come up with various alternatives, depending on exactly what you want to convey.  I doubt it's crucial to your paper that this one sentence convey exactly what Wikipedia said.  If it is, then quoting Wikipedia is fine, and if it's not, then the whole issue is not so important.


What are the advantages/disadvantages of a PhD advisor who is experienced vs. one at the beginning of his career?

It is sometimes assumed that less experienced / competent supervisor will try harder instead, spending more working time and will be somewhat a friend to you, not just a teacher. However this depends. A younger supervisor may also choose to give you only the minimum required amount of time.

For a good PhD student, it may be most important to get a good project and ideas that, as a rule, work. This does not require lots of time but does require a lot of competence. I would normally select the more experienced supervisor even if one may have less time for me. Only if the studies require some complex, difficult to learn methods, a younger supervisor who still uses these methods directly and personally at work may teach them more efficiently.


Is it acceptable to ask an unknown professor outside my dept for help in a related field during his office hours?

In general, yes. Personally I've been pretty open to answering questions about my field of expertise from "random" students during my office hours. But:

Ask first: "I was working on X and am wondering about Y. Do you think you would have time to answer a few questions?" Be prepared to hear "No, I'm sorry, I don't."
Ask the right person. Don't assume that a CS professor who teaches machine learning will know anything about Apache logs.
Come prepared with a specific question - don't expect me to explain an entire topic to you from beginning to end, or spend an hour walking you through a tutorial on some programming concept you want to learn.
Don't abuse office hours as a substitute for doing basic research on your own (e.g. "I know I could easily find the answer to my question online, but it was quicker to come ask you during office hours.")
Professors may want to give "priority" to students who are actually enrolled in their classes. If the office hours are busy, try not to monopolize the professor's time - or come back at a less busy time, like the week after the midterm exam instead of the week before ;)


Possible career path for a pure math student

I'm glad that you're interested in further study. I'm actually not familiar with the Indian job market right now, but if you're not interested in academia, then in that case, here is what I would recommend:

Get a PhD in CS or Business (Computer Information Systems) - go to Data Science is a great career, even if you don't enjoy it that much, it is very lucrative as you said, and it is also pretty interesting. Information Security is a booming field, and is huge right now. You can also do this through pure mathematics, by getting your PhD in Math and specializing in computational number theory, while staying involved in InfoSec work (through internship, for example).

The academic job market in India, especially for Professors, seems to be relativity good at the moment, so it may be easy to get a job as one. I don't know this for sure though. It seems like this isn't an option for you though, so here is what I would say:

Do something like I suggested above (I strongly believe that Data Science is the way to go), and try to get into a reputable institition in India (if you plan to stay there), like IIT. Otherwise, there a lot of good institions throughout the world that you can look into. To become a data scientist, you need to apply to PhD programs in CIS/Business/CS, and join a research group that has a Data analytics concentration (talking in regards to my experience here in the USA). There's a lot of US Companies that have major offices in India, and Data is a big field now that is under-saturated currently.


Paid publish fees two years late, can journal reject my paper?

It depends on what the terms and conditions are. If the terms specify that you need to pay the fee within a certain period of time, then they can. If the terms don't specify this but give the editor some discretion on certain issues, the they might also do this.

The question that you should ask yourself however is whether it matters whether they are allowed to do this. You might be in the right, but would you really be willing to go to court over this?

What you need to do is to convince them that they should publish your article. One way to do this is to apologize to the editor for not paying the fee sooner, and ask them whether it is possible to re-submit to this journal. Your personal circumstances are neither here nor there. You can at most mention that due to personal circumstances you did not pay the fee at the time and leave it at that. And if it is not possible, then submit the paper to another journal. What happened in the past is now in the past and is irrelevant for all practical purposes. You might have an in with this journal, but if not, then you're probably better off accepting it and moving on to a different journal.


" ... " (Ehrlich & Ehrlich, 2015)
  " ... " (P. Ehrlich & A. H. Ehrlich, 2015)
  " ... " (Paul Ehrlich & Anna H. Ehrlich, 2015)

Are all correct. The adopted reference style will dictate which should be used.


Why not?  Patent article is also your work published so it should be included in h-index and all other indices for that matter.

That being said, this is my opinion, not an expert advice (Thanks to @iayork for pointing it out).  Discussion in the comments.  But the fact that Google Scholar list patents in your profile and their citations are used to calculate h-index, I say it is okay to have patent citations in your h-index.


Where Self-plagiarism Begins and Where it Ends

Let us set aside debate about whether the word "self-plagiarism" makes logical sense. The concept is fairly generally acknowledged, and rests on a simple ethical principle: it is wrong to give the impression that a work is novel when it is not.

We can further distinguish two distinct forms of self-plagiarism:

Literal self-plagiarism, in which words are directly reused.
Conceptual self-plagiarism, in which the words are different but the content is (largely) the same.

From this definition, we can elaborate several key points of evaluating whether a reuse counts as self-plagiarism:

Is there an expectation of novelty (e.g., a journal article, conference paper, or book)?  In some cases, such as one-paragraph conference abstracts in some fields, there may not be an expectation of novelty, in which case there is no "impression of novelty" to be considered and self-plagiarism is not at issue (the reviewers may still decide they are uninterested if the work is insufficiently novel).
Is more than a trivial amount of material being directly reused?  If so, then they must either be in a quotation, or else the publication must be clear that portions have previously been published, and a citation to the prior publication must be included.  Otherwise, it is self-plagiarism. (Note that this may not apply to "non-creative" words, such as a tersely written methods section).
If concepts are shared with prior publication, then there must be clear attribution of the significant antecedents.  There is a lot of flexibility that enters with "significant," and different communities interpret this in different ways, so you need to know your community expectations.  Here, one basically treats one's own results just like those of any other scientist, with the exception that one cannot claim ignorance of one's own prior publications.


Business schools operate differently from moreal traditional departments. That said, tenure-track offers still need to generally be signed off on by a dean. Even if you interviewed for the tenure-track position tomorrow, and you are the last planned interview, the offer could still take a couple of weeks.

My opinion is that a tenure track position is enough of an upgrade over a non-tenure track position, that you are justified leaving at any point. Non-tenure track positions are abusive to young academics and if a department won't make a multi-year guarantee to you, I believe you can leave whenever you get a markedly better offer. In that light, I suggest you let the tenure-track process play out withough you trying to speed it up. I suggest you slow roll the non-tenure track offer and if they force you to sign before you hear about the TT, you do, then if you get a TT offer, you back out.


"Post-Postdoc" Independent Researcher with Office in University?

Many universities offer positions with titles such as "research professor" or "staff scientist" or other similar titles. These all indicate the same basic phenomenon: a researcher who is generally supported by "soft money" (In other words, a position subject to sufficient funding), but who is otherwise more or less "permanent" staff. Such scientists may or may not have their own dedicated office space, depending upon overall space constraints within the department and within their boss's research group.


Reliable method to find ISI rated Journal

The approach you found - that of looking for the journal in the Master Journal List of Web of Science (WoS) - is the correct one. Pain Medicine is indeed indexed in SCIE and thus in one of WoS' databases.
Note that WoS was originally created by ISI (Institute for Scientific Information), but is now curated by Clarivate Analytics. Thus, the label of an "ISI-rated journal" is not entirely correct, and it is possible that due to this incorrect label, the person with whom you corresponded did not understand what you meant.


If I work on a project but don't do research, should I be included as an author on a paper?

That's research in my book. I would include you as a co-author, but I'd also make you write up some of it as part of your learning experience.


How do graduate admissions committees view published undergraduate research papers?

For any job, relevant experience tends to be one of the most important factors.

Having a published paper on your CV will typically be more important in academia.  Jobs in academia are likely to involve contributing to academic papers, while (most) industry jobs do not.

A paper is still a nice accomplishment to have on your CV.  But for an industry job such as a software developer, the question will be "Can you code?"  It is possible that a computer science graduate has a whole heap of academic accomplishments, yet has no idea how to write software (I have encountered such candidates).

One important point is: tailor your CV to emphasize the right things for the field.

For example, if you did a computer science project that involved writing some software to do something novel, and then published on it, you would highlight different things on your CV depending on the type of job you were going for.

For academia, you would probably emphasize the novel methods and academic output.
For industry, you may want to highlight the software development skills you employed.


Is using another methodology for the same question I proposed plagiarism?

From what you've written, it seems plausible that your colleagues were also working on the scientific concept (or something similar), developed their own (similar) methodology, published a scientific paper, and attracted funding, which isn't misconduct. Establishing whether their review of your plans had any influence on their work will be difficult.


Why are there some really young professors and other much older lecturers without professor status?

Academia, like any other organized human profession, has a system of ranks and advancement on which those particularly talented or ambitious tend to rise quickly, while others may rise much more slowly or eventually stop.


Students staying hours past end of office hours

You don't need a "trick" to solve this problem. They're staying past the end of your scheduled office hours because you have been tolerant of this so far. (I suspect they completely missed your subtle hints.)

It sounds like you have made it too easy for them to use you as a crutch, rather than doing the work on their own and then coming to you with specific, focused questions. (Very much like this situation.) It's not good for you and it's not good for them.

At the end of your scheduled office hours, say (with a smile):

  Thanks, everyone, for coming! Don't forget that if you need extra help, you can also schedule an appointment with me.

You can do the same thing at the end of a scheduled appointment:

  It seems like we made some progress here. If you realize you still have questions after working on this some more, you can schedule another appointment.

Then if you need more of a reason to usher them out the door, grab your jacket and announce that you're going out for some coffee/air/exercise/something to eat.

If you think students are using office hours productively and genuinely need more time with a TA, consider letting the course instructor know - perhaps he/she should hire another TA to offer extra support.


When publication A cites B, should I cite A or B?

Whenever possible, you should try and cite the original source to make sure proper credit is attributed, especially if the original work is not well known enough to constitute "textbook material". For example, you can probably skip citing Einstein's original paper on special relativity and cite a newer textbook instead, where current standard notation and more context to the theory is provided.

Some times citing the derivative work can add to the discussion in the way of a simplified treatment over the original, further clarifications, notes on implications, and so on. Keep in mind that original work is often obscure, may not yet incorporate terminology or concepts that became mainstream after it was published, etc. In these cases I would recommend citing both the original and the derivative work. In my own papers I have used sentences such as "... our treatment is based on the theory presented by Doe and collaborators in their seminal paper [1], later reviewed more pedagogically by Smith [2]." Some journal editors will ask you to remove citations if they think they are redundant. This usually applies to obvious cases such as "... according to literature sources [1-25]..", but I guess an occasional picky editor might ask you to remove some of the references even if you're using them reasonably. In that case you need to judge by yourself if its worth insisting on keeping all the citations.

To summarize, when it doubt, I think it's best to err on the side of inclusion and make sure 1) that due credit is given to all the authors that deserve it and 2) that previous work you rely on for your study can be traced back following the items provided in the list of references.


Can a college drop-out successfully re-enter academia?

The biggest looming question in my mind is, assuming that one day I complete a bachelor's sufficiently well enough to entitle me to the prospect of graduate study, would my first attempt at a bachelor's be too big of an obstacle to overcome?

My experience is of course anecdotal, but for me the answer was 'yes, it is possible to overcome a poor academic record in your first bachelors program'. I will outline my story briefly and then summarize a few takeaways.

My story

I was a solid B student in high school, always doing well on exams but never taking homework very seriously. I overreached in my college applications and was rejected by five out of six schools. The one school to which I was accepted was the one I couldn't see myself attending, so I decided to enroll at the local community college instead.

I earned an associates degree with a ~3.5GPA and applied to three four-year schools, two for the linguistics major and one for the major in international agriculture. My associates degree was in social science, and I had been interested in linguistics since high school, but after working in coffee shops for a few years I was interested in the possibility of a career in the international coffee trade. I was accepted to all three programs, and chose to go to school for agriculture. My reasons for choosing that program over the linguistics programs still aren't very clear to me; in hindsight it was probably due largely to the fact that the agriculture program let me stay in my hometown while either linguistics program would have entailed a cross-country move. Regardless, I began at my new school and quickly got into academic trouble.

I didn't have the background for the courses I was enrolled in, I was still working full-time, I had an unhelpful advisor, I wasn't actually as interested in the subject as I had thought—any difficulty you name, it felt like I had to deal with it. I 'earned' a 1.0 GPA the first semester and a perfect 0.00 GPA the second semester, and withdrew voluntarily after that first year before the university could ask me to leave.

I got a full-time job and worked for two and a half years, but remained interested in linguistics and started to regret very strongly never entering a linguistics program. Finally fed up with myself, I applied to two schools: one of the two that had accepted me into the linguistics program three years prior, and one other. In spite of my poor showing in the agriculture program, I was accepted to both. I moved across the country to enroll in the program I should have enrolled in the first time they accepted me, and did very well there. I double-majored, earned my bachelors, applied to grad schools, and was accepted. I finished my masters degree this past May and am now in a PhD program.

So yes, it is possible. But...

Takeaways

I've learned a few things from my own experience. Take all of the following with a big grain of salt; they feel true to me, and they fit my experience, but they may not be generalizable:

Graduate schools are less concerned than you might think with your overall academic record and GPA. Rather, they are concerned with your ability to do graduate-level work in the program you've applied to. I had some terrible grades on my record, but they weren't in the subjects I hoped to study in graduate school. Over the entire graduate admissions process (I applied to five programs), no one asked about my poor grades from that year spent studying agriculture. It didn't come up once. That was very surprising.
I was honest about my academic record, but I didn't try to make excuses for it. I provided all of my transcripts, even the one with that perfect zero on it, to graduate admissions committees. However, beyond that, I didn't acknowledge those poor grades. There are people who will say that you should explain any poor grades in the statement of purpose you submit with your graduate application materials. I disagree. The statement of purpose provides you a maximum of two pages (in my field, at least; yours may vary) to sell yourself as a researcher. Any space you devote to an explanation of a poor academic record: 1) explicitly brings the reader's attention to a negative, and 2) leaves less space for other positives. The statement of purpose should give the impression that it's difficult to distill your research experience and potential down to two pages. If you don't even need two full pages, though, I think that's a negative.
The school in which I enrolled following that terrible year (academically speaking), from which I earned my bachelors, was one of the schools to which I had been accepted three years prior, before I had earned those low grades. I can't know for sure, but I can't help feeling like that fact worked in my favor.

  What general advice would you have for me in my situation?

Are you in school again now? If so, you've already cleared one big hurdle. Regardless, my advice is pretty simple: do everything you can to demonstrate that you can perform at the graduate level.

Take challenging courses—I was able to take a graduate course during my last semester (which took special permission from the professor and the college) and it was hugely helpful to have an idea of the expected workload.
Make sure your writing sample is the best it can be. A strong writing sample can go a long way in the admissions process.
Don't make excuses for yourself, but demonstrate through your recent work that any past poor performance doesn't reflect your real potential. In my own experience this was not as difficult as it might have been: I earned decent grades in social science, poor grades in agriculture, and then good grades in linguistics. I expect that poor grades and then good grades in the same subject might cause more concern.
Recognize that in many ways your extra lived experience (compared to your academic peers) is a strength. Many people go straight from high school to college and then straight from college to graduate school. Your experience working odd jobs and saving money for an out-of-state move might not be academic work, but it might give you a maturity and perspective lacking in other students. Compared to someone who's never taken time off from school, you might have a better idea what you want to do with your life.


How do STEM researchers know if their research is actually novel?

The honest answer is: you don't know, and thus the phenomenon of multiple discovery.  Sometimes this is simultaneous, and other times it is independent, as for example in the case of conductive polymers, which were apparently rediscovered and lost several times.

Now, in practice, you must do a reasonable literature search, and part of the training that one receives over time is how to figure out how large a reasonable literature search is.  It also helps to participate in conferences, where one becomes generally familiar with the thinking and knowledge in one's field.  Submitting one's own work for peer review and presenting it in talks also offers opportunities to be informed of connections that one was not aware of.

While this may seem embarrassing, in fact, as long as one is doing one's reasonable due diligence, it is not worth being embarrassed about.  This is because it's very rare for rediscovery to happen in the same context.  There's a staggering amount of literature out there, but the number of problems is even bigger, and so any given specific piece of work may actually have startlingly few people in a position to conduct it.

Thus, rediscovery in practice often heralds a new connection being made between fields. In this case, the recognition of rediscovery often opens up the "unaware" side of the interaction to be able to import and adapt results that were based on the prior work, thus rapidly advancing the new area in which those results are being applied.

In short: do your due diligence, but don't fear discovering you've reinvented the wheel.


As others have stated, thegradcafe.com is the most used site for posting results. It seems that applicants from almost every discipline use their results tracker. However, it isn't very comprehensive when it comes to stats, and many people choose to omit the limited information that it can track.

Their forums are sometimes frequented as well depending on the discipline, while some disciplines have other common discussion sites. As far as I remember, the statistics forum at gradcafe was fairly active during the admissions season. I know that a lot of math grad admissions discussion goes on at mathematicsgre.com, while most economics applicants gather at urch.com. I'm betting that almost every discipline has some kind of forum or discussion site that people congregate at, but I am not as familiar with other fields.

If you're looking for in-depth profiles, these forums are often the best places to look. The sample size isn't very high, but most of the time they have some kind of "Profiles and Results" thread each year that people post in (e.g. stats, econ).


Why do most talented children still enter college after the age of 18?

I don't think there is a need for this. Realistically, you can perhaps push the entrance age by one to three years: that compared with the expected working life of 44 years (from ages 23 to 67) is tiny. So, in the large scheme of things, having a small fraction of people (you suggest around 5%) increasing their work life in a 4% has a negligible impact.

What are the risks? You will be putting a lot of pressure on immature kids. Some can take it well and become successful; others will drop out soon enough; and others will end up burnt and fail catastrophically. Accelerated programs require a careful assessment of the participants, and following up to make sure they are keeping up (NOTE: no idea if they actually do it). Scaling this to a 5% of the population is a difficult undertaking, and you are up for a massive increase in drop outs, among the best students, no less.

And lastly, part of the whole educational experience is growing in both knowledge and maturity. Short cutting courses can speed up the first, but not the second.

There is a much more gentler road, and it is exposing the good students to advanced materials, done through advanced classes in high school, or taking a few university level courses, as Bill Barth mentions. This allows them to learn more, but also keeps the risks low. It also helps keeping them engaged, as they can choose to take early the subjects that they like, and later in life will take the ones that also need.


Is it appropriate for me to get a recommendation letter from a teacher whom I TA for, but whose class I have not taken in 3 years?

yes, anyone who has supervised your work is suitable to be a recommender. You should solicit recommends who can give you the best recommendation and also whose professional status is most impressive.


Unsure of Convention for In-Text Citations

Generally, you cite a paper in the first occurrence of its matter and in occurrences where the matter is significant.

For instance, suppose you are explaining about a method that is proposed in a paper. You cite it when you first state the method. After which it is understood that whenever you use the term, it refers to the one cited initially. If you are discussing two are more methods, explain each one separately by citing them and you also ought to cite at a tabulation during result comparison. Same goes for citing concepts; cite only when the concept is first introduced.

Other than that, citing for every sentence would be only be redundant and doesn't make the manuscript look neat either. If you do feel that you are in a position to have to cite nearly every sentence, then your content is probably largely of matter covered in your reference and not of your own. You ought to make appropriate edits in that case.


Is studying past exams I found online cheating?

This is from the Texas A&M Honor System:

20.1.2.3.6 Complicity:
Intentionally or knowingly helping, or attempting to help, another to commit an act of academic dishonesty. Examples: ...
b. Distributing test questions or substantive information about the test without the instructor’s permission.

If you were here at Texas A&M, then this is considered an act of academic dishonesty (in my interpretation), as this was uploaded to the repository, perhaps without the knowledge of the instructor (as is usually the case). If, on the other hand, the instructor had provided old exams or released sample tests, then this is okay. I personally follow this, as I only trust information from the instructor.
However, I would say this was a lucky search on your end. Unless your campus has a clause on academic conduct and the distribution of past tests, you're okay.
This answer was based on a misinterpretation of the question and is therefore not a valid one. The original text is still available.


Are there any studies on the effectiveness of Qualifying examinations in Graduate Schools

In the institutions that have qualifying exams, 0% who fail them go on to earn a degree. I joke, but it is true!

I can't speak for all disciplines, but for those that take an apprenticeship (as in the sciences), quals are less about the exam and more about the process.  It is often (but not always) the case that quals are taken very well into the graduate process, and by the time you get there,  your committee already has high confidence that you will pass. Rather, the quals are meant to force you into a period of intense scholarship, reading, and reflecting that will shape the rest of your career.

I don't know of any research on the relationship between qual exams and academic success, but I suspect that the process of having quals does at least two things: 1) provides for an objective system to weed out students who should not progress forward and 2) provides a platform for successful students to focus for an extended period.

Remember, the prestige (of the university) standing behind your degree is connected to the quality of people who hold it. Having high standards and a difficult process (quals) only strengthens the reputation of the institution and by association, your degree.

So perhaps the better question is whether or not places that do not require qualifying exams award degrees to less prepared students?


Is there a way to get an academic job without recommendation letters? Who else besides supervisors/collaborators can be referees?

No (assuming you mean something like a TT assistant professor position). Recommendation letters are a vital piece of any faculty application. While supervisors and collaborators make good reference writers, there are lots of other people you can ask:

People who have taught you in graduate school
People you have been a TA for
The chair of your current department
The director of graduate studies of your graduate school department
Colleagues in your field, who are more senior than you, who are familiar with your research
People recommended by your supervisor (who should be ashamed for letting you get into a situation like this)


Switching from academia to industry-software

If your primary goal is to be a software engineer, then I think the first problem you might be having is that you are defining "successfully" transitioning as you getting an offer that is at a higher rank than those of your students. If your goal is to be a software engineer, then taking a position that is close in rank to those of your students is not you being "unsuccessful". Also, your downplaying the importance of making the shift by thinking that "just writing code" is a bad thing.
If your life goal is to be in industry, dont look for others who have similar stories as yours : Instead, define your own story. Make YOUR dreams come true. Nobody has the same story as you, so go out and make the change now if thats what you want in life!
Its much better to accept a position that is at a same rank as your students TODAY, than to wait until its too late, just because you dont think its fair. Life is filled with trade-offs.
If you are a competent professor, then youll be a competent engineer, and youll eventually transition to a position of the rank you deserve. Its that simple.


Use academic degrees in thesis acknowledgments

In the ones I have seen, they are mostly omitted, but my guess is that this is pretty country and field dependent. You should look at other thesis published in your department, and see if they include them.

Once you know what the norm is, do as you wish. Acknowledgements are the part of your thesis that is most yours, and you should write whatever feels right.


Can I mention the weak points of the department I am applying for in my cover letter?

Don't mention anything negative about the department you're applying to. That would serious jeopardize your application.

Instead, emphasize the benefits that hiring you could bring to the department. Do this in a way that pleases the current members of the department.


Best word/phrase for peer-reviewing service

At my institution, the standard term is professional service, i.e. service to your profession.

"Community service" would be something like volunteering your skills for a local charity, so that doesn't fit.  "Academic service" seems reasonable but I haven't heard it before.


Are lay articles good enough to be the main source of information for PhD research?

I find the entire premise of the question quite odd. First of all, to answer your question: I’d say that in most cases I’ve encountered the answer would be no, you can’t use popular science articles as a primary source.

That said, I seriously doubt that they’re all that’s out there. Google works on this problem: they came up with it and no one else ever heard of it or studied it? How did the popular media hear about this amazing idea that has somehow eluded the entire AI research community except Google and your advisor? I feel like you’re either looking at the wrong sources, your advisor is not pointing you in the right direction, or something else is off.


Does how I got my understanding of an article need to be cited?

Definitely no. I think you know this, but for the benefit of future readers of this post: The purpose of a citation is not to provide a diary of the author's thought process, but rather to acknowledge the prior work done before yours and trace the logic and evidence from which your work follows. It helps no one to know what story you were reading, or whether you had a particularly nice breakfast that stimulated your thoughts. Save it for your blog or your memoirs.


My recent paper on arxiv does not appear in my google scholar account?

The linked question is related, but not exactly the same -- in that question, the problem is an article showing up on your profile but not listing the right venue, whereas here, the problem is that the the article does not show up on your profile at all.

In your case, the solution is much simpler: just go to your profile, click the + button, "add articles", and search the article and select it. You don't have to upload a manual citation; Google scholar allows you to associate any article with your name that you want.


Accepted a postdoc offer by just emailing, have not signed any contract, what to do if other offer comes

Your honor is at stake here. The email should constitute an agreement, even if not legally binding yet. You can, of course, by mutual agreement with the PI, still change your acceptance, indicating that it is tentative because of the restriction. This should be easy and natural, if the condition was raised after your "acceptance."

Just don't get yourself in the position of the PI thinking he has "caught" you and you later "get away." The consequences will be on you.


Using ORCID to obtain bibliographic data for coauthor network analysis

Unfortunately, you cannot directly obtain co-author data via ORCID's API alone.
But there is a workaround. You can make use of other Persistent Identifiers (PIDs) that you read out of ORCID's data (keyword "linked open data"). That is, using ORCID, you can first fetch the DOIs of an author's publications, and then, in a second step, use CrossRef's API (as in https://api.crossref.org/works/{doi}, here is an example) to save the names and ORCIDs of the co-authors of their publications.


Are there conventions for research paper flowcharts?

The answer to this question is actually not specific to research.

There is an ISO Norm on flowcharts that describes the basic elements and what the shapes represent. This is norm ISO 5807:1985.

The bad thing about ISO norms is that you can't simply download them free of charge. But the good news is that in academia, unless you are doing research on flow charts themselves, nobody will care if you do not adhere to the standard in the strictest possible way. The Wikipedia page on flow-charts is a good starting point, and a search on flowchart elements also seems to lead to some useful sites. Also, looking at the set of predefined shapes in drawing software that is also meant to be used for flow-charting (e.g., Microsoft Visio) gives you a good idea of what elements there are and what they represent.


'Outstanding publication commitments' meaning?

I believe "outstanding" here means "not yet completed".  However, I'm not sure whose commitment it's talking about, yours or the publisher's.  One interpretation is that it's asking whether you have committed to publishing anything that you haven't published yet (such as results from previous grants); another is that it's asking you to list papers that have been accepted for publication but are not yet in print.  I'd guess that it's the former, because it seems like a somewhat obscure way to ask for the latter, but I doubt anyone could say with any certainty without knowing more details.

Either way, this is probably not the right place to list your publications or related achievements such as conference organization or presentations.


Is depositing a document already available online in ResearchGate a problem?

I don't think your question is (or was) unclear, but there are a few things you don't seem to consider.

First, each author has a say in a) the final form of the document to be published, b) when to make it public, and c) where to publish it. You seem to think that c) doesn't matter. While my opinion is that ResearchGate generally is pretty benign, your advisor might not agree. However, we don't need to debate the relative merits of ResearchGate to address this question. Suppose instead that your coauthor were to submit your piece of writing to a site you fundamentally disagree with, or one that's likely to reflect badly on your work by association (e.g. a site with a reputation for hosting crank or crackpot papers). Yes, you would be justified in being angry at your coauthor in this situation. To avoid such troubles, it's always best to discuss with your coauthors where, when, and how you submit something before doing so.

Second, when something gets published in a journal you usually sign a copyright transfer agreement. Depending on the journal, you might be allowed to host a copy of the published paper on your personal website but not third-party sites like ResearchGate. In that situation you might actually sabotage getting it published. Now, in this case you say the document is a grant proposal rather than a paper. I don't know if the same applies there or not, or if your advisor might simply want to keep the visibility low on this document, and instead focus on giving publicity to actual peer-reviewed publications later. After all, such documents might contain ideas that didn't work out, or ideas that a competing research group might "steal" if they were to see it online.


What questions should one ask to the former/current students of a professor before deciding whether to do PhD under him/her?

I think the most important is:

Are you happy with your PhD in general?

It covers a lot of issues, but usually you don't want to do a PhD in a place where students are unhappy and frustrated. The good thing is that if students feel really bad, they rarely hide it.

The next things are related to:

General contacts on the line student-advisor (How much contact and support can you expect, both for research and administrative stuff?).
Funding (Is it a problem or a non-issue, e.g. for attending a conference?).
Research (What the actual research looks like? What is the toughest part, biggest emphasis on, the most time-consuming part, etc?)
How much time does it typically take to finish PhD? Does it happen often that someone drops out?

Other questions will depend of things you consider important. You may expect a lot of autonomy, or a lot of guidance. You may expect a very ambitious programme, or a PhD-life balance. You may like to teach, or you may like to keep it at minimum. You may be eager to travel a lot, or prefer to stay mostly in one place. You may be more into a particular branch of science or methodology, or into another...


Is it inappropriate to decline presenting paper on behalf of someone else (outside my expertise)?

First of all, I think that in your particular case, it was a right course of action to reject the "invitation".

To answer the general question

  Would it be inappropriate for someone to present a paper, for the reasons listed above?

let's look at the single reasons one by one:

  Not my expertise

A somewhat valid point. You probably shouldn't be talking about something way outside of your area of expertise. However, if the topic is at least marginally connected to yours, it could also be argued that you should not enclose yourself in your personal bubble, but try to get somewhat acquainted with as many other topics as possible. In general, despite researching specific questions, an educated person should have some wide knowledge, and maybe knowing about such another topic even provides you with opportunities for expanding your own research into unforeseen directions.

  My first Conference

This. In my opinion, this is the strongest point in this list. You don't have any conference experience yet, not only giving talks, but also listening to how conference talks work at all. As so often, it is advisable to start out somewhat simple, and presenting a paper you are not fully knowledgeable about yourself is probably not a good way.

  I'm not an author on the paper

That is not a valid reason. As you said, people present on behalf of others all the time, and there are various reasons why the actual authors might not make it to a conference personally1.

  I don't understand the paper

Acutely, that is a severe issue, though it could be said (also referring to the first point) that in that case, you just need to spend some more time trying to figure it out (and having the original authors help you understand it!). So, it is a somewhat valid reason, but given a little more time, it is an issue that can be mitigated.

A word on your statement

  surely these people are knowledgable on this subject?

No. Sometimes, not at all, which is unfortunate, as like that, the Q&A session degrades into nothing but: "Next question, please." - "... ?" - "Sorry, I didn't write the paper." However, if the presenter is at least partially knowledgeable, in a way that they prepared the presentation well (together with the original authors!), it is fully acceptable if the presenter cannot provide an answer for every very specific question, as long as they can sufficiently describe the gist of the research.

1: Scheduling conflicts, visa issues, illness, or restrictive travel funds come to mind.


How to teach law to multinational classes?

I'm not a lawyer, but I don't suspect that you need to give your students knowledge of the specifics of the law in any particular place. You can, of course teach two important things.

One is the principles on which the law is based generally in the world, as well as something of the history, as well as the abuses that might arise. How important is legal precedent? How important are political considerations.

Probably more important is that you teach them something about legal research and how to learn the specifics of a place and time. Where is it likely that they will find the answers to a given legal system and how it operates as well as finding definitive answers about the specifics of the law.

You actually have an opportunity here for projects for your students to, say, pick out some country of interest to them, whether their own or not, and provide a legal system summary for that country. You could even have group work to have students compare a set of countries, chosen by you or by themselves. Make the students become the experts rather than having you try to be everything to all students.

By the way, the above is a general technique whenever you need to teach something for which you aren't the natural expert yourself. It is a useful skill.


Is mentioning submission rejections in SOP wise?

I doubt the signal you will convey is that you persevere through your mature mentality but rather that you may lack the skills to perform science or write acceptable manuscripts of sufficient quality. This said without intending anything personal since only you know the reasons for the rejections.

Given that rejection rates in journals are generally high, 50% is not uncommon and higher rates exist, everyone has papers rejected for one or another reason. That said, however, repeated rejections signals something is wrong, in the most positive light it could mean your research is novel and have difficulties being accepted by the community (the problem is then the community or how you try to communicate) but as stated first, the most common reason is that there is some deficiency in either the research or the reporting (most often) of the research and this is most likely what people will pick up upon.

As a final note, rejections can be something positive if you learn from them to improve later manuscripts. To use them as a learning experience is therefore the best way to use them.


Researcher with Startup Company - Conflicts of Interest?

First of all, you should know that this sort of setup—a researcher has a side business very closely related to his research—is quite common. It does sound like there are a few unusual details in your story, but the overall picture is standard fare for most universities.

The only direct answer that I can think of is to work very closely with both your advisor and whatever department your university has set up to handle this sort of thing. I went to Pitt, which has an entire department set up to assist with questions like yours. My advisor had a very good working relationship with the university, and I found these people very helpful. You should be able to find this within your university (if it exists) by talking to your department chair. On a very similar vein, Pitt, had a distinct Conflict of Interest department set up for these types of matters as well. They can answer questions.

NOTE: talk to your advisor before doing anything!!! The chance that the university is unaware of this is pretty slim, particularly if he has an SBIR grant. He has probably worked out all the necessary details a long time ago. If you go around raising alarms where none should be raised, you'll end up seriously annoying your advisor and looking like an idiot. You don't want to do that.


As far as I know (at least here at Georgia Tech) all the conditions (if there are any) are included in your offer. I have never heard of us rescinding an offer after it has been accepted.  If there is a deadline, though, you must accept by then or the offer may no longer be valid.

That said, I think nobody would be offended if your asked, if it puts your mind at ease.  I would not mention the "getting good grades in your MS" or similar things.

Just send a note to whomever you have been in contact with and say something like "I'm very happy to have been accepted into the program, and am looking forward to coming.  I am pretty sure I've completed everything I need to do to accept admission, but I just wanted to check one last time. I have a number of other acceptances I'm about to decline and I just wanted to check that everything is in order with my admission before I decline the other offers.  Thanks for your help and understanding!"


How to address the lack of seminars in my department

It's hard to change the culture of a department as a student.  You should definitely tell your advisor, and the department chair, that you wish there were more lectures.  You might also talk to other students and encourage them to express their feelings if they feel the same.

Then you should take action.  Is there a student chapter of the ACM at your school?  If not, organize one.  Then organize monthly seminars by inviting faculty and students in your department and from nearby schools to present their work.  If you can get a little funding, invite one of the world leaders in your area to give a seminar at your school.  You might be able to get funding through the department or through the ACM (I know SIAM gives funding for such things).

It requires work, but it sounds like it will be worthwhile to you.  It is also a great excuse to meet important people in your field.


When looking for a PhD advisor, will it matter if I send them an updated version of my masters thesis?

There are no strict rules about this, so you should do what is in your own best interest: send them the best version you have available.
However, you should consider that your potential PhD supervisor may talk to your the supervisor of your master's thesis. It is possible they will discuss the thesis, and it could cause lots of confusion if they unknowingly are talking about different versions. Therefore I would recommend to let your prospective PhD supervisor know that you have sent them a version you updated after your graduation.


Data analysis internship not going well because of lack of programming background

Your problem doesn't seem to be programming per se, but rather how a programming language interacts with specific interfaces, environments, and libraries.

These are things you learn when you need them to. Trust me, you could be a computer science student and still not know any of this unless you had specifically worked with it before.

The good news is that it doesn't take that long to learn. You don't know how to use Python to interact with folders on a Windows 10 laptop? Google it, you'll figure it out in 1 minute. You don't know how to see the working directory? Google it, figure it out in a minute. And then just keep repeating that. Think up of questions that you think might be relevant to your current tasks, and find the answers.

Start now, and do it for some hours. You'll find that you'll get your head around it quickly. It really isn't that complicated, and you don't have to learn "how a computer thinks" (especially not in Python): you just have to memorize a few lines of code.

It's slightly different with a language like C++ which is more low-level: here, it can be helpful to know exactly what happens, but even still, if you can't understand it immediately, it's fine as long as you at least can memorize the code needed to accomplish the task.

Oh, and your co-workers being annoyed with an intern after 2 days: They're twats.


High grade/GPA versus finishing studies in the expected timeframe

This isn't exactly an either-or scenario. You can lengthen the time it takes to get your degree somewhat without it negatively impacting your chances of securing admission, particularly if it's a common event for students matriculating from your country.

However, the longer you prolong your undergraduate degree program, the more you'll need to justify the extra time needed. For instance, one semester or one year is unlikely to raise red flags, but three or four years more might be much more problematic.


No word on papers in IEEEXplore from IEEE conference in Sep, 2015?

You could contact the program chair or publication chair for an update regarding the publication on IEEExplore.

Delays like this are not too uncommon, however. A conference I attended in August last year had its proceedings published only in March of this year.

I think you can safely submit to this conference again this year.


What type of content (depth/breadth) or structure of slides (PPT) is expected for a short presentation for Asst Professor interview in the UK?

There are two ways to "fit" with a department. One way is to do similar things to what they do (and publish). The other is to complement their scope with something that is different enough that the overall scope expands.
If you know what they do, then you can decide which approach is better for you to take. The first implies collaboration. The second implies new opportunities for everyone.
Perhaps the techniques they use in their work will apply in some way to yours. And vice versa.
But to know what to say you need some idea of what they do and how they do it.
The stuff about grants and other things you mention can be used to fill in, but they explicitly want to know about "fit". Think about that, primarily. It would probably be a mistake to describe yourself as entirely independent of their threads.


Does name of university matter for internships?

Some companies specifically recruit preferentially from top schools, some don't. All of them know that a 3.7 at one school isn't the same thing as a 3.7 from another and will make what they think are appropriate adjustments.

But it isn't just about grades, and the only thing that will guarantee you don't get the internship is if you don't apply. Trying costs you nothing but a bit of time, and UCLA is a respectable school. Go for it; at worst it's good practice!


FOIA request for full NSF awards proposal and report

The name of the requester does not remain confidential.

A friend of mine was recently on the other end.  NSF contacted him to tell him that an FOIA request had been made for a copy of his proposal, told him the name of the requester, and asked whether the proposal contained any sensitive information that he wished to have redacted.

The general feeling was that making such a request, rather than contacting the PI directly, was unprofessional and borderline creepy.  I second JeffE's comment: Ask the PI first.


Ghosted? PI of >1 year not responding to emails for new mentor?

Go and visit your PI. Knock on their door when they're in, and ask them everything above.

You write in a comment above that you feel feel "kind of scared/awkward doing that since he has a very cold, direct manner". Being scared should not be a deal breaker. Courage comes when you overcome fear! It's much more admirable to face what you're afraid of than to hide from it. Nothing critical will happen to you, and to have done something like this before is a great help if you have to do it again in the future, in less protected environments. As for how others don't knock without a meeting, you could knock and start with "are you free?" If he says yes then you're good, if not then you can arrange a meeting.

Finally you write that you don't know what to say or how you'd react to a rejection, which shouldn't be a problem. For the first, write down everything you want to know, and rehearse it beforehand. For the latter, if you are rejected, you're going to know in the near future anyway, and you might as well know now so you can make plans for what to do next.

It's better to be addressing your problems than to sit around waiting for the PI to respond. Go and visit your PI.


'Reviews completed' what does this status mean in springer

Now the editor or associate editor has to take a decision on your paper based on the received reviews.


If my friend sent a recording of his lecture; Is it against the law?

In the United States, the person who delivered the lecture owns the copyright if the lecture is "fixed" in tangible form.  That recording fixes the lecture in tangible form, even if the person who delivered the lecture didn't make the recording.  So, in the U.S., it's (probably) covered by copyright.  (I'm not a lawyer.)

The person who made the recording, if not the person who delivered the lecture and thus owns the copyright, absolutely shouldn't post it any place, e.g. on YouTube without the permission, preferably in writing, of the person who delivered the lecture.  That person should ask before sharing it with a friend; probably most professors would allow that.


How honest should one be with their students when talking about the realities of academia?

I am a student so this is coming from a student's perspective.

I think you should be honest with them regarding what going into graduate school entails. For my case, none of the professors I initially talked to encouraged me to go to graduate school, and for good reason. Each of them stated what the cons were to going to graduate school and how the academic job market is now much more competitive than when they were a fresh Ph.D. graduate. Was this discouraging at first? Yes. However, it also helped me in cognitively organizing why I wanted to go to graduate school and I was able to set a firm goal and stick with it.

Those professors often told me that the reason why they would encourage students to take a gap year and think long and hard about the next step is precisely because students often make the assumption that Ph.D. is the obvious 'next step' when it very well might be the exact opposite of what they wanted.

Coming from a student's perspective, I appreciate honesty from professors because it helps me to realize the reality of going into graduate school and potentially what kind of sacrifices I need to make (e.g. a good chunk of my youth, vacation time, etc.). However, I never found it appealing when a professor, who I aspire to be like, tells me that I'm not good enough to ever do what they do without additional feedback.

In my case, when I first approached those professors about my plans to go into Ph.D. to become a professor, my main advisor looked at my records and told me what to expect, where I currently stand, and what I can do to improve should I wish to stay on that path. I think the last bit is the most important piece of feedback I received. The first two parts can help me in deciding if this is the correct next step for me, but the third part is what will help me achieve that step despite the challenges.

So all in all, if I were one of your students, I would appreciate honest commentary on my goals as well as the additional feedback on what I can do to improve so that the choice of pursuing a Ph.D. is still ultimately my decision. This also helps students to develop and mature, I think.


Is it rude to send my professor a link with teaching advice?

To show that you're an independent learner, I'd suggest don't just send the link, but read the materials in the linked page and summarize them to your professor, tell her if you think it may be useful for the directed studies. For instance, instead of:

  And here a link (URL) provided by the text on how to teach this book.

Try:

  I also found a link for teacher and read up a bit (URL). I think the
  suggested chapter sectioning for a 7-week syllabus seems suitable to
  our directed study time frame, please let me know your thought.

Or something along the line. I think you're quite lucky that the professor was being so up front about her lack of background knowledge, it should be a good directed study experience. But in turn, you'll need to bear some of the self-teaching responsibility, and don't expect that she can read some pages about how to teach the subject and then magically be able to teach you.


Career prospects for a Math PhD student in pure math?

Given the current market for academic math researchers, I'd encourage everyone in math to make serious plans for an alternative career that you'd be happy with.  Even for most people who end up with tenured positions, it's not clear until well after graduation whether that path is likely to work out, so even the strongest students should be considering other options.  In math the main alternative tracks are data or coding focused industry jobs in finance or tech, or teaching-focused academic positions.  In both cases, these job markets are competitive and they're not looking for people whose main qualification is that they didn't get a research position.  If your alternative option is getting a job in industry, you should already be learning to code and trying to get relevant experience, while if your alternative option is getting a teaching-focused job, you should already be looking for teaching opportunities that will make you stand out as an attractive candidate at teaching-focused institutions.  (In the US those are often small liberal arts colleges, but in Australia I'm not sure how many teaching-focused jobs exist.)

The good news is that there's lots of good jobs for math PhDs out there (much better than many fields), but you won't just stumble into them you need to develop relevant skills and experience.


What exactly does termination from a PhD program entail?

This is normal practice these days at universities. In the old days, doctoral students could drift away from their program mid-stream and people wouldn't really care. They might return after 20 years to submit their dissertation, but otherwise there was no attempt to track these zombie students down.

Unfortunately, many places are  now using average time-to-degree (TTD) as metrics to a graduate program's quality (purportedly a lower TTD is better).  Zombie students are problematic as you can have someone who is 15 years into a program without graduating, dragging the average up. Note that there is a difference between a nominal TTD and actual TTDs -- for example, in my old university the nominal TTD was 5 years but very few people actually graduated in that time, the average was closer to 6.5 years.

In my experience, provosts are asking departments to track the zombies down and determine whether they should be terminated or not. Being terminated isn't a bad thing, it means that you will be left with your last degree (e.g., M.Phil) and you shouldn't really  call yourself ABD as you won't be permitted to submit. I've been through a few of these cullings and as faculty I think they are a good thing as zombie students on the books really help no one.

If you have any hope of submitting, I would ask that you be given some time (1 year would be reasonable) to submit. Otherwise, I would take your MA/M.Phil and be happy with it. I don't think there are any negatives for a career in industry. Again, you technically shouldn't call yourself ABD (rather you "withdrew from program after meeting all qualifications for the doctorate but the dissertation") but I really don't think anyone is going to check. Think of it as a general discharge, under honorable conditions.


How to focus only on the problem at hand?

You are "guilty" of a particular type of procrastination (in turn a type of  avoidance behavior), in which you avoid working on your (self-assigned) task by working on some other task. Ergo, the usual strategies to counter procrastination apply. There are several examples on this site and elsewhere online; my preferred method is to combine the pomodoro technique with a progess tracker.

Pomodoro technique : Work on your task during limited and manageable time periods by setting a timer, e.g. 25 minutes, then force yourself to take a break of at least five minutes even if it completely disrupts your flow. This limits fear and thus avoidance, and it creates motivation to get back to work after the break. Don't allow yourself to work on your side-gigs until four (or so) pomodori are completed, but then go ahead and indulge.
Progess tracker: Use a 'done' list, an online habit tracker, a spreadsheet or whatever works to track each completed pomodoro. This creates motivation, by seeing your success, in particular if you accomplish not  to break a streak, and facilitates habituation.

If your problem to focus disappears, you may want to be more liberal with the breaks between pomodori, so they don't disturb your flow, use a single pomodoro just to get you started, or do away with them all together.

As a side remark, it's good to work on several projects, but you should prioritize and stick to priorities.


There are no guarantees, but most places will respect your wishes for a while. But they may want to contact your references, for example.

They might also have to make a public statement if you are offered a job, depending on various rules.

A complicating factor is whether every committee member gets the word. And if they explore your candidacy with other colleagues (not always allowed) your wishes might not get communicated or respected by everyone. So, you assume some risk, but it is likely small.

And your situation isn't unique in any way. Lots of people need to do this, so most committee members are probably aware of it and have seen it before.


Yes, write again to the most recent (as mentioned on publications) email address. If you worry about making him feel like you are spamming him, explain shortly that you tried the what you think are old emails first, but then found this (now used) address. The old "excuse for double posting" might also work in slightly changed wording.

You cannot expect someone to check all old email addresses, especially should those be from a different university. Of course it could be that all your emails were forwarded or are connected to the same mailbox, hence you might want to include a short note explaining your potentially multiple emails.


You need to keep the intended audience of that CV in mind. If you are just interested in a German audience (non Germans can read your CV if they can find it, but you just don't care), then you can add those grades. If you aim for an international audience you need to give them a metric by which to evaluate those notes. For example, in the Netherlands a PhD can only get two grades: a regular pass (about 95%) and a cum laude (about 5%). So if a Dutch person sees a CV with a cum laude for a PhD (s)he will be very impressed, which is not what that note means in Germany.


Should I email old supervisor about my progress?

I just did that, and I often do. If I'm honest, I don't do that as much as I should. Anyway, unless told otherwise, which, imho, would be rare, that should be acceptable/desirable.

Of course, you won't just talk about your stuff, but ask about his/hers. You do have common interests after all.

Professors are people too! There is no secret in talking to a fellow professional that you know. And, of course, never send a professor a lengthy message.

Be polite, be direct, and informative...


Why don't some papers with proposed prototype have any user study ?

Producing a prototype that solves an interesting problem constitutes a research contribution. Hence, it isn't necessary to conduct a user study. This still holds true when several solutions are known. As more solutions emerge, the original problem becomes less interesting and merely producing another prototype is insufficient to make progress. Hence, it becomes necessary to distinguish new prototypes from previous prototypes. User studies are one way to distinguish new prototypes.


IEEE and ACM gives very different results

Big data systems like search engines are really complicated algorithmic engines that put everything through a giant sausage-making apparatus to give you your results.  Even if the two databases are running the exact same engine on their back-end, there is no reason to expect that they have configured it the same way or that the results are necessarily stable.  This is especially true for recent "smart" search engines which try to figure out what you might have wanted, in addition to what you actually entered, and which may broaden your search for you whether you ask them to or not.

In short: every big database search is likely to have its own quirks and ways of approaching queries, and it is reasonable to expect that they may be interpreting what you are asking in radically different ways.


Does "minor revision" mean "accepted with minor revision"?

Yes, characterizing revisions as "minor" strongly suggests that if you make those revisions the paper will be accepted.  Editors may prefer not to explicitly say that the paper is "accepted with minor revisions", because authors may make "minor revisions" that don't correct the problems, and then feel that they've been promised publication in spite of that.

Depending on the journal, the editor, and the revisions, the manuscript may or may not go out to re-review once again, and even if it doesn't a one-week delay from submission to re-evaluation is not surprising.  In my field (biology) I wouldn't be surprised to hear back about acceptance anywhere from 1 day to 1 month after re-submission.


How can I find the original article of an often-plagiarised work?

Unfortunately, there's no completely reliable way to determine whether a paper is plagiarized, but I think you're right in this case.

The 2012 IJWMN paper and 2014 IJLTET paper are pretty clearly plagiarized.  Of course I can't prove anything, and one of them could in principle be the original, but it would take quite a story to explain how the same text was stolen and published by someone else three to five years earlier.  A one-year delay might be due to refereeing or a conference rejection, but three to five years is a very long delay for CS.

The 2013 AJER paper is a strange case.  It does copy some text without attribution, both from the 2009 paper and from the Wikipedia article on software design, but it has worse problems than that: the paper seems to have virtually no content beyond mock ups of what the user interface might look like, with messages such as "Your Secret Key is: 1004".  Even aside from the plagiarism, it's safe to ignore this article as having essentially no research content.

The 2009 ICNS paper looks to me like the original.  There are several tests one can do to try to gauge this:

You can do web searches for sentence fragments, such as "vulnerable to a large spectrum of attacks" or "introducing IBC into P2P".  If you do a reasonable job of guessing distinctive phrases, you'll find a short list of potential word-for-word plagiarized papers.  (Annoyingly, search engines will sometimes miss matches due to not parsing PDF files well, so there's a random element to this.)  In this case, searches show that the 2009 paper took some wording from a 2008 paper by other authors, such as the bit about vulnerability, but seems not to have copied the whole paper.  The borrowed wording is objectionable, but it doesn't invalidate any originality in content.
You can investigate the prestige of the journal/conference.  Plagiarists are less likely to get away with publishing in high-prestige venues, because their theft is more likely to be noticed.  I don't think ICNS is particularly prestigious, though, so this criterion doesn't help.  The papers from 2009 are archived by the IEEE, but the IEEE archives a lot of junk on behalf of other conference organizers, so the IEEE archiving shouldn't be viewed as indicating high quality.  It's very different from journals or conferences run by the IEEE.
You can see whether there are a lot of citations.  That wouldn't prove anything, but it would suggest that people citing the paper weren't aware of plagiarism allegations.  In this case, Google Scholar finds only four citations, so we don't learn much.

So in summary, it looks likely that the 2009 paper is the original (although I've only looked briefly, so it would be worth doing a few more searches).  That's a remarkable collection of plagiarism you've uncovered, and I can see how it would be unsettling, but I think this is an unusual case.


Showing research experience in graduate applications

You're expected to describe research experience. It sounds like you've had some. You should describe it in your application. Talk about what role you had, what sort of things you actually did ("various stuff important for the project" and "working with Matlab" aren't very good descriptions). What was your role? Did you make decisions or did you just assist? What sort of products did you produce and what skills did those products require? How did you solve problems you encountered?

The idea behind these application questions is to try to differentiate people with no experience from some minimal experience (cleaning instruments in a lab and feeding rats) to moderate experience (sounds like what you have) and people who engaged in truly independent research (which is pretty rare, depending on where you did your bachelor degree and in what field). Be honest and detailed, that's all that's expected. Of course people will play up what they did, but if you made substantive contributions that demonstrate your abilities and experience, that will show through in your write-up.


My master’s thesis’ results will be published without my consent. What should I do?

Part of the results I obtained were published in my master’s thesis, which was submited via an online tool to my university; so there is proof that that work is mine, I guess.

Let me first say a meta comment - once you publish a set of results, they are no longer 'yours'. They belong, in part, to the institution that funded you, to your advisor who helped you write your thesis, and to other coauthors/colleagues who helped you along the way. Research is a collaborative act.

To your specific case, I strongly doubt that you have proprietary rights to the data. You got the results as part of a Master's thesis supported by an academic institution that has rights to the data. What's more, once you published your thesis, anything in it can be used in future publications if it is properly credited (for example, if the dataset was published as an addendum to your thesis, it's fair to use it). That's basically the essence of academic progress.

Just like any other idea that appears in your thesis, the moment that you decided to publish it (as opposed to, say, patenting it and starting a company to commercialize it), others can cite it and potentially use parts of it in their work (doesn't even have to be the advisor, literally anyone can).

If the data is not published, I still argue that you could possibly be in the wrong in this case as well. From a proprietary perspective, you did not work alone. Your advisor and academic institution supported you, offered you tools (free access to software to develop your tools, access to your advisor, an office, classes you took, perhaps a laptop and computing services etc.). It is unethical (and a bit selfish) on your part to ignore all of the effort put into your thesis by others, and withhold the work from being published.

See a similar discussion here.


I noticed an error in a graded exam during office hours. Should I give the student the lower grade?

Let the grade stand, but point out your error.

The principle I try to follow is that students shouldn't be negatively affected by faculty mistakes (or that such effects should be minimized).

I wouldn't suggest adding an additional assignment to maintain the grade, since this is effectively another kind of penalty.  But I would suggest being transparent with the student, explaining your mistake, and showing them where they went wrong (otherwise they are deprived of the feedback that the correct grade would have provided).

If the exam were graded on a curve and re-grading this one question on Student A's test would materially improve other students' grades, I would give other students the boost (i.e. the grade they would have received had Student A's exam been correctly marked the first time) but leave Student A's grade intact.


Is professorship (assistant/associate and full) a title or a position?

In the US there are no legal rules. I think that few people would use Associate Professor as a title, but rather as a description of the post they currently hold. They would probably use Professor as a title, however. It is a descriptive title even before elevation to Full Professor. Students normally call them "prof" in many places. But the "title" is descriptive, not formal. It is a term of respect when used in this way.

However, if a person leaves academia for some other profession, it is unlikely that they would use professor and variations as a title. They might describe themselves as "former professor".

After retirement you might be "professor emeritus", again a description. On your tombstone you might be "Dr. Stone, Professor of English", the final description.

Other places are more formal about such things, but in the US, not so much.

I am actually "Professor Emeritus", which I interpret to mean that I didn't unforgivably disgrace myself before I retired.


Should I give partly score of my English certification in my CV?

For US grad school applications, one  normally doesn't put test scores on a CV.  They will be requested on a different part of the application form, and you will also have to send a score report directly from the testing organization to the school where you are applying.

If the school requires these test scores, they will almost certainly require your scores for all parts.  If they don't require them, then you should omit them completely; there is no point in reporting some parts and not others (the omission may even look suspicious).

My understanding is that language exam scores are only really used as a "gatekeeper".  A score lower than the minimum requirement will be a serious problem for your application, but a score higher than the minimum will not significantly help.  So there's no reason to try to highlight your reading score.


Distinguish starting journals from predatory ones

Look at the editorial board. If it contains respectable, well-known researchers in the field, then it's likely to be a serious journal.


Does inclusion on the ARC ERA 2010 journal ranking list imply the journal is not predatory?

There are various point systems that I've seen used that assign rewards based on the number of publications at A*, A, B, and C levels. Also, as the Wikipedia page says, proposals for inclusion needed to have endorsement by academics. Thus, my starting assumption would be that a journal with a C ranking was considered by the ARC to be legitimate, and therefore not predatory.

Of course, it's possible that some of those assessments were incorrect or a journal could change its practices over time. And there are a range of pay-to-publish journals where the practices are in a grey area (e.g., publishing mixed or low quality work). So I don't think that knowing that a journal is ranked C is enough. If you are submitting your work, you should know more about a journal than that. But it might be a reasonable working assumption for administrative purposes.


ctb = Contributor.

It's not so much about academic publishing, but (academic/open source) software. One has authors and contributors. Contributors added a bit of code, but presumably did not contribute to the overall design efforts.


Writing a recommendation letter for student with low GPA

When I write letters for undergrads (in math, in the U.S.), I usually aim to speak exactly and only about things I know from first-hand experience. For that matter, transcripts (whether high-GPA or low) are usually part of the application, so second-hand comments from me add little.
Now and then, I am surprised to learn that a student of whom I think quite highly has had some rough spots earlier. I can only infer that they've done a great job of turning themselves around, and I'm happy to vouch for the positive things they're doing.


Historical Course Descriptions for Master's and Ph.D in Statistics/Data Science Programs

I'll guess that it would be very difficult to get such information in any methodical way. In some fields, such as CS, professional societies publish undergraduate curriculum guides that are followed by many universities, at least in the US. But I've never heard of any such at any graduate level.

As you note, curriculum tends to change with the times and old courses are replaced with new ones. A university will probably keep an historical record for a few years, since it still has students that started under an earlier regime. Many will keep records for a longer time to help respond to student requests for information from graduates.

But there is no requirement that they be kept, that I'm aware of, and no regulatory body to assure it.

The most you could hope for is that some universities might have a local historian who can get access to archives of old course catalogs and compile the local information. But it would be pretty spotty, I think.

Another avenue that might produce some incomplete data, or provide a starting point, is to set up a workshop at a national or international conference, and invite professors near retirement to reflect on their own experiences with coursework in the field. This might produce some course titles, at least. And some people who taught over a long period might be able to do more.

But all of that is overkill for your stated purpose. A simpler way to answer your concerns is to just look at what they are publishing now. If nothing, then they are probably not up to date. If a lot, then they are possibly at the forefront. But even that is probably overkill. Most of your career will likely be concerned with things that are only present now in nascent form, or even currently entirely unexplored.

And for many of us (now retired) most of what we know is old or even obsolete. This is true even if we are at the forefront. Probably more true in CS than in statistics, actually, but still.

Moreover, for someone truly at the edge of the research world, their knowledge is likely to be deep but narrow. They examine the bark on a particular tree, never mind the tree, or the forest in which it grows. At the MS level all this is probably less important that it seems, though it becomes more so at the doctoral level when you need to find your own tree to study.


Can a postdoctoral fellow serve as a PhD committee advisor?

The main concerns for bringing in people to sit on a dissertation committee are satisfying the institutional regulations for committees (X members from outside the department, Y members from inside who aren't the advisor, Z members from outside the college) as well as bringing in possible expertise and exposure to additional ideas and approaches that may help the thesis candidate.

Normally a postdoctoral fellow will not count toward any of the composition requirements—one must be a faculty member or hold a similar position somewhere else (e.g., government research or industry). However, if one were to have a unique set of skills that someone thought it was essential to ask you to act as an additional member of the committee—this would typically be at another institution—there might be room and incentive to make something happen.


Should I still apply for a phd if the PI can't confirm if he is able to fund?

If the cost and time are reasonable by your standards the I'd suggest you do it for the experience if nothing else. There is little else to lose in this.

Applying isn't a commitment on your part, it is just an expression of interest. Even in the worst case the professor will probably continue to have good feelings towards you, which can help in the future if you work in related areas.

But there is no reason to wait for a decision. You can explore other opportunities in parallel with this. Decline only when you must.


While the standards of how to report something in a publication vary widely by field and venue, the variation of what is expected in a class assignment is vastly larger - too large for really anyone outside of your class to say.

If this were for publication, I would suggest you find papers in your field and from the publication source you are targeting to help guide you in how to structure reporting your findings. For an assignment, the only standard that will have much of any sway is what your instructor expects or requires - so I would highly recommend you review the assignment guidelines and syllabus, and then contact the instructor to request guidance on how to structure and summarize your findings, including what details they want included.


What can be some strong reasons not doing a masters?

For any application, for school or a job, the key thing is to make sure that everything in your application indicates a successful future. In Germany, where a masters is mostly "expected" it might be hard to convince an advisor that you are ready unless you have done some exceptional things otherwise. Having the master's gives the PI a better chance to evaluate your future, based on your past. So, there, and in some similar places, the hurdle is pretty high.

In the US, by contrast, less is expected since the program is longer and involves coursework that can be used to help make predictions. Also, in the US, you choose the advisor later, giving everyone a better chance to evaluate.

But, what you can write to convince people must involve listing your past successes and other suitability for the proposed position. Just being a good student in a classroom situation probably isn't enough. A different situation if you have some research behind you and some publications.

Convince with deeds, not words, but get letters of recommendation that back you up.


Flexibility (or lack of) at the Open University

I don't have the commenting functionality available, so will have to put this as an answer.

To be honest, given your background, I think the whole degree will be a waste of your time. I took essential math 1 and 2 two years ago, both are very easy and highly superficial. They claim to teach advanced material but in reality only go through very few and very basic examples in each, so in the end you don't really learn anything. I got like 100% in essential math 1 and 95% in essential math 2 and learned nearly nothing. You'd be better served by buying a good calculus book and studying it.

And more directly to your question - it is possible to negotiate with them directly. I was allowed to take essential math 1&2 simultaneously because I needed that background for sth else and couldn't wait a year. You just need to email their support team and explain your circumstances.


How much should I refer to an anonymous reviewer's extremely helpful revisions?

An ack is all that is needed. "Thanks to the anonymous reviewers for their suggestions, many of which were very helpful". Don't try to point out where those suggestions occur or your paper will be difficult to read. You retain full "ownership" of the paper so write it like it is the work of a single mind. The reviewer almost certainly sees it that way.

About one time out of, maybe, ten thousand or so, a reviewer's comments are so helpful that the nature of the paper changes and it becomes appropriate to find a way to work with the reviewer as a co-author.


What are the reasons for not using title and designation in publications?

I suspect to some extent it has to do with the wide range of available titles and honorifics out there. Moreover, this can lead to rather strange credits, such as the German system, where a title such as "Prof. Dr.-Ing. Dr.rer.nat. Dr.(h.c.) Dr.(h.c.) Dr.(h.c.)" is not as uncommon as it should be.

Keeping to names makes things more egalitarian. If needed, you can always look up a person's credentials. (It also helps to keep things consistent, and easier to track authors and cite papers, if you don't have to deal with titles as well!)


Could not get along with any advisor, is it ego?

Back when I was in grad school and everybody I knew lived with roommates due to housing costs, some sets of roommates got along well and some had serious problems sharing space with one another.  Over time, I noticed that while most people had mostly decent experiences, there were certain people who I knew who always seemed to end up with nightmarish roommates.  The same way, while most people seemed to have their share of ups and downs in their love life, certain people always seemed to end up with nightmarish relationships.

Was it just bad luck or a bad environment?  Generally not: when a person has an unusually long string of failed relationships, usually that person is somehow involved in creating their luck.

I tell this by way of suggesting that you may want to reflect on your own choices here.  Are you poisoning the relationships with your professors by holding a contemptuous attitude towards them?  Is your ambition somehow leading you toward selecting professors who are incompatible with you?  Is it something else entirely?

It's impossible for we strangers on the internet to tell what's really going on for you.  It is certain, however, that every failed advisor/advisee relationship that you have been involved with has at least one thing in common: you.  It's worth reflecting on that and seeing if you can figure out something that you can change in your own attitudes that might make it easier for the next one to be better.


Master Thesis - use of cover illustration

I'd like to provide a counter to the "content is what matters" advice. Of course the content is what it's all about, but I think that a great many people in academia underestimate the importance of presentation.

Look at the way people decide whether or not to read a paper. They look at the title. If that suggests that it's interesting to them, they read the abstract. If that's interesting enough they read the introduction and maybe the conclusion, and so on. That means that of the 4000 or so words in the paper, the five that make up the title are the most important. You're fully justified in spending as much time on the title as on 1000 words of the description of your method. The presentation of your paper is not just gloss, it determines the size of your audience. If your presentation is bad, your results have to be really exceptional to find even a small readership.

This translates directly to your Master's thesis. A nice cover shows that you care. What's more, the largest group of people that will come into contact with it, will only pick it up, look at it and put it back down again, without even really reading the title. Your cover illustration is the only opportunity you have of communicating with them and enticing them to read the title properly. From that, the summary, and from that the first paragraph of your introduction and so on.

Don't mistake presentation for gloss. Academia is all about communication, and communication is worrying about the details.


Why do some admissions applications ask where I've been living and what I've been doing for the last few years?

US state universities frequently charge lower tuition to in-state residents. The form states that if you do not fill in all the information requested, you will be classified as a non-resident and be charged the higher rate. Check the U of Utah's tuition system here.


Do Research Papers have Public Domain Expiration Date?

From your question:

This is an article published more than 150 years ago. How long do I have to wait in order to download it and use it for free?

From a comment you posted:

Yes, I know I do still have to cite it, but I can't download it or use it for free. I have to pay even when it was published in the 19th century

As Buffy and anpami note, the original work probably isn't under copyright. But even if copyright has expired, there's no guarantee anyone will make it available for free. In particular, there is no obligation on the publisher to provide free (or indeed any) access to it.
In this case, there is a link to a PDF version from the Semantic Scholar page.