text:
Is it appropriate to buy a "thank you" gift for a PhD supervisor?
I am nearing the end of my PhD and I would quite like to buy a "thank you" gift for my supervisor (although, she's the socially awkward type who I'm sure will be greatly embarrassed to receive one).
I'm just wondering whether a gift is the done thing? And if so, what sort of gift seems appropriate? I suppose a bottle of wine would be a safe choice?

This question (http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/23884/is-it-ethical-to-accept-small-gifts-from-students) may be of interest as it is asked from the supervisor point of view.

"she's the socially awkward type who I'm sure will be greatly embarrassed to receive one" - then perhaps it would be better to have the gift sent to her office, rather than presenting it in person.

@mhwombat: possibly; but it’s also quite possible for someone to be embarrassed at a public gesture of thanks/appreciation, while still appreciating it and being very grateful for it.

After your defense, and final submission to the university; you can give the gift, with a thank you note. Right before your defense is a big no, in my opinion.

I'd go with Dave Rose's answer. Currently I'm preparing my defence (should take place in February if things go as scheduled). Once I'm done - and independently from the result - I will invite my supervisor with his wife and children for a good dinner to say thanks. After all he had a lot of work and even if he gets paid for doing things like this in general, he doesn't get paid anything in addition for the efforts he did for me.

I think inviting your supervisor and/or committee members out to a nice dinner, perhaps along with your own family members, is a very nice choice.  On the one hand, this is a very positive way to bring closure to a multi-year relationship.  On the other, among academics I know, enjoying good food is much more universal than a proclivity towards any one material good.

This is the right answer, but the real shame is having to ask! Yes, gift (and not right before defense), and if you don't know something very specific to give her or him at this point, they've sold you very short.  ;^) You haven't said the field, but, eg, a signed book from one of your and their favorite/most cited authors/theorists or their advisor?

This might be a location dependent question, but in NW Europe a bottle of wine is appropriate for such and even lesser events.
Many campus shops offer a standardized wine bottle in a gift wrap with the name of the university printed on it. They are the obvious choice, but there is plenty of room for creativity.

As others have already written, a gift is appropriate only after you are completely done.  In my case, that was after the registrar had notified me that my application for degree had been approved by the program office.
I had asked my supervisor a couple of probably unsubtle questions after the defense, and sent (to his home, not to the university) two bottles of wine that would have been hard for him to find and a pretty nice decanter.  I also sent three small (very low three figures) checks to the university, one in honor of each committee member, so each should have gotten a letter stating that a gift had been made in his name.
(I'm in the United States.)

very low three figures x3 is small???

Compared to the cost in money and pain of a doctorate, yes.

I don't think the gift is supposed to be comparable to the cost of the doctorate

If you look through the answerer's webpage, you can find this page http://www.scis.nova.edu/~robebrow/ which shows that he received his PhD at a relatively late age and after many years of gainful employment.  This may help to explain what to many 20-something PhDs looks a bit on the extravagant side.  (As a PhD advisor, I feel very tempted to add: maybe he is just a more gracious person....But in all sincerity, gifts totaling more than $100 from any one student would probably make me uncomfortable.)

Do note that a gift to the university is a gesture of thanks that benefits the committee member not at all.  In fact, the committee member probably doesn't even know the amount, just gets an acknowledgment from the school's development office.

@Bob: I was thinking more about the wine and the decanter than the university gifts.  Also -- although I need to be clear that I am not in any way criticizing your choice, which was admirably gracious and generous -- I would not personally be especially pleased in hearing that some student made a donation to my employer in my name.  Most universities I know have endowments of such magnitude that a three figure gift is truly negligible.  I would much rather have a donation made to the charitable organization of my choice.  I don't claim anything more than personal preference here...

The appropriateness would depend on the culture. In Sweden it is customary for advisor and advisee to exchange presents. Usually, they consist on things like a fine vase of pottery. Personally, I would go for something that is somehow related to your research. For example, a pathologist expert in chimeric cells got custom made necklace and earrings with chimeras, and was greatly appreciated (and not only saying it because my mother made it!). In my opinion, originality is what counts most.
And you can always do it privately to avoid her the embarrassment.

Following the defense, a small token of appreciation would not be inappropriate. However, this should not be a substantial gift, as even after the defense, it could be viewed as a quid pro quo arrangement.

I took my adviser out for a steak dinner at the finest restaurant in town.  I'm told that I was the first to do so (other students bought him a box of red pens, etc.), but cherish the occasion.  One of my happiest memories is this occasion, enjoying each other's company as equals, after having completed a long/hard joint project.

As a new assistant professor, I feel awkward whenever my students offer me gifts. I am sure they have the best of intentions, but potential implications and potential alterior motives are enough to make me uncomfortable.
I am sure this is culture dependent as some of the other answers have suggested, but I would recommend going with the local culture of the deparment and former graduates(if any)

In my case it was a bottle of cognac, of course after the defense. I brought it to my supervisor's home. It was in Russia 18 years ago, I believe nowadays it is still nice/appropriate gesture.

It completely depends on:

The kind of relationship you have with your advisor/supervisor and
The extent to which s/he has gone out of their way to help you over the course of your Ph.D.

In most cases I would say no, because you are the underpaid employee and s/he is sort-of the boss, or at least the representative of the university. Would you give your supervisor at work a gift after finishing a significant project? Probably not.
PS - It's true that it's not your advisor who decides that Ph.D. salaries be low, but then, that's usually true for your supervisor at a regular job.

This answer seems to be from the perspective of a field in which Ph.D. students work as part of some team for their advisor. In many areas, advisors are (at least supposed to be) givers, not takers.

@MichaelGreinecker: Even if you work outside of a team - you work for a university, producing originall research. So, as a Ph.D. candidate, you're a giver. You do get some mentoring, advice, supervision - but you put in years of work.


text:
Plagiarizing Professor
I have a professor that pulls slides from the internet to fill his lectures. He does occasionally attribute the slides to the original author (in class, not on the slide itself) but the majority of the time his slides are either scans from a book with zero attribution or slides that can easily be found on Google with either a text or image search, again, with no attribution. His latest homework assignment is copied directly from another college's online course documents.
He is not a good educator in any sense of the word and seems to be teaching just to fulfill a teaching requirement. He comes to class, reads from his notes for 2 hours and leaves. If anyone has a question in class, he repeats what he just said and tells the person to read the book. While I obviously can't say for sure that he does not have permission from the content creators to use their lecture material without attribution, his in-class behavior lead me (and others I've spoken to in the class) to believe that is not the case.
Is this the kind of thing that should be brought to an administrators attention or should I just keep my head low and deal with another bad professor?

Also see Citing sources of problems in assignments and Plagiarism of Lecture Slides

Mixed up in the question about plagiarizing teaching materials (which has already been covered here) is a question on whether to notify administration about a teacher who doesn't seem to put much effort into teaching, in general. That is a new one for this site, as far as I know. Perhaps you can [edit] your post to focus on that part of the situation, and I can reopen?

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

sort: votes


text:
Writing a Technical Paper /research paper about an assistive (technology) software project
I'm an undergraduate student of Computer Science. I have been working on a software project all summer, and is successfully completed now.

The project is an assistive technology , a unique piece of software or program which runs on the Desktop/Laptop for peoples with
disabilities.
My teachers have recommended me to write a research paper on it and publish it in a international journal or a well recognized
journal.
But I don't know if a software is worth writing a paper on.? and would it be accepted in any standard journal of IT.?
Do I have to include the code in the paper.? or provide a web link in the paper to the software project to be reviewed by the peers.?

Also there is some related work/papers published in some fake/bogus international journals , the papers are poorly written , the papers feels like they are written by some high school kids plus their projects are nowhere available on the Internet, the actual products that they have developed and is the topic of their research paper is no where to be found on the Internet. (ok I have to admit the authors (students) are from India).

Now the question is that do i have to cite to these poor papers on these fake international journals.? do i have to mention them as a
related work.? would it be considered plagiarism if i claim that there
have never been any work done on this Topic although my project has
additional features and different approaches and privacy related
solutions that were not solved or mentioned in those fake journals and
their papers.?

Those papers are not just immaturely written but the same papers has different authors in different fake journals.
I'm just worried that even if i mention those papers as related work, it might downgrade my paper as the quality of those papers is really really cheap, and if i show my work as original work which is never been done before might cost me plagiarism related issues .
Would really appreciate any research scholar to guide me.
Thank You

Please ask one question at a time. For which journals (or conferences, since this is CS) to target, ask your teacher who works in this area, as each field has their own reputable and less reputable publications (and it is also off-topic for this site).

I have explained the whole scenario with alternate questions, it is one single question in small parts.......it would be very annoying for the readers if i post these small parts as single questions and then add all the similar details of the project to everyone of them.

If the question was so dependent on the details that you absolutely have to include them all, it would not be appropriate for SE. But the question "Do I have to cite dubious papers from predatory journals?" seems like a perfectly good question without further context.

Journals could be IEEE, academia, ACM human computer interaction, Springer, or other open access journals of Computer Science.

@shinwari_afg nengel is right, the second block of questions is unrelated to the first one. Please make it two separate questions.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
Entering PhD with bad masters grades and no thesis
I am a foreign national who came to the US to pursue my Master and now working at a robotics startup company. I had pretty good grades and awards from my bachelor's degree. But, after coming to the US, because of not eating well and having financial issues, I could not concentrate well on my master's degree and ended up getting just passing grade which is 3.0 out of 4.0. I did not do any thesis in my master. I really thought that this was the end and I would not pursue a PhD or come near academics at all in my life.
Lately, after working at my company, I feel like learning and knowing more about it. I am doing some online courses and learning constantly. But, I would like to pursue a PhD in the near future. My problems are, I don’t really have good connections with anyone to write me recommendation letters and I didn’t do a thesis in my master and moreover, I had just passing GPA and no research papers with my name. I don’t know how to revive myself from this situation. Please help. Thanks!

Do you have important industry contacts (for refernce letter and connections)?

Why are you giving me the impression that if someone does not do a PhD, his life is ruined?. Please note, I am not saying that you won't be successful in pursuing a PhD.

Have you considered doing a second masters that includes a thesis? This solves two issues - lack of research proof and you can use your better grade (assuming it is better) to demonstrate that the poor grade was an aberration.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
How many rejected papers does it take to get an accepted paper?
Today I received my first rejected paper.
The committee of 2 people left some good points but at the end they didn't get the point of my theme. It took me 3 months to write this paper for the Requirements Engineering Conference in Lisbon, Portugal.
I talked to 2 PhD students and they said that this takes time and passion. They told me that the average of rejected papers/journals per capita is 7. Do you agree with this average?

Don't be too disheartened.  It's normal.  I've had papers accepted on the first go and I have one that took me five years with many revisions to publish. I would venture to say 7 would be 'normal' for a newbie trying to publish in reputable conferences, and over time, with experience and continued revision and guidance, this number would drop, possibly 2-3 rejections on average.

Thank you for this feedback. That helps me get my frustration under control.

@Prof.SantaClaus, do you think 7 tries is expected if one has an advisor who provides some guidance on how to do the work, write the paper, and select the forum?  I grant that a "newbie" going it completely alone will hit major hurdles.

@FredDouglis like you said there are many factors.  Taking the 'advisor' factor into account, I would question his/her 'average rejection'.

If your papers are always accepted the first place you sent them, then you are aiming too low.

This is probably somewhat field dependent.  While I agree heartily with @GEdgar's comment [and he is also a mathematician], 7 seems like an unpleasantly large number to me.  The amount of time one would spend waiting for a math paper to be refereed 7 times is anywhere from 2 to 10 years: that seems like too long.  I can't think of a paper I've submitted more than four or five times, and having to submit that many times felt quite grueling.

Moreover, in order for a paper to get submitted 7 times and then accepted, that would seem to imply that there are 7 distinct tiers of conferences in the field.  That sounds like a lot, but even if it is the case, is it really wise to explore each of them in sequence?  Or do conference papers in some fields get refereed so quickly as to make this feasible?

@PeteL.Clark  In the field of Computer Science, it usually takes around 3 months to know the result.

@PeteL.Clark I wouldn't say that implies there are 7 tiers.  In my mind, the decision on a paper is like a random variable, and it can make sense to sense to try at few different journals (nearly independent events) where you estimate you acceptance probability, say, at 50%.  (That said, I completely agree 7 seems really high, at least in math)

This varies depending on a huge number of factors.  The venues you select to submit your work, the quality of the work, whether the work is described well or penalized because it is written badly, misses important related work, or many other factors.  And it no doubt depends on field as well.
I would however say that the idea that you submit 7 times for each time you get something published means you're setting your sights too high.  In Computer Science, for instance, probably most conferences have an acceptance ratio of 4:1 or 5:1, perhaps 6:1, at worst.  But then many others have much high acceptance ratios, so I would think the mean acceptance rate is 4:1 or 3:1.  In my own experience most papers have gotten in either the first time or the second.  One took 3, and another time I stopped trying to publish the work, but the average would be around 1.5-2 at most.
Whatever the ratio is in your field, by all means don't get too stressed over your first rejection.  It's part of the process!  And work with your advisor to find appropriate targets that are realistic.

@maxmin Without your advisor's help, it's virtually impossible to publish in good conferences.  I advise you to seek proper guidance before  re submission.  Otherwise, it's a waste of time.

Tks @lighthouse keeper ...

I generally agree with Fred Douglis, and 7 resubmissions seems high.
However, it is important to note that the link between acceptance ratio of journals and the number of tries that are needed is not straightforward for many reasons. The review process is not random, the resubmissions are not independent trials, and you are supposed to improve your paper between submissions based on the reviews. So for example if someone keeps submitting to journals that are out of scope, is not skilled in writing, or refuses to consider reviewer feedback, they might need to submit as much as 7 times before getting a paper accepted.

While I generally agree to this answer, concerning the statement "The review process is not random" there is some evidence that the review process may actually include a non-negligible amount of randomness, especially for papers that are neither outstandingly good or bad.

@lighthousekeeper I agree - I did not mean that the process is not stochastic. I meant that there are factors such as the quality of writing, appropriateness of the selected journal/conference and the significance of the results that can affect the probability of acceptance.


text:
Why do people not seem to consider private grants in favor of small public ones?
I have now experienced multiple instances where a group of researchers involved me in a grant application where the total awarded funds were quite small compared to the number of researchers in the group. Thus I find the benefit of a successful application very small compared to the time spent writing the application (the awarded funds are likely going to be divided by the number of researchers in the group). I have also been quite good at getting funding from other partners or private entities (only a small share from companies), so I find it hard to stay motivated for these public grants. Yet, it remains mysterious to me why other researchers in the group stay motivated -- they would be better off doing their research than writing this complex grant application for an overall small sum. I must say I have quite a bit of experience in academia, and almost always got easy funding (not public funds) in the past. It looks like some researchers enjoy "winning" a grant regardless of how small the funds are.
Do you have thoughts on this? I feel odd that I'm not sharing their enthusiasm; and it looks like I'm missing some key element.

Why not ask them what value there is?  Perhaps having a record of public funding will help you when you apply for your next job, or for a promotion.

Agreed, ask them!  "Hey folks, I've had success at getting private grants from organizations X,Y,Z.  It seems like more money for less work.  Have you all considered options like this, or is there a particular reason why you prefer public grants?  Or maybe we should think about applying to X instead next time?"

We could start listing all sorts of possible reasons, but it's pure speculation and won't really tell you anything about why these people seem to prefer public grants.

Public grants are supposed to have disinterested decision committees. So, if you get money from them, it means that you were considered worthy of getting this grant. So, it is reputation in addition to money.

@Roland I should have mentioned that private does not in this case mean private companies. Rather private partners, donors, and other collaborators. I can definitely see CaptainEmacs 's point though.

@goingaround You might need to clarify that in your question. As-is, it reads "I have also been quite good at getting funding from other partners or private companies"

Hey, if your rich uncle wants to fund your nuclear physics lab, go for it!

@GEdgar Thankfully the funding needs are not of that magnitude.

And yes @GEdgar you point out something important: in my field we are moving towards more technical, complex, and team-based work that requires more funds, and the public agencies have not adapted at all to this evolution. It is quite disconcerting frankly.

I'm not sure if this "answers" the question, but my belief is that people apply for grants for a combination of one of two reasons:

they want the money itself
they want the record of succeeding in getting the money.

While true of both public and private money, part of the prestige is that grants put their money where their mouths are. And public ones -- especially with longer histories can bank on those names (whether the banking is always warranted is of  course another question).
Your point is vis-a-vis 1 and could be restated as (A) more money is available through other means or (B) the amount of work vs. amount of money is a bad deal.
But the defense of pursuing famous public grants centers around 2. These public funding sources are (A) well-known, (B) perceived to have solid review processes, and (C) they are seen as prestigious because of (A) and (B), which should also make them (D) highly  competitive.
These features tend to make them attractive for career purposes. This is especially true when the quality of research is being evaluated by people who are not in the same field. I've got no idea what the Annual Peanut Factory Conference C's level is, but that the Snickers grant comes with $10,000,000 or even $1000 tells me that nut researchers would have competed to get it, and that you getting it means something.
In Japan for instance, Kakenhi from the government and how much you've gotten is a metric for getting jobs. In the USA, having gotten NSF or DOE grants can also help you in the future to get better positions or money.

This is absolutely correct, but there is also a third reason: oftentimes the "public grants" are quite flexible with what you actually do with the money once you have it. With them, you can often follow your research interests pretty liberally. With grants coming from companies you are, in my experience, much more limited in what you actually end up doing.

In the UK, the criteria for getting an academic job with a remit for research (as opposed to a 'teaching-only' contract) or getting a promotion often include "grant capture" or "research income". Some institutions take this very seriously, and have even compiled statistics on "research income" by field as benchmarks (e.g.: "to get a promotion to level X, you need to be in the top quartile for research income for your field"). I get the impression that this is more important than the quality of the actual research (much easier to compare a few statistics than to actually read the research publications!).
Why public grants are a bigger deal in the UK
The major sources of public funding provide grants on what is called a "full economic costing" basis. This means that the grant provides some support (usually not 100%, but large enough to be a big deal) for the estimated generic costs incurred by the university for office space, non-specialist equipment (e.g.: computers), administrative staff, and other such things. The word to stress here is "estimated": in practice, "full economic costing" often results in profit for the university, allowing it to pay bigger bonuses for senior management, erect shiny new buildings to impress the international students, and so on.
Conversely, most private sources of funding will fund only the direct costs of the research. So, although the value of the grant seen by the researcher may be the same, the total amount seen by the university is lower.

The grant system in the UK, and the reporting of the amounts, is the product of generations of suspicious civil servants: it is the worse I have seen by a very very very long shot.

According to iayork's answer to this related question, getting public funds provides tangible benefits compared to (some) private ones:

Someone who manages to get a public grant today will likely be able to get another public grant in a few years' time, increasing their worth to their department.
Public grants provide overheads that help keep the department running.
(From JeffE's comment) Getting a public grant implies your peers think you will be able to spend the money well, which is significantly more prestigious than getting your rich uncle to fund you.

The value of the grant is certainly important but so are the conditions of use of the grant.  It’s great to have a large grant to pay 3 postdocs but what if you need to buy equipment?  Contrariwise, what if you can only buy hardware but cannot pay people from this grant?  The list could go on: travel restrictions, reports to fill, publication restrictions or embargoes, intellectual property, etc.
Smaller government grants tend to come with fewer strings attached, and can often be used as seed money: you pay a student out of this to try something out and make preliminary work to see if the idea “has legs”.  If it looks promising, you then go for the bigger but more targeted grants.
There is also often a hierarchy of grants and the smaller ones function as gateway grants to larger ones.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Applying to graduate school in an unrelated field after a year working in unrelated job?
I'm in a predicament.
I majored in Computer Science as an undergraduate at a top university, and landed a job straight out of college at a web development firm. After a year of working at said company, I am itching to get back to school pursue a study of a topic in college that I found fascinating, which is East Asian Studies.
My problem is that the only experience I have with EAS is the minor in it that I acquired during my undergraduate career. The list ends there. I fear that I won't be able to get 3 recommendation letters from the professors that used to teach me (it's been a year, my study was only a minor, the school I went to didn't have the strongest faculty supporting the focus in East Asian Studies I wanted to pursue, etc), and that there isn't a strong enough background of experience, research, or published works to make up for it.
Is a graduate program still something I can think about pursuing? I am more than willing to spend a few months patching up my resume and my background to not only better my application but also actually get involved in this topic of research, but I am not sure where to start...
Any thoughts?

Are you proficient in one of the East Asian languages? Strong language skills can be the key getting into good graduate schools.

@scaahu: I took elementary Japanese in college, and am fluent in Korean although I am probably not fluent at the graduate level.

Your Asian language skills sounds very good. I don't think the admission commitee would expect you to have graduate level language skills because EAS was only your minor. Be sure to mention your strength(your comment above) and the your passion about EAS. I believe you'll have a good chance. The reason is that they'll understand you want study EAS since you have deep interest (you can easily make money with your CS degree). This is the kind of students they want.

Worst case they may ask you to take a few undergraduate courses, a sort of prep year.

In terms of "logistics," I would try to get one recommendation from a Computer Science professor, one from a language professor, and maybe one from an East Asian Studies professor (if not, then find the closest equivalent).
You are in a stronger position than you may think. Most applicants in East Asian (or similar studies), are stronger than you on the topic, but weak on "tools" that they need to pursue the degree. Two of those "tools" happen to be computer science (they call it quantitative methods) and languages, in which you are strong.
As a person that may be weak on the topic but strong on "tools," you are actually a rare commodity. Most faculties in soft sciences and social studies fear that their graduate students will be unemployable outside the field. You are the exception to the rule, and therefore represent a "lower risk."
My father, a retired engineering professor, used to say that it was easier for a good math and computer science person to take a graduate degree in Economics than for someone with an undergraduate Economics degree (and not the others).
Your minor in East Asian studies is enough to demonstrate your interest in the topic. The strength of your "tools" probably gives you an advantage over others.


text:
Who is responsible for "blinding" a paper for double-blind review?
Is it my responsibility as author to remove author and affiliation before submitting the paper to a journal?
In my opinion it is, but then I read this blog article by an Editor-in-Chief of some Elsevier journal who lists several reasons for rejecting a paper, including:

The manuscript is not complete; it may be lacking key elements such as the title, authors, affiliations, [..].

So my paper can be rejected if I prepared it for double-blind review myself? But how can I make sure that the paper is properly reviewed without my name and affiliation?

Why do you think the editor is referring to a double blind review process, in that article?

It will depend on the journal, and if the journal follows double-blind review, they will tell you how to properly format your paper. For example, the American Journal of Epidemiology:

Manuscripts must be submitted online in a double-spaced, blinded format, with pages numbered, in at least 12-point type, do not insert line numbers.
When uploading the manuscript to the Web site, please delete any text reference to the paper's authors, affiliations, and acknowledgments.

And what if there is no such hint? For example nothing stated here: http://jbhi.embs.org/for-authors/prepare-and-submit-your-manuscript/ ... Okay, I can always ask the Editor-in-Chief...

@DocBrown I see no reason to believe that journal follows double-blind reviews.

Note that if the journal does not use a double-blind review process, your paper could get rejected (or at least sent back for revision) if you do not include author information. Make sure you know what is required before you submit.


text:
Do citations of an edited volume of which I wrote one chapter count towards my own bibliometric indicators?
I recently noticed that an edited volume of which I wrote one of the chapters is picking up quite some citations. Since the citations are of the entire edited volume, naming only the editors of the book, I wonder whether these citations also "count" for me?
I am wondering if those citations of the entire book can be added to my total citation count (and calculation of H-index etc)?

Yes, of course; why wouldn't they count?  Or said differently: Count to whom for what purpose?

Well because I only wrote one chapter of the edited volume, and the citations are of the entire book, naming only the editors of the book.

"Counting", if meant literally, implies an official quota system such as "2 peer-reviewed journal articles per year". In that case, you would have to see if your department/university rules include edited volumes. But such rules usually don't distinguish between "widely cited" and "never read". W.r.t. subjective impression and the desideratum of being a "world-class scholar" esp. for tenure devisions, it counts (matters).

Since the book is cited in its entirety and not my chapter alone, I am wondering if those citations of the entire book can be added to my total citation count (and calculation of H-index etc)?

There is no such thing as the precise h-index, which is okay because the h-index is meaningless anyway.

People usually get their h index values from Google Scholar or Web of Science. I believe that Google Scholar gives you credit for any citation to the book (which, in my opinion, is a mistake). Web of Science doesn't index books, so you won't get any credit from there even if your own chapter is directly cited.

Well, my Google Scholar account has not picked citations of the entire book. But why do you think it's a mistake?

I'd argue that it should count only if they cite your chapter, if you want a maximally honest number. Though as noted these numbers are inherently approximate at best.

Let's split this into two different questions: 1) should citations of a "collection" book count as citations of an individual chapter in said book, and 2) will these citations count in any particular database.
Considering the first question, I can see an argument for and an argument against whether such citations should count.  In favor of counting, your work clearly is part of the collection, and if the collection has "citable quality" then your work is likely to contribute to that in some way.  Opposing this is the fact that "collection" books where each group writes a chapter independently are generally completely lacking in unity as a scientific work.  From what I have seen, citing such a book is tantamount to saying, "a bunch of people are working in this area."  I thus view a citation of the book as essentially equivalent to citing the ubiquitous "introductory review" chapter where the editors explain their vision of the field, then try to map that onto the collection of chapters they ended up with.  In short, I think it typically should not count as a citation of individual chapters.
For the second question: will citation databases agree with me, or will they count a citation of the book as a citation of you?  Well, that depends on just what sort of secretive sausage-making happens to be going on inside a particular database at a particular time.  From my personal experiences, though, I've seen chapters being treated separately, and the book as a whole being treated as a separate creation by the editors.  Take heart, though, that often means the editor's introduction will count as a citation for you!

This sure was a good motivator to stop writing book chapters.


text:
My name was misspelled in a citation, what should I do?
Recently, a newly published paper in a journal cited one of our papers and managed to misspell my name in the reference list. How should I deal with this? Simply ignore this? Or should I contact the authors or publisher to mention this?

I had a similar case. I mailed the publisher, not expecting much, and surprisingly they fixed it.

dsfgsho is an easy to misspell name!

My last name, Mallett, is apparently impossible to spell correctly.  From citations to speaker announcers to diplomata--what I can't understand is why, if you're unsure about it, you can't just copy it directly?

@AnderBiguri: On a more serious note, I never understood why misspelling names happens. I realise while I have a lousy memory for names, I never had problems spelling them right; however, many people seem to have problems with that, e.g. when spelling "Stephan" vs. "Stefan". That doubly especially considering we live in the Age of Copy and Paste.

@phresnel Indeed in the age of Google and copy paste misspelling a name is quite an error. Its easier just to copy it from the paper you want to cite!

@AnderBiguri: The only reason against Copy+Paste is when it copies text-formatting, but then, just open an editor or your browser url box, paste there, copy again and the formatting is gone.

@phresnel I will say even more: If you do bibliographies in BibTex (as many researchers do) the online journals have the WHOLE bibliography data downloadable usually. Its even easier

@AnderBiguri: Yep. And you can build up your database at home, if you write papers often. But then, even academic folk is often not into DRY- or other quality principles.

The easiest solution is to legally change your name to match that on the article.

@AnderBiguri: Never trust the downloadable bibliography data without comparing it to the author info explicitly given in the paper. For an example, enjoy this publication by two authors, or this one, whzich has one author in common with the first example.

@O.R.Mapper Im new in the publication world, but, you are telling me that the data that the jornals give you MAY be wrong? Thats impresive and unexpected

@AnderBiguri: The metadata seems to be extracted automatically by various publishers for their digital libraries, and the accuracy of that extracted data ... varies. Especially when names with non-ASCII characters are involved (and thus possibly one of the sets of names that you'd be most motivated to copy and paste/import from a BibTeX file rather than re-type).

@AnderBiguri: And while I'm at it, when I suspect the author's name might have lost an accent or so already on the PDF version of the paper, I always check the author's personal website to see how they spell themselves there.

@AnderBiguri Yes. Publisher bibtex entries are of horrible quality. Look for yourself: choose a paper whose author's name has an accent, and check if it's properly escaped with Latex commands. Or choose a paper whose title has an all-capital acronym, and check if the acronym is correctly enclosed in an additional pair braces. Or choose an author who has a double name or surname, and check if the authors are in the correct format "Surname1, Name1 and Surname2, Name2 and Surname3, Name3".

I once had my name removed completely from the author list of a citation. Worse still, it was one of my coauthors on the paper in question that made the mistake.

In addition to sending an e-mail to the journal, as suggested already, you should check the most common academic databases such as Scopus and Web of Knowledge/Science and submit corrections to them so that they pick up the citation correctly. They have a form to submit this kind of corrections automatically; it will then take a few weeks to apply them.
People often (way too often, actually) rely on these databases to measure the performance of academics, so it is important that they don't miss any of your citations.

You may send an email to either the publisher, editor of the journal or even the corresponding author of the paper and inform them about the misspelling. They may edit the misspelling.

There are a number of services that assign unique identifiers to authors and then associate publications with a particular author. This is particularly helpful for identifying publications of authors that have common names (“John A. Smith.”)  For example, Thomson Reuters (who publish the “Web of Science” database) have “ResearcherID”. Another important service is ORCID. You should register yourself with these services and establish your connection to your papers. You should also decide now on one version of your name (e.g. whether to use a middle initial or full middle name) and try to stick with it through out your career.
It may or may not be possible to get the journal to correct the spelling of your name in the online version of the paper. It certainly will not be possible to get this fixed in printed volumes that have already been distributed. That is why it is particularly important to check this information in reviewing page proofs before the paper is published.

The spelling error is in a paper written by someone else, in their references.


text:
Ask PhD committee member as reference
In Europe, is it common practice to ask an external member of your PhD committee to be a reference on a resume for job applications?

The question is how well does the external member know you? Is it enough to write a strong reference letter?

For at least some places in Canada, the external member can't be one of your references ("conflict of interest").  Is this also an issue in some European countries?

@Kimball: I've never heard of this, and I've asked at least three of my PhD reading committee members for reference letters. Also, wouldn't then your PhD supervisor be barred from providing a reference because of conflict of interest??

@JaapEldering The conflict of interest issue is just for the external member, who's supposed to provide an unbiased assessment of the thesis.  (I'm not endorsing such rules, and I think they're often overly strict.)

For academic jobs, I think that an external committee member is a good referee. They have read through your thesis, so they are one of the few people able to offer an opinion on the quality of your research.
For non-academic jobs, I think Christiaan's answer makes sense, they aren't going to be as interested in your research but more your work-related skills.
Personally, I (UK-based) have used the external examiner of my PhD as a referee in the application for my first postdoc and in a successful fellowship application.
Not being from the same institution probably looks good.

If I understand correctly, you are talking about whether to include certain references on your CV (and not about who to ask to write a reference letter for you - thanks JeffE for pointing this difference out to us).
In general, as far as I know, potential employers consult references mainly to obtain information about things not evident from your CV. That is, for example, your overall work attitude, your ambitions, whether you can work in a group, how you tackle problems, how you handle set backs, what your specific expertise is and any other personal experiences that are noteworthy to a potential new employer.
All of these things are pretty much unknown to external references. While additional references are likely welcomed, your reference list should, dependent where you are in your career, at least have one or two potential contacts that have worked personally with you.

This answer does not match my experience either as a reference-letter author or as a member/chair of my department's faculty hiring committee. At least in computer science, reference letters are primarily evaluations of the quality/depth/originality/impact of the applicant's research--yes, even for new assistant professors--which external references can and do evaluate. In fact, all else being equal, letters from the applicant's home institution are considered biased and given less weight. Successful faculty candidates must have external reference letters.

@JeffE - I understand the question as targeting the reference list at the end of a CV. In case you are talking reference letters - yes those are the kind of polished up laudatory transcriptions about the track record and achievements of the candidate and yes, those can be written by anyone. Thanks for this Jeff - I updated my question to narrow down its scope.

Again, in my experience, the references listed at the end of your academic CV are precisely the people that you've asked and who have agreed to write you reference letters.  There is no distinction.

My experience is the same as JeffE's. Then again, neither of us are in Europe.


text:
To what extent may someone use the content of a published paper in an expository piece on that paper?
If someone s has a paper p published, and if s wants to write up a piece explaining the contents of p, then to what extent can s use the contents of p? Or, the person s has no right to mention the contents of p?
That is, if someone writes an article explaining the ideas in one of his published paper by rephrasing the published paper, then to what extent is such rephrasing legitimate?

By "legitimate," do you mean "what is acceptable from an ethical point of view"? "what is typically done in this scenario"? something else?

@ff524 Thank you :) Right, from ethical point of view. I am sorry to confuse you. I am not a native speaker in English, thus I may not express entirely clearly what I want to express. I appreciate your making sure with me. :)

From an ethical point of view, you must cite your original source appropriately. Clearly indicate

when you are using ideas, words, or figures from another work by citing the source
when you use something verbatim (typically by putting it in quotation marks or blockquotes)

As long as you attribute your sources properly, there isn't really an ethical problem with excessive use of a source.
From a legal perspective, it can be trickier. In summary,

Copying large amounts of text verbatim: may violate copyright
Copying small amounts of text verbatim, for academic purposes: typically allowed under fair use, though like everything legal, this varies by jurisdiction
Paraphrasing text: does not violate copyright. The intellectual content of a paper is not subject to copyright (as opposed to the words used to present it, which are).
Reusing figures: may violate copyright. Check the policy of the source's publisher.

From a "best practices" standpoint, work that involves an excessive amount of paraphrasing is often lacking original intellectual content. Even if your work is expository, you're supposed to be adding some value for the reader, not just stating the content of the original source in other words. So be careful of this, too :)

It would be better to avoid the abbreviations 's' and 'p', which is probably why @ff524 was confused.
Regarding the question I think it will depend on what you want to do with the material and the copyright conditions of the paper. Sometimes the copyright belongs to the publishers and each journal has specific guidelines for reproducing some content (even some allow to download figures in powerpoint format to be used for presentations under some conditions). Other times (e.g. open access journals), the copyright belongs to the authors. Either way, if in doubt the best would be to get in contact with the appropriate person.
Personally, for journal club and similar activities, I use the material without asking. In conferences, when I want to highlight someone's else research, I may include a figure of their paper. In that case I always add the appropriate reference to the paper.

Hi thanks for your sharing. Indeed, s and p are not abbreviations; they are symbolic pronouns. Mathematical language makes things concise by speaking in this style :) I feel that ff524 is confused not by language.

"Mathematical language makes things concise by speaking in this style :)" [Citation Needed]


text:
What additional revisions can I make in a journal paper after review, beyond those suggested by reviewers?
Suppose that I have submitted a paper to a journal, and I have a list of suggested changes from the referee.
Then, let's say I put the article in the appropriate format and make the suggested changes, but I still want to make some additional changes.
Perhaps I want to be a little more exact with my wording in certain places, or I need to condense/expand some sections, so that my figures are not forced into awkward positions.
Is this acceptable?

Also see Making additional changes to manuscript after the refereeing process is completed and What changes after peer review but prior to final submission are acceptable for a conference paper?

Often wording/grammatical changes and reformatting are suggested or done automatically during the journal's (post-review) editing process.

Short answer: ask the journal editor.
Longer answer.
I've had two different types of experiences that are contradictory. I've had what I took to be the "standard experience" where one should not make edits to the copy after submission unless specifically advised to do so. In this case, don't make edits other than those that meet the questions of the reviewers. The rationale is that you don't want to introduce new problems during the editing process.
My sense is that in this sort of case copyediting is usually done by devoted staff at the journal or publisher. Often there are ominous warnings no to go around editing things.
Alternately, I've had a couple of submissions (outside of my field of philosophy) where the editor had both told me the paper was accepted and then made me substantially rewrite the paper, commenting at one point that I should get someone to read the paper and critique it -- which I thought was kind of odd and non-standard since if the paper needs that much revision, you shouldn't say you've accepted it for publication but rather that it needs to be revised and resubmitted...
In this case, copyediting is done by the original author together with the editor in a back and forth manner.
Anyway all of that text to say, these practices are less standardized than you might think and you need to know that journal's practices.

My experiences in STEM fields have been that making additional changes is fine so long as those changes are not large enough to likely invalidate the result of reviewing.  Thus:

When preparing a major revision, the paper is expected to be reviewed again by the same set of reviewers.  As such, almost any change is OK as long as the basic thrust of the paper remains and it will still be reviewable by the same people.
A minor revision, on the other hand, is expected to only be considered by the editor.  As such, improving things like wording, grammar, and presentation is generally fine, as well as making minor technical corrections and additions.  One should not, however, make significant substantive changes that would want to have additional peer review to evaluate their validity.


text:
Should I wait for my professor to reply my request for recommendation letter?
I am going to apply to graduate programs in the US, so I contacted my professor who advised my master's thesis. He is the most important referee because I did research with him, so I think he understands me well. Moreover, he is a well-known scientist in a very prestigious university in France (top 20 of the world in my field).
At the time, I left France to my home country, he told me that he would help me further my academic career. He actually gave me two recommendation letters afterwards for 2 PhD positions. Sadly, I failed both of them.
Ten days ago, I emailed him if he could give me recommendation letters. He didn't reply for one week, so I wrote a follow-up email. However, I haven't got any responses from him until now. I am so confused because the deadline is December 15th.
Does it mean that my professor has declined my request? Should I wait for him or ask other professors?
NEWS: I just got his acceptance. He was traveling this week so he didn't got my email. Thank you all for your advices.

@Nullarbor Yes, he knew the results.

How long do you have to get the letters? If the deadline is approaching, you can use that to put a (small) bit of pressure on the professor. Also, how much does the professor need to change if (s)he starts with a previous letter as template? Would a simple change in the person to be addressed be enough or should the entire letter be rewritten?

Wait a week after the most recent reminder.  Then, if you still haven't heard back, one week before the due date, or slightly earlier, telephone his department, explain your problem, and ask the secretary to give a personal message to the professor.  Sometimes professors can get overwhelmed with work and deadlines.  Don't take it personally.

Professors are really (really) busy. Most likely he simply did not have time yet to reply to your email. Or maybe he is at a conference and does not have access to the previous two letters on his office computer. He will probably reply to your message later.
To get his recommendation letter quickly the best thing you can do is make it as easy for him as possible. Because you already have two of his letters I suggest you write your own new recommendation letter based on these two, send it to him by email, and ask him to sign it. This is quite common, at least in the different labs in the UK and France where I have worked: many professors ask students to write their own letter, after which they may make a few changes and sign it. This saves them lots of time.
Also, make sure to let him know when your deadline is so he understands the urgency.


text:
Tools to help retain knowledge from coursework?
As second year undergraduate student, I've realized that I sometimes have a hard time recalling the core concepts from coursework in previous semesters. I imagine this would only gets worse as any student progresses through their academic career, so I want to take action early.
I'm wondering what tools exist to help students keep studying a course topic after the semester is over. This way students would constantly be applying knowledge they're interested in retaining, but without diving deep into a subject. For example, this could be something like a software solution that regularly quizzes me on course topics I've already covered.
Does something like this exist?

"I imagine this would only gets worse as any student progresses through their academic career." I found the opposite to be true. Once I got to grad school I focused more hence forgot less. Also, by the time you get to grad school you start developing a web of knowledge where most new things that you learn are connected to thinks you already know securely by multiple connections. Over the years since then I have forgotten much of what I've learned, but even now I have much clearer memories of the content of my grad school classes than I do of my undergraduate classes.

Unless your own university provides you with such software, it would probably be too hard for the software to know what topics you have studied exactly, and in how much detail. But you are right: if you do not work with your knowledge on a daily basis you will forget things. But this is not a problem. The "magic" solution you are looking for is called a job :).
Inevitably you will forget some of the things you do not work with every day. But your education will provide you with enough knowledge to look up the answers you need, and quickly be up to speed again.
The way I see one of the main goals of an MSc is to be able to read the scientific books and papers in your own field, and the fields close to it. This is how you will refresh and update your knowledge constantly when you start working in science.


text:
Will anyone know if you fail out of a master's program?
Suppose that someone enrolls in a master's program but then fails out. Will future employers be able to find out about this? Or can this person just pretend it never happened, and there will be no blemish on their record.
If this person applies to other master's degree programs (in a different, better-fitting field) in the future, would those programs be able to find out?
A little context: this person has the option to withdraw by a certain deadline, and needs to decide whether remaining in the program is worth the risk of potentially failing out.

In at least one country (UK), it is possible to get a qualification if you've completed a certain number of credits at master's level, even if you don't then go on to get the full master's degree. I'd argue that even though this is something of a give away about not getting a full master's degree, it does at least show you've achieved something in that time period, so it's worth looking in to.

Related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/14971/academic-dismissal-from-phd-program-what-next/14983#14983

It may be that they would learn of it, or possibly not, but the consequences of them learning that you omitted something that they considered important could be dire. It would be treated as a mark of dishonesty and neither employers nor universities generally value dishonesty.
The record exist and might come to view at some point, though they would, in most cases, not be sought. But you need an explanation for the time you have spent. If it is a black hole it looks pretty bad on your record, both for an employer and for a future degree.
You are probably safer to just be honest. There may be reasons for failing out that others would consider valid. Academia isn't for everyone and many people have various struggles that make success difficult.
If you have access to an academic counsellor, you should make an appointment and go. You may get good advice there about withdrawal and your future plans.

Will anyone know if you fail out of a Masters program? Maybe.
The point is that when you write a CV (necessary for almost all employers) you'll have to include details about what you've been doing. If you did your Bachelor's degree from 2013-2017, and then the next meaningful thing in your CV is in 2018, an astute reader is going to recognize that there's a missing year. She might ask you what's in that missing year, which would force you to reveal that you failed out of a Masters program (or outright lie). Even if she doesn't ask you, she'll have her doubts: whatever you did was not something you wanted her to know about. What could it be? Remember failing out of a Masters program isn't the worst possible explanation for a gap year: perhaps you were in prison, for example. Should she hire someone who's clearly keeping secrets from her?
Having said that, she is not likely to know what actually happened unless you tell her. She could guess that you were doing a Masters degree somewhere, but there are thousands upon thousands of universities in the world and one cannot realistically query them all.


text:
Strong opening and closing paragraph
I'm going to apply for graduate studies and one of the SOP outline points says

Have strong opening and closing paragraph

What could be considered a strong paragraph? In my case, the opening paragraph is a mild introduction, not describing things in specific terms, but giving some base points. The closing paragraph sums up the middle-ware (mostly education, work experience and other interests), states my academic goals and future perspective.
Do I understand them, the paragraphs, properly?

I believe that we read a book or a paper for example, we need a good introduction and a clear conclusion, and in the mind of the reviewer the conclusion has the recent significance. However, when skimming a paper one read only the abstract(that would be the strong opening paragraph) and mainly the conclusion(final paragraph) Hence, I advice to properly written these two parts to be clearer, since the reviewer would skim through applications.

Strong is subjective and likely to mean one of two things, either thought provoking or emotionally moving (and possibly both). In general a closing paragraph should not only summarize what has been said before, but synthesize a new statement (or direction of inquiry) from the supporting statements. In academic papers, one leans more towards logic and less towards emotion, however in a proposal like this, you want to get your reader excited about your idea.
You want to stand out for the work you plan to do. Use language that is not 'soft', be confident and point towards facts. Show how your ideas will lead to increased knowledge or productivity and do not make it about you.
Use your conclusion to state how your idea builds on what you have done, what others of done and what positive advances it might lead to if the work is done. Then you might state how this has inspired you to pursue this field.


text:
Has the average number of co-authors on papers published at the top CS conferences increased in last several years and if yes why?
It seems to me that over time the average number of co-authors on papers published at the top Computer Science conferences (and perhaps journals as well) has increased.
I suppose this may has something to do with the increasing number of active researchers in these fields and the increasing difficulty in contributing to problems that are or may be considered important.
Question: Has the average number of authors on each paper published at the top conferences (and possibly also top journals) actually increased? If yes, what are the likely  reasons for this?

I'm also unsure if such specific questions are as useful as more general ones such as Is there an inflation in the number of authors per paper?, What is the average number of articles written per author in a year and has it increased recently?

@Anyon It might  be useful since the dynamics which may cause multiple authorship in papers at top conferences may differ from the rest.

@Anyon I agree about the first post that you suggest, but not about the second: authors-per-paper and papers-per-author are two very different metrics that are not necessarily related to each other.

I don't have data, but I suspect you are correct. The competition is fierce, so one has to join forces, the number of researchers and resources increased and people are working in large labs or groups now.

@FedericoPoloni Yeah, that's fair.

Here's a relevant paper from 2017. Unfortunately, it only covers publications up to 2014 and doesn't distinguish between conferences and journals: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-016-2214-9

@Anyon Thank you.


text:
How to get a good reference for my grad school application when switching majors?
I am a final-year chemistry honors student in a South Asian country. I minored in geography. while I have gotten good grades in Chemistry (CGPA-9.23/10 up till now), I have realised my interest is more towards my minor course i.e. geography. More specifically, Urban Studies.
I am applying to Science Po, Paris Urban School for my master's course. While I believe I can convincingly argue for my switch of careers after studying chemistry for three years, due to my public policy internships in urban mobility and transport space and also being an content creator on urban design etc, I am however faced with a tough dilemma of getting two academic references for my application.
I did not build good enough relationships with my professors and most of them were also not invested in us as students enthusiastically or we had big class sizes or I only took a class with them for one semester. A few people I did have good relationship with are contractual teachers/PhD scholars (these people don't have official university emails and those who don't have official
email addresses are not allowed to give references at Sciences Po). In this case, I don't know how to approach my professors from the chemistry/geography departments. There are only 2-3 candidates in my mind but I am on the fence about them as they might straight up refuse, not properly understand my career switch or write a mediocre reference. What do you suggest I do in this case?

My own approach in seeking references was to bite the bullet and ask ... but specifically, to ask "I'm applying to XXX. Would you feel able to support me in my application".
If the answer was anything other than pretty enthusiastic (e.g., a lukewarm response like "I'm kind of busy right now but I guess I could find time" or, "Do you really think that XXX would really suit you?", etc.) then I'd move on to my next possibility. It takes courage, but it does allow one to avoid the duds.

What was your plan for if you ran out of reasonable candidates?


text:
For a first printing of an edition, should the Print year or the Copyright year be cited as the publication date?
I need some help determining the proper publication date to cite a book (a textbook). It is the 8th edition of the textbook, Print 01, Print year 2016, the Copyright year is 2017. Should the print year or the copyright year be cited as the proper publication date? Does it matter if the copyright date is in the future (for reference, this question is being asked in 2016). I understand that the copyright date is pushed as far forward as the publisher can get away with to maximize the copyrighted period.
I realize this is similar to a couple other questions, such as What determines the copyright year for a publication? but I think it is a bit different in that those questions deal with multiple copyright dates or a print date that is after the copyright date.
The textbook is:
Evans, J.R. (2016 or 2017?). Quality and Performance Excellence, 8th edition, Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.
ISBN is 1-305-66222-9

Whenever you have tricky issues like this, go back to the basics of why we reference works at all.
The aim of a reference is to help the reader locate a copy of the work, so that they can replicate or investigate your results or argument.
So ignore the publisher's gaming of the copyright year — which suggests to the reader that book is an advance copy, and thus not available from the publisher, but only from the paper's author and other 'insider' sources — and use the date the work was actually available to the reader from the publisher.

Others will use the copyright date.  So, if you want to communicate with others, why not use it, too?


text:
Ask how to pronounce advisor's last name?
I am an undergraduate working with an advisor, but I do not know how to pronounce his/her last name. I have talked with several different people who work in the department, and have heard the name pronounced several different ways.
Is there a polite way of asking an advisor how to pronounce his/her last name?

Just ask, same as with anyone else. I don't think this is specific to academia, hence my down-vote.

This question appears to be off-topic because it is about general etiquette

You're almost there! A cut and paste from your question with edited pronouns seems fine to me: "I do not know how to pronounce your last name. I have talked with several different people who work in our department, and have heard your name pronounced several different ways."

It's fun to watch students try to pronounce your foreign name, all the time with a poker face.

But don't call his last name if it is "Voldemort."

I you are not comfartable asking him openly, how are you going to work with him comfortably?

@jinawee It's not necessarily uncomfortable, but just asking in a polite way.

By the way, I have heard your last name pronounced a few different ways and I want to make sure I get it right. Can you teach me the correct way to pronounce it?

... and by the way, what would you like me to call you.

I'm fairly routinely asked questions of this kind. Although I understand why they ask, I disagree with the premise. If I were asked this, I would ask back "What do you mean by "correct way"?" A better way to ask would be "How do you pronounce your name?" or "What would you like me to call you?" (as StrongBad said).

I disagree. The correct way to say my name is the way I choose.

@LightnessRacesinOrbit Nice principle, but not always possible. Sometimes the problem is that it is extremely hard to pronounce the name correctly. For example, I live in Germany but I am Dutch and my last name contains a sound that just does not exist in German. I am not offended when people ask, and I will explain them how to do so, but at same time I will tell them not to worry about it and that I will listen to anything that is close enough.

@MaartenBuis: Okay but that's not the same as saying that foreign approximations are now the "correct" way ;p

@LightnessRacesinOrbit Tell that to my local Starbucks barista, who insists on calling me "Holly" and looking at me like 'you have a girls name' every day!

@OllieFord: Haha :P I always give the Starbucks cashiers random names. One week I'm Peter, the next I'm Javier.. it's very amusing.

@LightnessRacesinOrbit So I didn't claim that 'foreign approximations' are 'correct', I just took issue with the notion of there being one 'correct' pronunciation in the first place. I want to be helpful to my interlocutors, so my preferred pronunciation changes according to who I'm talking to (and what country I am in), since the way I say my name in my own language is unpronounceable to anyone not speaking my language.

Call me ... anytime :-)

@TorbenGundtofte-Bruun "Hi, Late-For-Dinner."

@Dan - touché. Brilliant!

@LightnessRacesinOrbit I once asked my MS advisor whether his last name (Eppstein) was correctly pronounced "Epsteen" or "Epstine".  He answered "Either".

I agree with the direct approach in the other answer, but if you'd like an indirect approach (that can be done before a first meeting), try calling the professor's office phone number when you know he or she is not there and listening to how the name is pronounced on voice mail.

anything to avoid actual communication.

goes up to Professor Hughes "So I pronounce your name .... 'Hello'.."?

@Spork just a day in the life of a CS undergrad (and even grad, I heard) student.


text:
Rankings of Computer Science conferences and journals
I was wondering if there is any kind of "reliable" CS conferences ranking available on the web. I have searched on SCImago, but I believe it only ranks journals, and there is no mention about conferences. Actually I am curious about it because in the faculty that I am currently working we want to know which papers are presented to good conferences, and which ones are presented to bogus conferences.
Is there any way to know that for the field of Computer Science? I know there are some tools like Google Scholar, but I believe it is not so trustable after all. Should we rely on Scopus maybe?
Any advice?
Thanks

we want to know which papers are presented to good conferences — The good papers. Which you figure out by actually reading them and by asking for expert opinions (aka reference letters).

Microsoft's Academic Search site has a listing of conferences, which seems to be fairly accurate for the top conferences in fields I am familiar with. Not so sure about lower-ranked conferences. http://academic.research.microsoft.com/?SearchDomain=2&SubDomain=0&entitytype=3

@MikeA. Unfortunately it looks like that site is no longer up

There is CORE, an initiative by universities from Australia and New Zealand. On their website, you can find both journal and conference rankings. Most of the rankings are ok, but (of course) there are individual entries that seem too high or too low to me. As far as I know, many research organisations and faculties in the APAC area use this ranking to assign "credit" for papers.
That being said, if your goal is to distinguish good and bogus conferences, I am not sure CORE will actually help you. The main problem is that CORE is only updated every few years, and only with entries which got submitted by somebody during a nomination phase. Hence it is never really complete. Actual bogus conferences (such as the infamous Worldcomp series - see also for instance here) are not listed at all, but so are smaller legit venues as well as any new conference or journal (of any quality). Hence, you can use the presence of a ranking in CORE as a signal that the venue is probably not bogus (it may still subjectively be better or worse than its ranking indicates, but it is very unlikely to be an actual scam), but you cannot use the absence of a ranking to indicate a bogus venue.
Another problem that you may run into is that a few bogus venues have taken up the practice of using a name that is "coincidentally" very similar to existing high-ranked venues (cp. the top-quality WWW conference and the very low-quality WWW/Internet conference). To complicate matters further, in some emerging fields, even more or less established publishers sometimes churn out journals with basically identical names at more or less the same time (e.g., Springer's Journal of Cloud Computing vs Inderscience's Journal of Cloud Computing).
Finally, established conferences occasionally change their name, sometimes as part of a merger with other conferences, and hence "fall of" the ranking if you do not know what the conference used to be called in the past.
All that is to say that CORE is a tool that can help you get a feel for the value of a publication, but it will not relief you from the task of actually looking at the publications themselves to assess their value.

To add to this answer, it should be stated that the input by Australian and NZ researchers is also used to rank the conferences. Thus, the far-too-low ranked conferences coincide quite well with the ones that such researchers rarely attend because of geographics, and the too-high ranked ones are likely to be those that Austrarian and NZ researchers tend to take part in more frequently. For the aim of CORE, this is no problem, but when misusing the CORE ranking for other purposes (it's still the best ranking that "we" have), with this filter in mind, the ranking can be more useful.

In my opinion (and I'm not from Australia or NZ), the CORE ratings are quite reliable for conferences that have them (it's true that for those that don't have a rating, you never know). Yes, there might be some under- or over-valued conferences, but that happens in any ranking, including the overhyped ISI JCR impact factors for journals - which in my view are less reliable than CORE as there are really poor journals in Q1. As far as I know, all the conferences that have the A* (maximum) rating in CORE are really top tier.

Is the h-index a good measure to rank conferences? Atleast divide them into bins? For instance in Computer Vision, CVPR, ECCV and ICCV would make up the first tier, followed by WACV, BMVC, ACCV in the second.

Check the last answer at To publish or not to publish a paper in an ERA "type C" conference? - I put there several community rankings, highlighting some problems with CORE ranking. But CORE is a good start, I agree with the previous answer.
P.S. Google Scholar does index conferences, but not correctly identifies all of them

The website http://valutazione.unibas.it/cs-conference-rating allows you to look for a conference and gives you its rating in not one, but three conference rankings (CORE, MAS and SHINE), together with an aggregate rating.
I think the CORE ranking is pretty reliable as far as rankings go, for the conferences that are listed. You only need to be careful with not equating "unlisted" with "bad" - it may just be a small conference or one that was not included because researchers in CORE's geographic area didn't participate in it lately. But for conferences that are listed, the ratings are quite trustworthy. CORE A* (in the aggregator website they call it A++) are top tier conferences.
I can't vouch for the other two rankings as I haven't used them much, although the three of them seem to be at least roughly in agreement most of the time.
A caveat: the aggregator was updated in 2015, while if you go straight to the source for CORE, you'll get ranks from 2017.

A revised version of the ranking, updated with the new CORE data, is available at http://valutazione.unibas.it/gii-grin-scie-rating/ and now also involves the Spanish Computer-Science Society, besides Italian GII and GRIN.

The most reliable and up-to-date ranking I know of is the GII/GRIN Computer Science and Computer Engineering Rating, which is based on CORE, SHINE, and Microsoft Academic Research Conference Ranking, and has undergone several manual adjustments. It only includes conferences so far, but it's a good start.
--- Edit
A revised version of the ranking, updated with the new CORE 2017 data, is available at valutazione.unibas.it/gii-grin-scie-rating and now also involves the Spanish Computer-Science Society, besides Italian GII and GRIN.


text:
Listing authors who cite me
While looking for good independent recommenders I found myself in need of a tool that can automatically compose a list of names that have cited my papers. Yes there are many ways to find out which "papers" cite a given paper, but if you have multiple papers and citations, extracting author names from citation list becomes challenging and time consuming very quickly. Is there a tool to do that? If not this sounds very useful and it may make sense to build such a tool, if you find it useful too.
(I guess you don't often need to find independent recommenders from strangers, but there are a couple of use cases at least, such as green card applications, job applications, etc.)

ResearchGate seems to have this feature for author profiles. Not sure how accurate it is. There also doesn't seem to be any way to export the data.

What field of research are you in? Many solutions will be field dependent

@mmeent computer science

Microsoft Academic
Microsoft Academic does show such information: Click on a researcher profile, go to the tab Cited By, then look at the column (to the left of the screen) titled Top Authors. Here is an example for Christian Drosten:

If you have a profile at Microsoft Academic and claimed your publications, you can see a similar list regarding your own 'citers'.

CrossRef
An alternative approach would be the following: You could gather all the DOIs from the papers that cite you, loop through it to access CrossRef's API via https://api.crossref.org/works/{DOI}, and extract the respective author-field.


text:
Name isn't included in my article's google scholar citation. All of my co-author's names however have been included
There are 3 other co-authors, all of their names have been included in the citation. But my name hasn't been included. None of us have google scholar accounts, but only my name was excluded. However my name is included in the publishers 'suggestion citation' part and I'm included as an author there. How do I fix this?

From my understanding, much of Google scholar citations are automated. I know folks who have shown up as cited in studies where they were not in fact cited. That said, I just tested this. If you create a profile, you can select articles that are yours, and you can edit these once they are associated with your profile. You can also manually input articles that you authored, which should address your issue in this question.

I did that, I made an account and selected the article, and also edited it to add my name as an author. But it still hasn't updated it. Like when I search for my article from the google scholar home page, I still don't see my name as an author.

@SaiCharanB, they've got some suggestions in their troubleshooting documentation. What you've described seems to be pointing to issues with their web crawls for inclusion. I'm unsure from their documentation whether the publisher needs to reach out or if you do.


text:
How to convince my PhD advisor to keep working with me if I am switching university?
I am in a low ranked US math PhD program. I generally get along well with my advisor and like my research area (complex algebraic geometry). But the objective of my PhD program is to get low paid math teachers. We are overloaded with TA assignments.
So, I could get into a foreign math PhD program in South America. I am starting next July. Those foreign institutions generally offer full scholarship through the their Federal Government without any duties, free tuition + living expenses. No Duties Attached.
The thing is that I want to keep working in collaboration with my current US advisor, but he got mad and upset when I told him I am moving to another university.
How could I convince him to keep working with me? I mean there is internet and Skype. But I have not talked to him since the time I told him I am moving abroad.

I'm beginning to think we need a general-purpose reference question.  "I did something to make someone mad; how do I convince them not to be mad at me any more?"

@JeffE. I still want to work with my current US advisor. He is a really nice person. But I am fed up of the excessive TA workload. So why no try to improve my conditions? I have already taken the decision to move. I just ask if there is a way to keep my current advisor.

I don't mean to suggest that you've made your advisor upset out of malice or negligence, or that you should blame yourself for his upset.  Based on the limited information in your question, I think you're making the right decision for you. But for reasons of his own, your advisor may see your departure as an unforgivable betrayal. As @Saturnus says: You will need to sit down with your advisor and talk this through, but It may be a case of it not being possible to convince him...at all. Welcome to being an adult.

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because this just isn't something we can help you with.

Eat the cake and keep it, too ...

It sounds like you should probably not expect your advisor to continue as your advisor. In choosing to leave the program (and, indeed, the country), you have relieved him of responsibility.
Advising students is difficult and demanding work. It is much more difficult, and less rewarding (for both the advisor and the student), when done over correspondence. Usually when advisors agree to do this, some combination of the following two factors are in play: (1) the student is near the end of their Ph.D. studies (and already has a thesis problem); (2) the advisor left the university (either temporarily or permanently) and the student didn't want to or couldn't follow them.
I don't know your exact situation, but I would recommend looking for a new thesis advisor in your South American university, while still trying to salvage a productive relationship with your current advisor. Even if he is no longer willing to assume formal responsibility for advising your thesis, he might still be willing to suggest open problems to you, offer advice, or be supportive in other ways.
One course of action that might turn out well for you would be to investigate opportunities that will be available to you at your new university, and schedule an appointment to discuss with your old advisor which of them he thinks it would be most valuable to pursue.
Good luck to you in any case.

My advice (from experience of treading a fine line all through my academic career) is to approach people with some really heartfelt statement. Emotion is not often expressed between adults especially between academics and more so between student and supervisors. Doing this can really throw people off, make them feel special and open them up to possibilities they would normally not consider when approached in the rigid formal way they are accustom to. Saturnus mentions that the rules of the department/institution may ultimately stand in your way. From my experience, these rules are only guidelines and most academic supervisors have the power to bend them, especially if properly motivated to do so. You've got to remember that supervisors are human too! You may think you made him mad but it was the result of many factors most of which you probably never guess at. Imagine he had just won the lottery and was thinking of giving up his position. What do you think his advice/reaction would be then?
From what you ask I would say something like the following. If you can put a suitably humble and quivering voice on then all the better. If he feels sympathy for you and sees its a difficult decision for you the more likely it will deflate any tension between you both.
"Look, Sir, I've been meaning to talk to you regarding my move to S. Africa. I hope you don't think I've been avoiding you but I feel a little uncomfortable about the situation. I feel I may have disappointed you. I made my decision to move my studies to S. Africa " Continue here with a charm offensive but refer back to your motivations to balance the attack. "I have really enjoyed working alongside you. I think you are a great supervisor and I feel really comfortable around you. Speaking with other students I fell I'm luck to have you as a supervisor. I have found our time together most inspiring and I hope it can continue." e.t.c. ... "I would like to enquire as to the possibility of continuing to work with you when I move to S. Africa. I know it's a long distance but communication wouldn't be a problem" e.t.c then reiterate why you want to remain his student.
In my experience, this kind of approach has been very successful.

Um, "South America" not "South Africa".


text:
What is the best job for fresh graduates to improve chance of being admitted to top grad programs?
I have just obtained my B.Eng degree and I intend to pursuit a career in academia. However I decided not to immediately go to grad school in the USA.
During this time, I am considering among different working options to improve my graduate profile to top grad programs. Please help me evaluate between these 3 options, and clarify my doubts in each option. Besides, which is the most common option, for someone who does not want to immediately study PhD right after bachelor's?

To work in industry, while continuing doing research with my mentor in my free time. Then I would apply for grad schools this autumn. With this option, I will have more industrial experience but less time to finish my journal article and for research. My question is I'm not sure if the above industrial position would help my PhD admissions in any positive way. Keep in mind that the job is not related to my research interests but the skills I learn might be helpful for grad studies (programming skills in other languages, for example).
To work full-time as a teaching and research assistant (RTA) in my undergrad university. Then I would apply for grad schools this autumn. With this option, I will spend most time doing research, which I enjoy a lot, have more time to finish my journal article, and even have a chance to write more papers. However, it's unlikely that the status of my future pubs would be "published", or even "accepted", by the grad admissions deadline (December this year). Another thing I'm wondering is, is RTA considered a serious and legitimate "job" in the USA? Does it negatively affect my grad admission in any possible way? For example, the admission committee might think that I am not mature enough to pursuit a "real" job after graduation? By the way, this RTA position I'm aiming for is full-time.
To attend a MS program at a prestigious university in Europe or Asia. Then I would apply for PhD in the US after its 2-year program. With this option, I can have a degree from a more famous institution, considering the fact that my undergrad institution is not well-known internationally. I think that a degree from a repute university would be a boost to my application. Am I right? Even if I am right, is it worth my time? However, I realized there are many drawbacks to this route: potentially not over-the-top master GPA due to the rigor of the program, much less time or even no time for research due to heavy coursework. Even worse, I came to know that US grad schools often do not value master degree from other countries, which mean I would very likely have to repeat many coursework if I am accepted to a US PhD program.

Some size notes:

My field is engineering, however, I gladly welcome answers from people with different fields.
My current mentor has some very good contacts in top US grad programs. This make the purpose of Option 3 less appealing.

We don't tend to answer personal questions since they're not very helpful to other people who come by. I think you have a good underlying question, so if you trim it down to be more general, you might get better answers from the community and avoid having your question closed. Welcome to Ac.SE!

@AzorAhai thanks for your suggestion. I've trimmed the content down to be more general. I'm not sure the title is clear enough or it's too clunky.

The best job option is the research assistant or research and development related position because mentors or advisors want to see you are capable of doing independent work and that you are familiar with publish or perish practices in academia.


text:
Should I list my papers which are published in less known journals in my CV?
In preparing my academic vita for applications to PhD programs, I came across this question: Since I have some papers published in less known journals, should I list them or not to list them?
Will listing them instead hurt my applications?

Try asking on The Workplace as well

@Ooker To my knowledge, posting same questions simultaneously on different SE sites is against the site's policies.

But the answerers in each site is standing on the different point of view. I think we should listen to both.

@Ooker - This is an academic question, as it relates to applications to PhD programs. This is the appropriate site for such a question. If the question related to applying to industry positions, you would be correct, but that would be a different question with a different answer.

Remember that academic CV is a lot different from industry CV. In academia, CVs of 4 or more pages are not uncommon. In industry, these end in the trash immediately.

PhD admission committees look for evidence of your ability to successfully complete the PhD program. Published papers can be a big hint that the answer is "yes".
Unless it can be argued that the journal is a predatory one, I would suggest mentioning the published paper in your application if you think that the paper is of good quality. Even when the journal is not so well known (but has good standards), it shows that you can perform the type of work expected from you if they choose to accept you.

Here is a well-known list of predatory journals.
As DCTLib says, you probably shouldn't publicize publications to any of these. For any others, go ahead! A less reputable journal paper is better than no journal paper. Once you have dozens of publications, you can start thinking of filtering out less reputable stuff.
Note: I would have added this as a comment to the previous answer, but don't have the reputation.

I think this works OK as a stand-alone answer. Another option would have been to just edit @DCTLib's answer to include the extra information.

Unless you have published in predatory or other journals with some suspicious reputation, all publications count positively. The more you demonstrate your productivity the stronger your application. How much each publication counts will depend on other factors, like the order of authorship (being first or middle; note that depending on the field ordering may be irrelevant) or how many times the publication has been cited.

Note that, in some fields (e.g., pure mathematics and theoretical computer science), author lists are ordered alphabetically. If your publications are in such a field but you're applying for a PhD in some other field, it might be worth explicitly mentioning that the author lists on your cv are alphabetical.

Ah, good point @DavidRicherby. Now that you mentioned that, I have a colleague that was before in theoretical physics and there too ordering is alphabetical.

I think the answers to my question from the other side of the table suggest that even publications in predatory journals isn't a problem.

I asked this same question from the other side of the table: Value of light-to-none peer reviewed pay-to-publish articles when I had a student apply to do a Phd with me who had three articles published in essentially predatory journals (maybe a hair better). My concern was that the papers indicate a student whose potential goals are not well aligned with the requirements of many competitive PhD programs. The answers convinced me that that is not a big issue. I would suggest including them and mentioning in your cover letter/statement of purpose that you understand the differences between high and low quality publishers. I think that would help to convince potential supervisors to evaluate the publications based on the quality of the research and not the place of publication.

From a current PhD student:
I would definitely recommend listing them on your CV.
The publication expectations for PhD applicants are relatively low (compared to postdocs, etc), and many PhD applicants don't have a published manuscript in a peer-reviewed journal yet. So having something on your CV that shows you're published, even if in a journal with a 0.1 impact factor (lesser known), will still make you stand out.
Something else to consider - humans are busy. And academicians are super busy. And unless you're applying to a program in the same field as the journal you published in, there's a good chance the people reviewing your application won't even know the quality of the journal on your CV. And they most likely won't look it up. And even if they do, the key is that you've published something. This, in itself, is great.
As I see it, you can only gain from adding these to your CV.

As an academic, I'd disagree with the "they probably won't check, they probably won't know" argument as it implies still there is something shameful or problematic about having published in a lower ranked journal. As long as the journal has a genuine peer-review process, having a publication in it is always better than having one less publication. List all of them, and don't buy into this thinking that 'you'll probably get away with it', because there is nothing you need to hope to hide.

If you are just beginning your Academic carrier, list EVERY reputable publication, including popular pubs such as magazines and news stories (be sure non-peer reviewed pubs are marked).
Even after you have several publications, and need to thin your CV, keep a list of all published articles in a longer format CV in case it is needed by a committee of some sort.