What are the pros and cons of including graphics/figures in teaching and research statements for academic job applications?

The foundation of this decision really mirrors the one we have to make when writing a scientific article; the overarching question is: does the visual do more than words given the same amount of area on the paper? If it does, it's usually a good sign to at least try inserting the work into the text and then perhaps circulate the piece among peers as a litmus test.

As a member in a hiring committee, I seldom see visuals, but we did hire a person two years ago who used a bar graph to indicate her course evaluation scores, which was quite impressive. Looking back, I think I'd probably lay out my evaluation as follows:

Does the candidate make that visual? Among many possible visuals, I'd probably prefer those made by (or designed/inspired by) the candidate. Say, if the author has developed a new health promotion theory that was published, it'd be great to see that expressed in a graph (which is common in health promotion theory.) On the contrary, if the candidate has been working on designing promotion based on a pre-existing theory proposed by someone else, then I'd perhaps not recommend plugging that graph into the research strategy (in that case I would think a citation or mentioning of the original author's name would do the work just fine), unless the said concept is extremely new or novel.

Does the context call for a visual? Some research interests are heavily related to data visualization. For example, if the candidate has extensive experience in applying geographic information system (GIS) to solve research questions, then perhaps attaching a map that published by the candidate is a reasonable demonstration. Another example is field work photos. If you have extensive field research experience, it may also be nice to plug in a representative picture. (Be very explicit about having photo release or permission in the image caption, especially if your picture shows faces of your study participants or minors.)

Is the visual well designed? Now this is what I consider a much more severe risk than going over page limit. By attaching a visual you're also presenting another array of techniques and experiences for evaluation. Yet, criticisms targeting at visuals are, in my opinion, a lot more varying (and something conflicting), compared to those received by written words; this is probably due to acceptably clear grammatical rules for words do exist, but not for visuals. This is not to discourage you from adding a visual even the situation calls for, but to remind all of us to be cautious about the design and adherence to the principles of graphical excellence.

Volumes and volumes were written on graphical excellence, but I would suggest at the very least thumb through William Cleveland's Visualizing Data and Edward Tufte's The Visual Display of Quantitative Information and try to pick and adopt whatever applicable to your work.

More obscure things to pay attention to include: i) Does the image have enough resolution to be printed out nicely? ii) Is the resolution of the image so high that the document's size has become gigantic (e.g. more than 10 Mb)? iii) Would the image be eligible if the committee member prints out the document in black and white?

Closing remarks I don't think I can give a definite yes or no. Adding visuals can be a high risk, high return decision and the chance of success is highly contextual. As someone who is passionate about data visualization, I'd perhaps suggest to stay true to yourself and feel free to experiment a little. If you feel that the visuals really represent your idea and work much better than words, by all means plug in one or two; break the rule a little bit while having some fun expressing yourself. Solicit feedback from peers and advisers to make sure they generally get your ideas.


Can I ask reviewers (via the editor) whether they lost track halfway through the paper?

This sounds like you wrote a good paper with some minor problems in the background/introduction that need fixing/polishing.

If reviewers get lost they should (and most likely will) mention that, and make you work a lot more. If, however, the editor and all reviewers have nothing to complain, your paper should be alright.


What are the advantages of publishing work in progress as a working paper?

The advantages are that you get to stake a claim to some sense of ownership of the work; it's a way of inviting feedback and collaboration from others by showcasing your work in progress; and it's a quicker way to publish your work than submitting to a journal or conference.

So when do you publish your work as a working paper?

When the following conditions are met:

You've done some work.
And some combination of:

you want feedback on it from a wider group than your immediate colleagues;
you want to showcase your work to get new collaborators, new funding, or improved career prospects
you want to publicly stake a claim to the work you've done

And some combination of:

the follow-up work is something that you've already got sufficiently far advanced that it is very unlikely that you will get scooped by your competitors;
you're not bothered about being first to publish the follow-up work yourself.

And publishing your work in a working paper won't prevent it from appearing (possibly in modified form) in a journal.


Legality and feasibility of digitizing old text books and course notes for private use

How did you handle it?

With an unstapler, a xerox/scanner with paper feed (and a few after-hours spent listening to my mp3 player and hoping the xerox machine wouldn't clog).

  Is it even legal to scan full text books for private use?

This depends on your jurisdiction, but generally speaking it's probably considered fair use. Also, "no plaintiff - no judge". (Lest anyone asks: No, I'm not advocating anything illegal here.)

  Is it even feasible to scan dozens of books and folders full of notes and print-outs?

Books will give you a hard time, because they don't fit into the automatic feed. Notes and print-outs do. Have you considered paying someone for doing the manual copying for you (the neighbor's kid, a poor student etc.)? After you have the files, however, only part of the work is done. OCR'ing the files and saving them under intelligible file-names is still something that can be delegated. Digging up the references and ordering the files in some reference management software is the harder part that requires more or your own work or at least oversight.


How to overcome a much earlier academic dismissal from undergraduate program in graduate admissions?

American perspective:  Your question shows that you made a mistake, but you corrected it.  Your mistake will probably be forgiven if you explain clearly what happened, how you learned from it, and how you will prevent it from occurring again.  Include this as a brief statement in your application letter.


How long does it take to publish in IEEE transaction

I need my paper to be published within 2 months, what should I do?

You cannot expect your paper to be published within 2 months in the IEEE transactions even in the luckiest case.

First, you have to submit the paper, and from your question it appears that you are still preparing it. Then, once submitted, your paper should undergo the peer-review process, and this can take anywhere from a couple of months to around one year, depending on the number of revisions, and it can even end up with rejection. Finally, when accepted, papers are not typically published in the next available issue (*), because its composition is decided well in advance, and so your paper will be published a few months later from acceptance.

(*) IEEE Transactions have an online early publication service which is disconnected from the journal periodicity, but even taking into account this, 2 months is too short a time.

A detailed description of the various stages of the publication process, with typical duration, can be found in the answer to What does the typical workflow of a journal look like?.


Why is the CV needed for graduate application

A CV is the academic equivalent of a resume, providing all of the relevant details of your (academic) career to date.  Graduate schools ask for this information for the same reason that businesses ask for a resume when you apply for a job: it is a terse summary of your qualifications as a candidate.

In addition to publications and (research-related) positions held, a CV also should include your undergraduate and graduate degrees, service, any awards, and any other academic-relevant information about you.  A nice summary, with links to additional guide material can be found here.


My grad department isn't offering courses listed in the catalog. What do I do?

In most science-technology-mathematics-engineering departments in the U.S., there are many more courses in the catalog than are offered in any year. There are typically pressures (from above, or from faculty) to offer fewer, rather than more, courses, so things may default to reduced graduate course offerings. Nevertheless, if many grad students explicitly request (to the department) a given course, this greatly increases the chances it'll be offered. Certainly if you don't ask, things will probably continue to be the same.


Is there a definitive list of style guides?

This Wikipedia may be a good starting point.

There are the international ISO series. And just in the US there are style guides for general writing, legal documents, academic papers, journalism, electronic publishing, business, and computer industry. It may be better to limit your scope of study.


A lot depends on what you mean by fake/predatory (these terms are not well-defined). Still if you demand a yes/no answer then I will say no.
As Prof. Santa Clause gave in a comment, the criteria to be listed in Scopus are given here. You need a lot of things to be listed, such as diversity in geographical distribution of editors, clarity of abstracts, and no delays or interruptions in the publication schedule. These things aren't easy to fake. The "no delays or interruptions" criterion sinks a lot of legitimate attempts at journals as well.
This particular criterion is especially hard to satisfy: Citedness of journal articles in Scopus. You can see what is needed also on that page: a journal's inclusion in Scopus is threatened if "the journal received half the number of citations, or less, when compared to peer journals in its subject field."
Based on this criterion alone, for a fake/predatory journal to still be listed in Scopus, they must somehow conjure citations from other journals that are also listed in Scopus. This isn't probable unless you go to extremes like postulating that there are a lot of fake journals in Scopus that are citing each other, but not only would the journals have to all get into Scopus in the first place, they would probably fail other criteria, such as "The journal's abstracts are used half as much, or less, when compared to peer journals in its subject field."
tl; dr: it depends on what you mean by fake/predatory, but if a journal is listed in Scopus you can assume that it is reputable until proven otherwise.


Dealing with conflicting deadlines for positions

The key here is to communicate. It is perfectly fine to let either institution know that there is another position that you are interested in. Then try to work something out (prolonged response time, shift of an appointment, etc.) Normally, people are quite willing to show some flexibility.

After all, nobody has an interest in hiring somebody that already regrets signing up before he/she even started.


How to effectively address conflicting suggestions from reviewers

In my capacity as editor for a journal, I see this quite frequently. I think it is a pity that you are left on your own to try to resolve the problem. An editor should provide some indication of possible solutions in tricky situations like this. So my first advice is to contact the editor and briefly explain the dilemma and ask for some advise on how to proceed. If you can, you should also provide your opinion on what you think is reasonable. After all, you have made your study and knows its strengths and weaknesses better than most.

In some cases, I have experienced how authors have used conflicting reviews to swing their paper in one or the other direction. This is certainly also possible since the reviews, and this is important, constitute peer's views and opinions, not an absolute and definitive truth to be followed.

Lacking the necessary insight into the details of your work and the issue at hand, I would also add the following. If you think you can bring up the conflicting views in the discussion, you may perhaps add both to your paper and simply arrive at a conclusion that the jury might still be out concerning the burning issue. I realize this may not be applicable in your case, but could be one way to acknowledge the existence of several, seemingly valid views.


Want to go to grad school but I lack expected coursework

I have never been on an admissions committee and can’t really speak to if it’s actually disqualifying or not. However, even if we operate under the assumption that it is disqualifying that doesn’t mean you can’t go to graduate school, it means you can’t go to graduate school this year. You can enroll as a non-degree student in the university of your choice and take the necessary courses. This may be expensive or difficult depending on the country / situation, but if you really do need the courses it’s an option available to you. I know several people in the US who have done this in math and math-adjacent fields, more commonly for a MS degree but also for a PhD.


What does the status "editor discussion period" in editorial manager mean?

If as you say this "editor discussion period" occurred after the manuscript was reviewed, but before you received a formal decision, then this probably corresponds to the "Editorial decision" section of this answer. The editor(s) are making a decision based on the reviews. It should not take very long unless many people are involved in the decision.


Advice on reusing images/illustrations from an AIMS paper

In general the authors will have assigned all copyright for figures to the journal upon submission/publication. I'm not familiar with the journal in question but it does not look to be any different from any I've ever seen (it has a title, volume, page number etc so is 'normally' citeable). If you wish to reproduce figures from any journal or other source then you need to contact the publisher. This is usually just a formality.

In this case the contact page for the AIMS (https://www.aimsciences.org/common_news/column/contact) indicates you should get in touch with the Editorial Manager - editorial@aimsciences.org "Regarding the book/journal editorial process, book orders, Printed version claims, copyrights" (emphasis mine)


How to decide on the order of authorship for this collaboration?

Here is a thought.  (Perhaps it is naive.  I haven't seen your paper, and I know nothing about the publication culture in computational linguistics.)

Could you perhaps write two papers, with you appearing as first author as one and your collaborator on the other?  This would settle the issue symmetrically.  Whether it is a good idea depends more on how "bi-disciplinary" your work is.  By which I mean: is your work coming from two different camps, linguistics and machine learning?  If not, splitting is a bad idea.  If so, if you write one paper "splitting it down the middle" is there a ready-made audience who will appreciate the synthesis of both camps into a single paper?  If so, splitting is a bad idea.  But if not, you might find that your work reaches more people if you appeal separately to the linguistics and machine learning communities.

Again, just a thought.


Generally for computer science the accepted methodology is to publish your initial idea or concept with some preliminary results in a conference. Then afterwards if there is still more to discuss you can continue publishing conference papers or target a journal for an in depth publication.

To get started you need to find a conference that suits your area of research. For example if you are working in computer vision you might target CVPR. There are a number of databases full of conferences, which should help you find an appropriate venue. Then read the submission requirements. Usually conferences have a LateX template you can use for your paper.

You should ensure your paper conforms to all conference regulations, has been spell checked and proof read by yourself and someone else.


My professor skipped me on Christmas bonus payment

I think you need a more serious conversation with your advisor. You need to know if he is unhappy with your performance and if there are things you need to do to improve it. If the answer is no, then you can bring up that you didn't get a bonus. Perhaps it was a clerical issue or an issue in the delivery. But if you are not meeting expectations it would be a time for reflection.
But asking about your performance rather than your bonus would show some sense of seriousness about your work.


My manuscript gets "with Editor" then "Editor invited", What is the main reasons for this?

It could be that someone pressed the wrong button.

Or the editor wasn't able to review after they initially took in on and put it out for another to pick up (probably good practice, rather than it sitting in someone's in-tray unread).

If you think it's a big deal, then contact the journal. But maybe give it a couple of weeks first.


When to switch PhD projects if you are hitting roadblocks

It seems to me that essentially all of the considerations lie in favor of switching projects.  So -- guess what? -- I think you should switch projects.

The one consideration that cuts slightly against this is the lack of funding.  It sounds like when your former advisor departed, he didn't take all his funding with him and there is still some left over to be used by others on the same project?  That's not the greatest situation either: probably the end of the funding cycle does not last as long as it will take you to complete your PhD if you continue working on the project.  It may (or may not be) be that the department can transfer that funding over to your current project.  Anyway, that's not critical because your current supervisor has guaranteed your financial support.  (By the way, if you want to continue in academia than having at least some TA work is probably a good thing.)

Just a couple of random comments:

1) I find it strange that you refer to your advisor as a "they".  That doesn't really make sense: "they" is a plural.  I guess you want to keep your advisor's gender confidential.  I don't really understand why, but okay: that's up to you, of course.  A grammatically correct way to do this is "he or she".

2) You wrote

  I'm making many basic mistakes that would be easily recognized and fixed if my advisor was more knowledgeable on my topic.

This leaves a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. I have very often had the experience of having students work on things on which I am quite knowledgeable, but nevertheless they often make mistakes.  Sometimes student mistakes are not displayed to the advisor for a very long time.  Sometimes advisors let students make and recognize their own mistakes: that is an important part of the learning process.  If every time a student does something wrong the advisor swoops in and fixes it, the student is not really doing their own work.  [Wait, I did it myself.  Hmm, I think "their" works for a generic, abstract genderless person.  It doesn't work for a specific genderless person...]

A lot of students on this site (and, I believe, elsewhere) are full of theories about how their lack of success (or limited success) is due to some specific external factor that was outside of their control, and that if only they had been placed in an optimal situation they would have succeeded.  That's not so much factually wrong as unhelpfully centered.  No one is in the optimal learning situation all the time.  Learning how to succeed in a real (academic[!!]) world rather than an idealized one is obviously key.  Your mistakes are your own and you should take ownership for them.  Based on your description, your current advisor has been optimally generous and helpful with you.  You should not give off any whiff of a "too bad you didn't have the expertise to help me out the first time" sentiment; that kind of baggage could only negatively impact your continued relationship.


Is it correct protocol to be able to split a bibliography into more than a single column?

It really depends on where you're publishing. Two-columns is mandated in some venues, in others one is. I suspect that there may be a few rare venues where there is no single style, but that your field usually uses one column.

If you are writing a paper, then you should look at the style guide for the venue you are publishing in, if there are none (which would be surprising) try looking at past papers published at that venue. Many venues simply supply the latex class you should use and examples. If you are writing a book, then a single column is usual from what I have seen. If you do not have a venue in mind yet, then you can just use a single column and change it easily later.


In universities, what are the advantages of having a second department affiliation?

Sometimes, a second affiliation has real administrative meaning, for example if a professor's teaching duties are divided between two departments.  In other cases, a professor's duties are in just one department, and the second affiliation is either just an honorary matter (saying that the second department regards him as respectable in their field also) or possibly (depending on university rules) enables the professor to officially supervise dissertations in the second department.


progressing from high school teaching into academia

If you are near completing your PhD, then I assume you also have some papers coming out soon. If not, then your dissertation will probably be worth 3 papers, so I wouldn't worry too much about that part.

Conveying information to an audience with varied skills and backgrounds is always a valuable thing in academia. Whether in written manuscripts or conference presentations, this is usually the problem to be solved. My advisor was fond of constructing lectures, no matter the audience, as if they were to be given to college freshmen. I'd say a lot of freshmen are not too different from high school students.

A successful PhD defense signifies that you have the ability to do novel work in your field, but your teaching skills will enable you to tell others about it.


Is it common to refer to someone as "Prof. Dr. [LastName]"?

German academia traditionally expects that one will use all relevant titles, so Prof. Dr. is pretty common there. Likewise other places with an academic system related to Germany in some way. As you note, in the US this would be very uncommon and the two titles you mention often used interchangeably there, even when it isn't clear that both apply.

And, if I remember correctly, it is always Prof. Dr. and never Dr. Prof. since the professorship was earned after the doctorate and is a "higher level" honorific. But "Herr Prof. Dr." doesn't fit that rule, I guess.


Read latest journal articles on your phone?

RSS (Rich Site Summary) is an open standard that many journals use to deliver their latest tables of content and abstracts.

Quoting Wikipedia:

  RSS is a type of web feed which allows users to access updates to online content in a standardized, computer-readable format.

Simply download any feed reader app to subscribe to the RSS feeds of your favorite journals. If you find an abstract of interest, click on the title to be redirected to the respective repository where you can usually read or download the article in pdf or html format with your preferred browser or reader. Or you may want to save the paper from there with a reference management app such as Zotero or Mendeley.

Unfortunately, more and more journals seem to be discontinuing their RSS feeds in favor of e-mail alerts, which I find less useful.


Is it ethical to apply to be a conference volunteer (with a registration fee waiver) if I have a fellowship?

Volunteering is often a lot of work, so it is generally quite reasonable to see the coverage of costs to be not a scholarship, but as compensation for the many hours of labor that you will be putting in as a volunteer.  It is for this reason that many conferences waive the registration fee for their organizers as well.  As such, I think there is no ethical concern about getting a waived registration in return for volunteering.  I would, however, find it ethically problematic to apply for a scholarship (which some conferences offer) when you could be covered by your fellowship.


Is it a must to write a paper in passive third person, for all types of papers in all journals?

Have a look at the style guide of the journal you're targeting. It has the only authoritative answer to your question.

Having said that, passive voice is not a "must" in the sense that active voice were unheard of in academic writing. Here is a paper written in active voice, first person singular.

Common preferences for either active or passive voice differ between disciplines. (I've heard that in mathematics the first person plural is fairly common, i.e. "we".)

Preferences also differ between authors. I find the first person singular active voice most authentic, simple, and lively. It is often emphasized, however, that passive voice sounds more neutral and objective.

When deciding which voice to use, consider the style guide first, then your discipline's customs (ask your peers!), and your personal preference last.


As a general academic principle you should not adjust the titles -- or other essential bibliographic data*, e.g. the form and ordering of the authors' names -- of papers that you reference in any way, with the possible exception of necessary typographical concessions for "exotic" characters.

(For instance, in my branch of mathematics is it common to use the cyrillic letter Sha for something named after a Russian mathematician whose name begins with this character.  If you simply don't have cyrllic characters available, you have to do something else.  But even in this case it would be better to try to take a little trouble to "get cyrillic characters".)

So my answer to your question is no: it is obviously not your fault that different papers you cite refer to teals in different ways.  So if there is any untidiness and/or inconsistency, you are simply faithfully replicating it, as you are obliged to do.

This answer comes from someone with precisely zero avian-specific academic knowledge.  So it couldn't hurt to get a second opinion from someone in your field.

*: I confess that I sometimes mess with "inessential" bibliographic data.  For instance, most journals come with a volume number followed by a number of the issue within that volume, and I usually omit the second number: you simply don't need it to access the paper.  I don't specifically endorse this practice and mention it only for "professional honesty", but in my defense I just checked around and I am far from the only one who does this.

Moreover in some fields there are different formats for referencing.  In my field (mathematics), on the one hand we are not too picky about the format, and on the other hand we have standard repositories of all papers: MathReviews/MathSciNet and Zentralblatt, from which I assume that most contemporary authors simply copy the bibliographic data (and then the philistines among us delete the number of the journal within the volume).  It is a good idea to choose a consistent format throughout all your bibliographic references: e.g. put last names first always or never, and so forth.  But still: the title is not yours to monkey with, as far as I know.


If your supervisor is one of the top people in the field and doesn't think the work merits publication, I would heed his advice. Furthermore, publishing work without his consent that he has helped you with (even if you don't include his name) is a very bad idea. Why don't you talk to your supervisor again and ask him his opinion on publishing in a lower-tier journal?


How to disagree about author order when my advisor has been dismissive of such concerns in the past?

Depending on your field, it may be possible to submit your paper to a journal which allows for "co-equal first authors": that is, both the first and second are treated equally as first authors within the journal. You could then mention this in your CV. That way, I don't think there's much harm done; this would represent the path of least resistance.

Otherwise, you're going to have to be willing to involve someone to deal with this issue—whether it's your advisor, the dean, or other professors in the department. There's no way to resolve this issue without it. (I presume you mean the chair of your department, or other similar official, when you use the term "dean.") But the first step should be to talk with your advisor, before the paper is written. You may be able to clarify things at that stage. I'd involve the other members of your thesis committee (if you have one), and then finally work with the dean.


What are the pros and cons of well compensated STEM graduate students joining a union?

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 2016 set a minimum salary of $47,476 for professional employees to be exempt from paid overtime. in response to this, the NIH changed its postdoctoral salaries.

While the NIH says

  NIH is fully supportive of increased pay for postdoctoral researchers and has proposed to increase the NRSA postdoctoral stipends to levels above the threshold

their behavior suggests otherwise. What they did is simple increase all postdoctoral salaries below the minimum to slightly higher than the minimum. While historically a year 1 post doc made 4% more than a year 0 postdoc, after the adjustment they made the same. There was no increase in the predoctoral salaries. In FY 2016 the NIH predoctoral salary was $23,376 so slightly less than what you are currently being paid.

While you may believe you are well compensated, some would argue that $29,000 a year is not a fair salary if you are expected to perform unpaid overtime (and what graduate student doesn't work overtime). A union can help fight for things like fair salaries.


Including unpublished manuscript with CV?

As others have said, it depends on the culture of the discipline you are in.

I also think it is important where you are in your career. If you are an undergraduate, for example, with a manuscript on which you are an author, I would be impressed even without the acceptance yet. Most undergraduates in my field (biology) have not done much (or any) hands-on research so this would be a big CV booster! Since you say this is your first manuscript, I assume you are early in your career so it may help you stand out from your peers. I have seen graduate students and even professors include submitted manuscripts on CVs and personally have not found it tacky.


Firstly, just checking the library is not enough — there might be restrictions on the format and only the relevant office can tell you what those restrictions are (if any).

Secondly, if you find out that you do have a choice (between A4 and A5 paper, for example), the natural thing to do would be to ask would be your supervisor in what format they would like to read your thesis.

(After submitting several printed copies of the thesis for review, you may get some of them back after your thesis defence, which you can submit to the library.)


Should I ask my advisor to please pretend that he is happy with me until the end of my contract?

I would ask for a meeting, but not for the reason you suggest. You may be misinterpreting messages. I'd ask him if he was pleased or not with your work and what you can do to improve it in his opinion. If it seems like a good idea when you are having such a conversation mention that you think he is displeased and don't understand why.

Don't overthink that they laughed at your comment. It was a somewhat strange thing to say even if you were panicked.

And you should certainly talk to a personal health counselor about your emotional state. That isn't healthy, but professionals can help you deal with it.


What is the equivalent of French Travaux Diriges (TD) in Anglo-Saxon Universities ? and who leads them?

Based on the discussion in comments and the Wikipedia article linked to above, TDs appear similar to a "recitation section" at some US universities. At my undergraduate university, the teaching assistant (TA) would get together with some subset of the students of the main lecture course who are assigned to that section and go over exercises assigned by the professor and cover or re-cover things from the lecture that were not very well understood by the students.


presented at a conference but don't appear in proceedings

I think that you can include it in a special section - Other Contributions. Say what you have said here, but also have in your possession a letter from the author thanking you for presenting the work (or helping to present - whichever is more accurate) and for any contributions you made to it. The backup letter is essential and the classification of the contribution has to be accurate.


Does having an article retracted due to professor's ethical misconduct mean my career is over?

If I understand your description, there is no finding of academic misconduct against you.  You have co-authorship of a retracted article, where the problem appears to have been caused by the misconduct of your co-author, and unbeknownst to you.  The incident occurred when you were only a masters student acting under the direction of a professor.  If this description is accurate, I do not see why this matter would affect your future research career.  I cannot imagine this being held against you by a selection panel for PhD candidature, or later in your career.

To ensure you have evidence confirming your account of events, I would strongly recommend asking the university to give you a formal written finding describing the matter and confirming that you did not commit academic misconduct.  You should also ask them for a letter of reference that gives an account of your abilities, with an apology to you for misconduct of this professor.  Bear in mind that the university employed the professor that instructed you in this matter, so they bear some responsibility to you here, and you have some good leverage to get them to give you a formal exoneration.  If you have trouble getting them to give you this, I would recommend speaking to a solicitor to look at your options.  By taking you on as a student the university had a responsibility to you, and it is responsible if its employee harms your research work through his misconduct.

The academic journal has no corresponding obligation to you, so what I would recommend here is to get your formal exoneration letter from the university and then send it to the journal.  Ask them to append a description to their retraction (the online version) noting that you were not responsible for any misconduct in this matter.


How do you acknowledge the useful comments left by the reviewers invited by a journal that rejected your paper?

Many (most?) academic papers include a brief acknowledgment section somewhere (the location is not standard).  In this section it is frequent to acknowledge help by the referees.  One can equally well acknowledge comments by referees of previous versions of the paper.  For the sake of clarity it seems best to mention that one is thanking the referee of the previous version.  E.g. if I were refereeing the new version, reading

  We are grateful for the help provided by the referee.

is ambiguous: does this refer to a previous referee, or am I being thanked in advance for my help?  (That's not so good.)  Clearer would be something like

  This version of the paper takes into account helpful comments provided by the (or "a") referee of a previous version.

If the paper gets accepted in the second journal, one could change to something like

  We are grateful for helpful comments from multiple referees on several versions of the paper.

Is it academically necessary?  I'm not sure it's ever strictly necessary to acknowledge an anonymous referee -- it seems to me that a situation in which it's vitally necessary to acknowledge someone is a situation in which an anonymous acknowledgment would be insufficient.  (Moreover, the way I have always understood it is that referee comments are "being given" to the authors of the paper.) If you feel that a referee's contributions merit coauthorship, (take a deep breath first; this opens a can of worms) you should discuss that with the editor.  However, if you got direct intellectual help from the referee and not just helpful remarks -- i.e., if the referee contributed some part of the intellectual content of the paper -- then I would certainly recommend documenting that rather than assuming the credit for yourself.


When am I supposed to get an acknowledgement for a paper submitted via e-mail (CS conference)?

In computer science, paper submission by e-mail is non-standard. Therefore, there is no default answer to your question.

However, it's in the interest of the conference organizers to show good professional communication that does not leave authors "in the dark". I would expect them to confirm your submission immediately after submission, within 24 hours. If you have not heard back from them after 24 hours, it's absolutely OK to contact them.


How to correct the missing citation counts/citing References in the adsabs.harvard?

For NASA's ADS at least, there's a "submit missing references" form available here.


Would it be acceptable to occasionally sleep at the lab?

Ask your supervisor. If your PI supervisor controls the space and gives you permission, there shouldn't be any problem for you.

I've seen situations where there are experiments that need to be babysat over long periods and researchers bring cots into the lab so that they can devote more time and provide more frequent checkups than would be possible otherwise.

Of course, if you are homeless and living in the lab for some longer period of time to avoid paying rent somewhere else, that seems like a much bigger problem. Honestly though, I've seen that done as well. The OK-ness and consequences of sleeping your lab will depend on the local culture, rules, and laws. If you ask a supervisor, it will be their responsibility to make that call.


Is it acceptable to leave an adjunct teaching position 10 days before classes begin?

I think it's generally agreed that it is unwise to tell an employer that you might leave, that nobody does this, and that nobody expects anyone to.  You only tell them when you are definitely leaving, which you did as soon as you knew.  You haven't done anything inappropriate.
Your old department head is surely not thrilled about having to fill your classes with 10 days to go, but it's their job to handle such contingencies, just as if you had been hit by the proverbial bus. You weren't under contract and so you're a free agent. I probably wouldn't expect them to hire you as an adjunct again, but it seems unlikely you'd want them to anyway.


How to convince a research supervisor to proofread the paper?

I think you can send him a small piece of work at a time, such as the introduction.

Try to utilise his/her time for the most important part of the work. For the introduction, you can ask him/her to proofread your contributions paragraph.


What is the salary range for a Post Doc in France?

I did two post-doc in France, both paid by public institutions.

In 2013, CNRS paid 2.022€ net per month,
In 2014, INRIA paid 2.120€ net per month.

This included social security, but I had to pay some taxes at the end of the year (so beware and save!).

I also had access to various benefits, both from my employer, e.g.,

re-allocation funds,
contributing to the cost of my commuting (this is a legal obligation, and they will happily comply),
financial help to pay a nurse for my kid

and from the state.

Those offers were "forfait" and not negotiable.
Most of the public employers will be happy to provide you with additional information about the various benefits you can access to, and to discuss the cost of living, but they have absolutely no room to discuss your salary.

If you look at the INRIA's webpage, they explicitly give the salary for a post-doc with them: there won't be no exception, everyone gets the same salary, no matter the town, subject, experience, qualification, PI, etc.

I don't know precisely the situation at L'école des Mines, but I would be surprised if the situation was much different. This page reads

  Pour ses actions de recherche et afin de conforter les liens très
  forts qu’elle entretient avec les entreprises françaises et
  étrangères, l’École recrute également de jeunes scientifiques,
  titulaires d’un doctorat ou d’un diplôme équivalent,

  sur contrat à durée déterminée, éventuellement renouvelable
  leur assure une rémunération brute mensuelle allant de 2 340 € à 2 944 €.(chiffre 2007)
  leur permet d’acquérir au sein de ses laboratoires de l’École une expérience complémentaire de très haut niveau dans les métiers de la
  recherche

So, in 2007, the salary range for a post doc was between 2.340€ and 2.944€ but I would assume that on what ends of that spectrum you land depends on your age, experience, social status, and not on negotiation. I could be wrong: the better way to get a definitive answer is to ask them!


What questions can be put into a survey to prevent low-quality responses?

I know it under the term attention check questions. There are many methods, depending on if you're doing the survey online, want to/can use visual ones etc. I think this article might give a good overview, it gives examples and critiques them https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272696317300402?casa_token=yZkLxSP9zGMAAAAA:gziLCRo_Feod6eXaoF7MwpAMiPjadDVvqRq4jgeqL4ed92qiMn7pJtm-_OogTEcB2YJKheEppdM


Can I look for a new post-doc without informing my current PI?

In my experience, people who have been in a field a long time all know each other, even if only peripherally. If you do apply to another position, there is a real possibility that the the new PI will simply call up your current PI and ask about your qualifications etc.

To me, it seems completely reasonable to tell your PI exactly what you say in your first sentence. You could even ask for her help -- if you are this uninterested in your current position I doubt she will go out of her way to try to retain you. (Also, if you are indeed looking to move to a lab that does not compete with the current one, can she legitimately be concerned about intellectual property "leakage"?)


How can we recognize accurate scientific results when things like p-hacking are so common?

First thing to consider is that research can never provide absolute certainty. Any result you find is only preliminary. You can have various degrees of preliminary: a single study with an acceptable but not brilliant design can provide interesting clues or first steps for a larger project, but not much more. It is right and productive that these studies are published, but don't treat them as truth.

Second thing to consider is that the problem is not necessarily with the articles themselves, but with the lack of replication. So, if you find a result that interest you, try to find replications. If none exist, then you need to be more careful.


Explicit request for collaboration/support in publications

I think it would be totally fine to request collaborations, and my colleagues and I actually did it in a paper. We wrote in the conclusions the following announcement:

The authors welcome collaborations from QHARS manufacturers to analyse further cases of practical interest.

Did it work? Yes, but we are in a small field and this probably makes it easier to collaborate.


How should I cite a website which includes institutional information

I think your intention of not citing an URL like that is correct, since it won't be useful to anybody outside your institution (and maybe not even within, if the URL is session specific). It doesn't make sense to give information in the bibliography which is not useful to the general reader.

First, check whether there are other means to cite the content. If it is a journal publication, you may not need an URL: generally, the standard bibliographic information including the journal name, volume, and page numbers is sufficient. Also check whether the content has a DOI. Then you should always be able to link to it via http://dx.doi.org/<DOI>.

If there is no way to refer to this content such that the general public can access it, then it is just not citable. You can only cite publicly available material, and not everything on the internet is publicly available (think about a Google Mailbox in the extreme case).


Is it a good idea for an international student to use his master's thesis preprint as his writing sample?

Yes.  If an applicant to a doctoral program has written a master's thesis, it will be assumed that the thesis is the applicant's best work.  Therefore admissions committees will expect to receive the thesis as the writing sample.  If your thesis is long, you may wish to send a polished excerpt; the expected length may be field dependent.


How can I pay for medical school in the US?

By far, for professional medical education in the US, it is most common to pay for education with loans (or personal funds, if available). Even low-cost schools are expensive relative to undergraduate education. The median educational debt for graduating students is >$190k in the USA. Debts are worse if you consider earning potential in other fields.

It is simply uncommon for medical study in the US to be paid for government or other funds - these funds are limited to programs for underprivileged minorities and for those pursuing joint degrees in the sciences (and even then, loans predominate).

Being a medical doctor in the USA is lucrative, but becoming one entails major risk. Further discussion is probably beyond this stack but these discussions are constant in academic journals.


Difference between introduction and related work?

Because these distinctions vary across fields, your best bet is to look at some examples from your field to get an idea of how people approach this.

In general, I would say your introduction is a more general overview which should include some references to existing literature but is also intended to establish the importance of your work (i.e., a knowledge gap of some sort). You can limit the citations to the most recent or most relevant works - you certainly do not need to mention every work you will cite later in the paper.

Depending on the flow of your writing you may re-cite citations from your introduction in your related work chapter or in other sections; if you do re-cite, it is likely because these works are very important to your paper and you may have multiple reasons to cite them (for example, in your introduction you may mention their conclusions/achievements; in your related works you might be talking about their approach). As long as you aren't repeating yourself, there is no reason to be afraid to cite the same work more than once in your paper.


Asking my prof. whether he is affected by the hurricane in Texas,

It's fine to ask. Like a commenter mentioned, probably better to not add that it's because you haven't heard from him on a particular issue (i.e. not "Did you forget those TPS reports, or are you affected by a hurricane?").

Some things to consider:

It's possible you haven't heard because he is directly affected: stranded, injured, hospitalized, dead.
However, it is also possible you haven't heard because his family is directly affected. He might be searching frantically for them, trying to make contact, helping in some way, etc.
Lastly, it's possible that the situation is completely unrelated.

With all of those things in mind, especially #2, a polite show of concern is certainly appropriate, without any attached expectations or requests. Something along the lines of "Since I know you have ties to Texas, I hope you and your family and friends are safe." Even if it turns out he isn't from the Houston/gulf coast area, there is a reasonable probability that he could know someone in the area and would appreciate the sentiment.


Acknowledgements in a bachelor thesis: Is it etiquette conform to thank for non thesis related things?

The acknowledgment part is your own part, write what ever you want in humour, fun etc but don't cross the boundaries that might hurt some people feeling. here is a sample from MIT, you can give a read.
http://www.mit.edu/~alvarso/thesis-phd/Acknowledgements.pdf


Should referees assume that authors will see the full report if their paper is rejected?

I do not believe journals would withhold the reviews from an author, because they generally want to make the reasons for rejection as transparent as possible.

Most of the cases I have seen have fallen under the first scenario–the authors don't want to fix the paper, they just want to get it published somewhere. I once had the unfortunate experience of having to go through four versions of the same manuscript because the authors were refusing to provide a key plot to demonstrate the accuracy of their results. After they finally provided it (and showed the results were not accurate), I promptly rejected the manuscript. Unfortunately, the same manuscript was published in a much lower-profile journal a few months later, completely unchanged.


Should I give more work out to a student who is not behaving?

Why can you not call the administration? If it's a private school, are they not able to remove students from classes?

If the student is just not paying attention, I'd say you just let him be. It's college. It's his (parents') money. Let it go to waste. Teach the students who are there to learn. Your job as a college professor is not to wipe runny noses of students who do not want to be there. When we focus too much on the students who do not want to participate, we usually end up neglecting the students who do want to be there.

If the student is being disruptive, document and report. What is the administration there for if not to handle such administrative issues?


I was in a similar situation with my dissertation director. After trying to resolve things with him (he became increasingly hostile and abusive with each attempt), I got other professors involved, including the graduate ombudsperson. One professor - the department chair - did nothing and sided with my director - but the other faculty (the graduate director and my other committee members) stepped in and separated us, and one of them took over as my new dissertation director. After that, I went straight to Human Resources and filed a complaint against that professor, since no one in my department made any attempt to hold him accountable for his actions. I also reached out to the Dean's office when HR was initially unresponsive, which I think helped because they may have leaned on HR to pay attention to my case. The investigation was recently concluded and apparently they "took actions against him," (a slap on the wrist, I'm assuming. But at least he has a record now).

Personally, as horrible as my experience was and as painful of a battle it was (from which I still haven't recovered), I have no regrets about standing up to that professor, making as much noise as possible in my department and to outside administration. At the end of the day, I stood up for myself, made it clear to everyone in my department that I could not be bullied into silence, and that I was leaving with a PhD no matter what.

One caveat to this experience before recommending you go down the same path: I realize that my situation could have been so much worse had I not lucked out in a few ways. I was lucky that the graduate director + my other committee members were willing to support me and not abandon me, even if they couldn't bring themselves to confront their colleague about his behavior. I was lucky that my contact in HR was extremely nice and sympathetic to my situation, and I genuinely believe he made every effort to investigate my situation fairly. Unfortunately, having people like that on your side is not always the reality, and all too often, faculty/staff turn against graduate students who won't "stay in their place."

My suggestion would be to not take this professor's horrible treatment, stand up for yourself, and expose his inappropriate behavior. But do so very cautiously. In light of my own experiences that I shared, my question for you is, do you have allies? Other students who can and are willing to echo your complaints? There is power in numbers. Are there professors (including your secondary supervisor) that you can talk to? And keep in mind, there are (or should be) resources outside your department that you might consult, though I think I would only do so if you can't resolve things within your own department:

the graduate ombudsperson: if your university has one, absolutely try talking to them. They're usually very senior, experienced professors, and they're meant to be available for confidential consultation. This is typically a very safe place to discuss your issues.
Human Resources
Dean's Office of your college
Dean's Office of the graduate college
the graduate student association might have resources

Ultimately, his behavior towards you - all of this telling you to not tell so-and-so about his actions and his insistence on controlling you and other students - is incredibly inappropriate and abusive, and none of you deserve to be treated that way. I hope that the dynamics in your department/university allow for a safe place for you to voice your complaints. There's nothing worse than silently suffering.


How can I get the rights to my final year project?

The first question is why you want the rights.  For example, if you are working on something with serious commercial applications and hope to start a company or sell the technology, then this is a very serious issue.  The first step is hiring a lawyer, who can advise you on precisely which rights you and the university currently hold, and who can help you negotiate with the university regarding commercialization.

On the other hand, most student projects are of no commercial value.  If you just want to display your work online (to help build a portfolio for job applications and in case this work is useful for someone else), then it's probably easier.  It may depend on the university, but presumably they don't want to limit the dissemination of student projects, so if you ask them I bet they'll grant permission.  You should think about exactly what you want to provide and under what sort of license (for example, if you put code on the web, nobody's allowed to use it unless you license that).  I imagine the university would be happy with some sort of Creative Commons license.

I'd recommend being very clear and straightforward when asking, to avoid raising suspicions that you are trying to trick them into giving up the rights to valuable technology.


Reasons a paper may be open for revision after the majority of reviewers recommended rejection

Does my paper stand a chance of acceptance after revision?

Yes. If it didn't, it would have been rejected. Now how good of a chance it has is another question entirely.

  Why is it open for revisions when majority 2/3 of the reviewers had rejected it?

Because peer review is not voting. Perhaps the editor disagrees with the other reviewers. Or found the third reviewer's arguments particularly compelling. Or is in a generous mood today, and wants to leave the paper open for a "Hail Mary" revision that dramatically improves the paper.


I would argue that it's a question of resources—if you have used resources (equipment, personnel, computers, financial) of both institutions in executing the paper before its initial submission, then you should list both institutes as supporting the work.

On the other hand, if the core of the work—both research and writing—were done at the old institution, then the new institution should only be listed as a "present affiliation," rather than as a "co-sponsor" of the work.


Should I send low GRE mathematics score to universities?

Many US universities are going to ask for the GRE results.  You probably won't be able to avoid having to send them.  Also, many schools pull the GRE data from ETS the testing service that administers the GRE.  That means even if you take the GRE a second time all of your GRE exams will likely be received by the university.  That is not meant to discourage you.  The program's admissions committee has final say on the matter and they look at other factors too.  If you are not good at exams, but good at applied work highlight that in your review process.  Good luck!!!


Problem in citation link in Google scholar

Google Scholar recommends to make publications available on a personal university webpage:

  If you're an individual author, it works best to simply upload your paper to your website, e.g., www.example.edu/~professor/jpdr2009.pdf; and add a link to it on your publications page, such as www.example.edu/~professor/publications.html.

Afaik, there is no way to request a particular repository or paper to be added/updated/deleted, the whole system is automatic.


Since polyfit is a basic Matlab function, you could reference the Matlab Function Reference book (pdf) for the version of Matlab you are using. It would be appropriate to reference the page number of were the function is decsribed in your text. The manual is easily added as a book. The references can be found on the Mathworks web.


Requesting LORs from the same recommenders for a different field

Would it be possible to ask these same professors again for recommendation letters?

Yes, it is possible.

  Would they think that I look like an undecided, wavering person and thus, be reluctant to write another letter for me?

If they don't want to write another letter, they can decline.  You can briefly explain what you've been up to and should explain briefly why you decided to pursue the new field of study.  It's possible your recommenders might see you as having stronger skills for the new field than for law, in which case your letter might actually be stronger than before.  Much of what they wrote might be general enough that they won't have to change much from the prior letter if they do choose to write you a new one.

  Also, would I just candidly explain my one-year gap after my graduation in my statement of purpose?

In your statement of purpose, while not trying to hide or paper over your one-year gap, focus on why you want to move forward in the direction you're applying for.  If you had experiences or learned things in that one year that helped inspire, drive, or prepare you for that field, it may be helpful to mention them.  Help your reader understand why you want to work in the field you're applying for, and think about what those reasons are (esp. if you have reasons that go beyond just job prospects).


Can tenured professors do more about injustice in universities?

There are a lot of things you're asking that are going to fall under opinions, vagaries of the university you're talking about, etc. But here are some concrete things they might be capable of doing:

If there is a faculty union, it is almost certain tenured faculty will have a voice on it. They can use that voice to advocate for any number of causes, including things like better treatment of adjunct faculty, etc. It is, of course, possible for this voice to be ignored.
Similarly, a faculty senate may have some voice in deciding university policy, weighing in on possible candidates for president of the university, etc., and may use this voice to prioritize certain causes.
Tenured faculty will likely sit on faculty hiring and admissions committees. This can allow them to exercise some power in who they hire, and how they are evaluated - for example, are women and minority candidates being given a fair shake? Are we admitting a realistic number of graduate students given the job market?
Similarly, they may serve on tenure promotion committees, curriculum steering committees, etc. and may advocate for teaching performance being a stronger criteria for promotion and tenure, shuffling some classes to better teachers or reclaiming a class from another department that is blowing off their students, etc.

That being said, there is a limited amount any group in the university system can do. For example, fees might be set by the state legislature in the case of a state school, class size is likely more a function of budget than anything else (tenured faculty can't conjure up new FTE positions), and some of these things, to be frank, may not rise to the level of "Something worth protesting over". Additionally, while more protected, the experience of any number of tenured faculty shows that they can be retaliated against.


Interview for lecturer in UK but no grants, how do I compete?

Just a few ideas:

First, obviously you should emphasize the strengths in your profile during the interview, so don't insist too much on this point since it's a bit of a weakness in your case.

Nevertheless you should at least show that you are aware that it's something that you'll be expected to do should you get the job. Ideally you should have a plan with some specifics: know and mention the main potential sources of funding in your domain, possibly a specific call or two for which you can say that you will apply. If possible/relevant, mention any organization or people in your network who could be potential partners, especially if they already have a good track record in getting grants, and say that you will collaborate with them to obtain funding.


How can I ensure that my software is correctly cited?

You could try adapting one of the existing open source licences, with help from your university's Legal IP team.  But a software licence is the wrong tool for the job.

One way to do it, is to write a methodology paper. That's the paper that then gets cited by anyone using your code, or an adapted version of your code, to produce material for subsequent papers.

As the paper you published was just about the results you got from the software, I've got some bad news and some good news for you.

The bad news is that you've got to write another paper.

The good news is that this new paper will use work that you've already done. It will be a methodology paper where you describe the software in detail, providing the source as supplementary information. And that's what will get cited, by those who use your software.

You can also include something such as a bibtex file in with the distribution of your software, to make citation easier: the more you can do to reduce hurdles to citation, the more chance you've got of getting those citations. Once you've got the above paper written, the bibtex file should describe that paper. And before then, you can do what the R-project does:

  To cite R in publications, use

 @Manual{,
   title        = {R: A Language and Environment for Statistical
                   Computing},
   author       = {{R Core Team}},
   organization = {R Foundation for Statistical Computing},
   address      = {Vienna, Austria},
   year         = 2013,
   url          = {http://www.R-project.org}
 }

  Citation strings (or BibTeX entries) for R and R packages can also be obtained by citation().


Emerging science citation index (ESCI) listed vs SCI listed journals - worthyness to publish

There is no one generally applicable strategy to select a journal to publish in. Metrics such as Impact Factor and Citations help but they vary a lot between fields. It also depends a lot on the content, quality, and scope of your work for whether you will get into a prestigious journal. Note that some smaller specialised journals are not necessarily easier to get in to, they may even have higher standards in technical skills even if they will accept work that is not so groundbreaking or novel.

There are many reasons that a journal could be "emerging" and they're not all necessarily for dubious reasons. Many subfields have emerged recently and of course new journals must be formed for the purpose of publishing this work. Similarly, there is a trend towards more interdisciplinary research and more demand for Open Access journals. You should still be careful with unknown journals as they can be "predatory". Some will publish almost anything to get your precious open access fees. If you are unsure and have not heard of the journal, it is probably not a good idea to submit there. However, there can be many valid reasons that a new journal has been formed that does not yet have an impact factor (it takes years to accrue citations so the IF is uncertain until the journal has been established). You can still assess the quality of the journal based on other factors: the quality of the existing publications, whether editors are well-known members of your field, or whether it is affiliated with an established academic society or publisher (publishers such as Springer-Nature and Elsevier start new journals quite often).

If you are unsure, you should consult with other researchers in your field. If you are a student, this should be one of the roles of your supervisor(s) and advisory committee. They are experts in your field and have more experience with this than you. Prospective supervisors will often also give advice on how to apply if you ask them. If you are a postdoc or above, you can still consult with your colleagues and get their advice. Generally, what matters is the reputation of the journal and publisher. If members of your department think the journal is okay, so too should your thesis examiners and future prospective employers. Impact Factor is just one of the considerations for the quality of a publication and a journal. Of course, they will also read your work and assess it on its own merits as well (as will your reviewers).


How can I (and should I) approach a teacher with a difficult attitude in lessons?

I disagree that you should instantly resort to official channels. As an adult, in any environment, when you disagree with someone, or someone's methods or attitude, it is only fair to first allow the person you take exception with to know what they might be doing which upsets or discourages others.

As your teacher keeps asking questions, she is clearly interested in an interactive class, and probably wonders why feedback dies down. If you tell her courteously during office hours that some are intimidated by the way she formulates her corrections, she quite possibly appreciates that you let her know. Tell her to give feedback with a smile, to thank people for chiming in, and to maybe help the person when answering by letting them discover their error themselves ("You said X; but in this context, what about Y?" or such). If she doesn't change anything after meeting her, or it is clear she resents you for bringing this up, you can always escalate up the ladder.

Concern is mentioned that this could lead to retaliation after you politely make constructive suggestions.
As said above, I doubt that; and if she would retaliate, this is against all sort of regulations. This would endanger her standing at the university. You can never exclude the possibility, but if you don't stand up for yourself, and your classmates, now, when will you learn to? You will face similar disagreements throughout your career, and want to be prepared for it.

This applies particularly when your teacher is still working on tenure. Those many years are fairly brutal even under good circumstances. There is no need to have her summoned to her department head for something she isn't even aware of,


I can't speak for purest math, but many parts of computer science overlap so I think there may be some similarity...

If you know that you want a Ph.D. and are able to get into a good Ph.D. program straight out of undergraduate, more power to you: this is a fine path to go on.  This may not, however, be possible or desirable for a number of reasons.  Some examples of good reasons to get a Master's at one institution before switching to another:

You might not get into grad school on the first try, and a Master's program is a good place to progress academically while you prepare to try again (this was one of my reasons)
The Master's is a natural break-point for transferring to a program that is stronger or a better fit.
Non-academic reasons, such as family issues, following a partner, visa problems, etc.


(undergraduate) my graduate student is extremely cutthroat

In reading over your description, a few things stick out to me as very problematic. My concern is not the past issues - but how you'll be able to handle future issues with people like this, because you will encounter people like this no matter where you go.

The first issue is that you do not seem to have a healthy line of communication with your PI. If the PI said, "hey, that's a good idea, write that up as a grant and talk with X for help", and X shot you down and suggested something that sounded unethical...things should not have stopped there!  Directly after you should bring it to the PI, with "I did what you asked/suggested and something odd happened. Do you have a moment to talk about it?" The goal is not "telling on" someone - it's clarifying with someone who is responsible for the work done in their group and has more experience than you. Perhaps you misunderstood the grant process, or perhaps they were trying to con you into getting them a grant in a way that was fraudulent. In either case, it's the PI's role to help you, by explaining the grant system or by revising their instructions to you (and now being aware that their grad student is acting 'funny').

The second issue is your description of that odd conversation you had about being supposedly "stressed"? That sounds like a textbook description of a method called "gaslighting", and yes - it's supposed to make you feel crazy. The point is you are supposed to go "wait, why would they say I'm stressed, I'm not stressed - am I? I didn't think I was stressed..." and then you get stressed, and  you start to doubt your own experience of reality. And you are supposed to start getting defensive and searching your memory for any time you screwed up to try to justify their behavior, and start talking about that one time even though no one asked about it to defend yourself, etc. See what happened there? You'll start to look and feel crazy, because no one sees the crazy nonsense you were attacked with. It's a tool of emotional abuse and manipulation. They are also seeking to do it by proxy and poisoning of the perceptions of others, which is a sign of further aggressiveness.

Add the ethically questionable 'flexibility' which appeared to have a self-serving bent to the use of multiple tools of aggression and manipulation, and you've got yourself a lot of red flags - enough to make me suspect you are dealing with someone with malignant personality tendencies. These people aren't fun to deal with and prolonged exposure is a danger to one's welfare and goals. Take this possibility seriously, and begin taking steps immediately to protect yourself.

The third concerning issue is authorship. This can feel like a difficult subject to discuss, but again this requires you talk with your PI. The relationship with this person is far, far more important than any jag-off grad student - your dealings with them is fundamentally important, as it is with any direct supervisor relationship. Authorship is not a reward for abstract merit or seniority - it's a question of "who directly and significantly contributed to this research effort", and you should not ever be a position of having worked on something for even weeks yet not getting proper acknowledgement - let alone years! Again, this is largely controlled by your PI and you must talk with them about it, not simply allow yourself to dwell in the feeling that maybe you are going to get screwed.

Overall, full and effective communication with your supervisor/mentor/PI is crucial here. If you have it, people like this get put down early and they are like cockroaches - once the light is on, they scatter, because you aren't in a position they can easily take advantage of. If you can't have that relationship with your PI, honestly the research they do doesn't matter. No matter what it looks like on paper, if the PI won't have a good opinion of you because your relationship is poor (due to a lack of communication and the resulting sabotage that becomes so easy for people to pull off), it's better that you spend your time elsewhere so you can have a good relationship and a good, solid reference.

So your task will be to talk with your PI and figure out what the issue is. If you can have a good relationship, authorship is dealt with fairly, you can bring future concerns of an important nature to him straight away, then so be it. You'll need to be careful of your issues with the grad student - don't think they'll just act like a reasonable person all of a sudden.

Once those issues are ironed out, then you can also decide whether or not you want to try out a different lab using your new found knowledge of how to handle things. When you've grown skilled in communication and relationship management with people like your PI, life goes much easier - and you'll find that people like the grad student you encountered seem to just be able to "smell" that their tricks won't work, and more often than not they just focus their attentions on easier prey. But without that core relationship building and communication, you'll be taken advantage of by every unethical and manipulative nutter you come across, and they'll swarm to you like a bunch of blood-thirsty mosquitoes.


This might differ from country to country, but in the country where I did my PhD, only full professors are allowed to confer PhD degrees. In this case it is common that the co-supervisor (who can be on the level of an assistant or associate professor) is repsonsible for day-to-day supervision of the student and often also for coming up with the research project. In this situation, the advisor would usually be less involved in the research itself, but mainly on an administrative level (keeping track of overall progress, authorising travel expenses and the like). He will maintain overall responsibility.

Another reason to have a co-advisor might be to bring in specific knowledge into a project. This is particularly relevant for interdisciplinary research projects.


Author has published a graph but won't share their results table

There is no results table to go with the graph.

Use Datathief: https://datathief.org/
Despite the name, in most countries using Datathief is explicity allowed by copyright law.  Data cannot be copyrighted.

They also did not specify one of the parameters used to produce the results.

Two possibilities: it does not actually matter or peer review has failed.  When it is your turn to peer review, check for this type of mistake.  Sorry I cannot not help in this situation.
Paper authors can choose not to answer their email if they wish.


Will delaying entering grad school for a year to pursue study abroad put one at a strong disadvantage?

This will not hurt your future plans. International experience and second language skills like this will likely help, even if they are not related to your undergraduate or graduate career.


For the general question: One answer lies in the question itself. Challenge the advice with respect to the advice and your advisor. That is, appreciate and acknowledge the experience of your advisor (not necessarily in words, but at least "internally").

Moreover, give some reason. "Thanks for your advice on the topic, but I would like to do...  because..." I feel like "I'd like to do it anyways" is not the best reason...


In case of admission of international students, do the US,Canadian universities prefer more on TOEFL than IELTS?

In most cases, there is no preference. The vast majority of graduate programs in the US accept both IELTS and TOEFL.

A program that does have a preference will say so in its admission instructions. For example, BU engineering prefers TOEFL:

  In addition to the required credentials for applications, international students must demonstrate an understanding of English, including the ability to read and write with ease. International students are required to submit scores from or the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) that meet our minimum requirements. If the TOEFL is not available, we will accept scores from the International English Language Testing System (IELTS).

and MIT Material Science and Engineering only accepts IELTS:

  If your first language is not English, you will need to submit an IELTS test score. Please note: this department does not accept TOEFL scores under any circumstances.

While Stanford only accepts TOEFL:

  Stanford does not accept IELTS scores.

(While through Spring 2016 NYU GSAS acccepted TOEFL only, as of Fall 2016 they appear to have moved to the "no preference" camp.) and NYU Graduate School of Arts and Sciences only accepts TOEFL:--

  Do you accept the IELTS instead of the TOEFL?

  No.

So you can check if the specific programs you are interested in have a preference.


Is it possible for an academic to successfully claim their Google knowledge panel with an institution-hosted webpage and a Google Scholar account?

After multiple emails with Google support who didn't seem to understand the problem (or didn't want to), I finally obtained a clear answer: currently their verification process doesn't even consider that showing ownership of the Google Scholar account is a valid proof:

Sorry but you didn't answer the question: is Google Scholar a valid profile for the verification process? yes or no?

In regards to your concern, Google Scholar is not a valid profile for the verification process.

I didn't manage to obtain a clear answer about showing ownership of an institution-hosted webpage, but if even a Scholar account is not considered valid proof (even though it's the source of the knowledge panel), I assume that the institution-hosted webpage is certainly not a valid profile either.
Thus the answer is no, it is not possible for an academic to successfully claim their Google knowledge panel only with an institution-hosted webpage and a Google Scholar account.
Update: my claim was eventually accepted after I submitted my LinkedIn profile as single proof. Normally this is not sufficient according to the instructions, so I'm not sure what was the main reason for the acceptance. It's possible that me repeatedly pointing out the problem by email was a factor.


How to publish an original idea which has no citations and has been described as 'possibly notable'?

You might want to try and win over a co-author. An expert in the field can provide the needed background, the literature review you might be missing and might also be able to tell you if your paper is really worth publishing.
Maybe what you wrote is clear for every expert on the field, due to some results by someone that you simply don't know of?

Small advice here: People who are working on a PhD or just got one recently have often more time and are more willing to read something that might potentially lead to a publication than (old) professors.

Next, you might try to contact the journal you send your article to. Maybe they are able to explain the rejection?

Last but not least: If your idea is short enough to put it on Wikipedia, you might try to post it (or at least part of it) on Mathoverflow. If you follow the rules there, you might find someone who is able to tell you if this is really something "new" or if it is obvious/wrong/...


Interactive poll during the presentation - worth the hassle?

When you say "lecture", I'm not sure whether you're talking about a one-shot talk (e.g., a conference presentation, an invited seminar), or about an ongoing series in a class.

While I personally have not taught this way, I know that there has been a lot of experimentation with having students answer questions during lectures with software in the way that you describe.  There, the idea is to have the students actually working problem as part of the lecture---essentially, a hybrid between normal and flipped classroom.  In at least some cases, this seems to work very well.

For a one-shot talk, on the other hand, I have a hard time coming up with non-contrived scenarios where I think this would be worth it.  Why would anybody be willing to install some random app for just one talk, and won't you lose time to getting them set up with it? What could you gain from an online poll that you couldn't get through a quick show of hands?  Once people have switched their attention from you to their screens, aren't you just encouraging them to check out and read their email / browse the web?  To me at least, the negatives seem to far outweigh the benefits.


Accept a PhD offer from a local school while applying to others?

There is a general rule that if you apply to multiple academic programs in the same year, then once you accept an offer of admission to one of them, you must immediately contact all the others to withdraw your application, so that they can offer admission to someone else.

So if you accept the offer to join your PhD program at the local school, that is a final decision for at least a year, and you have to withdraw your applications from the prestigious places.  You cannot wait and see if a more prestigious school accepts you.  That would be considered unethical.

If after a year, you decide that you want to think about transferring, you can apply to a more prestigious program then.  However, at that time, your new application will need to include your achievements during that extra year, and the program will evaluate your expectations based on what they would expect a first-year PhD student to achieve.  So depending on how that year goes, your application could become either stronger or weaker.


Should I acknowledge the source of a problem in a math assignment?

I often assign "challenge" problems for my Calculus class that are drawn from Apostol (similar in difficulty, etc., to Spivak).  For the reasons you describe above, I prefer not to reveal the source of the problem.  My solution has been to label the problem as a challenge problem, and say that it comes from a classic (read: hard) textbook on Calculus when I assign the problem. However, I don't specify which textbook that is on the assignment.  After the problem set is due, I give the students the full reference.  Of course, my hope is that some of them found the problem interesting and will go look up more problems to challenge themselves.

I think this compromise works since you are not taking credit for creation of the problem, and do give acknowledgement.  Of course, with all of these students can find the answers through diligent searching, but I think raising the barrier even a little is a good idea.


What are the best tips for developing a framework to write a (systematic) review paper?

I too find it frustrating that so many literature reviews are so unsystematic.

There are efforts underway to improve the quality of reviews, and to develop these skills in early-career researchers. We like our students, where possible, to write a review article as a early part of their PhD. The medical field has for many years been honing the quality of reviews, and there's much that other fields can learn from it.

We have had a Q&A about systematic reviews earlier, and there I listed three relevant books. The most significant of these, as far as your question is concerned, is Doing a Systematic Review: A Student's Guide - Angela Boland et al - it's primarily aimed at Masters students, and also makes for an easy-to-read introduction to the field for anyone.


I think you should let the students know that they need additional practice and should be prepared to read more papers, seek help from the university Writing Center, and get a native English-speaking buddy to discuss the field with in-depth for practice.  I know the last thing that any graduate student wants to do is more work, but it might help if you emphasize to them that you care about their long-term success in the field, and that reading and writing at a professional level in the field are crucial to that.

The foreign students and researchers I have worked with are primarily Chinese, so that colors my experience, I'm sure, but many of them were not educated with an eye to being good readers and writers.  They may have been trained to read for memorization, not comprehension, because they expect to be told what to do by senior researchers rather than critically respond to ideas and generate their own.  So it may not just be a language barrier you're dealing with here, but also a cultural barrier where research is conducted differently.  Your students may not understand that they will be expected to interpret, rather than passively absorb, the literature, and that they will have to kick their reading skills up a notch if for no other reason than that.

See if you can enlist some of the native English-speaking grad students to reach out and lend a hand to their ESL colleagues.  Again, I do understand that no grad student wants to do extra work (boy, DO I understand), but you can emphasize that it will benefit them, as well.  They will improve their own understanding of the readings tremendously by having to explain them in terms their classmate can understand, and they will also become better collaborators.  Make sure they know they can mention doing something like this in the "service" section of their CVs.


Scholarships in general and Ontario Trillium Scholarship in particular

The Trillium scholarship is very good.  The only scholarship I know of that's worth more is the Vanier ($50,000 for two or three years).  The Vanier is open to both Canadian and international PhD students as long as they're studying at a Canadian institution, so it's extremely competitive.  The Trillium is only open to international PhD students studying in Ontario, so the applicant pool is a bit smaller; however, only 75 are awarded each year, so it's also very competitive.

Two other typical scholarships are the NSERC PGS/CGS, which pays between $17,300 and $35,000 a year, and the Ontario Graduate Scholarship, which pays $15,000.  In my department, about a quarter of the people who apply for these scholarships will win.

As for the the other part of your question, when applying for a post doc position, scholarships certainly won't hurt you.  Your publications are more important, of course, but since the Trillium application includes a "plan of studies", winning it suggests that you will be able to win grants in the future.  A scholarship won't make up for a lack of publications, but it can give you an edge over a similar applicant who didn't win one.


Affiliation in conflict-of-interest situations

I disagree pretty strenuously with what you have done.

First of all, being an alumnus is not an "affiliation".  If you weren't a student or employee of the university at the time you did the work, it's not your affiliation and should not be listed as such.  You're welcome to list your alumni email address if you like, but that's your contact information, not your affiliation.

I would say your affiliation is your employer, the publisher.  Or, if you feel strongly that the work was done "on your own time", then you may omit any affiliation.

However, independently of any of this, you had a duty to disclose your employment by the publisher, as a potential conflict of interest.  Conflicts of interest may exist regardless of your affiliation and must be disclosed.  You can certainly add additional information that you think may help the reader evaluate the issue (e.g. "I was not involved in the review").

I have to say I'm pretty concerned with the notion that you would "get out of this" by concealing the potential conflict.  That's exactly the wrong instinct, and contrary to every principle of academic ethics.  You address conflicts of interest by disclosing them.  The fact that "nobody has complained" isn't dispositive; it's not their job to find and disclose your conflicts for you.  What you've done can be grounds for retraction all by itself (see for instance https://retractionwatch.com/category/by-reason-for-retraction/failure-to-disclose-coi/), though if the omission seems to be accidental, a published correction can suffice.

If the letter hadn't yet been published, I would advise you to contact the editor and ask for a conflict-of-interest disclosure to be added ("the author is an employee of XXX but did not participate in the review of the cited paper").  Or if that is not possible, to withdraw the letter.

In this case, you say the letter was published long ago, so it's less clear what to do.  Probably the safest course of action would be to write to the editors, apologize, and ask that a correction be published.  I don't think it's necessary to correct the affiliation per se, but rather to correct the fact that your potential conflict was not disclosed.  It's possible they will decide that retraction is more appropriate, but that's their call.


Would scoring well on a non-required GRE Mathematics Subject Test make me more competitive?

No one here can speak for some admissions committee. They might look at it, might not. If they have strict rules they might even need to ignore it. It won't do you any harm, though and there is an outside chance it will make some small difference. But focus more on the things that they do ask for.

And, for what it's worth, the competition at top schools is fierce. Get good letters of recommendation.


I've been working for one year. Can I apply for grad school in CS in Canada?

Your best bet would be to get in contact with a specific professor who is an active researcher in an area of CS in which you would like to complete a Masters degree. If you find a supervisor who is keen to advise you (which you will need, anyway), he/she can help you negotiate the university admission process.

However, be forewarned. Many professors receive a lot of unsolicited emails from candidate students and are unlikely to respond. You need to make it very clear from first contact why it would be in his/her interest to supervise you, in particular.


Let me add a few points to aeismail's answer.

Whether your work experience counts as positive or negative also depends on where you apply.  You express interest in a PhD, which suggests that you are aiming for a research masters degree (with a thesis) and not a professional masters degree (just more classes).  These two degrees are very different.  For admission to a research MS program, your non-research work experience is unlikely to count in your favor.  Your work experience is much more likely to help if you apply to a professional MS program.  On the other hand, professional MS degrees are usually considered terminal, not as preparation for PhD.

It is possible to move from industry to a research degree program with a low GPA and industry experience—I did it myself—but you will need strong evidence in your application that counteracts your low grades.  Specifically:

You shold take the GRE — both the general and the CS subject test — and do really, really well, at least in the 80th percentile.  This is direct evidence that you're smart and that you know the field, counteracting the negative evidence in your transcript.  If you take the GRE and don't do well, step back, study hard for a few months, and take it again.  (Yes, this can get expensive.)
Your recommendation letters must imply strong potential for research aptitude, not just your coding ability or your ability to work in a team.  You need to tell your letter-writers to address this issue directly; otherwise, they almost certainly won't.
Finally, you should consider applying to take courses as a non-degree student.


Can I update my MSc thesis after submission

There is nothing immoral about correcting mistakes in your earlier work. Passing off your amended version as that which you submitted to your institution would be rather questionable, though.

I do not think that any library would replace your original submission with an amended version unless that amended version was created through an official process at your institution. I don't think that such an amendment process is available in most cases for an MSc thesis.

So your problem of trying to drive readers towards your updated, amended and corrected work, remains.

Perhaps one solution would be to correct your original work and have a version of this available online, with some appropriate title which indicates it is an updated version of your earlier work, as you suggest. I suggest that you make it very clear where your corrections were made in your updated version -- going so far as to quote the original work and indicate what you changed and why.

You can then point your colleagues towards this updated work.

You original work will remain on record, and any failings in it will be reflected in the grade you receive for it.


Do I need to contact professors before sending my postdoc applications?

It's unclear if you mean cold-emailing professors for positions, or if you're planning to utilize the network that you've built from publishing and attending conferences.

I would highly recommend emailing other academics you've meet a conference that are already familiar with your work and letting them recommend postdocs to you.

Cold-emailing is unlikely to help much as professors are inundated with emails from prospective students who want a leg-up on acceptance, and your email is likely to get lost in the clutter.

EDIT:

The last sentence was unclear.  By cold-emailing, I meant looking up the email of the hiring manager/professor for the postdoc and sending them a follow-up email.

Most professors receive HUNDREDS of legitimate emails every day from the students they teach and advise, journal/conference submission request, other professors, or their side consulting business.  A "cold-email" is likely to get relegated to the spam box.


Internship report - any way to request discretion from reviewers for a to-be-published paper?

I think it would be fair to say something like

  This report concerns work in progress and should not be freely distributed pending publication of the results

I also think it would be wise to talk to somebody in a position with insights into how the reports are handled. You may not be the first to have this issue. I am sure such reports are not circulated anyway unless specifically stated they will be from the beginning. But it is better to be safe than sorry so do not hesitate to ask around to get the necessary information you need.


One issue not covered by the many good answers is proportionality.

There's nothing wrong with having firm deadlines and sticking to them, or allowing a grace period with corresponding deductions, and so on. But it's your job as lecturer to make sure the 'punishment fits the crime'. If you have a zero-tolerance late policy and a short time window for a hard assignment that counts for a lot of points, then the policy is disproportionately harsh even if it's fair and clearly stated. I bring this up because you mentioned assignments/projects that carry upto 25% of the grade.

This is partly why I use a sliding scale late policy, where students can turn in things late, but lose a percentage of their score for each day they're late, upto a week for a 2-week assignment at which point they earn nothing. If you wish to have firm deadlines for a project that accounts for a large portion of the grade, then you might consider creating intermediate deadlines to break up the penalty. This way, students can learn the consequences of missing deadlines without facing huge penalties. It is also more robust to unforeseen events that no one can control.


What should I do when a paper is published similar to my PhD thesis without citation?

Well, if you did not publish, and your thesis is not available, you really can't complain that somebody else's similar independently performed work is not novel - they had no reasonable way of knowing about your work.

Really, the only way to approach it is the first way. And learn that undocumented work buried in a drawer somewhere does not exist as far as the rest of humanity is concerned. Going forward, document and publish (as appropriate) your work (document for internal business use, publish for the outside world).


What are the risks of doing a PhD in a new department?

The risks are as you describe, although I suspect that the third item is not as serious (unless your advisor has a formal administrative role).

The pros are that you will have a lot more input into how the curriculum and the program is shaped. As a new department, people will try things, and not everything will work. There will be many opportunities to suggest improvements and how to do things differently.

If the parent university is well known, it's in their interest to make sure the new program succeeds, so you should also get some benefit from the level of attention paid by them. By bringing a number of faculty over, they've expressed "buy-in" to the new institute.


How to self-advocate after rotation rejection?

If you are in good terms with your PI and you have weekly meetings with her, it is probably best if you bring up the topic in your next meeting. If "lab politics" are really involved (which need not be the case), it is unlikely that she will provide more information through email.

If she had told you that she would have funding and space for you all, it is perfectly reasonable for you to ask what changed, so she should not be offended by the question.

Regarding how to phrase the question, I would be moderately direct but, as most "conflict management" courses suggest, prefer the use of "I-messages" instead of "you-messages". Something along the lines of:

  I would have liked to be able to stay here, is it really not possible anymore? And if it is not, do you have any suggestions as to how I can do better elsewhere in the future?