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Should I email my professor to clear up a (possibly very irrelevant) awkward misunderstanding?
I’m doing my master’s and I recently had an exam with one of my favorite professors.
I spent a lot of time on my paper and got the highest grade and I’m very happy. But during the oral part of my exam, when I was supposed to defend my paper, the professor pointed out I haven’t referenced much literature he mentioned in class and asked if I found anything of the reading material he gave us interesting. I was very tired and nervous and sort of ignored the question/moved on to another subject. I later sort of indirectly asked him to be my thesis advisor because I’d like to do my thesis on a similar topic to the one I did my term paper for his class on, and he said another professor would be better suited (I don’t think that’s necessarily true).
The truth is I reaaally enjoyed all of his classes and found absolutely everything interesting and I really wanted him to be my advisor, but I think he got the wrong idea. Would it be crazy to email him and say I feel weird about the way I dodged his question and explain the situation? I feel like I gave the wrong impression, and that might be why he rejected me. On the other hand, I don’t want to look like a complete weirdo for still thinking about this (it’s been three days), and I think he might have went on vacation and I don’t want to bother him with this because it might all be in my head. What’s the right thing to do?
TL;DR: A professor I really like said he wouldn’t be my thesis advisor, and I think it might be because I didn’t answer his question when he asked if I found his class interesting. But I very much do. Should I email him about it?

If he's a nice professor, he will understand that you may have been tired/nervous. Still, that may not be the reason he does not want to supervise you. The topic may not fit, he has too many students or many other reasons may prevail. So, separate one thing, clearing the awkwardness, from asking to be supervised.

You're most probably just being paranoid, relax.

move on, and learn from the experience

"Asked if I found anything of the reading material he gave us interesting"... trying to guess what's going on in your professor's head, it sounds like he's asking if you even read the readings he gave you, and his impression might now be that you did not. I suppose the imagined implication is that if he gave you guidance during your thesis then you would ignore it then too, so what's the point of him being your adviser. (IMHO it's a bit of a lack of social skills on his part to infer things like that, but he could well have thought this way.)

@Mehrdad I honestly think that's not it, because I got perfect grades throughout the year (like, 100/100 perfect) and showed up for every class and everything. I think he was trying to steer my (still vague) idea to something more related to his class but I dropped the ball there.... But thank you for your input! Obviously I messed up hah

If I were you, feeling uneasy about your previous conversation, I'd stop by during your professor's office hours rather than sending an email to express your concern.  It's more personal.  Pick a time when he appears free.  Tell him you've been feeling bad that you may have given him the wrong impression, that you want to make clear that you really like the class and really did find the readings helpful.  It's pretty likely he'll set your mind at ease, reassuring you that he didn't take offense and wasn't upset but appreciates your stopping by to discuss.

110% agree. In my case and with my culture in mind I actually asked my professor if I could take him to the pub for a drink. It progressed beyond one drink and we became good friends.

But you can email if you tend to freeze up and say the wrong thing in person -- and you can explain that in the email.  (And perhaps mention that you thought you were to go beyond the course readings, that they would be "assumed knowledge" when writing the paper?)

@April Thank you! I would love to do that but I feel like he'll be super annoyed by it- I'm terrified of messing up further!

Professors are people too. Treat them respectfully, like any person deserves to be, and you should get equitable respect back. If they bear a grudge or base their future actions on a single negative interaction, then you have learned something about their character, and whether they would be successful as your mentor. On the other hand, a constructive interaction going forward could turn them into a very helpful ally, champion, network source, or even friend.

When I was an adjunct, I always preferred email because I could present my best teacher-self in response.  In person, all the rest of the world's concerns might come out when I responded.  (Then again, email had the chance of being buried under a ton of other emails, and in-person meant a definite response.)

...provided they have office hours.

@user111388 The professor is described as currently teaching a class; every school I know about expects that if you teach a class, you need to have office hours.  But if indeed the professor does not have scheduled OH, I would send email to request an appointment for a quick private discussion, avoiding getting into the reason.

I think schedules office hours are mainly a US thing, but sure, you can e-mail them and ask for a meeting.

I would certainly talk to him. It's maybe not necessary to rehash what was said in the exam, that could be awkward. But it's worth asking for an appointment to discuss your research interests and potential thesis advisors. During that conversation, you can "follow your nose" to see if he really isn't a good fit for you as advisor (e.g., because he has too many students already) or if it's something he is open to revisiting.

Go talk to your professor again about who might be an appropriate alternative.  This this should lead to a discussion about your interests and will give you a good chance to express how you really felt about his material.  With luck, this will present an opening for you to ask again, but do not be indirect or beat around the bush; ask for what you want.  There may be a good reason he can't serve as your advisor (he's over-extended, going on sabbatical, etc), that has nothing to do with you.
Also, let this be a lesson. It is a terrible mistake to allow yourself to look bad in public; this is always true in a graduate program where you are being judged by faculty every time they see you.
Good luck...

It is a terrible mistake to allow yourself to look bad in public; this is always true in a graduate program where you are being judged by faculty every time they see you. I am not sure how many times I made myself look bad. Probably a hundred times. Like everyone else. So that would be for the second part of your answer - the first one is very good.


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How to deal when you're an actual imposter in academia?
I'm a second-year PhD student at a well-ranked university, and am seriously beginning to feel that I'm an imposter in this place. My lab group is filled with people who ranked in the top 0.01 percent of examinations in their home country, have won olympiads and international competitions, and published an insane amount while maintaining a 4.0 GPA during grad school, while here I am with a scrub 3.5 GPA in undergrad and no publications.
I honestly think that admissions screwed up somewhere with my application and that I really don't belong here. I really want to get a PhD and I love academic research, but feel that I just can't compete against such people.
Has anyone ever gone through these feelings? I feel that I can't speak to anyone else about it because everyone seems so accomplished, and it'd only reinforce my feelings of inadequacy.

I feel that I can't speak to anyone else about it: What about a counselor, or someone else experienced in helping grad students but who is not directly connected to your program?

Another question: to what extent are you "competing"?  Just because they do well, how does this prevent you from also doing well?

The problem is, you aren't in any position to determine if you are an impostor vs having the syndrome.  I would suggest discussing your concerns with faculty to see if you're meeting the expectations of the program, and if not come up with a plan.

Forget all this. You say "I really want the PhD..." and this, providing that is not merely a dream but you love research and put effort on it, it suffices. If they really mistakenly took you, see it as their  mistake. During PhD you are still learning, not the basis but a lot. So relax and do your best.

Welcome to Academia SE. I am closing your question as a duplicate. While the titular question is different, the question body and the answers you got are about dealing with the regular impostor syndrome – which you seem to recognise as your actual problem. This is still not to be taken lightly, but as far as this site is concerned, it has already been addressed intensively elsewhere.

Regarding the issue of competition, see also: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/87668/how-do-you-come-to-terms-with-the-fact-that-you-might-never-be-among-the-best-in

Has anyone ever gone through these feelings? — Only everyone.

As someone who has - in full awareness - accepted people to ones group which started out from less optimal situations who have since done exceedingly well, trust me that we look for a lot more than just "prize-winning thoroughbreds" when we seek young scientists. They saw something in you - now you need to see this, too.

First, give up the idea that it is a "competition". It isn't. It is a search for knowledge.

Own it. Channel these feelings into finding what makes you competitive and happy.
As an impostor that continues to 'make it', I have accepted that I bring something different. My undergrad GPA was 3.6, exactly, at a no-name school. I was accepted to a very good school for my PhD, and opted for a lower ranked school on the basis that I would 'have a better chance'. Likely, that was an error: I have since held a postdoc and now a faculty position at a high ranked school, with offers from other high-ranked schools. People puzzle over my CV, which is all kinds of nontraditional, but they also see evidence there that I do some things very well. I do, and these things make me competitive with the 4.0-olympiad-never-made-a-mistake crowd. Indeed, the fact that I continually make mistakes is itself a competitive edge; I'm inherently more fearless than my well-heeled peers.  This strategy has led to a career that some of my 'perfect' classmates have openly wondered at.  I wonder at it. I mean, I'm still a scrub, just a highly effective one. ;)
So, go do that.

"My lab group is filled with people who ranked in the top 0.01 percent of examinations in their home country, have won Olympiads in international competitions, and published an insane amount while maintaining a 4.0 GPA during grad school, [...])"
Yes, those people exist. But they probably aren't representative. That you think that "everyone" else is cleverer is likely a symptom of the impostor syndrome.
Here are is a task for you: Take a large enough, unprejudiced sample of PhD students around you. Then, count the proportion of those who you certainly know to have two of the distinctions you just mentioned, i.e. gold medal at a competition and top 0.01 percent, or 3 peer-reviewed publications over 10 pages long and 4.0 GPA during all of grad school. Be scientific, hearsay doesn't count, nor does your gut feeling.
Now look at the many people who are "normal". Very likely, those are actually a bigger proportion. Don't compare yourself to the few highly successful ones. Actually, as a rule of thumb, don't compare yourself to anyone at all. If you really need to compare yourself to others, compare yourself to the median of the distribution.
But instead of comparing yourself to others too much, just look at your work you are presently doing and ask yourself whether you're doing solid, good work. Don't worry about not having published anything yet. You're a PhD student, you're not expected to have published yet.
You don't need to compete during your PhD. Just do your work well. This is all that one can reasonably expect from you.

You need to look at the future, not the past.
You suggested that admissions may have made a mistake in letting you in. I doubt they have made a mistake if the institution is highly ranked: it is possible that your CV stands out for something else than purely the grades. If they indeed did a mistake then that's your golden chance to prove that you deserve to be there. By the way.. Probably no one will ever know they did a mistake (if indeed they have).
You need to look at what you can gain from your situation. You say you are among very smart people.. Possibly smarter than you. That's excellent, you can only improve from there by staying with them, understanding what they do better than you and why. If you stay positive, humble and willing to learn you can surely improve your weak spots.
Do not try to compete immediately face to face with people in their area of expertise but rather try to learn from them. If you are in a position where you are forced to compete, then try to steer the evaluation to your strong points until you improve your weaker ones.

Pff, what you describe is not being an impostor. Lots of skilled PhD students come from mid-range or what some people would claim "no name" universities.
Being an impostor would be dressing suspiciously well, not showing you have any deeper understanding but knowing very well what hip words and phrases to use. Knowing the names of the cool algorithms but not showing understanding. Not showing any actual work or theory but lots of fancy pre-made professional-level poster pictures. If you are good you could probably pull it off with a bachelor in behavioural science or psychology.

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Software for snowballing (data mining) academic papers
Snowballing is a methods of data mining. In this method, a literature contains references. By using some keyword/keywords I would like extract those papers alone. I would again go to the references of the extracted papers and then using keyword/keywords, I would extract few more papers. This goes on and on till I converge.
I would like know is there any stand-alone software for this?

Such a software would need to have all the papers loaded into a database and linked the references to the right paper. As citation styles differ, that alone is quite a task. There might be something running on existing paper databases (e.g. google scholar), but if you want a stand alone, you first need to physically download all the papers and link them together. And if you do that, you can also just write the whole software from scratch, would be about the same amount of work.

Once I have tried to do something like that, I wanted to draw a network of papers and their citation relations, but I gave up. However, I think the way to go is to use data from Scopus or Web of Science, they provide some kind of API to access the data, so you can write a script to get it and then analyze it in what ever way you want.

The named Web of Science API might cost additional money (on top of the pure access fee). Talk to your library (or who else licenced Web of Science for you) about it or contact Web of Science directly.

So basically Google Scholar?

I don't think there's any such software available, and I doubt it would produce anything useful for the following reason:

This goes on and on till I converge.

Without any restriction such an approach would probably not converge, at least not before reaching a few millions papers since it would follow citations across fields. Even with restrictions, you're likely to end up with a vast amount of data which would be very hard to exploit manually.

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Why/how APA was chosen as a standard for many fields?
My background is in mathematics where we write papers to the style guide of the particular journal, often similar to that of the largest organizations like the AMS or the MAA.  I was a little surprised to learn that (at least in the United States – I immigrated here for university and now work here) apparently many fields use the style of the APA, even if they have nothing to do with psychology.  I was told by a colleague that they even have to follow the changes to that style, even though no one in their department actually belongs to the APA.
I am curious if anyone knows how or why that is the case?  I imagine there is an interesting historical reason for this.

I always assumed that APA saw the need for a standard style and created one, and then other fields simply adopted APA's style because it was good enough and less trouble than creating their own.

@NateEldredge so then from a historical perspective, they did it first and the needs of other fields (mostly humanities and social science I guess) are a subset of the psychology literature?  Do you happen to have a reference?  I'm having troubling finding a definitive narrative of other fields adopting their standard

No, I don't have references or evidence, it's just a guess - but maybe it will help suggest what to look for.  I guess it should be noted that "a field adopting APA" is not really a single action - it would consist of individual societies, journals, departments, etc, within a field deciding to follow those guidelines, until at some point it looks like a consensus.

@TrivialCase They weren't first to write a style guide - they were predated by the Chicago Manual of Style for example. However, I think they were early to focus on compact citations and objective language, which made the style useful for scientific fields mainly communicating through journal articles.

Another standard for style is from the Modern Language Association (MLA), more commonly for English departments. They were founded in 1883, and their first style guide dates to the 1960's (perhaps even earlier). The American Institute of Physics published their first style guide in 1951 to uniformly cover all their journals.

I had heard of MLA style but not Chicago, thank you.  It still seems odd that so many different areas use a style developed for one specific field (especially if they arrived at it's use independently) and that the history of this use is so poorly documented, but I guess it's just something that no one kept track of.

Incidentally I asked the question because my colleague was expressing frustration with having to submit to a communication journal using APA.  Apparently it is difficult for them to properly cite some of the materials they obtain (maybe via scraping? I didn't ask enough follow up questions).  Of course I found this as no surprise as the needs of the two fields would likely be different. This is when I was told that it is a common format in many journals, and when I learned that no one seems to know why.

It might also be that it originates more from "adopting the author-date system" rather than "adopting the psychology's style", which may shift the question a bit.

I am posting my reply as an "answer" because of its length and detail, but credit goes to Nate Eldredge and Andy Gillett (see below).
I agree with Nate Eldredge's comment (May 5 at 18:38):

I always assumed that APA saw the need for a standard style and
created one, and then other fields simply adopted APA's style because
it was good enough and less trouble than creating their own.

An English professor and professional writer (Andy Gillett) published a superb blog post in 2014 that provides the most thorough history of "APA Style" I've seen. The blog post is titled, "'The Harvard System' of referencing" (September 28, 2014).
Although the post's primary subject is the so-called "Harvard System", Gillett discusses APA Style at some length. For example:

The earliest version of the Publication Manual of
the American Psychological Association was a short, seven page guide
published in the Psychological Bulletin in 1929. This was followed by
a 32 page version by John E. Anderson and Willard L. Valentine in a
1944 issue of that journal. The first edition of the Publication
Manual appeared as a supplement to the Bulletin in 1952 and was 61
pages in length. It was revised twice prior to the publication of the
second edition (1974, with many reprintings).

Gillett also offers a nicely detailed list of the various iterations of APA Style. Here is the beginning of that list:

History of the APA Publication Manual

Instructions in regard to preparation of manuscript. (1929). Psychological Bulletin, 26, 57-63.

Anderson, J. E., & Valentine, W. L. (1944).The preparation of articles for publication in the journals of the American Psychological
Association. Psychological Bulletin, 41, 345-376.

American Psychological Association, Council of Editors. (1952). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association. > Psychological Bulletin, 49(Suppl., Pt. 2), 389-449.

Although Gillett's blog post doesn't necessarily provide a complete answer to question posed by TrivialCase, it provides more history, detailed information, and references than anything else I've been able to find.

This is quite interesting. Makes me even more grateful to use LaTeX / BibTex that takes care of all of it for me under the hood.


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Plagiarism of my work
My classmate (now a lecturer at Imo State University, Owerri, Nigeria) published my entire masters thesis’ work in an internal journal (IOSR Journal of Computer Engineering (IOSR-JCE)) without my knowledge and didn’t reference me in any way. How do I go about reporting this for the work to be retracted?

I would suggest not to name the school and journal because this could very well allow for the identification of said colleague. I think the normal procedure would be to contact the journal's editor for a retraction of the article

There's a possibility that the journal is a scam journal, in which case you could contact your own university and ask them for possible routes of actions. You want a formal process in place which takes you out of the equation and transforms it into an institutional issue - you do not want to fight this alone. I assume you already have your degree?

@Bort maybe OP's intention is that the colleague be identified.

@CapeCode that might be, but it should not. OP is entitled to his opinion on this matter, but there is the benefit of doubt for the other person involved. However this might turn out, publicly accusing somebody of something might constitute libel.

I handled three cases of Plagiarism so far. The fastest way is to write an email to editor-in-chief of the journal and provide some documents showing that this is your work. For example, you can sent your master thesis and specify the similar parts. For me, in all cases, the editor-in-chief quickly removed the paper because they are responsible for the reputation of the journal. In case this doesn't work, then you can ask your university to handle this, but the procedure would be much longer.

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Should you write university names out in full, or use the common abbreviation?
I am writing a job application which lists the universities I have given invited talks at. What I would like some advice on, is whether I should always write each university out in full, or whether I should always use the common acronym / abbreviation associated with that university (if any), or whether it should depend on how well-known that acronym / abbreviation is.
For example, consider the following passage:

I have given talks at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, California Institute of Technology, Carnegie Melon University, the University of California Berkeley, Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich, University College London, the Technical University of Munich, Kings College London, Manchester Metropolitan University.

If I were to use all the acronyms / abbreviations, then it would read:

I have given talks at MIT, Caltech, CMU, UC Berkeley, ETH Zürich, UCL, TMU, KCL, MMU.

Now, some of these acronyms / abbreviations are well-known (the first few), but some are not (the last few), particularly for non-academics.
But would it look strange if I used a mixture? Let’s see:

I have given talks at MIT, Caltech, CMU, UC Berkeley, ETH Zürich, UCL, Technical University Munich, King's College London, Manchester Metropolitan University.

Yes, that looks a bit strange to me. So what rule should I use? Should I be consistent, or should I decide for each university what rule to use?

You certainly shouldn't write "Carnegie Melon." :)

Worth keeping in mind that university offices related to maintaining information about rankings (which can affect funding) look for standard names, and may miss informal names. E.g., University of Sydney (correct) vs. Sydney University (incorrect). So sometimes it does matter. This is mostly related to author affiliations in journal articles, but there is a trend to include other sources.

It's TUM not TMU.

When the abbreviation is actually better known than the full name, go with the abbreviation. Otherwise, use the full name. That will render the last option you proposed (though it would be fine to write TU Munich as well).

The mixture may not look ideal, but it's the way to go if you have a space limitation.  I suggest keeping the abbreviated institutions at the beginning of the list -- that probably correlates quite well with keeping the prestigious ones at the beginning. I'd pick "TU Munich" or "TU München" over "TUM" ("TMU" was presumably a typo, I've never seen this used, and it's ambiguous)

I agree with this, but let me add that, in case of doubt, you should go with the full name. I think "MIT", "UCLA", and "Caltech" are fine, but even "CMU" can, in my home area, mean "Central Michigan University".

Assuming you're applying for an academic job, I recommend including a bulleted list of full names in your CV, in either alphabetical order or (if you also include dates) chronological order.  There is absolutely no reason to be concise in your CV; ink is cheap, especially since nobody uses it any more.  (If you really think a list of all talks is too long, cluster by year, but still use full names in each year's one-line list.)

Invited talks

California Institute of Technology
Carnegie Mellon University
Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich (twice)
King's College London
Manchester Metropolitan University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Technische Universität München
University of California, Berkeley
University College London
University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople (14 times)

If you want to emphasize this list in your cover letter, you can write "I have given invited talks at several leading institutions, including Caltech, ETH Zürich, and TU Munich; see my CV for a complete list."
And yes, you should use the word "invited".

I often see page-limited CVs required for things like grant applications.  Your approach would use around 1/4 of a page, compared to 1--2 lines for compressing the well-known abbreviations.

Write the full name for each. It's crystal clear and complete.  There will be no misunderstanding.

Not necessarily. "Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich" does not have quite the same name recognition as "ETH Zürich".

Both, however, have better name recognition than if you choose to call it (the also completely correct, by the way) EPFZ. :-)

@WillieWong In 2.5 years in Zurich I have never heard somebody call it EPFZ, same as I have never heard somebody call the equivalent in Lausanne ETHL.

@xLeitix: And that just gives further evidence to its lack of name recognition. (Why would you expect anyone in the German speaking part to use EPFZ anyway?) But in 4 years in Lausanne I've frequently seen references to EPFZ; though admittedly mostly in contexts with human resources or public media. For example, local newspaper editions tend to use EPFZ (24heures, Bilan).

authors: Александр Андреев

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Doing a PhD while being unable to travel due to disability
I’m starting a PhD but I’m disabled and can’t travel. This means I won’t be able to present my work at conferences. Has anyone had experience this? Will it negatively impact on my research?
My tutor is aware but I’ve already had a sponsorship declined because I can’t travel to training courses.
(I agree that the rejection is unlawful but as I'm only just starting out I cannot risk offence.)
My intention is to publish work. I can never travel far from where I live. I'm aiming to work either in my local university or local industry. Networking and conferences just isn't possible. They would have to come to me. It's a shame because I'd love that aspect but I'm working within my limitations and trying to change my life.

Please mention the field.  In most fields, conferences are not mandatory.  But are you perhaps in computer science where conferences are the most common way to publish?

And what country? Some places it might be required to make accommodation.

@GEdgar Even in Computer Science, it's only expected that one of the authors attend, and co-authored papers are the norm. So publication isn't a problem: the issue is networking.

Refusing to sponsor you because your disability prevents you from travelling sounds a lot like unlawful discrimination.

Please read this on how to merge your two accounts. Once you have done this (or log in using your other account) you can edit your question, express your thanks buy upvoting and accepting answers your found helpful.

Conferences can be useful, both for presenting your work but also for networking.
Some conference organisers will be willing to let you present by videoconference, if you explain the reason. Others will not want to do that - perhaps for good reasons, perhaps for really bad ones which may or may not be legal. You can also have your paper presented by a co-author, which means that you can certainly get your work included at conferences and into proceedings - but if you don't do it yourself, you don't gain much recognition.
The networking side is much harder, as you can't do that by videoconference - at least, unless you or a funder invested in a telepresence robot or similar. Not being able to network effectively is certainly a disadvantage for your future career, but should not be an insurmountable obstacle, and should certainly not prevent you from doing a PhD.
You don't mention where you live, but in many jurisdictions having a sponsorship declined because of disability (where the disability does not prevent you from studying at PhD level) might be illegal. It certainly sounds deeply unethical to me.

Agreed. Depending on the country in which the student is located, this brings up serious disability issues. In my experience, conferences are becoming better at accommodating researchers -- even providing on-site childcare.

Though presenting one's work at conferences is important, I would not say it's vital. What is more important is publishing. There's a well-known saying in academia, "publish or perish", which means that in order to be - and stay - relevant in your field, publish often.
Not everyone can make it to a conference because of other personal priorities or paywalls. I know of one PhD student who won't travel abroad because he has an ethical issue with flying. Published papers are far more easy to access the world over. I have personally never attended a conference but I've been published several times during my master's and PhD, and am starting to get citations. If you cannot travel to conferences, try to put extra effort into something else, like familiarising yourself with the publishing/peer review process. Reading Laura Belcher's excellent book "Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks" could be a good start.

The publishing/peer review process is something asker will need to be familiar with regardless of whether they go to conferences. I'm not sure why you're suggesting it as an alternative. ("OK, you're a vegetarian. Try to put extra effort into something else, like familiarizing yourself with breathing.")

I'm not suggesting it as an alternative, I'm suggesting she get more involved. Some of my peers don't care for publishing much at all, other care about it a lot. I was suggesting she do the latter.

If you mean that she should put more energy into journal publications, you should say that, and I think it's reasonable advice. What you actually say is that she should put more energy into finding out how the publication system works.

I am a 5'th year Ph.D. student and could not attend multiple conferences due to Trump's travel ban.
I do not believe it affected my Ph.D. progress/experience in any meaningful manner. Many conferences will help you to present your papers remotely and Twitter is an effective way of building a social/academic network.
To summarize, it is nice to be able to attend these events, but certainly not necessary.

After submitting two multi-person proposals to a conference (SIGCSE), I got pregnant, with a due date close to the conference. Both proposals were accepted. If I remember correctly, one was for a workshop and one for a panel. I requested and received permission to present by pre-recorded video. As it happens, both presentations were on the day that I gave birth. Given that my inability to travel (due to my voluntary choice to get pregnant) was accommodated, I don't see why your inability to travel would not be.
As others have mentioned, this needn't be an issue for multi-person submissions, although I wouldn't necessarily advise you to cede your right to be the presenter. For single-person submissions, you could include a note that because of your disability you are unable to present in person, but you are capable of pre-recording of presentation or being available by Skype (if you can be), or you could wait until after your proposal is accepted. I think many people are happy to accommodate people with disabilities. Please don't assume they will not because you had one bad experience.


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Acknowledge somebody whose advice is not relevant to the current manuscript anymore?
I received some advice from two researchers, which were helpful at the time. So, I mentioned the researchers in the acknowledgements section of my paper’s early version.
After the first draft, the paper has been substantially modified, and their advice is no longer that visible on the paper. Should I still keep the acknowledgement? I feel it is difficult to remove it, since the paper is being circulated between more than ten co-authors. I would have to give some reason, but then I don’t know if I look silly for saying that their advice was after all not so useful.
What to do?

It sound like they were helpful in your understanding of the subject of the paper, and thus the completion of it.

How to decide who to include in the acknowledgements?

Generously.
If people gave up their valuable time to help you in the process of developing that paper, it is kind to acknowledge that.  This is true even with contributions that are very helpful but may not be directly reflected in the final text, such as avoiding a long rabbit-hole or programming for some data collection or analysis part of it.
Per Mad Jack's answer, you can have the acknowledgement accurately reflect that the contribution was to an earlier draft, or whatever the contribution was, but they still helped.

Avoiding rabbit-holes is definitely worth acknowledgements.

In your particular case, you could consider changing the acknowledgement to something like:

The authors would like to thank Hans Moleman for his constructive feedback on an earlier draft of this paper.

In this way, you still acknowledge the person for their feedback, even though it may not be as relevant in the current version of the paper.
I should mention that the advice above may be field dependent. For example, in my subfield of EE, what I suggested above is a common solution for your particular situation; however, as @Wrzlprmft pointed out in the comments, my suggested modification is a typical acknowledgement in other fields "to indicate that somebody performed an internal peer-review."
In the event that you modify the acknowledgements (or make any change to the paper, for that matter), I suggest that you circulate this modification to your co-authors so that they are aware of the change.

This is almost the usual acknowledgement I (and others in my vicinity) use to indicate that somebody performed an internal peer-review. It also explicitly says that the feedback is on the paper, not the research. This may very well be the case in the asker’s situation, but the advice in question may aso have been given before the first sentence of the paper was written.

If you consider that they helped you, and merit some thanks, acknowledge them. That of the original advice nothing remains in the current version isn't so relevant. Help can very well be something that doesn't have a direct result in the text.

authors: اخلاص عبدالمجيد


text:
For faculty positions that require three years of research experience excluding PhD, how is that time calculated?
Usually an applicant for a faculty position in different Indian academic institutes requires to have at least three years of research experience excluding his/her PhD. The time span may differ depending on the institutes and/or particular country. I was wondering how does one calculate the time span of research experience?
More particularly, does that 'experience' start with just joining a postdoc position or defending  one's thesis or only after obtaining the formal degree?

I suspect what's actually required is not actually research experience (or to more accurately describe what you seem to be asking about, time after PhD), but rather research results.

Sorry, what do you mean by research results? Usual advertisement for assistant professorship at IITs in India reads like : "At least 3 years teaching / research / industrial experience, excluding however, the experience gained while pursuing Ph.D. "
For associate professorship this is 6 years teaching / research / industrial experience.

Is there that much of a difference between defending a thesis and formal degree?  I'm not familiar with the Indian system, but my interpretation would be 3 academic years, rather than 36 months, so I wouldn't think there would be too much difference in most cases, provided you get a postdoc right after your PhD.

Yes. Most of the time people join postdocs (specially in India institutes) just submitting their theses. They defend their theses usually 6-8 months later.

Sorry, what do you mean by research results? --- Strong publications, with first authorship (if that matters in your field). My point is that the outcome of your research is likely to matter far more than the time you've spent doing it, no matter what the ad says.

OK, I understand. I think then the research experience in a necessary criterion to apply for that position. But research results will decide whether one will be given the job. :-)

According to recent notification from UGC, research experience during PhD can also be included for teaching post.
Specially, in a notice dated 1 March 2016, it says:

The issue regarding counting of the period of active service spent on pursuing Ph.D. was considered by the UGC in its 512th Meeting held on 4th February, 2016.
The clarification of University Grants Commission is as follows:
"the period of active service spent on pursuing Research Degree i.e. for
  acquiring Ph.D. degree simultaneously without taking any kind of leave may be counted as teaching experience for the purpose of direct
  recruitment/promotion to the post of Associate Professor and above."

Can you provide a supporting citation, such as a link to this notification you mention and the relevant quote from it?

@ff524 : I have modified my answer. See if it useful now.

Recently this notification came into limelight in media but there is still glitch in it.

'Period of active service' does it mean full time PhD student? By the way, in some earlier job advertisement, they mentioned it clearly that 'experience during PhD study' would not be considered.


text:
Given three reference letters in a postdoc application, how to decide which to list as the second letter and which to list as the third?
Usually institutes ask for three letters of reference for a postdoctoral position. Generically the first reference is the applicant's thesis adviser. Now my question is : does the ordering of second and third references matter? How should one choose the ordering?
For example, if an applicant is getting reference letters from a senior professor and a junior professor and he/she is quite sure that the junior prof. is going to give him/her a very strong letter. But he/she is not that sure about the strength of the other letter written by the senior prof. Who should he/she choose to be the 2nd reference?

But he/she is not that sure about the strength of the other letter written by the senior prof — Then he/she should either ask the senior prof directly whether their letter will be strong, or ask someone else for a letter.

That's a great point!

In my experience I have never encountered a situation in which the ordering of reference letters mattered.
Usually the only distinction between the different letters is when you are required to have letters from your PhD/postdoc supervisor. These letters may carry more weight because they are from the people which can best assess you.
However my experience is from life sciences, not physics.

"Usually the only distinction between the different letters... " - and even then, presumably it wouldn't matter if the supervisor's letter was attached to the application as Letter #1 or Letter #3, as long as it was there. (Unless the application has a separate place to put the supervisor's letter.)

In physics (and I would assume all other fields, unless I am informed otherwise), the order of the letters does not matter at all.


text:
If a paper is accepted but not included in the conference proceedings, does organization (IEEE) retain the copyright of the paper?
In case a paper is accepted but not included in the conference proceedings (conference fee not paid), does the organization (IEEE) retains the copyright of the paper?
Consider the case that none of the authors is able to attend the conference to present the paper and possibly they would like to submit it to another conference in the near future.
We have only uploaded the paper to PDF eXpress and then to the online platform of the conference. The copyright transfer will be signed at the end of the conference following verification of attendance.

Did you (or one of your coauthors) sign a copyright transfer form?

Only uploaded the paper to the PDF eXpress and then to the online platform of the conference. Copyright transfer will be signed at the end of the conference following verification of attendance.

Restating your conditions,

Copyright form not signed
Conference fee not paid
Paper not in proceedings

This implies that your paper is not published in this conference. Hence by no means can IEEE hold copyright for your manuscript with regard to this conference.
For a conference that requires fees, the respective paper it's published when the sum is paid (although there are exceptions). IEEE conferences seldom require you to sign the copyright form before the payment. They are usually done together. Once, I've noticed that some participants signed the copyright form on the day of the conference since they missed out on attaching the form along with the fee (which was successfully paid).


text:
When is Research Assistant/Associate/Fellow a correct title for a PhD student?
What is the correct term for a PhD student who does entirely research and is paid through third-party funds?
One can see that sometimes people doing a PhD call themselves a Research Associate or Research Assistant (in a very few cases also Research Fellow). I am looking for clarification regarding which term would be appropriate and also why the others are not.
I can't find a clear definition. If this is country dependent I would like to know this for the UK and Germany.

Most answers here appear to be from the technical perspective of someone designing the position. It would help to clarify whose perspective are you asking from. From the student's perspective: it seems to me that it should purely be a matter of what the contract you sign says, but I only have experience about the US.

Answering in the sense of the German system and as I understand it and have experienced it:
Research Assistant: Someone holding a BSc (often a MSc student working alongside their studies)
PhD student/ PhD candidate/ Doctoral candidate (Doktorand) (used interchangeably): Someone enrolled for a PhD program at a University. Usually not anyone can enroll. You will have to have supervisors supporting your idea and submitted a qualified research proposal.
Research Fellow (Wissenschaftliche_r Mitarbeiter_in): Scientist with a MSc or PhD, usually a fixed-term contract through a third-party funded project. Often PhD students also hold a position as research fellow (e.g. opposed to receiving a stipend).
Research Associate (Wissenschaftliche_r Mitarbeiter_in): Scientist with a MSc or PhD, same term in German. In English, the difference apparently refers to the position being a permanent one and independent of third party funding. See What's the difference between a research associate and a research fellow?. This is a less likely context for doing a PhD, but possible.
Post Doc (Wissenschaftliche_r Mitarbeiter_in): Referring to a scientist with a (nearly) completed PhD. Usually fixed-term and running on third-party funding. In the German academic system, the salary is usually the same as for research asscociates/fellows. They all count into the same category (Wissenschaftliche_r Mitarbeiter_in).
Regarding the initial Question: In German academia, you can technically be both at the same time: a PhD student (referring to the status of your studies) and a research fellow (referring to your status as an employee).
During my PhD, I was enrolled as PhD student at one Uni and employed as a research fellow at another.

How about "PhD student"?
Since you also asked about Germany: in German you can call yourself "Doktorand" or "Promovend". But also in Germany, "PhD student" would be perfectly fine.
If you want to leave out the "student" part, you might call yourself "PhD candidate".
Be careful to avoid calling yourself something you are not (e.g. "Dr."), since particularly in Germany that might be illegal.

I agree with your answer. However one can see that sometimes people doing a PhD call themselves a Research Associate or Research Assistant (in a very few cases also Research Fellow). Hope you can clarify which term would be appropriate and also why the others are not.

@holzkohlengrill: as long as it isn't a protected title, you can call yourself anything. However, you need to consider what you want to achieve. If you want to achieve that people understand what you do (conducting a PhD project), then I think that "PhD student" or "PhD candidate" is more appropriate.

I've added the OP's comment to the text of the question, since it seems to be an integral part of what they are trying to ask. You may want to edit your answer to incorporate your own response comment.

I'll mention that at my alma mater, there was in fact a difference between a PhD student and a PhD candidate. A PhD student was anyone enrolled in the doctoral program, but you were only admitted to PhD candidacy after a couple of years of coursework and a qualifying exam. All candidates were students, but not all students were candidates.

@Danny Ruijters: Simply being referred to as 'PhD student' can feel quite degrading as the term does not acknowledge that one is usually doing paid work on novel aspects of science (not to mention teaching, student supervision, etc.)

In Germany, the payment (be it from 3rd-party sources or not) usually comes as a salary for an employment. That position is typically called wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter ( research employee ).
You should note, though, that the "only research" part is not included in that title, as there is no real distinction to teaching duties, as it exists, for instance, with "RA/TA".

I'm not sure if it is the same in the UK and Germany, but in the US, "Research Assistant" typically means a person is being paid by a professor (typically using 3rd party funds) to work on their project, while "Research Fellow" typically means the student is being supported directly in their studies and/or research.
Fellowships are thus generally more prestigious, since they are a direct recognition of the student's value and potential by an organization, whereas assistantships simply mean that a particular professor thinks the student might be a good worker for a particular purpose.
Note that these titles are somewhat orthogonal of the question of being a Ph.D. student, as they are essentially describing one's "job" and means of support rather than one's educational program: a Masters student may also hold them, and a Ph.D. student may also hold other "job" titles (e.g., "Teaching Assistant", or even none at all).

So the PhD student, referenced in the question, working on research and being paid using 3rd party funds would be a "Research Assistant" in the US? I'm not entirely convinced this answers the question. What was asked was what would such a PhD student be called. The answer just describes the Research Fellow/Assistant difference

@Ian_Fin I've added a clarifying paragraph that connects the dots.

I see that this question has been inactive for almost two years, but I notice the asker was specifically interested in the UK, and none of the answers cover that country specifically.
From my last three years of experience in the UK academia, those two positions are fairly well defined, and refer to the following:
A Research Assistant (RA) is typically neither a PhD holder nor a PhD candidate. These positions are aimed at people holding a Master degree in the relevant field, and are common in short, 1-year, research projects (such as feasibility studies). They do not count for direct progress towards any degree (but could result in publications and therefore straighten one's PhD application in the future). Additionally, they are typically one pay grade lower than the Research Fellow positions.
A Research Fellow (RF) is what one would informally call postdoctoral researcher (or just post-doc). These are typical positions one would aim at after their PhD (and usually encourage PhD candidates close to finishing to apply as well). They typically rely on funding from longer projects, and last for 2-3 years. They also do not count for direct progress towards any degree (as the holder is expected to have a PhD, the highest possible degree in the field, already), but are a logical and expected step for a young career researcher aiming at a permanent academic position. They are also better paid than Research Assistant positions, being one pay grade higher.
For immigration purposes, universities will always have the ability to sponsor non-British applicants and support their immigration application for RF positions, while some universities and some positions are unable or unwilling to do that for RA positions. (This might be restricted to sponsoring EU-immigration, unsure about this bit).
A PhD student, PhD candidate, or just doing one's PhD are all valid terms to refer to somebody working towards obtaining their doctoral degree, regardless of their funding source. (Sometimes even just "I'm a PhD" is used, but that's common more than valid in the strictest sense.) Additionally, PhD students doing only research, as opposed to having some teaching duties attached to their contract or funding, are often times referred to as lucky.

I use the word typical a lot in my descriptions, as exceptions do exist, and I was one of them, but the details go far out of scope of this question.

I'm late to the party, but I found your answer nice and complete so I'd like to ask you: what about research associate?

@Luismi98 I've never heard the term used, but a quick search and comparison of pay grades seems to indicate that it's an alternative name for "postdoctoral researcher" (holding a PhD degree already). Actually the full term is more frequently used, PDRA: Post-Doctoral Research Associate.

I don't think this is (still) accurate, at least everywhere in the UK: I was a postdoc at a British university after my PhD and my official title was Research Assistant.

I work at a research focused UK university and here postdocs are called Research Associates unless they have their own fellowship, in that case they are Research Fellows. PDRA is often used in a admin context.

In Germany and Spain, if you're a PhD student who gets paid via assisting professors in their projects, typically the position is regarded as Research Assistant. I rarely see who wrote it down in CV as Research Fellow, while research associate sounds more of a postdoc.


text:
How do I thank a professor for choosing me as his PhD student (via email)?
I emailed my potential supervisor to express my interest in her works. We talked once and I was encouraged to apply to the university. Recently, I emailed her to inform her that I have submitted my application. I got a response from my potential supervisor that I am admitted. How should I thank her for admitting me?
Also, one of my recommendation letters is not submitted yet. Does that mean I am definitely admitted? Because I have to ask about financial aid and scholarships and I have no idea when or how to do so...

When you say "thank her for admitting me",  do you think it was her sole decision?  In many departments, such decisions are made by a committee; your potential supervisor may not have been involved in this decision at all.

yes, i think it was her sole decision. As i said, I emailed her to get her attention before applying and I was accepted before my application was fully completed. Also I was informed about by my (hopefully) future supervisor herself. That's why i  want to thank her.

"yes, i think it was her sole decision." Don't just base on your guess. It's very strange that it's all done by one person and your application was not even complete. You can still write and thank for the good news, and ask when you should expect the formal notice from the university admission office (all questions on scholarship/aids should go to them anyway). Until then better to stay put. You can also check your application status with the admission office independently.

Thank her by doing a good job :-)

How should I thank her for admitting me?

Just like you would phrase any other similar email, within or outside of academia. There is no need to overthink this. There is no specific protocol for that, and no need for a special "thank you" email (although an answer that acknowledges that you have received the mail and are still interested in the position is definitely advisable).
Dear XXX,
I am very happy to hear this, and I am looking forward to working with you.
Can you please advise me on what the next steps for me are?
All the best,
Mahsa Gamiji
As a quick sidenote to all those expressing disbelief that a single professor may have decided to accept or reject a PhD candidate: This is how it works in most places in Europe. Don't assume that admission to PhD school is organized the same as in the US everywhere.

You won't know for sure whether it was her sole decision. Even if she has a major role in the process, she probably had to influence other people in her department. Be polite and write how grateful you are to be accepted in that institution, and how eager you are to start working with her. You won'd be mistaken.


text:
As an Australian student who wants to end up in academia, should I do a PhD or postdoc somewhere other than Australia?
I'm a second year undergraduate psychology student in Australia. As a mature-age student, I have a very clear focus in that, I'd like to transition from my undergraduate degree to a PhD, post doc and into academia proper.
It is hard to pin professors down for "pathway" advice.
I am currently working in a lab as a research assistant where I am involved in the publication of a few articles and working with a PhD student and post doc on writing up a few experiments for submission. Whether the journal accepts it or not, the experience gained from submitting and receiving feedback will be invaluable (I hope!).
I am not sure whether to stay and complete my PhD in Australia or apply at another University overseas (UK or US). Alternatively, I could wait until the PhD is completed and then apply for post doc positions overseas (I have a dream of doing a PhD or post doc at Stanford (US) or Cambridge (UK)).

Is there a better place to do my PhD other than Australia? What about post doc?
In Australia being published or not isn't considered during application for PhD but is it necessary for the U.S. or UK?

I would question the idea of dreaming of doing a PhD or postdoc at a prestigious university such as those you mentioned. Do you know that there are supervisors/mentors that you'd want to work with at those institutions? Just because a university is generally high profile, that doesn't mean that it's the best place to be for your specific research interest. Conversely, there are academics who are very well-regarded as experts who work in institutions that would generally be regarded as average.

Absolutely. I suppose that is the joy of a dream - it is not necessarily the most practical option nor the most realistic, however, there are researchers that I have admired, at both Universities, for some time. My main interests are in cognitive and personality along with an interest in creativity research, so attending University of Georgia and working with someone like Mark Runco would be an incredibly opportunity, for example. Dreams aside, I do have a realistic outlook and would love some ideas of "next steps" - Thank you for your feedback, @Ian_Fin

It would help if you can focus on a specific question, since this is after all a Q&A site, not a general discussion board.  If you're just fishing for general career advice, the question will probably be closed as "too broad".

You seem to understand the general process- complete your undergraduate degree, go to graduate school, complete a PhD, work as a post-doc, and eventually get hired into a tenure track position.  What specifically do you have questions about?

I thought I'd been explicit with my question but perhaps I should try again. 1. Is there a better place to do my phD or post doc other than Australia? 2. If so, for phd or post doc. 3. In Australia being published or not isnr considered during application for phd but is it necessary for the U.S. or UK? If so, in one specific field or can it be broad. Thanks. I was trying to be polite in my initial question, perhaps that was incorrect. Apologies.

I am an undergrad too and thinking about this stuff just as you are. So I am no expert. But I would highly suggest having a backup plan! As you might be aware getting a job in academia is difficult(http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25642132) and so an alternative path might save you some misery later in life. I also feel that for general career advice SE isn't the place. I would suggest looking into https://80000hours.org/ . Hope that helped.

Ps. We don't have graduate school in Australia, so I'm not sure which part of the process that belongs to - is it similar to our honours year? (Extra fourth year following undergrad)

Your main decision-making in terms of whether to do a PhD in the US or outside needs to involve whether you want to get tenure-track jobs in the US. Getting a non-US PhD can be a huge hindrance in terms of TT jobs in the US. Just worth mentioning.

@SeriousAboutPsych "go to graduate school" is American English for "enrol in a higher degree."  Australia definitely has that.

@lafemmecosmique "a non-US PhD can be a huge hindrance in terms of TT jobs in the US."  I don't believe this.  A non-US PhD is fine if it is from a top-tier university.  It's just most of the top universities are in the US.

My partner did undergrad and grad degrees in Europe, and formed the dream fairly early on to do some sort of study in the US at some point.  That did eventually happen, in the form of a post doc.  My observation has been that as a dream it was a positive life influence.
Dreams of this type are usually most constructive if they are left rather vague.
When thinking about where to apply for grad school, you must consider

funding
fit of school and department
fit of culture (place where school is located)
family considerations having to do with possible relocation

These are all things you can start thinking about now.  There are many strands, schools of thought, etc., within a field of study.  As you progress in your studies you will learn a lot about what intrigues you, and that will help you guide your choice of schools to apply to.
I can say that based on my own experience, I would not expect that your being a returning student would hinder you in the U.S.  I can't speak for other countries.

Probably, but not necessarily.  Some universities insist on international experience, but I have not seen that in Australia.
The real concern here is not "Should I study in Australia or elsewhere?" but "Who are the best people for me to work with?"  Most people are outside Australia, so you are likely to find the best people in your field outside Australia.
One consideration is that Australian universities are funded based on how long it takes students to finish their PhD degrees.  As a result, many students are encouraged to finish in 3.5 years (plus three years of bachelors and one year of honours).  In the United States, PhD students typically study for 5-9 years (plus four years of bachelors), depending on a variety of factors.  A longer PhD can be useful because you can get more results before you have to apply for jobs.  But it is also a longer time in which the student is paid much less than a postdoc.  It's a personal decision to weigh these factors.

I was a researcher in NZ for many years. I found that they were very reluctant to hire anyone into a senior position unless they had taken at least one graduate degree abroad. The two universities you mention are the very best and you are unlikely to go wrong if you can finance studying at them. I do not know enough about Australia to be certain, but remember that a lot of the hiring people in both Australia and NZ are from England.


text:
Lost my passion and interest in what I used to love
Story: Great MSc Computer Science student lost interest in what he used to love
------ PAST ------
Since I was a kid, I was really passionate about the things I love. I was always ahead of my schoolmates and always prepared in advance for the material. Simply to say, I loved learning new things.
When I got into high school puberty hit me and I kind of get out of track in the first two years, but I hit hard in next two years excelling with GPA 5/5 (I was put in class of highly competitive students). Last year of high school, I did find something that gave me hard dopamine spikes, and that was programming. Just in 1 year, I earned 3rd place on State Competition and manage to get to National Olympiad. I also attended competitions of physics and mathematics. I loved the thrill of the challenge.
Took Bachelor of Computer Science, though I learned hard only the subjects that I love. I was great student (top 10 in my area) and I successfully finished it with a GPA of 4.5/5. Meanwhile, I found high interest in Artificial Intelligence and subfield of Machine Learning. I did AI courses online from Stanford, Coursera etc., since I started my bachelor studies (4 years ago) and I really liked that area. I finished my diploma thesis related to pattern recognition and my bachelors in record time.
----- RECENT ----
But after finishing bachelors everything changed. Seems like I was worn out, burned and unmotivated. I got programming job that was paid good but I hated. I completely lost my interest in programming. My driving force just dissipated in air.
Now, I got really good scholarship that got me in one of the top research universities in Europe. Still, my interests in AI dropped to 0. Seems like nothing is challenge now and I don't feel the dopamine spikes that I felt when I was discovering the field (which was novelty for me). Obviously my GPA is not good because of this (even though there are easy subjects that I've already have lot of pre-knowledge but still no motivation to learn them). I am now in my second semester of my studies. I took job as research assistant still don't feel motivated at all.
----MY OWN OPINION ----
From knowing myself I would say that I only thing that makes me motivated is learning new stuff from new fields. Whenever I learn something from one field I easily get bored and switch to something new. I put my whole effort and strength to learn it (when I am motivated). I could not specialize in one thing because of this and I am angry on myself.
I never suffered from depression, I always sleep 7-8h, eat regularly, love to go to the gym, love reading books. I was taking some supplements on my own thinking that I'm suffering from depression but without any help.
Please write here your opinion and advice, I would really appreciate hearing it.
Thanks a lot in advance.

I started taking several medications on my own - please don't do that. it may be part of the problem, it may even contribute for it to get worst. please, please - if you think it would be good for you, seek professional help.

As much as I empathize for your situation, I vote to close your question as off topic because it is impossible to answer properly. Seeking advice from consequence-free internet doctors is at least as daunting as self-prescription of neuroleptics.

Please note that "Here's my situation. Any comments?" is a very bad fit for Stack Exchange sites, as there is no "correct" answer to such questions: http://meta.academia.stackexchange.com/a/1205/10094

What a person is good at and what a person enjoys doing are not the same. You sound remarkably talented at computer science, but the fact that you don't enjoy it at all indicates that it isn't what you're looking for. See a psych professional. They can help you deal with any mental issues you have, as well as work on figuring out your actual life goals in the process. Treat the problem, not the symptoms, as they say.

Thanks a lot for the comments. I saw similar post here so I wanted to hear some opinions about it. I know there is no right or wrong answer, but I think academic people will understand the underlying problem (from experience) more than some psychiatrist that I don't trust at all. Anyway, just to make it clear, I was not taking medications but only tried supplements that might help me with the motivation and concentration. Still, I do not think the underlying cause is depression since I function like a normal person.

You build up trust with your psychiatrist over time. I don't think anyone trusts their shrink initially. Mine took about 6 months to get me over my self-imposed rut of working at a dead-end job to one I actually enjoy.

A senior professor I am acquainted with once uttered, "In choosing one's career, the point is not to find what you like most; the point is to find what you dislike least." I find it wise and would like to share it with you.
I would say you may first study a field you dislike least at the present stage and at the same time try to search what truly interests you.

Thanks a lot for the wise comment professor. I think CS, Maths are two subjects that I dislike least. I can't think of learning law, linguistics etc. I think that I am dopamine junkie always craving for challenges. As soon as that challenge loses it's status as 'challenge' and becomes easy, I leave it for another one. What I like as well is nutrition and I am living pretty healthy lifestyle. I also love to help people by being humanitarian. Hopefully, I will find my way out. Thanks a lot again!

No problem! Wish you all the best. (Why to climb mountain Everest? Because it is there!)

How about taking a break. Say a 6-months to one year of break if you can afford. Spend time to introspect and do other, pressure free activities. In time when your mind comes to a resting state, you may realize what area really interests you. Sometimes it is hard to get a right perspective over things when we are part of it. It helps zooming out and take a broader look at options with a calm and objective mind.

Thanks for the comment. Yes, I would love to have a break. I feel like I pressed the gas pedal to the maximum (so to say) in the last 5 years of my life (studying at least 5-6h per day on average, sometimes even 10h per day). Also what happens to me now is that I got addicted to studying. If I don't study everyday I felt like I did not do anything productive and 'lost' my day so to say. I started to value time in that way and could not stop the vicious cycle.

Except for the most severe cases, you can function fine and be depressed. I have no idea if you are, but seeing a doctor to talk about this can't hurt, and I recommend you do.
That said, consider looking into a structured work environment that consists mainly of executing well projects given to you. What you experience isn't all that uncommon, and can be due to varying factors, such as coming to terms with no longer being as exceptional as you feel you were, operating better in highly structured environments, missing the feedback you got earlier in life, or even going through a belated emotional puberty. The general feeling you express strikes a chord with me, but I'm puzzled by your not enjoying your current studies.
Fields like consulting might fit someone like you better, because of a mix of interesting problems you are expected to solve, while receiving feedback from both clients and team managers; working solitarily on a small part of code of a much larger program might not. You also need to acquaint yourself (in consulting) regularly with new problems.
Consulting is very specific, and a bit hard to get into, but consider doing some research on fields with a somewhat similar profile...all with the caveat that I agree with the comments pointing out that your malaise can't be properly diagnosed or solved by a bunch of people on the internet. Try to open up to those around you - friends and family - to be able to discuss this longer and better.

Thanks a lot for the advice. I talked to my family about this yesterday and we both agreed that my expectations from the university very really high but not all researchers are good professors, so I think that is one of the problems. The second problem is, not having closer relationship with any of the professors (I am a type of person that needs support and motivation from professors). The third one is, that I already have learned a lot of the stuff that is taught here. I feel much better today and much more motivated to continue my job and my studies after realizing all of these problems.


text:
Is developing a cheaper method ever considered to be originality in academic research?
Say, in a particular field of science, method A or equipment B are the standard. Now I have invented method X or equipment Y which cost much less than A or B.
What are the necessary conditions, if any, that allow X and Y to be published as a journal paper?
(This question of course is loaded with my own assumption that originality in an academic research does not include cheaper price. I have long held this assumption from a simple fact that I have never encountered such thing as being cheaper being described in any background/introduction section in any journal articles I've read.)

If you get the same (or better) quality for smaller costs, then I see no problem with publishing that. The difficulty starts when there is a trade-off between quality and price. I suspect that many reviewers and editors tend to be put higher value on quality than on price.

@MaartenBuis while I agree for some cases, in other cases merely offering the choice of trading off quality for price can be very useful.

Does "cheaper" even matter for originality? If you come up with a new method X instead of existing method A, and you can clearly explain why it's fundamentally different, then that in itself can be noteworthy enough. Let others worry if your method X solves their problems, you can't predict the constraints other people have. Perhaps the fact that your method works with pH<3 is more important than its price.

@MSalters Not for originality, but for motivating the paper. "I found this novel method A, which has no conceivable advantage over other known methods in the field." is a very tough sell, at least in the more applied research areas.

@MSalters At least in Applied Software Engineering, "letting others worry if your method solves their problems" is a recipe for paper rejection.

@Bitwise I totally agree that offering a choice can be very useful. My comment was only meant to describe the situation in many parts of academia where quality has higher "status" than money. So if you are in a situation where you have to "sell" your new method, which involves a trade-off, you will need to put extra effort in making clear that this is useful. For example, discuss an example situation where this method could be useful.

Wouldn't a cheaper method necessarily differ in some other ways from previous methods? It might not be extremely innovative or deeply interesting but it would at least be somewhat original.

A dramatic cost decrease would be highly valued in the engineering fields/departments.

It may affect which journal you can be published in, but if the difference is significant it would normally be publishable.

What are the necessary conditions, if any, that allow X and Y to be published as a journal paper?

That the method or equipment is new and interesting. It is really as simple as that.
It is completely ok if the improvement or motivation of your technique mostly lies in cost savings - that is common in many research communities. If the way how you achieved these cost savings is by applying simple technical optimisations, you will have problems publishing your results. On the other hand, if you reduced costs by fundamentally changing the way how your technique approaches things, or if you manage to reduce costs by orders of magnitude, journals will presumably be interested in how you achieved these results.

I think that you miss a point in the word original: You have to present original research, not necessarily original results. If you found a cheaper method than anyone before, the research is obviously original, even if you didn't find out anything new.
Example from other sciences: In maths, a new proof of an old theorem is original. In CS, a new algorithm which is just 10% faster than an old one is original. In medicine, a new treatment for the same disease is original. And so on and so forth.
As well, even if your result is not better than the previous ones (slower algorithm, more expensive method), it can of course be original. It's just more questionable whether it's useful, sometimes it is, but you have to be quite convincing usually.

I would like to kindly ask the downvoter if he privoded a feedback so that I know what is wrong with the answer. Thanks.

To add some motivation to the last point: One should not forget that even a method that has no advantage over existing methods may still prove ultimately very useful as it might form the basis of a future method that does have advantages. For example, with fusion power research, there is a whole field based on the hope that it might yield a more efficient method one day.

@Wrzlprmft Yeah, I had that in mind, just wasn't able to put it in words. It exists in math: a new proof, even more complicated one, can turn out useful dozens of years later. I'll try to edit it in.

Did you mix up something in the first paragraph? "You have to present original research, not necessarily original result. If you found a cheaper method than anyone before, the result is obviously original, even if you didn't find out anything new." doesn't make sense to me, shouldn't it be "the research is obviously original" in the second sentence?

At least in life sciences, this could be publishable, depending on the details. In the end, what matters for publication is whether the paper is of interest to the scientific community.
In some cases, cost can have huge consequences. For example, if you invent a method to easily sequence a human genome for 100 USD, that would greatly advance biomedical research and diagnostics, and you will get a very high-impact publication. You can read more here.

Original, in this context, means significantly different. The motivation of your study can be to develop a cheaper method, no problem with that, but the question of originality nothing to do with this.
Original research only means that you do a non-trivial root that hasn't been explored yet. If you manage to be cheaper because you use a different effect or some non-trivial different element, then it is perfect for publication. If you manage to be cheaper, because you ordered your o-rings and screws from a cheaper online shop, then maybe it is not interesting for publication. Anything between I would try to publish: something that seems trivial for you or a gradual improvement, may be surprising or insightful for others.
Two notes:

If it is a commercially viable method, you should really think about to patent it first before publication. Even a provisional patent is much better than nothing.
At the end of the day, if your method will be widely used (because it is cheaper and practical), this will be a highly cited publication, even if you think your improvement is not significant from scientific point of view. Some of the most cited papers of all times are publications on software used in X-ray crystallography. 99.9% of people do not read those papers, do not understand those papers, and it may be that they just announce the   implementation. Yet everyone who used them, cites them and do it rightly. So it is always better to publish, and then worry about if people like it.

Aluminum used to be more valuable than gold or platinum - it was used1 to cap the Washington Monument partly because of the rarity and value of aluminum back then (it's worth about $50 today). European monarchs would put out aluminum tableware - silver was for the common rich.
The Hall–Héroult process changed all that and made aluminum one of the cheapest metals on the planet.
Most everyone would agree that Hall and Héroult came up with something original, publishable and patentable.


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Should I mention that I worked as a professional online poker player on my university application?
I'm 27 years old and I'm applying to university. On the applications it ask the student to list activities and employment during time away from school. I played online poker for living for ≈4 years, should I mention this? Or would I be looked down upon and perceived as a gambling addict? There's no room on the application to go into details.
If I don't mention it then I'll have this big empty gap with no jobs listed – only activities. I'm applying for undergraduate studies into CS.

I would imagine what country you are in would play heavilly into this.  If online gambling is legally dubious in your country I wouldn't mention it in writing.

That's a super-interesting question, particularly because I would imagine playing poker on a high level to require a number of skills that are also good indicators of success in (some fields of) research. On the other hand, this is something that only evaluators with some knowledge of poker will know.

I wonder if it makes any difference if the "online" modifier is left on or off?

You mean you were a "freelance risk analyst in the online entertainment sector"?

Strongly depends on the flavour of the institution. A game-oriented degree (computer games/game theory etc.) may see value in it. Some people have a strong visceral aversion against it though, so you really need to inform yourself about the directions supported in the institution. Some places actually research poker etc.

Since this is an undergraduate application, there often is somewhere that you can address this and add details, your essay! Most undergraduate applications include a fairly open-ended essay, and you can use this to put a positive spin on your poker playing.

MIT Blackjack Team is quite popular at MIT, so I'd imagine review committees would have a positive stance on professional card players. As Emacs say, Alberta would be a nice place too (Computer Poker Research Group).

@CapeCode no he meant "I played poker and paid my bills with that skill". You make it sounds good by completely changing what he did. It is the same as changing "I played Go" and "I worked on AI system which allows to play Go in a way similar to humans"

Consider that there are two things that might be looked down upon: (1) being someone who makes a living by playing games, and (2) being someone who is a gambler.

I just reviewed  Close Vote of this question. I'll document my opinion here. Although the OP is an undergrad student, any graduate student could have the  same problem. So, I don't think this is an undergrad only question.

Is there some kind of way you can show that you were good at it? Like some kind of ranking, or say the names of some tournaments you won?

I like @DanRomik's analysis, but the same analysis leads me to a different conclusion: yes, list it.
First, it gives a better picture of who you are and what you have been doing.
Second, while some people may be prejudiced against poker players, in most applications there are things (and lack of things) that may be viewed positively by some committee members and negatively by other committee members.  I don't think the concern should be too great that it will lead to too much veto-ing of your application, as might be the case for being incarcerated for a violent crime, say.  (Of course this is my personal opinion and not based on any hard data from surveys--I imagine it might be an issue at some schools, but probably not most.)  I personally would find lack of activity for 4 years more of a concern.
Third, the fact that you are no longer playing poker professionally (I infer this from your use of past tense) indicates that, even if you were addicted to gambling at some point, you overcame it.

I think you can spin it nicely if you manage to somehow show that you were an effective poker player, and haven't spent four years draining your savings.

If Victoria Corren- Mitchell isn't embarrassed to being described as a professional poker player why should you. The important question is were you successful?

What if some committee manages to convince others that the applicant might be an addict gambler? That could indicate he might have problems finishing the program.

@philsf All applicants might be gambling addicts (or alcoholics, or drug addicts...) before you know them.  Applications are very limited pictures of people and there are many question marks with a lot of the applications, so committees have to take their chances on some of them.  I personally think if the rest of the application looks good, most committees would not give too much weight to such speculation, though it might happen at a small number of schools.

I think it's worth addressing your question on two levels, the practical level and the philosophical/ethical level (which by itself also has some bearing on the practical level).
On the practical level, it sounds like both the options of mentioning or not mentioning your poker occupation carry some risk. It cannot be denied that some people may perceive your choice of making a living from a card game as a negative, or at least not a positive, thing, whether this is justified or not. On the other hand, an unexplained 4-year gap on your CV would also very likely be perceived as a negative thing, perhaps by an even larger number of people than in the case of poker.
More positively however, if you were successful enough as a poker player to be able to make a living out of it for several years, that can say several good things about you that may impress even some people who tend to disapprove of poker. For example, if you want my personal opinion, I would infer that you are intelligent and have strong analytical skills, while at the same time not exactly getting the impression that you have strong altruistic tendencies or are especially passionate about using your talents for the good of society; of course, if I found out that you also volunteered at a homeless shelter or donated half of your poker proceeds to charity, my impressions on such things can change. If you are considering mentioning the poker, it may be a good idea to mention specific achievements in this area (e.g., which/how many tournaments you won).
Now, to address the more philosophical aspect of the question, I think as a matter of principle there's something to be said for being honest about what you have been doing with your life (as long as it's a legal activity), even though it may be a somewhat controversial activity that risks bothering or offending some people. More to the point, as I said this philosophical argument maps to the practical level, in the sense that if I were reading your application I would be somewhat impressed by the fact that you chose to mention it despite the obvious risks, independently of anything else, and would see that as evidence of a certain amount of character (at least if you didn't mention it in a way that seemed very cavalier or arrogant). Now, whether that positive impression would be enough to counterbalance the negative impression I would get if I were the sort of person who strongly disapproves of card games, is hard to say; probably for some such people the answer is no. For my case specifically, while I have a mild disapproval of someone with obvious talents taking up a form of employment that has essentially zero societal impact (whether it's poker or many other less controversial types of employment with the same characteristic), I do think the positive effect of seeing you take ownership of your lifestyle decisions in an honest way could actually make me see you in overall a quite positive light.
So should you mention it or not? I don't know. Only you can decide that, and given how critical of a decision this is, it would be irresponsible of me to give you any definite advice, even if I had a strong feeling about what the correct choice is, which I don't. I hope this analysis can still be a bit helpful though. In any case, good luck.

I'd like to add: chess is a similarly "zero society impact" activity, but probably would not create the same dilemma. I am a proponent of the ideal of the university that it should educate "universal" personalities. Poker-playing (successfully, I assume) is part of your personality and this part of yours should be therefore embraced by the university; however, not everyone sees it this way.

@CaptainEmacs I was trying to formulate a similar comment earlier on. Something about the notion that a smart person is somehow morally obliged to go into one career or another does not sound right to me.

@xLeitix It's a difficult discussion - I generally agree with you. However, there are boundary cases and the fact that something is legal does not absolve one for taking responsibility for choosing to do so. Working in the weapons industry comes to mind. Poker is explicitly played for money, and for weaker, but obsessive players, this can cause a problem. But generally, I think one should not judge a person based on one facet of the personality only, and certainly it's not the business of universities to do so. Younger people want to try themselves out, and universities should embrace that.

@xLeitix to clarify, no one is morally obliged to do anything. They have a right to go live on a desert island and write Vogon poetry if that's what makes them happy. And I have the right to form a personal opinion about them. In the context of university admissions, my personal opinion will usually not matter too much, but I can imagine extreme situations (such as the example cited by Captain Emacs) where it might.

And generally I agree that doing pretty much whatever (as long as it's legal) for a few years in your early 20's is reasonable and should not be a cause for condemnation. Overall as I said I'd be inclined to view the successful poker hobby as a somewhat positive thing if presented in the correct light. I also assume OP wants to go to university because he/she does ultimately want to do something more interesting and meaningful with the rest of his/her life. (Perhaps it's worth mentioning something to that effect in your essay/statement of purpose.)

There have already been some great and thorough analyses. Adding to Dan Romik's and Kimball's assessments, I would focus more on the latter's philosophical argument, which may also play into the practical. Agreed, there will always be some risk in mentioning the poker playing, but not mentioning it could be considered tantamount to misrepresentation. If you leave it off and it is later discovered (sometimes the likelihood of something coming out in an unexpected way is directly proportional to how much one didn't want it discovered) that could be grounds for revoking any admission offer, presuming that you had to beat out other candidates who we (or the university) assume did not misrepresent themselves on their applications.
As an aside, a hole in your CV is not automatically the worst thing ever. It is not the best, but I would suggest it also depends on what came before. If one were gainfully employed for years before a gap, economic climate in a country/job area, medical reasons, etc may also be considerations. Having said that, personally, I would still go by the first paragraph and declare it, although as others have noted, only you can make the decision of a course with which you are most comfortable.

Thank you for agreeing with me, and I do think that honesty is usually the best policy, but actually I don't think that not mentioning a poker hobby (even a serious one that provides a source of income) in a college application is tantamount to misrepresentation. There is no rule that says one must report all hobbies when applying to college. My comment was intended more as a way of saying that honestly reporting a major aspect of your life is a better way of being at peace with yourself, shows more character and integrity, and is overall a better principle by which to live one's life. ...

... At the same time, I wouldn't go as far as to say that OP is morally or ethically obligated to disclose his passion for poker, or that not doing so would be reason to criticize him for withholding essential information about himself.

it occurred to me afterward that kicking someone out might be a bit strong, but that's in a North American context. Maybe a bigger deal elswhwere or if a scholl has a strict moral code? Shrug. Perhaps a better phrasing would be "would you be embarassed or imagine a problem arising if this got out later and you hadn't informed the administration yourself first?" It was important to have pointed out the moral issue as you did though, as responses seemed to assume "whatever it takes to get accepted is okay, as long as not illegal"

I faced the same problems with employers. I have a decent poker CV, could say I was ranked #1 globally for a particular game and format over an extended period (years)
Almost everybody (including my parents) hated it but some others were extremely receptive towards it. In analytical professions and studies poker is complimentary and some people in those professions will recognise this. In other professions poker is looked upon extremely negatively
The odds of a middle-aged university staff member being impressed by poker are low. It suggests a rebellious streak and wasted talent - anybody who can beat poker for a living could and should do any number of other things
People don't really read all of applications/CVs. They scan for a few facts, in your case it will be your previous academic record and work experience. It's definitely better to add poker than have a blank but I would include either achievements or estimated earnings beside this
The one thing you can't do is let anybody believe you were a degenerate sitting with your laptop, drinking beer, smoking weed, playing poker and calling it work. We all know you wouldn't do that now, right? :-)

I'll suggest one of two options.
Option 1: Put a positive spin on your poker activities
It's one thing to write "I played poker online a lot and lived of my winnings." It's another thing entirely to say "I developed a statistical  algorithm for multi-round poker tournaments while affiliated with ACME online games inc." the more you can make it professional-sounding (not necessarily with the angle I've demonstrated), the better it sounds.
Option 2: Fill the gap with other things
I'm sure you didn't play from dawn to dusk, get drunk and go to bed for 4 years, right? You're applying to be an undergrad, not a R&D team leader. Maybe you spent time doing volunteer activities? Helping your family out? Pursuing an interesting hobby? Traveling abroad? Even if that doesn't cover all that much, you can play it up.
PS - If your grades are good, I don't think anyone would care what you did before your undergraduate studies. I mean, maybe for a scholarship, but not beyond that.

He is applying to undergrad, not graduate school. So presumably getting into undergrad is the primary concern, not what happens after.

@djechlin: Travelling is not "wasting time" and a lot of people (which necessarily means not mostly rich people) do it. Sometimes they support themselves by working abroad, sometimes they put some money aside from a low-paying job out of highschool.

@djechlin: Well, nobody writes "I flipped burgers trying to make ends meet"... "Senior frycook 2014-2015"...


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Vancouver style citation and multiple sentences
I use a numbered citation style in my research paper. How should I use a citation when I have multiple sentences from the same source?
E.g. for one sentence it’s easy:

My apple is red (1).

However, for many sentences:

My apple is red (1). Yours is green. And your pet’s. (2.)

Is it right to put a dot after the number two to indicate that the citation applies to every sentence after previous citation?

This kind of question ("it is right?") has no real answer; it comes down to a combination of personal preference, citation style, and the style of the journal where the paper will be published.

I'm not certain whether or not you are technically current about the meaning of a dot after a citation in this particular style.
What I am certain about, however, is that any such convention is extremely subtle and easy for a reader to misinterpret, both because it's not standard in most styles and because a period is not particularly visually salient.  I would thus strongly suggest using other means, such as how you actually construct your prose, to signal more clearly to the reader which facts belong together as a cited bundle.


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Am I pursuing a “degree in” or “of computer science”?
On my profile, I described my career status as:

Currently pursuing a degree in Computer Science at Temple College.

Is using in or of the correct preposition used in an academic setting?

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it belongs on English.SE or English Language Learners SE.

I have always heard "in", never "of".  "Computer Science degree", as Solar Mike suggests, is also correct.

@NateEldredge: When closing a question, it is irrelevant whether it’s on-topic (or even better suited) somewhere else. The important thing is whether it is off-topic on this site. I fail to see this here. That being said, proofreading is off-topic on any SE site and “the correct way of referencing any academic degree in an academic setting” is far too broad a question. I reduced the question to one we can actually answer.

As a sidenote: There is no reason to capitalise computer science here, since it is not a proper name or part of one.

In the context 'in' is right, even if the eventual degree is called "Master of Computer Science". I hold a degree in mathematics, but its formal title is 'Master of Mathematics'. My first degree, also in mathematics was, formally, Bachelor of Arts.
There is a distinction between the subject of a degree and its formal title.

Thank you so much, this answers my question.