text:
Including a segment of constructive criticism of another paper in my manuscript
I'm currently investigating a subject that has theoretical and algorithmic aspects. I have my theoretical background that I think is novel enough.
As for the algorithmic aspect, I found paper X (not written by me or anyone I know personally) to be genuinely very good, but I think that using my theoretical advances I can improve it further, especially for my own application which slightly differs from the one the authors of X had in mind.
Now, after I analyzed and scrutinized X's algorithm in practice (i.e. obtained the source code and performed numerous experiments), I found that some of their assumptions and declarations are inaccurate. [E.g., if their algorithm consists of stages A->B->C->end, and they claim A makes a big difference and is their novelty, I find that it is in fact a good implementation of C that makes that difference.]
I certainly don't mean to undermine or criticize them because it is a good paper. However, I do find some discrepancies. So, in my paper, should I also include some subsection in which I specify these issues (with suitable justifications), or will it just look as nitpicking or otherwise negative behaviour on my part?
Thanks.
EDIT (clarification): even though it seems to be a specialized case, it's really about etiquette regarding criticism of other authors' papers.

Does the theoretical novelty you bring to the table directly relate to the mistakes the original authors made? Are the advances you propose directly affected by the mistakes?

First question - no. Second question - yes; I want to solve some specific problem P. Now, if their assumptions are wrong then I would need to improve a different part of their work, and I would need to explain why I am doing this (i.e. explain that it doesn't do what they claim and I therefore need to change it).

If you make choices that only make sense if the article contains mistakes, then point out those mistakes to justify your choices. Then it becomes a matter of necessity to point out the mistakes, not one of nitpicking.
However as a matter of courtesy and due diligence, you could contact the original authors to ask them about the mistakes. Be sure to approach the subject gently. Along the lines of: "in the article you state that A was the cause of the performance gain, but in my tests I found the performance gain in C. As you see in these results.  Do you know what I did differently than you?"

I would add it may be worth trying to rephrase your thoughts to remove the need for conflict. More so over subjective things. I.e.: "X show a good way of implementing this, in which C plays a role in reducing overall cost". If you need to say more it could even be made to seem more like a compliment: "they were modest, C is really good".

There are ways of stating things which do not call the quality of the original work X or its authors into question.  I have read many a paper containing inaccuracies.
If you cannot describe your enhancements to X without citing the discrepancies you found, then by all means include them.  However, it would be good form to only state that which is necessary and make it clear that you discovered these discrepancies through your own empirical analysis.


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Seeing as symbolic math tools are very common nowadays, how acceptable is it to skip calculations in manuscripts?
Many studies are mainly revolved around solving optimization problems; formulating a cost function and getting the gradient w.r.t some elements. This part can be somewhat challenging mathematically and is required to solve the problem in practice. Or at least, it used to be. I note that I'm not talking about the research of optimization but rather using optimization as a tool.
Symbolic toolboxes (such as Theano, TensorFlow, etc., mainly used when designing neural networks) are abundant and widely used. Using these, we can skip the manual calculation of gradients - we write only the cost function, and the derivation is done for us. Usually even the optimization is performed automatically.
While in the computer vision field it is very common to find studies that skip the math almost entirely, in other fields it is still very common to write the cost function, and at least provide the final equations needed for reproducing the results (more elaborate calculations are usually found in the appendix or supplementary material).
I'm wondering - if I choose to use these symbolic toolboxes in another field, in which it's common to write the entire derivation (or at least the gist of it), will it be frowned upon, even if I specify which software I use and even provide code? I somehow feel as if some fields consider themselves to be more 'mathematical' in substance and will therefore want to see I can calculate myself rather than let a computer do that for me...
Thanks.

A note for the answers: Theano is not like Mathematica, that computes a nice, human readable expression. It generates a function in its internal representation that can be exported to utterly unreadable C/CUDA code.

If the software you are using is not free/not universally used in the field, you may want to give enough information so that people that don't own the software can follow your results and/or check the result by hand, or with a similar software.

Do not write out the long boring calculation in a middle of an exposition devoted to a different idea. That makes reading harder. But do present the calculations somehow, e.g., delegate them to a separate section/appendix/supplementary material. Extremely often I found that calculations that I find trivial aren't for others, and sometimes that is because they are wrong.

This doesn't really address the situation. Here we have a software that computes the gradients as a black box, so they are available, but, should they be explicitly computed too?

I am in a very different field as yours - Computational Fluid Dynamics - but the use of external software in simulations is common. In general, a mention of the software and a reference to its documentation or source code if available is given. Providing the mathematical procedure is not necessary since you did not develop it yourself.
The access to a given article and the attached references, and not the article alone as mentioned by others, should enable the reader to reproduce the results.
This is how it usually is presented::

The computation of the cost Function was done using the Tensor Flow toolkit. The reader is referred to [ref] for more details.

The way I use such software is that it is easier to derive the result manually if you know what the outcome is. In addition I only treat it as an intermediate answer. I usually need to spent quite some time staring and rearanging the result such that it makes sense to a human. This "post-processing" tends to improve the paper a lot: you move from a black box to something intuitive, and possible special cases and limitations tend to naturally folow from such a discussion.
So I consider those very useful tools, but I check every result and every result needs considerable "post-processing" by hand.

Theano doesn't give you a formula for the gradients for human consumption, so it won't help you in your derivation more than checking your results.

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Why do computer science conferences (usually) not reveal the number of submissions?
In the conferences I've experienced, each paper gets a serial number that can tell its authors how many submissions were made prior to theirs.
Many conferences have a fixed number of tracks (and days), and thus the number of accepted papers cannot vary too much. (The organizers do have some flexibility, but it is rather limited.)
Thus, knowing the number of submissions can help one assess his chance of being accepted to the conference, which might tempt him to submit at the very last moment just to figure out the submission count.
Obviously, not everyone can do this. Why don't the organizers simply post it on the website after the submission date is due?

Because nobody really cares?

At least sigchi and siggraph do post their numbers, at least in an email to authors

@JonCuster - apparently, I do :).

Usually (most of the time) this information is shared on the opening day as part of the welcoming session.
Why do conferences use sequential numbers that could give this sort of information away? I don't know, probably because it is easy, and the information has little value in general. Since most of the review process is a pretty manual labour intensive task, this probably makes it easier to find missing papers by hand, to search for and track papers, reduce potential administrative errors, etc.
What would change if there are 300 spots and your paper was number 600 vs 350 (assuming you submitted last)? You are usually not allowed to submit the same paper to more than one conference at the same time, so you cannot act in either case until you received your acceptance/rejection letter. Good conferences cull poor quality papers, even if that means not all the spots are filled. You only know the paper is accepted when it is accepted. Estimating a probability of acceptance is merely for your own enjoyment and has no benefit to the conference organisers.
In academia, if you ask the question why is x, y or z not done, the answer is usually time and effort required without any benefit to that person.

Yes - like many other types of conferences, volunteers make it happen, and if you want something more out of the conference, become a volunteer!

Well, one can withdraw the submission and aim for a different venue if you have 600 submissions and expected 350. As far as I know, if you withdraw your paper before any manual labor was involved in reviewing it, this is OK.
Also, I'd argue that posting the number of submissions shouldn't take more than a few minutes.

@PPc Sure, you can play that game, but how confident are you in the quality of your work if you have to do these type of things? Rather aim for the less prestigious smaller conference from the start.
It is not that it takes a few minutes. It is that someone has to add this as a task to a long list of other more important and more pressing tasks. Hosting a conference is hectic!
Answering your question, they don't post it because they don't want to, or don't care to. Could they if they did, yes. Maybe you can e-mail the organising team and ask?

Conferences that I know include the number of submissions in the preface of the proceedings.

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How to search for upcoming conferences that will be held in a specific subject
What is the best way to search for conferences all over world? I need to participate in one in the near future.

depending on your field http://www.wikicfp.com/cfp/ may be helpful

It would help to specify what field you are in.

Why not try this website http://www.conferencealerts.com/ It is a website about conferences all over the world whatever the academic topic!

@JuandaCruz The web site you suggest has extremely poor coverage of computer science conferences.

I think this is a broad question (the answer varies for different fields) and also is a kind of shopping question, seeking for a list of websites (as can be seen in the existing answers).

By doing reasonable googling. As you didn't state your topic let me make an example when searching for conferences on magnetism. The operators I use should be self-explaining. Most conferences will be announced on websites of universities or mentioned, to exclude old ones search only within 2014..2014, and so on...
See also my other answer which has some links how to use google properly

For computer science conferences:

WikiCFP
EventSeer
Springer LNCS forthcoming proceedings:
ACM calendar of events
IEEE list of events
ConferenceLists

Subject-specific mailing lists, such as:

DBWorld
AISWorld
ACM SIG-IR list
ECOOP info list

This basically summarizes the near-duplicate https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/40438/computer-science-central-source-for-cfps

I worked as an administrator for the 21st McGill International Entrepreneurship conference and we listed our conference on a conference announcement directory called PaperCrowd.
It attracted several delegates from around the world. I found out it was in the same city I lived in and I applied for a job there and got it! I am now the proud community manager of PaperCrowd. We are working hard to improve the services for researchers worldwide.
You should try PaperCrowd - a global directory of academic research conferences. You can search by topics, geography and keywords for research conferences you are interested in such as law, legal etc.
Organizers add their events in a couple of minutes and it’s free. It’s restricted to academic research conferences.
It feels good working for a company that I have seen myself was effective.
https://www.papercrowd.com/

If you are affiliated with PaperCrowd, as you state here, you need to disclose your affiliation in every answer where you promote this service. See also How not to be a spammer.

I have a very good experience with national and similar subject mailing lists, for instance French "Groupes de Recherche" such as http://www.gdr-im.fr/ intended for Theoretical Computer Science. There're dozens of them in France for instance.
Once you are a member of such group, you recieve quite a lot of mail (subject prefixed by [gdr-im]), most of it are information on interesteing seminars, job offers and conference CfP (for both local and international meetings). I have found being a member of this mailing list very valuable.

Nature's website has a list of scientific conferences and events (324 events are listed in September 2014), but may be biased towards certain fields. I think I saw similar lists in other journals as well.

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"Be a small fish in a sea, or a big one in a pond"
I graduated (BSc and MSc) from the top university in my country and I'm currently a PhD candidate on another strong university. I expect to defend my thesis in a few months. After that, I plan to stay in academia pursuing a tenure track, and at both mentioned universities I can get a decent position (I've managed to include a number of my undergrad professors in my grad studies or at least collaborate with them at some point, mostly because of my supervisor). However, my hometown is also an university town, and I could certainly apply for a position there, but the uni there lacks the prestige and esteem of the former two.
Through my qualifications, I'm confident that I would advance faster through the academic ranks, contribute to the society in my hometown and introduce some changes to the faculty there. Another obvious big advantage is that I would be residing at my hometown.
On the other hand, the staff and research are much better in the former ones.
My supervisor suggests that it would probably be better for me to be at home, since I think about it in the first place, given that, by keeping and broadening my connections I would experience no significant penalty, at the same time the local academic society would benefit through my ideas.
So should I apply for a position in my home town, where I would be a big fish in a pond, or should I apply at the other universities, where I might be more like a small fish in the sea?

What is your question?

Could you focus your post into a specific question? See our [about] and [help] pages for more information.

Why can't you be a whale in the sea? And how do we know we won't end up being a plankton in a puddle? Don't be confined by these idioms, most of them have no ground.

Be a squid in a candy shop.

Apply for, and fully investigate, all such possibilities. But I would go even farther: 3 places is not nearly enough to apply to, especially if you are interested primarily in tenured track positions.
Deciding which job you want to take before you've actually been offered one is perfectly natural, and is a perfectly terrible practice! It so often leads to disappointment, missed opportunities, and general dissatisfaction.
Now would be the time to expand your horizons! Find new institutions you might like and apply to them; put the word out about your availability through advisors, fellow researchers, friends of friends in academia, etc.
The chance of getting any one position is terribly unflattering, regardless of your background or standing. If you can find a dozen places that you'd be happy to go to work - relative preferences for one over the other not withstanding - then your chance of getting something you want improves remarkably. Don't put yourself in the position of being disappointed because you had to "settle for your last choice", instead of "winning one of your top 3 picks" just because you didn't look into more possibilities. (This is advice I have to give myself over, and over, and over again.)


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Undergrad seeking information about PhD/Masters in Economics math requirements
I am currently a Senior undergrad at a small school in the US.  I have pretty good grades and have yet to take the GRE. I am a double major in Accounting and Business Management. I love economics (all parts I have encountered) but I am not sure if economics programs are for me.
I have heard that PhD/Masters Economics programs are very math intense, and without the proper courses you will be lost. I am not that great at math maybe because I never was that interested in it (I do like numbers if that makes sense). I did take Econometrics this past semester and really loved it and understood it. I do like behavioral economics; I find the psychology side very interesting.
Summary: I am not great at math. I love how economists think. I love being able to explain things with data. And I like how psychology can explain irrational acts. I want to further my education.
Questions:
What program(s) should I be looking into based on my interests and capabilities?
How math heavy are economics programs (PhD & Masters)?
Is it mostly econometric math?
Is there a similar field without the crazy math but with econometrics?
Is the US the best place for me (where I am now)?

Before you make any decisions, ask yourself very seriously: What do I want from a PhD/Masters in Economics?
If you want to qualify for a certain type of job, then this will inform your strategy.  If you want to master certain skills, or to explore what interests you, then you may have a different strategy.  If you want an academic job in Economics, then you'll have another strategy, different from the first two.
I suggest you consider three things:
First, you should understand that PhD and Masters in Economics are very different.  Basically, a Masters in Economics will qualify you do to certain types of empirical data analysis.  (I've never heard of a Masters that involves theoretical economics.)
Second, I believe its true that nearly all top or upper-echelon graduate programs in Economics require strong proficiency in mathematics before the will admit you.  This is true even for programs that are no explicitly quantitative (e.g. Austrian).  The math you need is Calculus, Probability and Statistics (based on Calculus), and preferably Ordinary Differential Equations.  You'll need a high GRE math score.  It's very hard to read most Econ papers with out significant math proficiency.
In my opinion, if you really want a PhD in Economics, then you'll bite the bullet and do what it takes to learn this math.  It doesn't require a "gift" or special aptitude. If it doesn't come easy to you, it does require dogged persistence and diligence.
Third, given your interests, I'd strongly suggest that you investigate PhD programs that have a specialty in Experimental Economics.  My University, George Mason, is one of them.  There's very interesting and fruitful work going on in this area, including links to neuroscience and cognitive science, but it requires very strong skills in statistics and behavioral sciences.

"I've never heard of a Masters that involves theoretical economics." I think the University of Bonn does. In the EU it is quite common to have theoretical economics in a Master's program as many PhD programs require a Master's degree.

@TheAlmightyBob - Thanks for adding that.  I wasn't aware of it.

Yes, a PhD program in economics is very math-intense.
To get into a competitive program, you essentially need to score 800 on the math portion of the GRE (not as hard as it sounds, since an 800 is only the 94% percentile or so). Typical minimum math requirements for admission are two years of calculus, a course in linear algebra, and a statistics course. Some background in reading and writing proofs is also a good idea, and many PhD students will have taken a course in real analysis. (If you want to pursue theoretical econometrics, you would want to learn some measure theory at some point, too. But you could do that in grad school.) You will make heavy use of multi-variable calculus and linear algebra in your first year of coursework, so hoping to "pick it up as you go along" is not a great idea. (The one piece of good news I can offer on this front is that you can safely forget all of the trig you ever learned. I have.)
The most competitive master's programs (e.g. LSE) will have similar requirements, but there are others where you wouldn't be expected to have as much preparation in math. A solid semester or two of calculus and some kind of exposure to linear algebra might be enough to start with, though you should still expect to do a fair bit of math once you get to grad school. (Basically, constrained optimization out the wazoo!) So, if you're not keen on math, an economics degree might not be a great match for you.
Here's a good site for more info about PhD programs and admissions (though be warned that sometimes there's a bit of blind leading the blind): http://www.urch.com/forums/phd-economics/
In any case, I wouldn't wander into a PhD program in any subject without a clear idea of why you want to spend 5+ years of your life as a poor, overworked grad student. It's pretty much a requirement for any good academic job (and for some not-so-good ones!), but not necessarily for work in the private sector. I would advise thinking hard about what you want to do after grad school, then talking to someone who is doing that to figure out how to proceed.

So what math classes should I take? Calc I & II and linear algebra?

@user18101: For a PhD program, 2 years of calc (at my school this comprises three 4-credit courses, so "2 years" = Calc I-III), linear algebra, and 1-2 courses in stats/econometrics is the minimum. To be a competitive applicant, add at least one course that involves reading and writing proofs. (Possibly called Discrete Math or Discrete Structures, but YMMV.) You will find endless discussions about this topic at the discussion board I linked to above.


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Is having a master's thesis important for US PhD applications in linguistics?
I'm a recent BA graduate. In my field (linguistics), it seems like most successful applicants to PhD programs at top schools have Master's theses, and writing samples in the field are probably the most important part of the application. My writing sample will probably be only 20 pages long at best, even though I think it's really interesting and good.
Am I at a disadvantage? Would it be better for me to get a Master's before trying again? Or do they only just care about the kind of research that you do?

I added "linguistics" to the title, since this is very likely to be field specific.

You say "trying again".  Do you mean you already applied to PhD programs and were rejected?  If so, that may change the way you think about applying (i.e., you may want to get feedback on your application), irrespective of your MA status.

Ph.D. student in linguistics here.
I'd say "probably not," especially if you and your educational background are both American as well. Stand-alone MA programs in linguistics in the U.S. are difficult to find. Where they exist, they tend to be focused on applied linguistics and education. Most domestic applicants will have only undergraduate degrees. Focus on demonstrating that your research interests are well-defined, that you have a good sense of how to pursue them, and that you have a rock-solid understanding of why the University of X would be a great match for you. Don't worry too much about the writing sample; mine was just a small course paper that the professor liked.
That being said, it can't hurt to have an MA from a reputable school, and aiming for that might make sense as a backup plan. I've seen several people move to Canada or Europe to do an MA in theoretical/quantitative linguistics, then come back to the U.S. for a Ph.D. One of these ended up saying that their MA experience north of the border was something they'd wholeheartedly suggest to people having trouble getting admitted to Ph.D. programs in the U.S. I've heard that there are even a few schools up there that provide funding for international MA students in linguistics, though I'm not sure which ones they are. Worth looking into, though!

I wouldn't say you will be at a disadvantage without an MA.
I have a PhD in linguistics.  I didn't have an MA before I applied.  Many people in my program didn't have an MA when they applied.  When I met prospective students at other schools I applied to, many of them didn't have an MA either.  (These were at well-known, tier-1 research universities.)  Some people certainly have MAs, but it's by no means a requirement.  My impression is that many if not most linguistics PhD programs in the US are designed as combined MA/PhD programs, where they expect you to get the MA along the way to the PhD.  If you already have an MA, you may be able to skip some coursework, but it's not expected that you'll have one.
A good writing sample is definitely important, but it doesn't have to be a thesis.  Many people (including me) just submitted what they thought was one of their best term papers from a class they took, maybe polished up a bit or edited for the purposes of the application.

I did try applying to PhD programs. I graduated as a BA in philosophy from a top 5 linguistics program (I took multiple graduate level classes in linguistics though). My writing sample was in philosophy of language. I got waitlisted from a top 10 program and top 20 program, and rejected everywhere else. I got turned down everywhere I got waitlisted, and I couldn't afford to get an MA (I contacted a bunch of MA programs after seeing that I had nowhere to go). So right now I'm working on two research papers to apply again this year, I guess that was the main problem with my application.

@Nephenee: Have you talked to the professors who taught those ling courses?  They may be able to help you improve your app.  You could also reach out to the schools you applied to and ask if they have any feedback on how you could be a stronger candidate.  This doesn't always yield results but sometimes it does.

Yeah, they wrote my recommendation letters. I think the only problem with my application was that I didn't have a research background in linguistics, which I guess is the main thing they care about in the first place. The other aspects of my application, my letters, transcript etc. were all great.

@Nephenee:Yeah, okay.  I'm just saying it might be good (if you haven't done this) to explicitly ask a professor for feedback on your overall application.  Even professors who wrote letters for you may not know the strengths and weaknesses of your overall app unless you show the whole thing to them.

I have a fair amount of experience in reading applications to linguistics grad programs. Very few students have an MA in linguistics or anything else, and nobody ever raised the lack of an MA as a relevant point (this is in the US: life is different in Europe). What does count is the writing sample, i.e. proof that you can do research (an MA thesis being obvious evidence that you could pursue a PhD). I would say that in 30 years, I saw two MA theses submitted (and yes, in one case it made a difference). A good 20 page research paper would actually be better, as long as it really was novel research and not a book report type of "research paper", since it's much easier to read a 20 page paper than it is to read an MA thesis which can stretch on for a couple hundred pages.


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how should I write my first email to co-supervisor?
My supervisor introduced me to a professor who has (already) accepted to be my co-supervisor, and wanted me to contact him and make an appointment. I want to write an email, but I do not know exactly what to write. My supervisor raved about his knowledge.
How can I explain my purpose of contacting?
Is the following a good email?

Dear xx
My name is ++++ , and I am a master student and my supervisor is
Dr.+++++.
First of all, I would like to thank you for agreeing to be my
co-supervisor.
I have read and heard a lot about your achievements and your extensive
research experience in the field of artificial intelligence systems.
so, I would like to discuss with you on topics such as AI, Machine
learning which will help me get started in the right direction.
Would it be possible to meet with you to further discuss?
I am available Days and Times.
Kind  Regards,
++++++
XX

Perhaps thank him for agreeing to be your cosupervisor?

could you explain more? what other things should I include?

We don't know what you should write either. We need more context -- what is the purpose of this email? Have you met the person before?

@Austin Henley no, I have not met him before. and I am going to make an appointment. and meet him for the first time.

Well then you should also ask about meeting!

@Dawn  what do you mean? I did not get you.

The content of the email depends on what you want. You haven't specified what you want in your question, so we can't tell you what to write. I'm voting to close as unclear.

Do not overthink it: http://phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1047

XX means kiss kiss, no? I'd drop that. Keep in mind that your co-suepervisor, though respected and awesome, is a person, and is not likely to go berserk because a student made a little error in an email. Also, wouldn't it be interesting if that co-supervisor is active in this forum?

This question was closed as unclear, so the asker edited it... by removing all but one word? I am very confused.

Please do not vandalize your own post. Thanks.

Two ideas only. I don't think you need to praise him in an initial note. Just mention the general area in AI that you want to explore.
But the meeting should be at his convenience. Rather than tell him when you are available, let him set the meeting. If necessary you can indicate when you cannot meet if that is relevant.
You can thank him and tell him you are looking forward to working with him when you actually meet.

what do you mean? in this part "Just mention the general area in AI that you want to explore."

@nikki2 Buffy gave you a good outline - so just give a simple explanation of the focus of your research.

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How to ask professor to explain something again?
I had a class last week and I was 10 minutes late. I missed part of the class, and I want to write an email to my professor to arrange a time to meet.
I prepared this email:

Dear .....
I’ve missed part of the previous session and this part is not clear for me.  Could I meet up with you this week so you can explain it to me?
Thank you

Is it appropriate?

Yes, if this is the only time you have been late in this course.

@GEdgar. why did you say if it is the only time? should I write the reason why I was late? I know being late is very unpleasant. does it have a negative effect on professor though?

Yes, it has a negative effect on the professor if she has to meet with you outside of class to re-teach the material you missed.

Do you know a fellow student in the class whose notes you could borrow? The professor would probably be happier if you had done some preparation of that sort and only needed one or two things clarified than if you asked for a repetition of the whole part of the class that you missed. (This is even more important if you missed a larger part of the class.)

I have the note for that part but I do not understand.

Does your professor have regular office hours? Some schools require this, and some faculty members will have them whether required or not. (If you have a syllabus or other description of the course it will probably list them.)

The answer is no.  I've had students who want to me to repeat an entire lecture for a multitude of reasons.  My answer is almost always no, except if the student has a genuine case, e.g., been sick, or has demonstrated he/she has made some efforts to try to fill in any gaps in knowledge.  In your case, try to fill in the missing bits by asking your friends, Googling, and then just double check your understanding with your professor.

@Prof.SantaClaus If your answer to a student showing up at office hours asking for help reviewing 10 minutes of a lecture he missed is no, it seems to me your name should be grinch, not Santa Claus.  Perhaps it's just the entrepreneur in me from before I started teaching, but I figure students are paying my salary.  I don't think it's unreasonable for students to ask pretty much anything they like in office hours and expect a helpful answer.

@NicoleHamilton Once students know you are 'happy' to repeat a lecture, then they will think it is OK to miss lectures because you are their backup.  Do you want students to cultivate this behavior?  I prefer students to be resourceful, and I'm there to help if they meet me half way (the gist of my earlier comments).   I don't work in high schools and I'm responsible for hundreds of students.  Do you think it's scalable if each student ask you to repeat 10 minutes of the lecture every week?  The university doesn't pay me enough for that.

@Prof.SantaClaus  That's not my experience.  One of the courses I team-teach is intro C++.  Last semester, we had 1100 students in 5 sections.  Is that big enough?  Office hours are very pleasant and I enjoy them.  Otoh, we record our lectures so students can watch them again.  Maybe you should try that.

I would like to take a different perspective than Buffy:
You were late (maybe even disrupted the course when entering the room) and missed something. Now you want additional time from your teacher to catch up something which happened in the first 10 minutes - which will take ~5-15 minutes of the working time of your teacher. Multiply this by 100 students and 5 courses per week, and you will spot the problem ;-).
Therefore, I would suggest to try everything you can do to catch up on your own. Ask other students. Use books. If you invested >3h without success, you can still write this e-mail explaining what you already understood, where you struggled and at which point you need specific help.
This will show your professor you are really engaged and makes it easy to answer your question within seconds. Maybe (s)he will ask you "just to talk a few minutes after the next lecture" which is also very time effective.
The behavior also depends a bit on your local student-teacher-relationship. In my course, I would not mind if you just approach me after class, you will receive a little (friendly but sarcastic) remark about being late, and get an answer (and I'm happy that someone is trying to learn something).

I agree with this and I tell my students that I don’t go backwards through the material....

While I agree that disruption is bad, and that working it out yourself is good, please don't fear to ask. Asking questions is the heart of academia. And no one is perfect (not always, anyway).

Perfect question for office hours!  Go and wait for your turn to ask.

This does not provide an answer to the question. To critique or request clarification from an author, leave a comment below their post. - From Review

IMHO, this is the perfect answer to the underlying question. I agree that the best course of action would be to the office hours, which, AFAIK are exactly for that, than to write an e-mail that could get lost...

@Scientist "How to ask professor to explain something again?" "Perfect question for office hours! Go and wait for your turn to ask." It even sounds almost like a natural conversation, I can't imagine how this could be an answer to the question more than it is.

Some people dislike short answers for no good reason. There's no need to "back this up with sources" or to fill the answer with pointless explanations. Some people even think that they should write short answers in the comment section instead, which is even worse.

OK, I'll back it up: Office hours are specifically for questions about the course material and this is a question about the course material. Asking the professor for a separate time for the same purpose is an imposition. The only times you should request a meeting outside of office hours are 1) no office hours exist, 2) you have a serious conflict (another class at the same time), or 3) you need to ask a private question not suited to office hours (accommodation request, etc.).

Yes, it is appropriate, though you will want to apologize for being late. Most professors, good ones anyway, value questions and the students who ask them. If the prof in question holds regular office hours that would be the most appropriate time to ask.
I don't think there is any "special" way to ask. What you suggest seems fine to me.
You can also try to get up to speed on the topic before you meet, using text books and the like. Or discussions with fellow students.
I was once thought to be very smart because I asked a lot of questions. On the other hand, my mother thought I was a "pain" because I asked a lot of questions. But she wasn't a professor.

No, as a general rule, such mail is not appropriate. I would not be happy to receive such email. There are reasons courses are taught in classes of multiple (many) students, and that is, the professor's time is much more valuable than students'.
There may be exceptions to the above rule. For example, if you have been late to some widely known reason that affected many people (e.g. snowstorm, public transport breakdown, etc.), then the professor may be more generous (but I would not be surprised if he asks for multiple students that missed the class to arrange a single meeting).
On the other hand, if a) people are habitually late to this professor's class, or b) you were late multiple times, don't even think about this, because you may get pretty bad reaction. Do the math, if there are 100 people in the class and only 5% are late and want extra time with professor, it can easily add up to a burden that is non-negligible.

I don't think it is because the professor's time is 'more valuable' than the students'. Does this mean that the time of students taught in larger classes is less valuable than those taught in smaller ones? Or that the time of students taught one-to-one is as valuable as professors', even though the time of all other students is less valuable? I think you're right about the inappropriateness, but wrong about the reason. The point is there are 100 students, but only 1 professor. It's inappropriate precisely because the professor's time is not less valuable than the students'.

Even if there was only 1 student, the same would be true because the 10 minutes the student was late were the 10 minutes during which it was agreed the professor would teach the student that material. If you turn up 10 minutes late to a one-to-one tutorial, you lose 10 minutes tuition. You can't expect the instructor to arrange an extra 10 minute session to compensate next week.


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Two papers rejected from conference. One of them was judged based on the other
I have recently submitted 2 papers to a top tier IEEE conference; both were rejected.
The reviews for paper B included two accepts and one reject.
However, some of the comments the reviewer who rejected gave us seem to relate to paper A. In fact, he actually named an algorithm appearing in paper A (in his review for paper B), saying its evaluation "is not convincing".
While there's definitely a possibility both options were not good enough, shouldn't they each be judged based on their own merit? Should I mail the PC chair about this?

You can certainly try, but at this stage, they  have likely filled all the slots, so your chances are low, I think.

As @Davidmh says, now that accept/reject decisions have been made, reversing them is incredibly unlikely. I do think you should ask the PC chair about this, but with no expectation that your paper will be accepted even if it was rejected by mistake.

Most likely, both got sent to the same reviewer and he got confused while writing.... almost happened to me once, when I got a bunch of papers with similar title/content to review....

Did you get any accepts for paper A? That is, say it is the same reviewer who got confused, would that push you up to three accepts?

I think you should mail the chair. It may be to no avail, but the chair will at least be informed of the practice.
Like you, I believe each paper should be judged on its own merits. Don't reject Paper B because you didn't like something in Paper A. That's truly ridiculous. But it could be a new rater who's unfamiliar with the process.

It could also be a copy-paste error if there are similar comments on both your papers: "While the content was interesting the justification for the use of [algorithm A] is insufficient", and substitute inside the []. The number of conference papers to be reviewed in a short time is rather high for some academics (the deadline may look good but most of the time may be tied up in teaching/exams)

I think you should definitely contact the PC chair. It is important that each paper is evaluated on its own metric. As a matter of fact, they should be considered independent entities.
Apart from above reasoning, most top tier conferences would have some sort of blinding process. Seems like in this case it was single. It might be coincidental that both papers ended up with same reviewer.
That is why double blinding is a bit better, but it is what it is for now. Also, two accepts and a reject should still have the paper accepted, shouldn't it?

"Also, two accepts and a reject should still have the paper accepted, shouldn't it?" - at the more competitive conferences, not necessarily. Even three accepts can result in rejection, if they are weak accepts.

"Also, two accepts and a reject should still have the paper accepted, shouldn't it?" No. You seem to be under the mistaken belief that reviewers decide which papers are accepted. They don't. That is decided by the programme committee (or, in the case of journals, the editor). Reviewers do not make decisions and they do not vote; rather, they give advice.

"It is important that each paper is evaluated on its own metric. As a matter of fact, they should be considered independent entities." I don't know about that.  If the same author submits two papers on similar topics, it seems reasonable to have the same reviewer look at both; for instance, they'd want to check if there is excessive overlap between them.


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Is a paper more likely to be accepted if one of the authors is an associate editor for the journal?
I'm about to submit my first scholarly manuscript to the top journal in my field, which has an acceptance rate of 20-25%. One of the co-authors on my paper, besides being generally well-known in this field, happens to be on the editorial board of this journal as an associate editor. Obviously I imagine that he'll automatically be excluded from the review process due to conflict of interest, but does their affiliation with the journal increase the chance of the paper getting accepted?  I should note that the paper has already been through several rounds of internal revision and I've received excellent feedback so far from both this particular coauthor and others.

In principle, no.
In actuality? It likely does, under a couple of different mechanisms:

An editor might be slightly more likely to give your paper the "benefit of the doubt" if its a borderline case between Revise/Reject, etc. This may also be true if your co-authors are "known" names, regardless of their editorial position.
An AE at a journal likely has extensive experience writing for, and reviewing, papers in that journal. As such, they probably have a good sense what kind of papers they're looking for, the tone they should be written in, etc.

So the answer, in a practical sense, is likely "Yes, but not by a huge amount." And possibly not after controlling for recognition and experience.

As an AE for a journal, I can say that pt 2 can be quite important. The written journal scope and guidelines to authors does tell authors what we are looking for, but as an AE, I know which parts are really important and in what circumstances trade-offs might be acceptable. My journal is big on rigorous validation results (more so than most other journals in our field), but I know that if the paper is highly generalisable and highly novel and the data aren't easily obtainable for validation as rigorous as we'd like, then as long as we discuss & acknowledge the limitations, that can be okay.

All things considered, a paper coauthored by an editor should not improve the chances of getting accepted.
It is unlikely that the reviewers will be aware that one of the coauthors is an associate editor, so their reviews will be probably not be influenced by that.
This is even more obvious in case the reviews are double-blind.
It is possible (although also unlikely) that the editor responsible for your paper might take a slightly more favorable view to your paper in case the  reviews are borderline.
However, in any case this will not improve your chances much.

There is another side to the story though. The editor presumably knows what the journal is looking and probably can write something that is more "publishable". I agree that once written, who the authors are does not matter a lot, although I think the "borderline"  is pretty wide in many fields.


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Does the Editor-in-Chief of a journal usually follow the advice and recommendations of the associate editor/senior editor?
After one round of minor revision, my submission has now reached the "Awaiting EIC decision" stage. In the meantime I just wanted to get some insight on what this entails. Do editor-in-chiefs usually follow the recommendations of the associate editor below them who managed the review process?

For a journal large enough to have multiple layers of editors, the EIC is unlikely to be directly involved in the processing of most articles.  Depending on the journal policy, the EIC may be formally required to approve all publications, but this would be a pro forma step in ordinary circumstances.  For some large journals, the an article may never cross the EIC's desk at all if there are no problems during the review process.
When the EIC would become involved is if there is a problem.  I think this would normally occur when an author protests against a rejection.  However, it is conceivable that an associate editor might escalate a problem that occurred internally, if there was some peculiar problem with the submission or the reviews.
In your case, if you are not aware of any unusual circumstances surrounding your submission, I would assume that the EIC will follow the judgement of the associate editor.


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Is it common to put a quote from interviews in the epigraph page of a thesis as long as research ethics are not violated?
I want to put something that one of my participants said in the epigraph page of my thesis, but I have seen researchers mostly quoting authors.
Is it common to put a quote from interviews in the epigraph page of a thesis as long as research ethics are not violated?

What did the "participants" do? What is the question here? Are you wondering if you are allowed to put the quote as an epigraph (ask the person who said it!), or are you wondering if it would make a good epigraph (you be the judge)?

I voted to close, as the question currently is very unclear (see also @Moriarty's questions).

What did your supervisor say? What do your university's guidelines say?

@Energy: Comparing with http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/24340/is-it-advisable-to-hand-in-a-thesis-by-visiting-my-supervisors-house, in this case I think we can deduce that the supervisor did not have much to say, unfortunately

@Clark: You're a genius.

No, it is not common to use quotes from interviews as epigraphs in theses. However, that doesn't mean that you cannot do so. So long as the quote contributes materially to your purposes in terms of highlighting it as an epigraph, then it should be fine.


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How should the title of a chapter or section be formatted when mentioned in the text?
How should the title of the chapter or section be formatted when mentioned in the text?
I mean the titles of chapters of the same work.
For example:
If the chapter is entitled "Chapter Four: Review of the Literature," is the following correct?

All the studies discussed in the "Review of the Literature" chapter
  are Western-oriented.

If you are writing a thesis, questions of this nature are probably best answered by looking at sample theses from your own institution. Your supervisor should be able to provide some sample theses to use as a guide.

@mhwombat I agree completely. In many schools they will also give you a formal document which explains all of these formatting rules (including font, page numbers, etc.).

I am not sure this question is on-topic here; this is a general question about writing style, and not specific to academia.
However, it is usually best to refer to chapters by number.

All the studies discussed in Chapter 4 are Western-oriented.

This makes it easier for the reader to find the relevant chapter without needing to flip back to the table of contents.  It also avoids confusion in case there are several chapters with similar titles.
Your word/text processor software should have a way to automatically maintain the cross reference, in case you rearrange chapters and the numbers change.

"this is a general question about writing style, and not specific to academia." Except that academia has a very specific and different writing style to... pretty much anything else. That puts it firmly on-topic here, IMHO.


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How should I handle titles of sources in foreign languages in APA?
How should I handle titles of sources in foreign languages in APA?
For example, the title of the source is in Arabic.

Google yielded this:

Book/article titles and names written in Latin-based scripts (French, Spanish, German, etc.) can be cited with only minor adjustments.
Provide a translation of the title in square brackets. Do not translate names written in Latin-based scripts.
Titles and names written in non-Latin scripts (Chinese, Arabic, Russian, etc.) must be transliterated before translating and citing. If you are uncomfortable transliterating material yourself, don't guess -- get help!
Titles should be transliterated and translated into English.
Names should be transliterated (not translated) and arranged in "Western" order, e.g., ordered by surname in reference list.

(Follow the link to see examples)


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Difference between paper and master thesis presentation
I am facing my Master thesis presentation (in Europe), and have read the excellent article by Matt Might on technical presentations.
Most of his points seem very logical to me (avoid too much information/formulas per slide, whenever possible simplify, and refer to your written thesis for more info, etc.)
However, I was wondering if there is specific advice compared to the talk of a paper or at a conference for the presentation of a technical (engineering) Master thesis presentation? What are the key differences?
I am tempted, as it will be graded, to "show off" my knowledge by complicating it, and I wouldn't like to follow Matt's advice too much and come off as if I don't understand the math/material.

In a thesis presentation/defence you are talking to a jury who has already read your thesis.
In a conference talk, your goal is to get an audience who has mostly not read your paper interested enough to get the general ideas and read the paper in more detail if they care.
The thesis defence protocol depends on where you are, but if you get 20 minutes or so to present, then you don't have time to get into many technical details. However, since the jury has read the thesis, the presentation is mostly a formality, and is a chance for you to show them the big picture, and how your work instantiates the expected research methodology: problem - state of the art - solution - validation.
To "show off" you should have one or two slides explicitly listing your research contributions, and the publications derived from them (if any).
Regarding the problem of looking like you don't understand the math, don't worry about it. If the examiners are in any doubt about that, they will ask specific questions after you have finished presenting, and they will refer to the thesis, not to your presentation. if you have some ideas of what they will ask, then prepare extra slides to be able to answer those questions.
Here is also some great advice from a prof in my department. (note that the first 8 slides or so refer to the specifics of the protocol in use here, duration, jury composition, etc. But what comes after is more generic and useful for anyone, I believe. Also, take it as "do as I say, don't do as I do", since these slides are choke-full of text!)

"In a thesis presentation/defence you are talking to a jury who has already read your thesis." - this depends a lot on the university. A more generally correct way to phrase this statement would probably be "you are talking to an audience that may contain a jury of one or more persons who either has already read, or will still read, your thesis."

Right. But in that case those who haven't read the thesis, I'm assuming, are not part of those evaluating the work... so you should tailor your presentation specifically to the jury, i.e. those who have read it.

That's not a given. I'm used to Bachelor/Master thesis presentations that essentially serve as a first teaser for the professor to get a first idea of the work, before he or she reads and eventually grades it.

I found all answers gave good advice. Yours addressed all my concerns/questions separately, thank you very much!

Just want to comment about how great is the document (great advice from a prof in your department) that was included in this answer. Thanks!

There is a key difference between a master thesis presentation and a conference-style talk:
In a talk at a conference your audience is here to learn something new from you: you focus on results, and try to give some context to make a simple story.
When defending a master thesis your goal is to convince the committee that you are able to perform good research work. The process matters as much as the results: you must show how you identified a problem of interest, came with new approaches, tested them, how you dealt with unexpected complications, what suprises you encountered...

Generally, a thesis presentation should be given and received in the same manner as any other technical talk.  The main difference is that a thesis is typically scheduled for an hour-long presentation, while a top conference might give you as little as 15 minutes.  Importantly, talks do not scale linearly: in a 15-minute talk, you basically have time enough to give the context and the main result and nothing else.  In an hour-long talk, the context shouldn't take much longer, so you have a lot of space for digging more deeply into the rest of the ideas.  There is nothing special, however, to differentiate a thesis talk from another academic talk.
Of course, you should also check with your advisor whether your institution has any peculiar preferences, requirements, or grading policies that would cause you to want to deviate from this baseline.


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How to apologize for declining an offer from a potential PhD advisor?
I sent many emails to prospective PhD advisors looking for a position in their research groups. Recently, I got two offers from professors in different universities and I choose one of them as his research interests fit  more with my experience. Now, I have to apologize to the second one that I won't to be able to work with him. How to do that without leaving a bad impression ?

The best thing you can do is be honest and explain the situation. You thank the second professor for the offer, explain you accepted another offer and wish the second professor well with their future research.
This is a common situation and the second professor should be understanding.

There is no need for an apology - there may only be a need for an explanation (and maybe even not that, as dimpol said, this happens all the time). The other professor will not be offended in any way if you take another offer, but he may be interested in an explanation. So you could write something like "Thank you very much for you offer. However, I have chosen to accept another offer for a position which does fit my experience better." and you should be fine.
Also note that "I won't be able to work with him." is not necessarily true - in principle you could still start working with him remotely if both are interested and if time permits (e.g. it does not conflict with your work at the new workgroup).


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PhD applications: ethics of not informing other universities after accepting an offer
I have accepted a PhD offer from university A. I have informed a not so prestigious university D that they should dismiss my application (they invited me for an interview, offered me to pay the flight, etc.). I am still waiting to hear from very prestigious universities B and C (which, as A, are top 10 in most rankings). Is it ethically acceptable for me to wait for the decisions of B and C and inform them about my choice of A afterwards? I am curious whether they would have taken me. Informing B and C late means wasting their time, but I paid application fees for B and C.
To clarify: I do not intend to attend either of B or C.

I think if you consider B and C as an option, it's ok to wait. But if you just do it for curiosity, I would find it ethically questionable, as you are wasting their time - on the other hand, if the application fees are considerable, you may have paid them for their time, so, depending on this, YMMV.

I always thought of the application fee as being a token amount meant to deter non-serious applications, not as something that recoups the cost of considering an application in any real way.

It seems the visa problem is not an issue for you. But I think it is worth mentioning that for most of the students who are struggling with that problem, it is totally normal (and seemingly ethical) not to dismiss any of their options. I have known some students who got offers from prestigious universities, but they were forced to switch to plan B (or C, etc.) at the very end. Because they got stuck by the visa problem.

I am sympathetic to your desire to get some feedback on your attractiveness as an applicant at prestigious universities. In the context of this debate, it's worth keeping in mind that in academia, getting formal feedback of this sort -- answers to graduate applications, and later paper submissions, grant proposals, job applications, etc. -- is really crucial to signal to us about the quality of the work we are doing, which in turn is helpful for us to later make actual decisions that influence the future course of our careers. Moreover, this sort of feedback can be quite infrequent and hard to come by, so your desire to take advantage of a potentially rare opportunity to receive it, even by employing a course of action that may be seen as dishonest in a small way, is understandable, even reasonable: if a small dishonest and essentially harmless act helps you fulfill your potential in life later on, that seems like a net benefit not just to you but also to the rest of the world.
With that said, I would still encourage you to inform universities B and C that you no longer wish for your applications to them to be considered. It's not really about the ethics issue, which I see as impossible to answer with any degree of consensus -- some people will think it's ethical because you paid the application fees and are therefore entitled to get the service you paid for in the form of an answer to your applications; others will argue that you are thinking of using the admissions system in a way that it was clearly not meant to be used, and causing a needless waste of resources. I see this discussion as relatively unimportant, because ultimately the stakes are very low: yes, you may waste 10 minutes of someone's time, but if you promptly inform universities B and C that you are declining their offer if and when they end up accepting you, there will be no harm done to anyone. So it's an abstract discussion with no real practical significance -- fun to talk about perhaps, but in itself a waste of time.
The real reason I think you should withdraw is that the information you will get by waiting to hear an answer is actually not very useful at all, and potentially even misleading. Mostly it will give you a sense that you have learned something about yourself and how the world views you, and satisfy some psychological need that we all have for knowing what people think of us, but that feeling will actually be illusory. The point is that admissions decisions depend on so many factors, most of which you have no knowledge of, that they have a very low signal-to-noise ratio. Moreover, in a situation like yours, where you have already been admitted to your top choice (and very prestigious) school, which is already very good positive feedback, the knowledge that you were also accepted to schools B and/or C, or rejected from them, would be worth even less. Again to use a math/engineering terminology (hope that makes sense to you), you can think of this as a situation where you are about to receive two bits of information that are essentially almost completely random, but the bits are labeled in a way that makes them seem like they carry real, useful information. So in my opinion the psychological satisfaction you will get from being told these bits is actually outweighed by the risk that you will incorrectly attribute too much real significance to the meaning the bits supposedly carry. That's what I meant when I said above that the answers from B and C could even be potentially misleading. Ultimately, these answers are simply not useful information.
Hope this helps, and congratulations for getting into your preferred school!

I would strongly dispute the notion that waiting to hear back from universities B and C does not do any harm to the waiting-list students who would otherwise have gotten an offer (see my answer for why). That said,your third paragraph is a useful take as well.

Thanks for your very good advice. Come to think about it, your last paragraph is quite enlightening and addresses the issue very neatly.

I think you should withdraw your applications from B and C.
By keeping your application active, not only are you wasting the committee's time, you are potentially hurting other students.  Most graduate programs can only accept a certain number of students per year, but there may be many more applicants who would still be well qualified and able to succeed.  If the committee accepts your application, that means they are denying admission to someone else who might be equally deserving.  If you withdraw now, you open that space for someone else.

I don't think OP's waiting will hurt other students' chances. Any programs have a waiting list for qualified but not top candidates for cases similar to this. If OP is offered, but then deny, the candidates in the waiting list will receive the offer. If one cannot make it to the waiting list, you cannot say (s)he is hurt.

@qsp The OP may be hurting candidates "on the waiting list" if B or C was their first choice, but they accept an offer from D because they haven't yet receieved an offer from B or C. In any case, since the OP says he/she doesn't intend to accept an offer from B or C, there is no reason not to withdraw, except for taking the position that "my time is so much more valuable than yours that I'm not going to talk to you unless I have to" - which is not a good way to make friends!

@qsp That is completely disingenuous. The time wasted in the process will delay the offer to the waiting-list candidates, and delay can make a huge difference if e.g. they still need to apply for funding to external sources or apply for visas (or both), and the OP has no way of knowing how much hassle/anguish/ actual loss of opportunities will come to other people of what is essentially a vanity stunt.

@E.P.: Currently on the hunt for a postdoc position, I can tell you that what alephzero wrote is correct. If you get "yes" from a reasonable university, and your top choice tells you that you're on the waiting list, then you're going to take your offer and run with it. And if that's because someone didn't pull out, then sucks to be you, because you would have gotten the position otherwise.

+1. In the end I decided to withdraw. Apart from curiosity, there is no reason why I should care about the decisions of B and C.

If your only purpose is to just to see if you get in (presumably because getting into a prestigious university feels good and is rewarding, even if you ultimately attend a different prestigious university), then I would say that it's very ethically questionable, and recommend that you withdraw your application.
As mentioned above, if they decide to accept you, that typically results in another student being rejected or waitlisted. Even if you paid the application fee, you choosing not to withdraw is not simply "wasting their time" in return for your fee, it's wasting their time while also hurting another student for whom this university may be their first and best choice.
If you want to attend university A, then politely withdraw your application from B and C. If you aren't 100% sure that you want to attend university A, then it's perfectly acceptable to see if B or C accepts you, and then figure out which one is the best fit for you, but it doesn't sound like that's your intent.

Since you write that you

do not intend to attend either of B or C,

I would say it is ethically and morally wrong for you to delay your notification to those universities that you are no longer considering them.
If you wait until they decide and they offer you a place, that's an offer that could be made to other students who are still considering those universities (and potentially have it as their best shot). After you decline, those waiting-list candidates will be offered your place, but his introduces a delay in their applications process. Right off the bat, this says that you value your vanity more than the time of both your peers and the admission committees, so you're not coming from a great place.
More importantly, though, you have no way of knowing how the rest of the application process looks like for the waiting-list students on whom you're enforcing a delay. In particular, they might need to apply for funding or for a student visa (or for both) after having the university offer. This can quite often have a very constrained timing structure, and it is entirely plausible that a two-week delay between your declining and them being offered your place can mean that they are no longer able to take the offer.
All of this for an offer you have no intention of taking? That's what you need to ask yourself.

Two week delay? Are you serious? Sorry, but a department that is that inefficient deserves to miss out on good students, who in turn would be better served going elsewhere.

Call it several days if you will, once you factor everything in. I've seen folks with less wriggle time than that. Either way, the point stands: OP has no way of knowing what's going on with those peers.


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PhD in the Netherlands: Can I negotiate the starting step in my salary scale?
I am going to join a PhD position in one of the TUs in the Netherlands. This question pertains to the salary I can expect. I have worked 2 years after my bachelors and 3 years after my masters. For the doctoral candidates, according to Collective Labour Agreement by Dutch universities, the initial salary step is P0 and it climbs to P3 in the final year of a 4 year PhD program.
I think I am entitled to start at P1 (or P2 if I can stretch it), based on my experience, which is one of the reasons I got selected. Can I push the HR and ask to start at higher level (P1 or P2 instead of P0)? Any insights will be welcome.

Your final (net) salary will largely depend on whether you're eligible to 30% ruling, a significant tax benefit for incoming employees. Specifically, your residence address in more than 16 of the 24 months before the start of the work contract needs to have been further than 150 km from the Dutch border.

I will not be eligible for the 30% ruling as I have been working within 150 km of the Dutch border.

Short answer, no.
Every PhD student starts at the same level, I have never heard of anyone negotiating a higher salary (I did my PhD in the Netherlands). The only two exceptions I am aware of are a) medical doctors doing a PhD - they start at a higher salary - and b) people funded by an outside source like a foreign government or company, where the outside source stipulates and pays the salary.
But a higher salary based on work experience: no. I don't suppose there's any harm in asking if you have already accepted the PhD position, but don't get your hopes up. I actually know one PhD student who has tried it, but she got shut down fast by HR.

Quite possible but I was of the opinion, from a good source might I say, that they will give you more if you have relevant experience and would benefit the project. I am going to give it a try.

Also speaking from (one of my PhDs') experience no. All phds start on the same scale, even when it means making less than you did on your previous job within the same university.


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IEEE Computer Science conference paper: Author order if equal contribution?
We are four undergraduate students who have equally contributed to the research for a paper, each towards a different module. Will the co-author whose name is mentioned first be considered the one whose contribution was greatest? If we mention our names alphabetically, will all be considered equal contributors?
I ask because my name will be last alphabetically. Should we mention, or more specifically, is it allowed in an IEEE conference, that our contribution was equal?

Yes, in CS/EE, if your name comes first then it usually means you have contributed more.  In your case, I would put an asterisk or note to say that both of you have contributed equally.  I've seen this done for equal first authors, which is more important than those names listed at the back.


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Can scientists be categorized according to temperament and working style?
I'm doing a bit of informal research about scientists. I would like to know if scientists, at least in the hard sciences, can be categorized according to their working style. And if so, what are some of the different categories?
For example, one might be a conservative researcher who likes to clean up theories, while another might be more of a visionary who likes to explore new frontiers. Another might like data collection. Another may like to teach and mentor. Yet another might be gifted at communication.
I have an idea for forming a collaborative network based around this, which is why I'm asking.

EDIT:
I think it would be helpful to quality the kind of categorization I have mentioned above:
By no means am I suggesting forcefully and artificially imposing a category onto a researcher, like tagging their profiles with keywords. I meant it more in a way that is similar to how economic preferences work -- i.e. almost as a kind of self-selection. In other words, would scientists be ok with describing themselves as having more of one quality than another, just purely stated as a preference. If these preferences could be elucidated and made explicit, it would foster greater collaboration, and therefore would add value to any collaboration network.

You probably can think up as many characteristics as you like. One likes coffee, the other tea. One has good ideas under the shower, the other while discussing with students. There's no deductive framework which would impose a certain set of categories.

That's not very helpful. In a network where attention is scarce, there is value in the kind of signaling that I'm trying to encourage. Your categories are somewhat arbitrary. The examples I've give are not.

@Jobevo, ok, tea/coffee really aren't examples of working style. However, I fear the notion of working style is so broad as to allow a lot of arbitrary categories for comparing researchers. For useful answers, I guess your question needs to be a bit more specific.

I find your 'categories' pretty arbitrary as well. People are, well, complex. Their role in any network is not defined by a limited number of check boxes.

It sounds like you're trying to reinvent Meyers-Briggs.  Shudder.

In the specific case of pure mathematics it is fairly well known that many researchers tend to be either "problem solvers" or "theory builders" (there are many exceptions, of course), but I doubt this can be usefully extended to science research in general (where other issues come into play). William Timothy Gowers published a nice essay about this in 2000 --- The two cultures of mathematics --- and googling its title will lead you to a lot of online discussions about it, discussions that might be marginally relevant to your question.

I started this off as a comment, but I think I'll try to put it in an answer instead.
I categorize researchers into "Could see myself working together with them" and "I don't think our styles mash". Note that this a completely different and independent from my categorization into "I think they are good researchers" and "I don't think they are good researchers". (For one, I would't even consider somebody in terms of potential collaboration if I didn't think they fit my definition of "good researcher".)
Besides a researchers style, each researcher has their own individual strengths (and weaknesses). I mention as I would attribute some of the things you mention to individual's strengths, rather than style. Here, I would count things such as verbal communication skills, written communication skills, admin and bureaucracy skills (it is amazing to have a collaborator that can easily approve an unexpected expense!), industrial contacts (and a related skill of talking about research to people outside of academia). Note that I am making a difference between "having good verbal communication skills" (skill) and "having a communication style that I like" (style).
The point is: there are just too many factors to "categorize" researchers, and besides unnecessarily creating divides and "boxes" for people, even in your head, sounds a bit counter-productive.
Instead - figure out what you like, and which environment suits you best. For all potential collaborators, see how well they fit with your style, and make a separate decision for every person in your professional network. It is rare that a single person will tick all your boxes if you make it a matter of ticking boxes (i.e. the preferred communication style, preferred communication frequency and medium, complementary strengths, personality match, etc) - but if you figure out which "style of collaborator" suits you the best, you can start looking for a person you would enjoy working with (despite their possible shortcomings).

Probably that's the pragmatically most useful distinction.

@henning And at least in my opinion, the only "categorization" of people (or researchers) one should be doing. As one of the comments to the question notes, people are complex.


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How to include an unpublished work other than a preprint site (i.e.arXiv) in CS PhD Application
I am a MS student in Computer Science, I will apply for PhD position in the following months. I am also planning to contact with Professors these days. I have a paper which co-authors and I think it is strong (which I am the first author). Which will be submitted to a journal in a week. I definitely want to show that work to the admission committee and Professors.
The problem is that co-authors(2) does not allow me to upload it on arXiv (or any other public preprint service). I am not satisfied with the option of putting the name of the paper as 'submitted' in my CV (or should I be satisfied?). I would like them to have some insight or read it since I think they will find it attractive.
Below there are some options that I could think of, what would you suggest?

Uploading the pdf file to Dropbox(etc.) and putting the link in the CV.
Sending the pdf file attached in the emails that I will send to the Profs. way before the applications
Visiting some Profs. in person and showing them the hard-copy which will be really expensive for me but safe.

P.S: Are the options 1 and 2 risky? Is there any chance that they publish it as it is their own. Note that the same paper has been rejected by a prestigious conference with a different template. Can I testify that the paper is ours in such case?

Why would your coauthors not let you put the paper on arXiv?

Although I tried to explain that it is totally safe (and it is clearly allowed by the journal), they somehow think it will decrease the chance of acceptance from a journal. I couldn't convince them that plenty of researchers today first submit to arXiv-like then to a journal/conference.

Are your coauthors okay with you showing the paper to others as in options 1,2,3? At least for options 1,2 I would strongly advise you to get their permission before distributing the paper file electronically, even in a private communication with someone.

The graduate school applications I'm familiar with typically have an option to include papers or other supplementary materials.  I don't think you need to worry about people stealing your application materials, but if you are worried then formally including the paper as part of your application seems particularly safe, since the university will have a record of what was submitted, at least in the short term.
Including a link in your CV would be almost as good, and better than a separate e-mail since it ensures that everyone reviewing the CV will have access, whereas many people will ignore an email and then forget they ever received it.  (Of course you could do both.  I don't see either one as being too risky.)
Visiting professors in person and showing them a hard copy is not a feasible option.  I assume you'd be taking the hard copy away with you (otherwise you could simplify things by mailing it, and in any case even a hard copy could enable theft of ideas), which is a major problem since looking over a paper quickly and without further access is not very useful.  Furthermore, there's no good way to explain why you are doing this.  If someone showed me a paper while meeting in person, I'd suggest that they e-mail me a copy to look at later.  It would come across as very strange if they declined to do so without explanation, or if they explained that they were reluctant to give me a copy out of fear that I would steal it.


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Is it normal that research institutes do not hire their own PhDs for postdoc positions?
The institute where I'm doing my PhD has a formal policy not to hire local PhD graduates as postdocs. Is this normal?
I live in Europe.

Have you done your PhD at the same institution where you already had acquired your previous degrees?

I'm still doing my phd there but they claim that they wont hire phd students,  who already did their phd in the institute, for postdoc positions.

@CapeCode: Both "automatically" and "absurd" may be a bit strong - I have seen numerous instances of people receiving their doctoral degree and directly staying at the same department as a postdoc for a while. At least in my field (a kind of applied CS), many people switch to the industry after getting their doctoral degree. The few that intend to stay in academia and at a university are often gladly invited to stay at their previous department, and this is usually built up already during their doctoral candidacy; plans are made for them as heads of sub-teams or as managers of upcoming grants.

So your question is "Is it frequent that institutions have a formal policy not to hire local PhD graduates as postdocs" which is rather different that the current form of the question.

It's a policy that some have and others do not have. It's neither "normal" nor uncommon. That being said, I am more used to a rule that universities don't hire their own graduates as faculty, not so much for postdocs.

Europe is a big place. Here in Finland, at least in my university, you cannot stay after getting your PhD. Where I got mine, in Ireland, I was actually offered one postdoc year after finishing. So it really depends.

In smaller countries (like Finland), people often stay at their home universities after getting their PhDs, because there are no domestic alternatives in the same field of research. For many, moving abroad for a temporary job is not a real option, unless the job pays really well.

In France you are actually prohibited from doing post doctoral work not only at the University you got your Ph.D. at, but even from doing such work at the institution of your mandatory out-of-university committee member.  Which can make for an interesting situation if you're a top-tier doctoral candidate, as you will likely be at a top-tier place with a top-tier outside member at another top-tier place.  So you need a third top-tier place to go to...

I edited the question based on the comment by @CapeCode. Please edit it if this is not exactly what you want to know.

As far as I know, there are no official rules prohibiting institutes, universities or even labs to hire former PhD students as post-doc. Sometimes, a supervisor might hire you for a short period of time as Research Associate to wrap up papers and finish work at the lab, but this typically does not exceed 6 months to a year and should be considered to be part of the PhD work.
That said, although there are always exceptions, in general it is a pretty bad idea to do a post-doc at the same lab or department as your PhD. Some people even consider it to show a lack of ambition, competence and motivation; and I've been told it is frowned upon by hiring committees.
Successfully completing a PhD is the endpoint of an apprenticeship relation with the PI and lab. A post-doc is an opportunity to break that relation and take the experience and knowledge from your PhD to perform more independent research, build a new network, diverge into other topics, and experience a different lab culture.

Add to this that it's often difficult to take that "student" label off your forehead when your PhD supervisor is looking at you.

It depends very much on the field and on the circumstances. A student in an experimental field who has done enough work to finish a thesis might well be invited to stay on for a year or two to do more work on the same broad experiment. A student who has finished a thesis late in the job-hunting season might be offered a one-year position as a post-doc or an instructor to enhance her CV before moving on to a longer term position. There simply are no general rules.


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Submitting extract from a longer essay
The grad school I'm applying to accepts extracts from longer essays. I want to send an extract from my strongest (and rather long) essay, but I'm unsure how to go about it. Is it acceptable to take an extract from the middle and send it with a cover note? Or should I keep an introduction and/or conclusion? I'd be grateful for any advice.

What are you using this extract for? A statement of purpose?

Extract or abstract? Just want to make sure we're not confusing one for the other before we get too far.

I would suggest to focus on the most important part of the essay, i.e. the part you feel the strongest about and where you really get into the details of the topic, and leave out introduction & conclusion for the most part and instead write an abstract which summarises these points. Of course do keep bits of the introduction & conclusion to lead into & out of the topic, but that might only be a sentence or two and mainly for readability.

You don't mention the field. In some fields you might want something that is relatively complete. But in some others, it may be that all that is wanted is a writing sample to show that you can write intelligently. If that is the case, just select something that demonstrates your skill in writing, or argumentation, or whatever is relevant to the field.


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Describing a still working self developed software system in a research paper. Which tense to use?
Hello,
Ive developed a Software system, consisting of different parts for research purpose. And need to write a research thesis about this. Which will be my first scientific work in english ( iam not a native speaker, obviously).
However i'am not sure which tense i should use.
I developed the system for a research purpose(lets assume a red button which activates an alarm whenever someone is pushing it with a stress level than usual for this person, so the system needs to determine between usual and non usual stress level which is individual for every person)
After this step, i used this system in different setups and evaluated how the system performs in different setups ( IS the system able to track the higher stress level and activate the alarm. ( or do not acitvate the alarm if the stress level is usual for this person today [f.e. the person has a higher stress level the whole day, due to a fight with his girl friend in the morning, but the alarm should not ring as the persons stress level is higher than last week, but this level is usual for the todays condition])
Anyway, i know i should write the methodology part in simple present, because the experiment is finished whenever someone read this paper. ( the half of the participates watched a horror movie for 10 minute before they pressed the red button, while the other half watched the same movie for 1 minute before they pressed the button)
But what is about the part in the methodology chapter where i describe the system? The system is still there Anyone could plug it in, and hit the red button, and the red button would scan for the heartbeat rate and send the information to the controlling unit, the controlling unit would do some math and if the value x is above 2 and the value y is above 12 the controlling unit would send a query to the server which would do some math and send back a value z. If the revived value z is above 2*(x+y) the controlling unit would activate the alarm.
the system is still working the same way as it worked when i did the experiments.
QUESTION:
Which tense should i use to describe the developed system in the methodology part?

I have a feeling that this question may be better suited to the English language SE

Well iam not sure, as it depends a lot on academic writing conventions.  I've read some papers and books but even in this cases there where different opinions. However the books were about 'science' in general and not about computer science. For example one book suggest to use simple present whenever explaining mathematic equations, as they are 'present' while reading the text.

Question: should I use anything other than the present indicative active tense to describe a system's behaviour.
Question: is there any reason to write in another tense? Will it help a reader to understand the system better if they think of it as functioning at some time in the past?
Answers: if you are describing a mis-behaving or erroneous system ("when I pressed button 'B' the system gave off a cloud of smoke") then it would be useful in that it would distinguish the mal-functioning instance. But you are trying to describe a properly-functioning system and so the present indicative active tense is preferable: "Press button B, The green light illuminates ...". It reads like a manual and so your write-up will be useful.


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Consequences of submitting a job application close to the deadline
Do search committee members ever see or take into account the time that candidates submit an application as a postdoc or faculty member. Does submitting close to the deadline (same day or few hours before) carry a risk of predudicing your application due to being considered unorganised for submitting so late.
Since most applications are now submitted through convoluted electronic systems it seems likely that submission are timestamped so this information could in principle be accessed. Any thoughts? I know one could just stumble across an application late in the day but can anyone speak from experience about whether such meta data has an effect (even if legally forbidden, we all know that unofficial or subconscious effects can take place...).

It's a commonly accepted working style in academia to do everything just in time. I've heard about a few individual PIs who don't like this working style at all -- if they took into account the submission timestamp of a postdoc application, that might be for the benefit of everyone, as it indicates a poor fit with "just-in-time" applicants.

When your applicants might be in countries with different working schedules, it's silly to analyze time stamps.

So "JIT" compared to "JTFL"... @lighthousekeeper

Even with old fashioned paper processes the committee would usually get the applications with date stamps and numbers that showed who applied first.

@SolarMike, "JTFL"?

@paulgarrett Just to F..... Late...

@SolarMike aha! Didn't manage to guess! Thanks. :)

@lighthousekeeper typically people who 'don't like that style' are the ones most guilty of effecting it on their subordinates, and are best avoided anyway. :)

The deadline is not a 'winning post', it's simply a cut off point. Anyone submitting before should have an equal chance. If one only saw the advertised post the day before, that's not his/her fault.

I think if there was some "secret" deadline that was earlier than the "public" deadline, you probably would not want to work there anyway.

I would say this depends on the department and their hiring practices, but in my department (math at a public US research university) applying early can definitely give you a leg up. In math in the US, there is a centralized application system (mathjobs.org) that most places use, and in my department all faculty get access to start looking at applications well before the deadline.  Many of us do start looking at applications early, partly out of interest, and partly so we can take our time.
The advantage of applying early is that faculty may start talking about some candidates before any search committee meetings and people have the chance to get excited about your file early, which would give you some early momentum to help you stand out when we officially have meetings and rank candidates.
That being said, in other departments, faculty might not look at applications at all before the deadline, in which case there is no real affect.  I do not know how common our approach is, but at least a few of my colleagues agree with me that it is better to apply early.  I have also heard of departments that have somewhat misleading deadlines (they start officially reviewing files before the deadline, which might be in fine-print in the ad), so my advice is to try to prepare you application a bit early, and then submit application when your portion (i.e., excluding the references) is ready.
Incidentally, in mathjobs, the candidates submission date is readily visible, though it is not something that we focus on or analyze.  (Though often we'll sort by submission date to see what files came in since last we looked.)

The same is true in economics.

I would point out that what you describe relates very much to "Primacy" and "Recency" effects. Therefore, and given that this is in effect what OP is worried about since they accepted this answer, submitting early but "not early enough" can backfire in exactly the same way, such that in a sense they could possibly be better off submitting close to the deadline than "averagely" early from it, for exactly the same reasons you describe here. (obviously this is not a ringing endorsement of 23:59 submissions either though).

Not to mention, being able to look at and discuss candidate submissions early should be expressly forbidden for just that reason.

@TasosPapastylianou Yes, that certainly is related, but I don't think there is a large effect for the order (nor can one predict/plan for it), at least the way we evaluate candidates.  My impression is that primacy and recency effects play a larger role in the order of interviews, particularly when we have many interviews.

@Kimball yes, I've noticed that too when I was on interview panels, though presumably that's an orthogonal issue. Unless, of course, interview slots happen to be allocated in order of submission! :p

The danger of not being considered at all far outweights the danger of not being "recent" enough or whatever. A competitive candidate will get the committee excited either way (if they're still looking at least).

Extremely unlikely.
More organized institutions, and especially those with a culture of "procedural fairness", may enforce the stated deadline and resist considering applications that arrive after it. Certainly those that arrive significantly late, and possibly literally to the second.
At others, the effective deadline is when the person in charge gets around to preparing the file for the hiring committee, which may happen at any time after the stated deadline but may well be a few days later. You cannot count on that, of course.
Prompted by your question, I've checked and on the hiring files I most recently reviewed: the timestamp of application is visible, buried among other technical info none of us on the committee are paying any attention to.
A much bigger challenge for hiring committees are late letters of reference. Recognizing the unfortunate tendency towards elastic/fake deadlines and just-in-time response in academia, there is not only leniency towards late letters (when sent directly by the letter writer) but a painfully time-consuming amount of increasingly strident outreach by the committee itself to writers who are being slow. We try hard to not let it color our evaluation of the candidates, but it does: in an era (in some fields) of increasingly glowing letters becoming standard, akin to grade inflation, I have seen committees discount letters that took a lot of prodding after the deadline to come in versus those which arrived on time without prompting, indicating a higher level of priority for the writer.

Adding: Answer (and I think Q) is relevant for North America.

I'm not sure I see how this answers the question, which is about applications submitted in time...

The only applications that tend to be affected by time are those that arrive after the stated closing time.
I have never heard of or seen any system of application sorting involving those who submitted first or last past the post. However, my experience is limited, perhaps it does exist somewhere...

Pretty sure this happens for undergraduate applications: when you are expecting thousands of applications arriving right around the deadline, it makes sense to start work on those that are complete significantly before the deadline.

A rather different angle on the question:
From the way you phrased the question, I doubt that the deadline is three months away, and you are deciding whether to write the application now or to put it off and do some interesting research instead.  Instead, I imagine that the deadline is very near, and the decision is whether to apply at all.
If I am right, remember that (even if it were true that your chances of getting the job were higher if you had applied two months ago), your chances of getting the job are almost infinitely higher if you apply now than if you don't apply.
(If you really are considering applying now or later, I would advise applying now).

Given normal order of a search committee, submitting toward the end of the solicitation date should do you no damage as an applicant.
There are variations from normal order.  For example, a very strong candidate can turn up, and that candidate might be in a position to require an immediate decision, or some sort of fast track; a committee might develop a "favorite" or two in the candidate pool before they ever see your application, and your competitiveness falls below where it should be; the search could close early because somebody suspects a leadership change could shut down the search without a hire, and they need to put a butt in a seat quickly...
Stuff like this might not happen often, but it can certainly happen.
Unless there's something that will make an application look better if you wait, like a pending decision on a grant application that will likely go in your favor, apply when you see the position posted.

I am a mathematician, and the optimal strategy is to wait with the application until the very last (with some comfortable margin in case of technical issues).
This gives more time to do changes, and allow for inclusion of papers which change status (under review to being accepted, accepted to published, etc).
There can also be personal changes (pregnancies, illnesses, etc) which might totally change the life situation.