text:
How did/does the Greek-letter grading system (formerly?) used at Oxford and Cambridge work?
Does anyone have any information about the alpha-beta-gamma marking system?
What are/were the criteria for the different grades and how were these then collated into degree-class marks?
Is this system still in use?
Addition:
Thank you for all these answers.
I unfortunately neglected to specify that I meant something other than the use of alpha and beta quality marks in maths at Cambridge.
Based on one paper I've read (Stray, "The Shift from Oral to Written Examination: Cambridge and Oxford 1700–1900"), fleeting (parodic???) mentions of marks like "beta plus plus query plus" and "alpha gamma" (I seem to remember Parfit describes Kant's ethics like this somewhere…), and personal reminiscence (although I think I might remember one MML supervisor at Cambridge in the 90s marking like this, I definitely do remember conversations with people from Oxford where they spoke of needing a certain number of alphas to get a first—akin to what is described here https://users.ox.ac.uk/~manc0049/guide/guide_6.html), I think it was more of an Oxford thing.

Some of the current/official documentation from Cambridge Mathematics https://www.maths.cam.ac.uk/undergrad/files/Advice%20on%20Preparing%20for%20Exams%202022.pdf

https://www.maths.cam.ac.uk/undergrad/files/schedules.pdf

This is anecdotal, about Oxford in the period 1970-2000.
Being a mathematician I did not use this code: we expressed our examination marks in the form N alpha^m beta^n, meaning an overall points total of N, with m questions almost complete, and n questions with substantial answers. However, I lived among those who did use the code, and think I understood it in broad outline.
Basically the code was developed in the first half of the 20th century. At that time students in Oxford were classified in their final examinations as gaining Honours in the First, Second, or Third Classes. (There were also special cases: a Fourth Class; one might not get Honours but be awarded a Pass and so get one's degree; or one might Fail.) Basically alpha means First Class, beta Second Class, gamma Third class). But although the final consolidated mark was I, II, or III academics cannot resist making more and more refined distictions and so a more elaborate system developed.
alpha
alpha -
alpha --
alpha ---
alpha beta
beta alpha
beta +++
beta ++
beta +
beta
beta -
beta --
beta ---
beta gamma
gamma beta
gamma +++
gamma ++
gamma +
gamma
gamma -
gamma --
gamma ---
A further elaboration was that as a further refinement the final + or - might be preceded by a ? sign: so for example beta +?+ is  better than beta + but not as good as beta ++.
I think that sometimes alpha + etc were used, but purists insisted that it was impossible to be more excellent than alpha.
I do not think that delta was used seriously: as I recall it "s." [ i.e. satis] denoted "Pass" and "n.s." denoted failure.
I think that a mark alpha gamma really signified that the examiner could not decide whether this was brilliance or nonsense: such a mark would have to be resolved to something on the scale before being used.
You ask for the criteria for achieving these marks. That was not how academics at that time operated. Each student was somewhere in one of the Classes: the examiner just had to discern where, and allot the correct symbol. But do not think that this was a random process. When in the late 20C  serious studies were made to discover how consistent the assessment was in given subjects, it became clear that there was a very high degree of agreement between different markers.
In Finals a student would do usually eight 3-hour written papers, answering in each perhaps four questions from a menu of perhaps a couple of dozen. Each paper would be read and independently given a mark by two examiners; if there was a discrepancy the two examiners would discuss and produce a reconciled mark.
The whole panel of Examiners (six or eight) of a subject would then meet and produce the Class List. By the eighties there were usually overt conventions about how they would use the marks of the eight papers to do this. But there were a variety of conventions. However they usually looked at the overall (dare I say average?) picture and then required for a First a minimum number of leading alphas and a maximum number of low scoring papers; and similarly for the other classes.
A disconnect with reality occurred when the University divided the Second Class into II-i and II-ii, and  the decline in the number of III awarded, and subsequently the decline in the number of II-ii. Although the system may still be used informally all official processing of examination marks in now (I believe) done in terms of University Standardised Marks. This is a 100 point scale where, to comply with national protocols, 70 signifies a I, 60 a II-i, 50 a II-ii, 40 a III, 30 a Pass.

I am only aware of this being used for maths at Cambridge (and I think is still in use, although the specifics have probably changed over the years).
It is to encourage answering a small number of complete questions rather than trying to pick up a few marks on many questions. This is necessary because of the peculiarity of the Cambridge exam system. Unlike other universities, where you choose what modules you study and then only sit exams in those modules, at Cambridge all students sit the same exams, which have questions available on all modules, and you just answer the questions relevant to modules you have studied. So there are many more questions available than any student would be able to solve in the time available. Normally much more work and understanding is required to get the last half the marks on any question than the first half, and so without this system the best strategy might be to get a basic understanding of many courses, enough to do parts of questions but not necessarily enough to actually answer a full question.
The system was something like, for a question marked out of 20, 15+ marks would get an alpha, and 7+ would get a beta. These would be bonuses, in addition to your marks on the question, rather than replacing them. So your final score would be X number of marks, Y alphas and Z betas. For some shorter questions you would only be able to get a beta. This information was, of course, widely available to students.
For the division between first class and upper second, the most important thing is the number of alphas. For lower divisions, or for borderline cases, number of betas comes into play, and even further down is total number of marks. The boundaries have sometimes been based on specific linear combinations of X, Y and Z.
The taught masters (the fourth year, hence known as "Part III") has a more normal modular system. However, modules still get graded as alpha, beta or gamma (gamma being positive marks but less than beta). In fact they could also be modified here (but not in the undergraduate case) - you can get alpha-minus or beta-plus. Gamma is not used in the undergraduate course.

I did maths at Cambridge in the mid 90s. Back then at least

Alphas and betas (I don't remember gammas) were awarded for how thoroughly & correctly you answered individual questions. In addition to the normal mark-scheme points: if you completely answered the question you got an alpha, and a near-miss was a beta.
To get a particular class you needed a number of alphas in addition to enough points. If you had a mismatch then your paper went to moderation.

The idea being (I assume) to require deep knowledge in a few areas and not just breadth. I got the impression this was maths only though, and other subjects didn't use it.

I thought alpha meant you had given a proper sound proof of the main proposition in question, and anything else meant you had not. Giving sound proofs was the important thing, and marks out of 10 would not show this so clearly.

@gib Yes, thanks, that's a better definition.


text:
Publishing without supervisor (sidelining Ph.D. supervisor)
Hope you are doing well. I am a third year PhD student. I have very good relationship with my phd supervisor. However; I am secretly dissapointed at him. I am listing the reasons one by one:
My professor has put me in a topic that I am not interested in. It’s also not a hot topic currently in the field. He wants me to do that because he got a fund on this topic and someone needs to do it. I agree with him on this.
However; since I am doing research on topic that doesnt have easy rate of returns; he should direct lab resources at me. However; instead he directs lab resources to other phd students.
For all these issues. I can see that working with him is keeping me down. I will not be able to reach my full potential during my phd. Therefore; I have planned to sideline him. Yes I will do my thesis work with him (on things he suggests). However; I will only do research work on my own and publish on my own. I will also create networks on my own. In these circumstances what can I do to advance my career? What circumstance would I face if I sidelined my advisor?

If you don't like your supervisor, why don't you switch to another one ?

Thats too late for that. He causes a lot of problem when someone tries to switch. Too much of a hastle for an int student.

I am not sure I can follow all your points. You're saying that your supervisor is easily fooled by students? How?

He is working on a field that is beyond his expertise. So you can easily fool him by spewing jargons. Suppose I havent worked the entire week. Its easy to fool him since he doesnt have good idea of that work.

If PhD students don't work, it hurts them much more than their advisor. The advisor could be the person to tell them off, but telling them off is supposed to help them improve, not a punishment. This, this "fooling" doesn't buy PhD students anything.

Exactly. It destroys them. However; you know; students these days are immature.

Not all of your points (describing supervisor's behaviour) are unreasonable. For example many PhD students can learn something worthwhile from writing reviews and  reports or rather the work that goes into it. "My professor gambles with my manuscripts." I have no idea what that means. Your point 3 puzzles me. Having a paper with your name on it will normally be good for your CV; delaying your work on it for 8 months will hurt you if anything. So without knowing further detail it looks like you just harmed your own position there. If you agreed on point 1 you can't really complain about it.

As someone that just finished their dissertation, I can certainly sympathize and I apologize for your situation. It's never fun when you're stuck in am awkward/tough situation with a coworker, boss, colleague, etc.
Overall, I agree with all the previous comments and while every situation is unique, I'll give my advice. And I'll say up front, my advisor and I got along fantastically; however, there were many of my colleagues that had issues with their advisors, so I can speak to their situations.
While we can always go to the internet to complain about the interactions we are having with people, it is important to remember that only 2 people's opinions really matter, you and your supervisor. Clearly the relationship has soured. And it sounds like you do not enjoy the work you have been given, and are potentially jealous of the work your colleagues have been given and the recognition or importance of their work, relative to yours. And it sounds like you'd like to switch to something more interesting, and with greater potential. However, it's important to remember that we shouldn't compare our work to others, and we rarely know the full story. And as I write this, I recognize the irony of that statement.
My advice would be to do something fun, clear your head. We rarely make rational decisions when our emotions get involved. And the voice you write in sounds like it is rooted in a soured relationship bent on trying to break the bridge entirely rather than repair it.
Once you're in the right head space, I would just ask to speak to your advisor. Often times we as people have difficulty seeing when people are struggling, if they don't directly voice their concerns, we would never know. Your advisor might not realize how you truly feel. Approach the situation with grace and acknowledge that the work needs to be done, but you aren't enjoying it. Then ask your supervisor if there are ways that you both can meet in the middle to make the project more enjoyable. Or propose if switching the work would be allowable.
Another thing to note, is its common for people to do an "assigned" project for the majority of their dissertation. I myself had two projects in the beginning that quickly became tiring and were not always what I wanted to do. But in hindsight, it helped build me as a researcher.
But there is a silver lining. It is often tradition at most institutions to allow you to, and more importantly, require you, to pitch your final project. Perhaps you could ask your supervisor if they could meet you in the middle. If you continue to work on the project they want, would they be open to letting you do something more directly aligned with your passions for the final project? Or if they want you to work on the current project, is there a way to blend the two ideas together? Or could your supervisor better describe why the work you are doing matters (beyond just, I have funding for it and it needs to be done). Sometimes just reminding people why their work matters is enough to instill a new found passion for it.
While I know these answers are likely not going to solve your problems, I hope that you take the advice to take a step back and approach the situation again and try to repair the bridge, before you destroy it entirely.
The world could use more kindness. I think if you approach it in a better head space and try to meet them halfway, you'd be surprised at what can happen.
Best of luck.

All the details of your relationship with your supervisor are hard do clarify without a deeper understanding of both sides, you may be right, but also very wrong (e.g. asking your PhD student help with a few paper reviews is very normal), so I will ignore this and stick to the question:
Can you publish without your supervisor?
Definitely.
Should your supervisor be aware of it?
Also definitely.
In many cases your supervisor will be fine even if the topic is within your thesis, in others they may not (for various possible reasons).
If the topic is outside your thesis, as long as you still get enough work done for the thesis, they will not have a problem with that, but you need to ask them something like "hey I would like to pursue something about this general topic on my own, and I think it will not impact the thesis. Is there any problem with that?"
Finally, consider one thing: if you indeed are able to do pursue research on your own, where did you acquire the skill to do that? I'd guess your disappointing supervisor has something to do with it.

Ofcourse I learnt a lot from him. However; there has to be justice. You cant give hard projects to one of your graduate students; make him do all the hard stuff; experiment around with his work and give easy stuff with high rate of return to your other grad students.

I tried to focus more on your direct question, but if your main doubt is that you got "the bad topic" you're also definitely welcome to talk to your supervisor about it, try to not be accusatory but rather show your concern for your future, and I'm sure you'll get something out of the conversation (if only a better understanding of them)

I don't know your field of research. Are you sure you can carry out research projects independently from your supervisor? For some fields like Math it might be possible, I guess.  In my field (biological sciences) it would be unthinkable. Do you have your own funding? If you are going to use lab's resources to pursue your own goals you should discuss it with your supervisor. Generally, I welcome grad students proposing research ideas, but it doesn't mean that all ideas are good or feasible. A research project should always be discussed internally and approved by the supervisor. Some talented grad student are able to carry out their projects with very little input from their supervisor. Nonetheless, they won't be allowed to publish a single author paper. Just think about the publication fee... who is going to pay for that? Based on your story, I feel like you are trying to take some revenge on your supervisor. It's not going to end well. So my suggestion for you is that you meet with your supervisor, you politely explain that you don't like your current project, you propose your idea and start working on it upon his/her approval. This is the way to go in academia. Good luck.

Thank you for your valuable advice. You are right it might backfire. Looks like I am stuck. The only problem here is he makes me do the hard work and gives easier task (with higher rate of return) to his other students. Its creating an uneven balance. Its kind of exploitation.

A short answer: if you publish a paper without your supervisor, it will be called scientific misconduct, and your career in science will be finished. All your future jobs depend on a letter of recommendation from your PhD supervisor. However,  the opposite works fine.  Your supervisor can kick you out of the paper or give the first authorship to another student. Whatever you produce as a PhD student belongs to your research supervisor.

Absolutely not. There is a big difference between publishing without your supervisor and publishing behind their back, and even in the latter case, it would make things harder but it is not the end of a career

None of the supervisors allow their PhD students to publish a paper without their name.

@AndreyZavialov this is simply factually incorrect.

You guys are pushing people to make the wrong decision.

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text:
When do you put a term or phrase in quotation marks? How does one get better at knowing when to do this?
We know that when we use a particularly original term when paraphrasing or summarising a scholarly work, we should put it in quotation marks. However, my fear has been that I inadvertently, without reading a particular scholar's work, use a term or phrase that might be considered by some as being too original or belonging to a particular scholar.
The Turabian talks about this as follows:

7.9.1 Signal Every Quotation, Even When You Cite Its Source

Even if you cite your source, readers must know which words are yours and which you quote.
You risk a charge of plagiarism if you fail to use quotation marks or a block quotation to
signal that you have copied as little as a single line of words.
It gets complicated, however, when you copy just a few words. Read this:

"Because technology begets more technology, the importance of an invention's diffusion potentially exceeds the
importance of the original invention. Technology's history exemplifies what is termed an autocatalytic process:
that is, one that speeds up at a rate that increases with time, because the process catalyzes itself" (Diamond 1998,
301).

If you were writing about Jared Diamond's ideas, you would probably have to use some of his
words, such as the importance of an invention. But you wouldn't put that phrase in quotation
marks, because it shows no originality of thought or expression. Two of his phrases, however,
are so striking that they do require quotation marks: technology begets more technology and
autocatalytic process. For example,
The power of technology goes beyond individual inventions because technology “begets more technology.” It is,
as Diamond puts it, an “autocatalytic process” (301).
Once you cite those words, you can use them again without quotation marks or citation:

"As one invention begets another one and that one still another, the process becomes a self-sustaining catalysis
that spreads exponentially across all national boundaries."

This is a gray area: words that seem striking to some readers are commonplace to others. If
you use quotation marks for too many common phrases, readers might think you're naïve or
insecure, but if you fail to use them when readers think you should, they may suspect you're
trying to take credit for language and ideas not your own. Since it's better to seem naïve than
dishonest, especially early in your research career, use quotation marks freely. (You must,
however, follow the standard practices of your field. For example, lawyers often use the exact
language of a statute or judicial opinion with no quotation marks.)

To give you an example, I am currently putting together a new course syllabus and while the proposed title is not really out of the ordinary, if I google parts of it it comes up a few times only, and only once in the title of a paper. Because I do not know whether I need to use quotation marks and credit the term, I have now decided to use a different title for the course.
Of course, I could always use this method of checking with Google, but even then I am not sure if the simple fact that a phrase or term only comes up a few times/once in a title of an article is enough to justify putting it in quotation marks. Also, that would imply that I would need to constantly be checking Google when I write.
So I am wondering whether there is an easier way to decide when I have to put something in quotation marks and credit it with a citation and when not. I assume people will say that one just has to go with one's experience, but surely there is a big grey area and I am afraid of being accused of borrowing a term without acknowledgment. I get anxious about these things rather easily, but I am still wondering.
/Edit： I should clarify that my main fear is not really what is described in the Turanian but rather that I come up with a term or phrase by myself without realizing that someone somewhere has used this before and it is not considered a common phrase but an original term that should be put in quotation marks. Maybe I am a bit paranoid but this is my concern.
Anyways, any comment or suggestion would be appreciated.

Can you be more specific of what you refer to? In many fields, you put quotation marks to do literally what they are for, i.e. quote someone (no paraphrasing, quoting, literally), and thus you cite it as e.g. "Anyways, any comment or suggestion would be appreciated."[1] Klement Wilfredo, Academia SE. Instead, when you paraphrase, you don't quote, but you cite.

I have added a bit in the Turabian that talks about it. I am specifically not talking about entire sentences that are quoted. Rather, what I am talking about are two or three word expressions. How can I avoid inadvertently writing up a short term/phrase that is considered by some at least as so original that it belongs to a specific author and should be put in quotation marks.

I don't work in a field where this is an issue, but if I would, I would probably just do what Turabian says and quote everything that is supposed to be a quote. Better to be strictly explicit than potentially misleading a less proficient reader, IMHO.

Have put in an edit that hopefully clarifies my concern. Sorry for not being more clear in the first place.

In short, just stop worrying.

my main fear is [...] that I come up with a term or phrase by myself without
realizing that someone somewhere has used this before

By the very definition, if you came up with it yourself, it is not plagiarism. Nor is it misconduct of any kind. So, your conscience should be clear.
This leaves a question: can you be (unjustly) accused of plagiarism, or that someone will notice and you will suffer reputation damage as a result? This is very unlikely. First, it will only be noticed, let alone acted upon, if the phrase is so unusual that you would be unlikely to coin it independently - but you just did, in the actual event, coin it independently. Second, actionable cases of plagiarism involve much more that just passingly  re-using a term or a phrase in a text otherwise independently written. Third, this may be field-dependent, but in general, few academics would consider "coining a term" an intellectual contribution that is worth making a fuss about.
If you are trying to make up a particularly aphoristic headline, it makes sense to do due diligence and see if it was used before. But of course, no definition of "due diligence" would require anyone to google every phrase they ever write. If you write something on your own, it will be clear to anyone that you have written it on your own.

Thanks. This is super useful. Just one clarification: when you say "aphoristic", let's say for the example for the course title I mentioned, that would need to be something quite out of the ordinary to even possibly considered problematic, correct? I am thinking of just putting two common terms (e.g. "NGOs and Global Society") together, so that would be fine regardless of what I can or cannot find it I google it?

And that putting of two common terms together would be fine even if there is already a book or article with that name?

@KlementWilfredo I don't see an issue with the name itself - it's the most natural title for a text that considers these two things together. If the very idea to consider them together is non-trivial, and the name signals that this idea is the main innovation of the text, then existence of a book or an article with the same name means that what you are writing may not be so novel. But it's a different problem than just re-using the name.

Okay I see, yes that would indeed be a different problem and wouldn't have anything to do with plagiarism I would think. But basically if I just want to call a course "NGOs and Global Society", I can just do that without having to scour the internet whether anyone has used this before as noone would doubt that I came up with it myself given that it seems to be a very obvious title for a course that covers these two aspects together, correct?

A straightforward title is perfectly fine. The world is full of courses named "Differential Equations 1". A course title isn't of itself an academic publication. Course (and even paper) titles often slyly incorporate some well-known phrase of the discipline, just to raise the reader's interest. As a hypothetical example, "COMP203 Goto considered harmless, state machines and autonoma" as a play on the famous title "Goto statement considered harmful" of Dijkstra's letter in Communications of the ACM. No citation is required, a reader is expected to know the source by the end of the course.

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text:
How do I form a great relationship with my advisor?
I'm currently doing research work at a university for two years before I begin my doctoral studies. I just arrived here around 3 months ago. From what I've gathered, my advisor is genuinely a very kind person who makes the research group a great place to work, and I think that I'd really like to stay where I'm currently working at for my doctoral studies.
I just wanted to ask; how do I form a great, organic relationship with my advisor (ideally I want to get to the point with them where we interact on a friendly, casual level) and impress them to the point that they'd want to take me on as their student full-time? How do I eventually bring it up to my advisor that I'd like to stay working for them/at this institution after my two years here? Ideally, I'd like actionable things that I can do!
For context, I'm doing research in theoretical physics.

Be mindful of the possibility that your adviser may not be interested in interacting with you "on a friendly, casual level".

I edited the question a bit - normally the rule is to only ask one question at a time, otherwise the question might get closed for being to broad.

@DanRomik. Maybe I wasn't clear here. I'm already at that "friendly, casual" level. Maybe I'm referring to an even more casual level.

@Roland Yes! Per my above reply, I've been at that "friendly, casual" level in my opinion. Maybe I don't have a proper gauge of how other students interact with their advisors.


text:
Master's degree in game design
Would it be recommended to join a game design master's course after an undergraduate degree in Computer Science? What would give one a better base for pursuing a Master's Degree in game/graphic design?

Game design is NOT computer science.

I know that, however I cannot change that now. I'm just asking what my options are if I really want to pursue game design.

@ResearchEnthusiast, citation needed.

@ResearchEnthusiast: I know several CS theorists and even Logicians who would say otherwise, as they spend their time doing game design. Question is, what exactly about the game is being designed.

It's been three years and I now realize this was a really silly question. The idea was that I was trying to explore the field and to answer the question, there is no "recommendation" - it's just a personal preference. If anyone following this wants to learn more about game design, I'd suggest you start 3D Modeling, animation, and try creating a basic game (Unity3D offers some interesting mini-game tutorials that I did try). It's unrelated, but I did decide to move on, pursuing "CS and not Game Design" as per ResearchEnthusiast above. I appreciate the help in any case. Cheers!

Would it be recommended to join a game design master's course after an
  undergraduate degree in Computer Science?

If that is what you are interested in, go for it

What would give one a better base for pursuing a Master's Degree in
  game/graphic design?

Self-learning. Look at code on GitHub, and try to learn from it, improve their designs. Something to start with, https://github.com/showcases/web-games

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text:
What's the difference between a preprint and a working paper?
I'd always thought they were completely the same, but I saw a twitter thread in which this was questioned.
I mean here "working paper" only in its scholarly sense - I'm aware that the term has other uses, for instance at the UN where it can mean something akin to the draft of a resolution.
If the answer is that there is a meaningful difference in some disciplines but not in others, which disciplines treat the term differently?

Which field are you asking about?

I do not recall ever hearing a colleague use the term "working paper."

As per the other (current) answer, in fields I know (pure and applied math, computing, GIS, ...) a working paper is less mature than a preprint. However, there is not necessarily a progression from one to the other.
The expectation is that a preprint is basically ready for submission to peer-reviewed journal or other venue, and may even already be submitted by the time anyone else reads it. In some cases, that may not be strictly true: I've seen working papers where there was a specific clear gap or two that still needed to be filled before submission, and I've myself had to rework preprints significantly based on friendly feedback received and/or different format/length expectations where ultimately submitted.
In fields I know, "working paper" carries connotations of work-in-progress. It may still be under active development, or paused to be revisited much later, or maybe never. But someone feels it is worth sharing and having in citable form regardless of any half-bakedness. Nothing wrong with that, and during my Ph.D. I was strongly influenced by a working paper that outlined an approach the author never got around to completing.

Working paper:

A preliminary scientific or technical paper. Often, authors will release working papers to share ideas about a topic or to elicit feedback before submitting to a peer reviewed conference or academic journal. Working papers are often the basis for related works, and may in themselves be cited by peer-review papers. They may be considered as grey literature.

From the same source:

Sometimes the term working paper is used synonymously as technical report. Working papers are typically hosted on websites, belonging either to the author or the author's affiliated institution.

My take: A preprint (or technical report) is more mature than a working paper.


text:
Searching public domain works from a particular scholar
This is a general question, but I have a specific example in mind.
I'm interested to search Francis Galton's works to see if he ever mentioned Condorcet. Galton died in 1911 so all his works would now be in public domain.
So far the best solution I could find was a google search targeted towards a website that contains a lot of his works.
https://www.google.com/search?q=condorcet+site:http://galton.org
Is there a better way?

Google books might be worth a try, although they might be missing some of his works or there might be OCR errors, but there is at least one hit

Just because the writings are not under copyright (in the public domain) anymore does not imply that they are easily accessible (by computer or otherwise).

Visit a good library?

@Daniel: Visit a good library, and do what when you arrive?

@GEdgar: Ask the librarian for assistance.

You might like to try Google Scholar, e.g.,
https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?as_yhi=1911&q=Condorcet+author%3AFrancis+Galton


text:
Getting a PhD in Classics/Ancient History with an MA in Modern Lit
I'm getting an MA in Italian Literature but, writing my thesis on contemporary fiction, I realized that it's not really what I want to specialize in.
I would like to switch to Classics/Ancient History. Do you think it is possible to get a PhD with my background? Or should I get a second MA in the new field?
One third of my undergraduate studies were in Classics (both Latin and Greek), but it's been a couple of years since I looked at that stuff from an academic point of view, and my Greek is a little rusty. I know what my broad area of interest is, but I still need to check the academic literature in the field. It's hard to ask advice to my current professors, since none of them is a classicist.
Thank you in advance.
(PS. I'm from Italy: we start studying Latin and Greek when we're in high school. I'm getting a degree here but I'd love to move to the US for the PhD.)

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text:
Medical Withdrawals and Grad School Admission
I am an undergraduate student studying mathematics and I am planning to apply for PhD programs after my graduation. However, I have 11 W's on my transcript currently, and I worry how it will affect my admission. I had 2 W's in my first year in non-related classes (history and Spanish) and 9 others from Summer/Fall full semester withdrawals due to medical reasons. Outside of this, my GPA is about 3.8-3.9 and I have a major GPA of 4.0 (I am in the early years of my undergrad career) Will this have impact on my chance of getting into graduate schools? And how can I address it effectively?
Edit: I had semester withdrawals because I could not recover from COVID for a few months while I thought I was able to. I also took a semester off afterwards.

Are they truly marked identically to a regular W?

It will certainly raise questions, but they can be answered effectively in some situations. The question isn't so much that you have Ws in your past, but whether this can be expected to continue and how successful you will be in future studies. For things that are truly behind you the explanation is simple. For continuing issues it is a bit harder.
If it was COVID related then it is easy to explain and get past. It affected a lot of people, some quite severely. The same is true for many other medical issues. Some mental health issues might be different. Lots of possibilities in between.
Those writing letters of recommendation, such as are needed in the US, need to confidently and honestly predict your success. If they can do that, then you can probably get through the process, though with, perhaps, a lot of explaining. Good Luck.


text:
Limitations on naming a framework in an academic setting
I am designing a framework in an AI related field of study which has a particularly difficult name properly abbreviate. I was wondering if it is appropriate if I were to name it something that doesn't necessarily borrow from the actual name of the framework but conceptually represents what it does.
For instance, if I were designing a framework to attack certain systems in order to test their defenses, being the big Greek mythology nerd that I am, I'd love to name it Ares despite what the actual abbreviation might look like.
The question is then, whether or not I'm free to name my framework however I like as long as there is a reasonable conceptual explanation for it and if not, then what limitations exist on naming conventions.

I think you need to say more. I'm having trouble understanding. Is the abbreviation offensive? Ares Simulation System: ASS? There are few words (abbreviations, acronyms) that are really off limits these days.

No the abbreviation simply doesn't sound like a real word nor does it roll off the tongue no matter how I spin it. Something like GENMAR for instance.

You can pretty much name your tools whatever you want to. There is, for example, a group out there that made a methylome database and analysis pipeline and naturally chose to call it "MethPipe". There are also plenty of tools with the naming convention you've described here; nobody will really care if you're using a descriptor than an acronym.
However, you should consider if there are other tools out there with similar names and how easy yours will be to lookup online. For instance, everyone and their postdoc has a tool called "Prism" in the biology sphere, and it can be very difficult to find the specific "Prism" tool you're looking for.

Doing occasionally nigh-unspeakable things to a tool/method/...'s name in order to arrive at an interesting acronym is a proud(?) scientific tradition. See for example this list of (mostly NMR-related) abbreviations, just off the top of my head. Not everyone likes it - in bioinformatics there is/was the JABBA "award" for the most "creative" acronyms - and if it's too much of a stretch it might be hard to find your method when searching for it, but it's not likely there's going to be major issues with you naming your method something memorable.

Given your comment, I think you are free to name it as you please. An abbreviation or acronym that is (still) very offensive to some would be an exception, though standards change.
But, giving a name that has a more or less pronounceable abbreviation is not an issue. Users are free to use the full name or the abbreviation, or make up their own abbreviation, in any case.
Note also that some names of things weren't assigned by their creators.
But, give it a name that works for you. Change it if you get fiercely negative feedback. In another realm, nobody cares that FBI or SEC don't roll off the tongue.


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Comparing my results with those of the previous studies
I would like to present the differences between the results of my study and those from other previous studies since I do not have any control/comparison group in my study design, but still want to highlight it.
However, it seems not as simple as I thought to conduct a comparison in such a way.
I mentioned the results of the existing studies in Literature review section which had the similar experimental set-ups, and then would like to highlight that my participants exhibited these differences compared with the results of those studies.
So far, I have gone like this for example: "My participants exhibited the value of 2, and the previous studies showed 1-1.5, so my participants have a greater value".
Of course, this sounds definitely unscientific and insignificant... and I heard from my advisor that I should not do in that way.
I want to know if there is any robust or statistically sound way to do such a comparison. If not, I would like to know what would be an alternative for those who are suffering from the problem like me.
Thank you all for your time for reading and answering in advance.

But can you replicate the previous result? Or you know the specific reason for such difference?

Hi, maybe I have written unclearly. Sorry for the confusion. With the "previous studies" or "existing studies" I meant the studies by other authors. So, replication is not available. When it comes to the reasons for the differences, I can just estimate it (but I am not sure if this reason for the difference is absolute) and was about to elaborate in discussion section "The difference is abc and I guess this is because xyz..."

But as far as I understood, the idea itself that I want to compare the results of the other studies with mines is defective, unless I do not have any certain robust statistical way to do it. My supervisor meant that I could refer to other studies that have done this way, if such a study exists, but I cannot find any...


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As a PhD graduate determined to become a professor (in machine learning), what is most important for: 1. Finding a postdoc; 2. Doing a good postdoc
So I have a good PhD track in machine learning (>200 citations and good papers), and I'm very determined to stay in academia (I love teaching, learning, researching, advising students and pretty much nearly every aspect of academia).
I'm now looking for a postdoc, with partial funding (I got an award that gets appended to whatever salary I get in a postdoc position). Some PIs are more aligned with my interests, but seem too 'new' (not many citations, no indication of students who went on to academia etc.), while others seem highly cited with high h-index etc., but are slightly less aligned with my interests (and are also likely to not be available according to their websites).
I'm a bit confused as to what I should be putting my emphasis on when looking for a postdoc advisor, and what I should be focused on doing throughout (the reason this is not posted as a separate question is because I suppose this will influence the answer to the first). Should I prefer someone in my precise field and not worry much about their lack of experience? Is it perhaps better if I do something adjacent (less interesting to me, but still close to my field) with someone who is much more experienced and cited? Perhaps all that matters is what I, personally, end up coming up with and publishing, and not the particular PI?
I'm determined to become a professor as a career. What are the criteria that really matter?
Thanks.

There is no guaranteed path. You apply fairly widely, evaluate whatever options arise, and move on with life. Different opportunities have different pluses and minuses.

What I'm trying to understand here is whether your question is really at its heart different from any given collection of our other questions about (1) How to have a successful postdoc and (2) What one should be doing to build a portfolio that can land you a faculty position. https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/3327/what-is-expected-of-a-postdoc. If you want a faculty job, Google departments where you'd be willing to work and look at their assistant professors' CV's.

it is also field dependent. In some fields, high-impact publication is only possible in famous lab


text:
A Potential supervisor has suggested to contact two other professors as he is resigning from the University. He has cc the professors too in the mail
The Mail sent back by potential supervisor  mentioned me to contact this new suggested person 1 or new suggested person 2? He has also forwarded both the professors the mail. Will it be ok to connect with both of them

Be cautious, please! But yes, it was an introduction. Best of luck!

It sounds like you got an introduction. Refer to the first prof, briefly introduce yourself and make a brief, polite case as to what you are looking for. Brevity is your ace, profs are busy.

I assume that the potential supervisor is a person at a university that you are attending and that you approached. In this case, you should follow up on these leads if they appear to you to be a good fit. If you are asking whether you can contact both, it is natural for a student to look at several people and there is nothing unusual with contacting more than one.


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Citing from figure in a review
I found an interesting figure in a review which has no reference (I assumed that it belongs to the review author if I am wrong correct me), can I paraphrase the caption or use the figure information and paraphrase it (deal with it as any original data from any article review?).
Additionally, what are the elements in the review paper that belong to the review author? Is it just the conclusion and the non referenced figures?

What do you mean by 'review'? Do you mean a paper published in a journal and that paper is a review paper? Or do you mean something like a book review, or a website comment on something?

sorry , i mean review article published in a scientific journal

You have to distinguish between 2 things here:

Academic: If you cite correctly using a sentence like "Adapted from Smith et al 2015" you can re-use graphics.
Legal (copyright): You will have to check the journal's policy if you are allowed to re-use material from them. In most open access journals you can do this unlimited. For some other journals you might need the explicit permission to re-use a figure. This is the usually phrased as something like this "Reprinted with the kind permission of XYZ".

You need to address both points.

For certain journals, there would be a fee to re-use their figure in your own publication.

It's hard to tell without the exact context, but in all likelihood "yes".  Two issues to consider are (1) copyright/plagiarism and (2) accuracy.

Don't make an exact copy of the figure or the caption.  Reword it and convert it to your intent somehow.  Also, cite the review paper as the source.
I get a sniff of concern that the curve may be made up ("cartoon") or the like since it is not well referenced or discussed.  This is not the end of the world, but just consider the context to see how much this is a real concern.  Also, how you will use it (e.g. to make a general point or to do detailed calculations from).  You can also cover yourself a bit by actually naming the review author, so it is clear that it is "Smith's" view, not yours.

Thanks for the kind reply , i need just the caption , so ( as i understand) i can rephrase it and add the reference look like the same action with any other results statement i need to cite right? and if the figure was without caption ,  can I describe it with my own words and cite it ?.. will that be ok ??

Yeah.  Go ahead.  On to the next thing.

Thanks a lot Sir


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Working in a research company that studies the same research problem as my startup
I am almost in the final step of joining a big research company. This company has a huge amount of data for research problem X, and their research team is always digging into it. I just want to highlight that the data of this problem is scarce. At the same time, I am working on starting a startup to use X in a real-life application. I've read in similar online questions that it's totally fine.
My question here is, should I inform the company of what I am trying to do outside of my work there? I don't want it to look like I was hiding something, and then the company thinking that I was stealing their data.

"I've read in similar online questions that it's totally fine." If you are stepping into the corporate/business/lawyer world with this attitude, you are bound to suffer. A lot.

A lot of this will depend on your specific contract and the NDAs / non-compete agreements you sign with your "big corporate" employer. Do not rely on "something you have read on the Internet", get a lawyer, show them what you have signed or will sign, and discuss whether your planned startup will potentially be in conflict with these agreements. It is not sufficient to just discuss this with your manager, they cannot guarantee that nobody higher up will take issue with your startup (and if they are smart they will probably anyway give you a blanket "no", or at least a "no comment", since this is the only way to cover their own behind).
In general, I would be nervous about this construction. Most companies I am aware of would never be happy with their own employees directly competing with them, either now or in the future. The only case where I have seen similar constructions be viewed positive is if the startup somehow provides value-added rather than competition to the company - say, if the company provides some general tooling and the startup builds specific plugins for specific use cases. And even then the risk looms large that the company pivots and suddenly considers the startup a risk to their own baseline. This can particularly happen if the startup turns out to be successful - it's easy for a company to be happy with somebody else working a niche that does not seem sufficiently high-profit to them, but if it turns out that there actually is substantial profit in this niche the view may change quickly.


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Experiencing setbacks in my master's thesis defense twice—seeking a path to recovery
I am currently enrolled in a master's program at a European university. The first year went smoothly, but the second year presented challenges due to personal issues, exacerbated by the difficulty of the thesis, which involved 60 credits and was part of an industrial project.
Meeting the deadline became a struggle, and my relationship with my supervisor became strained. He became more strict, and I found it difficult to get any response or feedback from him.
Despite his initial reluctance to guide me during the submission of my final thesis, he provided a review. I made corrections, passed with a satisfactory grade, and began preparing for the oral exam. Unfortunately, I did not perform well and failed on my first attempt.
The second oral exam was equally challenging. Despite feeling confident about my presentation, I failed again. While my presentation was good, I sensed that my answers did not satisfy my supervisor and the external examiner, despite my belief that I answered them mostly correctly. I have requested an explanation of the evaluation from the exam committee and am currently awaiting feedback from the school.
This situation is tough for me because I am uncertain about what will happen next and what improvements are needed. I don't believe my supervisor will provide guidelines or suggestions to help me prepare better, especially since my previous requests for assistance resulted in failure. It feels like I may not be capable of earning a master's degree under his guidance.
I didn't initially plan on discussing this, but I find myself in need of encouragement. I am determined not to fail again, as this might be my last opportunity to succeed.

Is the exam only about the thesis or about the field generally?

It's only about the thesis and topics related to it.

Have you asked your supervisor what answers you should have provided?

Not really. The session lasted over 30 minutes with continious questions, and I made an effort to justify my work and answers based on their questions. While I provided general responses to many questions, their feedback indicated that my answers, though correct, didn't align with what they were seeking. However, I sensed that they recognized my understanding of the topics, even though I struggled to respond in the manner they expected. I was initially optimistic about the outcome, so receiving a fail was quite surprising.

Given the gap between how you thought you performed and how they thought you performed, you're going to need to get specific feedback. I don't think anyone here will be able to provide suggestions besides that without knowing what the feedback will be.

@BryanKrause , I have already requested for a  feedback. I am a little bit worried because I think it might be a challenging task for me to receive proper feedback from my supervisor. I am not sure if, even if I get feedback, it would be helpful or not. I have never thought or experienced this kind of scenario before. I am afraid that whatever I might perform based on the feedback, may not satisfy my supervisor and i will ultimately fail.

Okay, those are not good reasons to not get feedback, though; if you don't understand what the expectations of your supervisor and examiner are then you are not likely to be able to meet them. If they refuse to provide feedback, it's possible this is something you can escalate through an ombuds or to a program or department chair - someone who has a stake and responsibility in the success of graduate students in your program.

@BryanKrause I understand what you're saying. I've asked for feedback, and I'm looking forward to hearing from the examination committee soon. If I don't get a response, I'll contact the department chair. Thanks for your suggestions.

Academia varies a lot; here's some suggestions that would work in my region, hopefully some apply to you:

Ask for the examination minutes (or equivalent)

In many countries, defence presentations require some formal documentation of events that (roughly) summarises how the exam went. It would have a sketch of the questions asked and your responses, which provide the justification for the grade given. Usually, you should be allowed to view this document on formal request (possibly even obtain a copy). If you can't make a copy, bring someone who has experience in your subject with you to the viewing (suggestions below).

Express your concerns about graduation to the head of your degree program

In my academic context in Europe, it's unusual to fail a Master's defence twice after a positive evaluation. As commentators have pointed out, you will need specific feedback here. The head of your degree program presumably also wants you to graduate: if you don't get specific feedback from your professor, they might be able to help.

Ask your student representatives for support

This strongly varies between regions: if you are in one that has active student representation, I would strongly recommend asking them for support. They will be aware of all the formal proceedings, and will be aware of more specific resources at your university.
Most importantly:

I was initially optimistic about the outcome, so receiving a fail was quite surprising.

This concerns me. Clearly, there's something quite misaligned between your impression of the situation and what your examiners perceived. As internet strangers, we can't fix this, but finding out why you failed is the key task here. You should get subject-specific guidance from your advisor, who can be nudged via the director of studies (if need be) and potential unfairness (or access to additional resources) can be settled via the student representatives, but at the end of the day you need to make some changes.
Aside from getting some official reasoning behind the failing grade, people who might be able to help you prepare include: your advisor, other research group members, friends/classmates in your degree program. Get as many unvarnished perspectives from people with subject knowledge as you can, and get friends from your degree program to quiz you on sample questions. They might have some unflattering things to say about your past performance: try to understand their perspective instead of arguing. Good luck!

You need some feedback from people who know the situation explicitly. That means both the subject of the thesis and the surrounding information. You also need feedback on where your answers failed to satisfy. This means, unfortunately, your advisor and any external examiner, though you indicated that such would be hard to obtain. The written overview of the exam should help and you need to go through it carefully.
If you have another faculty member who knows your field and with whom you have a good relationship, consider speaking with them about the issue and seeking their advice.
I wonder, however, if there are other issues that you don't express here, since your name, now correctly omitted, isn't especially "European". For some folks I'd wonder if language was a problem but, assuming it is English, that doesn't seem to fit your case as you seem fluent. But if you expect any sort of discrimination in your case (language, ethnicity,...) then you need to speak with someone in administration who can deal with it and provide a fair hearing.
If both failures had the same people as examiners, I wonder if you could request someone different in the next trial.
And, to be honest, your supervisor has an obligation to provide the necessary feedback to enable you to prepare for the next go-round. If they are unwilling, then it is their failure and an ethical issue.

I'll also note that some people aren't very good communicators in high stress situations, experiencing a sort of brain-freeze. If that is the case, then there may be professional help available to help you deal with it, which you will probably need in the long term if you suffer from that. It takes practice to overcome, though.


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How do I report a Google scholar account?
I have a unique name, and use 3 names for my publications and the google scholar account I created. I’ve used this account for years and it works great. But recently, a new unverified account showed up, grabbing / claiming a ton of publications and citations that do not belong to me or any other specific author.
I would like report this account and have it deleted. But there doesn’t seem to be any way for me to do that.
Additional clarification: I’m concerned this is google’s AI creating a new account in my name, claiming publications and citations that don’t belong to me. This is concerning to me because I have a public profile. I don’t want anyone to assume this is my account, and that I’m the one claiming other people’s publications and citations.
The new account doesn’t have a picture or institutional affiliation. There is no way to contact the account that created it (at least not one I can find).

Not sure I understand what you mean by "I have a unique name, and use 3 names...".
Can you please specify?

@iwakun I assume that it's very unlikely that someone else would use that combination of 3 names as well so OP is worried about people confusing the 2 accounts.

Note that Google Scholar is pretty opaque and not especially helpful for a lot of things, including this. That is likely why you aren't getting answers here.

@iwakun I assume it means that OP has an unusual three-part name like "Lucrezia Володимирівна 犬顔," which isn't likely to occur anywhere else, and has created a GScholar account with that name and has populated it with their own work, and now someone else has come along and created a different GScholar account for "Lucrezia Володимирівна 犬顔" and is populating it with someone else's publications. Of course, it could just be G's AI.

Is this profile using your picture and affiliation too?

You could contact the owner of the profile and ask them to change it. Otherwise, I doubt there is much you can do. Generally, what is listed on a profile is entirely up to the individual who created it.
Is there a particular concern you have?
On its own, a Google Scholar profile incorrectly claiming papers is only a minor problem. People can easily check who is actually an author. And it doesn't interfere with you claiming your papers on your profile.
There are many inaccuracies on the internet and we can't fix them all. Thus, even if you did contact Google Scholar, my guess is that they would decide that this is not a serious enough problem to warrant deleting the profile.

Presumably Google has an interest in maintaining the accuracy of its database, so that seems like a reason.  Unfortunately it seems like GS are notorious for having no contacts/responses for their page.

@Ben Yes, of course it's not great to have people putting inaccurate info on their profiles. But the harm is minimal. Deleting a profile would be a fairly drastic response.

If someone creates a profile to falsify their research record (claiming papers they didn't write), in what amounts to research fraud, I hardly see it as a "drastic response" to delete that.  Hell, one could even sue them for fraud, which is a far greater response than mere deletion of their GS profile.

@Ben You can file a lawsuit about anything, but I doubt that a lawsuit about the listing papers on a GS profile would get far in court. And I'd like to reiterate the first sentence of my answer: Any inaccuracy is primarily the responsibility of the person who created the profile.

Maybe OP is more concerned about some sort of identity theft? But no one cares about an unverified google scholar account anyway.

@TheDoctor Yes, I edited to clarify. Perhaps there is some additional concern such as impersonation/harassment. But it doesn't sound like it.

In a lawsuit, OP would have to show they were actually harmed directly (at least for legal systems I know anything about). For example, if OP and this mystery profile creator were up for the same job, and they got the job rather than OP. For criminal fraud, they would have to use or intend to use (hard to prove) the profile for some (probably financial) gain. It seems extremely unlikely that an account collecting random citations has any value at all towards a fraudulent purpose.

@BryanKrause I'm not a lawyer, but I agree. I would also add that the lawsuit would probably be against the person who created the profile, rather than Google.

As an attorney I also think this could be classified as identity theft, but it depends on where they live, as the law is different across jurisdictions. It could also be qualified as defamation because people could think OP is claiming citations as their own to boost the metrics. But again, it depends on multiple factors. It could just be a case of homonymy.


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Polite rejection from adviser
I am a latinamerican student and I am not sure about the responses from potential PhD adviser email responses, I had a very nice interview with one of them who told me that he enjoyed our conversation ( our interview) two days later he wrote me an email in which he said that " I enjoyed our conversation a lot" and that he decided on aother candidate. He also said " be assure that you did an excellent job I just simply had to make a decision"
Is this genuine ? or a polite way to reject me?  I would prefer the truth from a PhD adviser in order to improve other interviews!
In my Country too much politness is not used
Thanks in advance

How could anyone know the answer to this, except the supervisor himself? In your place I'd assume that he was telling the truth: that I was a good candidate, but that there had been a better candidate who got the position. It's not an uncommon situation, after all.

I'm not sure if the potential advisor was American, but if so this may be relevant: https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/38177/how-do-you-know-if-americans-genuinely-literally-mean-what-they-say

He is  from Germany

@user75169 In that case he was almost certainly sincere. If you do badly, it is very acceptable in Germany to just tell it to your face.

thanks!! It is a shame since I really wanted to work this adviser. :(

There are years when there is a whole bunch of capable people competing for the same position. Then, you may be very good, but superseded by somebody even better. In other years, you would have made it with flying colours.

It would be still possible to have him back?

@Roland But does saying "I didn't take you because you're too bad at X, Y and Z" lead to legal problems?

My questions was based on the fact that if I can obtain my own funding, to ask him to join to his lab since I am very interested in his research. However, if this was a generic response, I do not think he is truly honest.

"I enjoyed our conversation a lot" is a standard phrase and doesn't mean very much. The added "...excellent job..." probably means just that, unfortunately sometimes you get more than one good candidate and he's acknowledging that fact.


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Contacting potential PhD advisors while not knowing research topic?
In December I will finish a Computational Sciences M.S. degree and plan to pursue a PhD in Applied and Computational mathematics afterwards. I have a B.Sc. in Applied and Computational Mathematics so have some exposure to the field but my Masters degree has largely been focused on Data Science and Machine Learning.
I would like to reach out to potential advisors over the summer whose research interests align with mine but I'm having trouble doing so in a meaningful way. Based on my coursework I would like to study math modeling/stochastic processes, numerical methods and efficient implementation of numerical methods, and/or PDEs, as these are the topics I found most interesting during my B.S. and M.S. degrees.
Most answers to this question indicate I should have a research question in mind before reaching out but beyond stating my interests as I've done in the previous paragraph I don't really have anything to go off. I've brought this up to a mathematics professor (who served as an advisor for my undergraduate math research) in the department of my current university and they agreed that mathematics papers are very difficult and time consuming to read unless you're up-to-date in that particular field and probably in that niche area of the field due to their density.
My question is how can I come even close to a research question prior to applying to PhD programs when it would take me an incredible amount of time to muscle through even a small fraction of the work by a single professor, let alone many professors from many universities? Do I need to fully understand the mathematics in their papers before I can completely determine the advisor is right for me? Is it OK to reach out with less information than an exact research question?
This is in the US, if that information is pertinent.

You definitely don't need super specific research topics to reach out to potential advisors to gauge their interest in working with you. When I first applied to PhD programs, I also got in touch with potential advisors beforehand to introduce myself and tell them about my research interests just to see if they would be responsive/be interested in working with me should I be admitted. At the time, I had a couple of ideas about what I wanted to do for my dissertation, but they weren't fully formed at all. Still, I did get some positive responses from several professors which encouraged me to apply to their programs.
At the end of the day, they know that most students don't join PhD programs with well-developed research agendas, that research interests change, and even that the person you wanted to work with originally might not be the person you end up working with in the end (the last scenario happened to me in some very ugly turn of events). Point being, I wouldn't worry too much about presenting developed research questions in the initial emails to faculty. If anything it's just a good way to get an idea of professors' availability and responsiveness, and to narrow down your list of schools to which you're applying.
And actually, given the above reference to my own negative experiences post-admission, I would add that it doesn't hurt to look for programs that have at least a couple of potential advisors to choose from.

if it's not asking too much, what's your opinion how mush is enough when talking to professor? For example, if I find a professor who works in computational mathematics with numerical methods but applies them to fluid dynamics (which I have no exposure to), is it worthwhile reaching out since the use the mathematics I'm interested in studying?

@TheRealKernel I would try to keep your initial inquiries brief, but it sounds like your question is worth asking. I would phrase my email(s) something along the lines of: Hi, I'm (name) and I'm interested in applying to (program). I'm familiar with your work in (areas of research) through (your source of information: dept website, familiarity with their research). I myself am interested in (research topic/general areas) and - give some of the overlap in our research interests - I wanted to know if you would be available to work with me/direct my research should I be admitted into the program.

In the UK, where you go straight into focusing on research, it is very normal for a potential mathematics PhD student to not have much idea what they want to research (arts subjects can be very different). When I was applying I was only required to say which research group I wanted to be a part of. Indeed, in maths the specific question generally comes from your supervisor, and having a very definite idea would potentially make it harder to find someone who wanted to work with you. Within the supervisor's interests, the topic should be matched to the interests and strengths of the students (unless other factors, eg funding, restrict the choice).
In the US you usually don't start the research portion of the programme immediately, and you don't always (usually?) need to have a specific supervisor agreed at the point of starting the programme, so there is even more space for flexibility.


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Using grants to make donations to institutions for using their resources/products?
In my academic area I constantly use free software/products such as Linux, Python, SageMath, Octave, Wikipedia, etc.
I know that one can include software costs such as Matlab, Mathematica, Maple, Adobe stuff, Mac software, etc. But for free software/products I have not heard of anyone doing that. It feels wrong that if I use Matlab/Mathematica/Macs in my research, I can get public funding to pay MathWorks/wolfram/Apple thousands of dollars, but if I use Octave/SageMath/Linux they do not receive anything.
In other academic areas something similar can happen. I assume the same happens with "open" databases that operate with donations vs private databases that mostly operate as for-profit. Other examples could be Wikipedia, OEIS, LibreOffice, Gimp, etc.
I think that since a lot of research depends on that free software/product, they should receive funding (at least if you heavily use it). I know they receive funding elsewhere, but it is minimal compared to the money proprietary-software companies get (a lot from grants, by the way).
Do you know of cases where donations costs were included in grants?
Do you think it is the ethical thing to do?

You may want to consider to support them other ways, cittation, contributions to code etc.

For Sagemath, you can subscribe to their paid online service, Cocalc, and I guess some of the money will help Sagemath's development.

The grants I'm familiar with (mostly US NSF grants) are designed to support a specific set of proposed activities. I'm pretty confident that making a string-free donation of money from a grant to a free software/open source software (FLOSS) project would simply not be possible for these types of grants. The problem is not that it's wrong to support FLOSS projects but that it's wrong to give money directed for a specific task away in a string-free fashion.
With the grants I've applied for and received, there's an important distinction between what are described as direct and indirect costs. What you budget for in your grant are the direct costs of the research proposed. This includes tons of stuff like salary for people working on the grant, equipment used for the grant, supplies, etc. but these need to be justified in terms of the way that they directly support the research. Although they don't typically do it, the NSF can even take-back equipment after the work on the grant is over!
Of course, there are many indirect costs of doing grant funded research. Things like an office space, an office phone, heating of the building, Internet, etc, are costs that universities bear to support the research but that don't support the grant in any direct way. Indirect costs are typically covered through a fixed fee like a "Facilities and Administration" (F&A) fee. At my university, this is currently 55.5% of whatever my direct costs are. They are tacked onto the grant kind of like a tax and I don't ever see those funds.
Donating to support open source software that benefits all your projects and everything else seems like a classic example of an indirect cost. Unfortunately, it can be difficult, or even impossible, to budget for indirect costs beyond what a university charges as part of their F&A fee.
But this doesn't mean that you can't support FLOSS projects with your grants!  I can see two approaches that you might try:

Have the university donate out of the indirect costs they collect from your grant. Work with your administration to convince them to support the projects you rely on. The indirect costs that your university collects are largely unrestricted. If you work with your university IT group or libraries—ideally before you even apply—you might be able to talk them into donating some portion of the indirect costs to the non-profits supporting your software. At my university, some discretionary portion of grants is returned to departments so you might even be able to convince your department chair to do so! This might be difficult but it's impossible. I know that many university libraries effectively donate to support the open-to-the-world arxiv.org.
Support the FLOSS projects you use directly as part of your research. If there are things that features that the software your using is missing or things it doesn't do that would be helpful to your grant, budget money to support the software developers as subcontractors for the grant. For example, you might budget for 3-4 months of Octave developer time. This way, the developers get money to support their projects, you get the stuff out of the tools that you need to help your research succeed, and you get to describe improvements on the software as outcomes or deliverables for the grant! Everybody wins!

great point about allocating time to support these projects. In addition to allocating x developer months, making a habit and culture of contributions through bug reports, patches, clarifications to documentation, requesting and defining features, promoting use of these projects in training, citing these resources, and generally participating in these communities.

I have not heard of anyone contributing grant money to an open source project. In the broad scheme of things, it's very ethical to donate money to support a product that you get value from. You're also helping to ensure that the product has a future, which is beneficial to your use as well.
I would not donate grant money to open source software without asking first, mainly because although it's a highly ethical thing to do, most people have become accustomed to using free software/resources without donating, and take it for granted a little bit. However, I would highly encourage you to ask whoever is giving you the grant if you could make reasonable donations to these foundations with the grant money. You could easily make a case to present not just based on the ethical value of support, but also on the research value of support—by donating money to open source foundations, you're supporting the future of a resource that is integral to the work you're doing. As an added plus, most foundations ask for much lower donation amounts than for-profit corporations charge for proprietary software.


text:
Do references in the research papers' state of the art section need to be referred in chronological order?
Do references in the research papers' state of the art section need to be referred in chronological order?
In other words, is it important that the state of the art section mentions the papers of previous research in the same order they were published?
Thanks

Do you have an advisor you.can ask?

Have you bothered to read a few original papers (perhaps ones you might reference?) and looked how they've structured their references?

Typically, "the state of the art" is not monolithic. Rather, it consists of multiple strands or aspects. If your paper addresses the application of technique foo to problem bar, then "the state of the art" will need to look at the development of technique foo, as well as current knowledge and previous work on problem bar.
You should first of all separate your literature review into these aspects: don't mix references on foo with those on bar. Rather, explain the current state of the art for foo first, then for bar (or the other way around). If someone has already applied foo to bar, then that would be a third major section.
Within these sections, there may be logical subdivisions, like different major approaches to bar, or different flavors of foo. It makes sense to put each such subdivision into a separate paragraph or so.
Once you have found a useful level or granularity of analysis, work in a logical order, not necessarily a chronological one. Given that much of research consists of building on previous work, usually the logical order is also chronological, but it need not be. Readers are usually more interested in the logical structure, less in who published what first.

You're missing a "d" at the and of the first sentence of the second paragraph. Right before the dot.

@DonQuiKong "bard"? Are you familiar with Foo and bar as placeholders?

@ChrisH bard is also good, but it said something about the flavour of foo(d) there previously.

@DonQuiKong that's the third paragraph.  "Flavours" of foo (or any other placeholder) works as meaning varieties, though it's a little surprising for "flavour" to describe something that's almost but not quite "food" after all

Just to clarify, I did mean "foo" and "bar" in the sense that @ChrisH linked to on Wikipedia, and I was a little lost at where exactly a d was missing... I'll remember not to discuss "flavors of foo" any more in the future!

@StephanKolassa surely you were just checking we're paying attention?

@ChrisH: indeed you overestimate my deviousness.

@chrish oh, maybe I miscounted the paragraphs. And for the record - I know what foo and bar are, thought I'd be funny. But I'd better learn counting before.

I would say chronological order only for the first couple of citations where you are introducing the problem and field. In the sense that you should be citing the first work(s) on the topic, first, when introducing things. But after that cite in the order that makes sense for the text your writing.

"Cite in the order that makes sense for the text you're writing." Always.


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Should one sacrifice their core research time for citations?
I focus on a domain X with my prof. My research has been taking a lot of time for certain reasons. While I have some publishable material, it will not gather much citations.
There is this other opportunity which will gain more citations and my advisor is forcing me to pursue that avenue. I am not really interested in that domain and it will divert significant time from my current work.
I personally don't care for citations and only conduct research because the topic interests me a lot. Is this a wrong approach?

Probably a balanced approach is better.  I know researchers who write articles suitable for laymen, which attract lots of citations, and they also do highly specialized work that probably only less than a handful of people would understand.  If you have a big group, then you can place your bets on multiple areas; e.g., get a student to work on topics you find less interesting personally.    Alternatively, collaborate with researchers who do works that may attract citations.  End of the day, people like to see quality and impact.

What are your career plans and prospects?

Thank you for the suggestion. At the moment I am an undergrad looking to get into PhD Programs.

Obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/978/

This is likely very dependent on individual circumstances, but I'll try to answer in general.  I think there is a balance between pursuing a personal passion and 'putting food on the table', as it were.
It is very difficult to earn a living unless you do something others find valuable.  In my career, I have lost count at the number of hours I have put into completing tasks that don't interest me.  However, I try to take a professional attitude and learn something from each of these 'nuisance tasks'.  In retrospect, I've actually learned many useful skills and, as an added benefit, slowly gained the trust of others in my field.
As this trust grows, I plan to pursue things that are more interesting to me.  Ideally, my credibility will be higher, which may help others join in my interest.  I recall one academic telling me once he/she had tenure, they were going to write op-eds and try for more mainstream influence.  There's a need to pay your dues in most fields.
I would encourage you to be open and honest with this question to your adviser and peers in your field to learn about specific dynamics.  Ideally, you can find some overlap between your passion and the research task proposed by your adviser, even if it's just getting practice actually producing a publishable manuscript.

Thank you very much, this was exactly what I was looking for!


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Value of online presence for PhD Admits. (FALL 2022 CS USA)
With LinkedIn, Research Gate and Twitter (there might be others I am not aware of), many people have managed to make an online presence for themselves through various activities.
Does this in any way affect a PhD admit for the indiviual?
Please assume the presence to be based on technical activities and all in a positive notion.

I've no clue about the answer but very much hope it is a clear No.

Related: Is web-presence important for researchers?

I don't think this answer my question. I am an undergrad looking for PhD programs. I'm sure there should be some difference when compared to a researcher.

If you've done any scholarly work, then that could make a positive impression. I'd recommend that you make it available online and easy to find if possible. That is, if someone types in your name and the title of your work into Google, they can immediately access a copy with no login required.

This makes a lot of sense. Thank you for the suggestion. I normally just attach my google scholar link everywhere.

Most schools have an application.  Your admission is based on the contents of the application.
I can't imagine a school that would then spend the extra time to formalize an additional search of information not supplied in the application to bolster the application.  Perhaps an individual might do so, but generally this is discouraged by any competent staff because there's always the initial problem of "do we have the right person in the first place?" and then there's the other issue of "how do we disqualify someone based on information not in their application?"
If the information supports your admissions, it shouldn't be referenced by proxy.  Put it in the application and the supporting materials requested by the school.

Thank you for the response!

@Aymuos good luck!

Thank you so much !!


text:
Can I exclude my own thesis submission on Turnitin repository saved by mistake?
I uploaded my thesis to a Turnitin ID which my friend got from some other university than where I am studying. Due to some reason, my thesis got uploaded to Turnitin repository and the university is very far away from my home. I made a blunder mistake.
Now I have to make my thesis submission this month but the plagiarism is showing 100 %. It is comparing my own thesis with the one I submitted earlier to the other university. I cannot contact the university turnitin administrator regarding deletion of my thesis.
In my thesis submission, can I exclude the student paper source of my own work?

Does the copy of your thesis on the Turnitin repository include the frontpage with your name and the degree it is for?

The front page is not included but the list of publications is attached at the end.. with my name and my supervisor  name

It is for the PhD degree

Does this answer your question? Paper was rejected for high similarity with parts of my own dissertation

Anonymous Physicist  Not exactly... but still thanks for the suggestion

No. As far as I am aware there isn't. The person reviewing your thesis after submission can exclude the earlier submission though. You should probably make whoever is checking this aware.
You should however, be aware that submitting your thesis to a user account provided by someone else at a different university may be breaking some rules, or at least expectations - either at your university, at your friends university or turnitin's rules (possibly all three). This is not a serious infraction, and I wouldn't expect any comeback other than disapproving tuts, but its still bad practice.
Students often want to submit their work to check the turnitin score to see if they have paraphrased things sufficiently not to trigger the plagiarism checks. This betrays a misunderstanding of what plagiarism is. Taking text from another source and paraphrasing it, even with attribution, is still on the "plagiarism spectrum".

Absolutely. Turnitin only measures textual similarity, not plagerism. Its one tool that can be used to help find some types of plagerism, but its certainly not the be all and end all, and a focus on the turnitin score is a real problem.

If one really wanted to show this was plagerism, it would be about showing that it was paraphrased. That is you are not just you are taking someone elses ideas, but also that you are taking their way of describing them. I guess when I say "paraphrasing", I'm talking about a strong sort of paraphrasing where you take text from a source, change a few words, maybe change the order of a couple of sentences so that it doesn't get picked up be software, but is very much still not your writing.

"You should however, be aware that submitting your thesis to a link provided by someone else at a different university is probably breaking some rules"  This seems very unlikely.  Can you give an example of a rule like this?

See for example https://www.plagiarism.admin.cam.ac.uk/turnitin-uk/turnitin-faqs. As Cambridge says it specifically doesn't make turnitin available to students, it would seem likely find away arounds this ruling would be at the least not what is expected, and bad practice. They will have decided not to make it available for a reason. Still, I may have been too forceful/confident in the statement above.

@DanielHatton I was looking for an example of a university's rules.

Maybe you should change "link" to "user account."  That would be clearer.

Do nothing: If you've made a genuine mistake, it will be obvious to  examiners.

That feels like bad advise. It really, really depends on who (if anybody) will look at Turnitin results later, and how obvious it is that the 100% match is just the same document submitted by the same person earlier - and since OP says that the title page is missing this might not be so obvious at all. I don't believe that OP needs to fear getting into any actual trouble (what they did is neither unethical nor forbidden), but I could definitely see this leading to annoying confusion.

A thesis must typically be an original work, so re-submitting a thesis submitted earlier to [an]other university may constitute self-plagiarism.

"Submitted" in the context of self-plagiarism means "for considering for a degree", not to a Turnitin check.

@Arno The OP writes: It is comparing my own thesis with the [thesis] I submitted earlier to the other university. Of course, that may be poor writing. We don't know what the OP meant.

Turnitin is not a useful tool for students.
The appropriate use of Turnitin is to provide a similarity report to someone familiar with academic writing and the relevant field, which that person can use to screen for suspicious clues that could lead them to suspect plagiarism. It cannot help an honest student author, because if that author understands the customs surrounding plagiarism, they should already know that they have not plagiarised; whereas if they don't understand the customs, the Turnitin report is useless to them anyway.
The OP doesn't need to do anything about this.
So there is no reason for the OP to try and fiddle with the Turnitin settings, because they shouldn't use Turnitin again (atleast until they get an academic job themselves). If their PhD thesis is going to be run through Turnitin, the person will presumably either immediately see that the flagged document is the OPs dissertation, or be able to confirm quickly that the OP indeed wrote their own dissertation. It is then their problem to get Turnitin to tell them about other similarities (but I think Turnitin does multiple sources anyway).
But it may look suspicious
There is a small caveat to my first claim: A plagiarizing student could use Turnitin to try and hide the evidence of their transgression. Uploading a copy of the dissertation could have been an attempt to mask whatever hits Turnitin still finds. So I wouldn't be surprised if OP's dissertation receives more scrutiny regarding plagiarism than usual - but not because of a 100% Turnitin score, but because OPs behaviour seems suspicious.

@DanielHatton A student who has plagiarized in a draft, and only refrains from submitting that draft because a Turnitin scan tells them that they would be caught is NOT an honest student in my book. A student who doesn't understand what is plagiarism isn't helped by Turnitin, they are helped by talking to their advisor or using other sources.

@DanielHatton which is exactly why someone submitting something to turnitin before submitting the piece of work might require extra scrutiny - because it betrays a lack of understanding plagiarism.

@DanielHatton Well, that is an extremely bad policy. I agree that that means that your students aren't to blame, but please get rid of this.


text:
Is it OK to provide referees report from round 1 to a new referee in round 2?
In a referee report from round 2, a new referee (ref C) mentions conclusions from round 1 reports (from ref A). Is it a common practice to provide the reports from previous rounds to a new referee? I understand this can speed up the review process, but it can also introduce some kind of bias.

It is standard practice that referees of a new round can see all the referee reports of the previous rounds. This includes any new referees in the pool. Without this information it would be hard to understand why certain changes were made. New referees may specifically be brought in to help adjucate divergent opinions between the previous referees.

Are identities of A and B also made available to C?

@I. M. Different venues have different rules about anonimity of reviews. Sometimes the reviewers know each other's identities, sometimes they do not.


text:
How to improve my graphical abstracts?
I am about to submit my third first author paper in the field of chemistry. Every journal we submitted to required to submit a graphical abstract along with the paper.
I have some basic Photoshop skills and used it to make the graphical abstracts. But I'm not happy with my graphical work, sometimes is looks a bit childish.
What are good ways to improve graphical skills? Is the graphical abstract even important?

Great question.  In my experience, most graphical abstracts convey zero information.  They could use some improvement.  https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/61347/13240

If you say "photoshop skills". Do you literally mean you use photoshop? Photoshop is for editing photo's (bitmap images). You may get better results with vector graphics, for example using inkscape.

I do not think there is a recipe for a good graphical abstract, but there are definitely some things to avoid.  The key concepts of graphical abstracts are:

They are graphical, not textual.
They are abstracts, which means they are small and brief, not complete.  Measure the size of the abstract on the journal website and design accordingly.

Top things to avoid are:

Tiny text.
Graphs.  Graphs are factual (What?); graphical abstracts are explanatory (Why? How?).
Combining multiple graphics into one.
Symbols and acronyms.  Especially ones unique to your work.

If you check top journals, you will see a majority of graphical abstracts make at least one of these errors.  I quickly checked the most recent issue of Advanced Materials and found 26 examples of these faults.
Here is an excellent graphical abstract I spotted in the issue:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.202007150
It's excellent because it is clear and logical, not because of graphical design skills.

What are good ways to improve graphical skills?

Practice and show your work to a colleague who has good skills (in your opinion), asking for their criticism.

Is the graphical abstract even important?

Not for researchers, afaik. I have never heard anyone complaining about a graphical abstract of a paper they found and were unable to understand due to insufficient abstract quality. Similarly, I've never heard of a paper being rejected due to a poor graphical abstract.

"I have never heard anyone complaining"  Complain, no.  Mock, yes.  https://tocrofl.tumblr.com/

@AnonymousPhysicist very funny, thank you!


text:
Under review paper appearing on SSRN
I recently submitted an article to an Elsevier journal X. The article was consider out-of-scope, so I re-submitted it to another Elsevier journal Y (via article transfer).  Thus, the article is currently under review in journal Y. However, a few days after re-submission, I was surprised to receive the following email from SSRN (Social Science Research Network):

We are happy to have received your submission, [Article Title], for inclusion on SSRN, an open platform for the sharing of early stage research. The following URL links to your abstract page on SSRN.

And now in SSRN, there is a URL pointing directly to the abstract as well as a downloadable PDF of my paper! To make it clear, I have never submitted my article, nor abstract to SSRN. Additionally:

On the SSRN page, it is noted that "This is a preprint article, it offers immediate access but has not been peer reviewed."
The available PDF does mention Submitted to Journal Y.

What is the meaning of this? I agreed that I would not submit my paper elsewhere during the paper submission to Elsevier journal Y. Do I now have to take any actions e.g., ask Elsevier if this creates a conflict/plagiarism or ask SSRN to remove the preprint?

From a quick glance at the Wikipedia entry for SSRN, they were bought by Elsevier in 2016. So it is most likely that Elsevier put the article there themselves - not that this is ok without asking - but it should at least take the plagiarism concern of the table.

Could it be that you accidentally ticked (or unticked) a box giving permission to also share the article on SSRN while submitting the article?

It is possible, I will have to check the submission platform.

Yes, there is a text box exactly as you have described it. Most likely I gave permission myself.

Well then, happy to be of help an mystery solved.

Thank you.
Does this mean that if it is not accepted this time, that it can never be submitted again?
Should I try to remove the preprint from SSRN or is it already too late?

Most journals in my field accept articles that have been put online as pre-prints.

can these pre-prints also include pdfs of the article, or only the abstract?

Yes. Search for the tag “preprint” - we have lots of questions about preprints

Most likely there was a checkbox like "I agree that my paper will be shared on SSRN while being under review" that you did not untick. Maybe check the submission system if you can find the submission details.

The publishers have made the submission process so much more complicated that it it feels like they are trying to get us to accidentally use their preprint servers.  I would not be surprised to find the default setting is pushing this, as you say.

Yes: You tell them if you want this (very nice!) service at the time of submission. it then gets pushed up to ssrn as a pdf once it is under review. If accepted, a link noting this is added by Elsevier to let people go to the accepted version e.g., https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4399231
Dialog showing opt-in to free preprint service: