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Copyright of infographs and where to deposit them?
Recently, a company designed infographs for some of our articles.
Infographs could be described as pictured one-page summaries of a research article. The head of the department paid for that service and then distributed the individual .pdf files to the respective investigators to promote our research.
Now there is a debate on copyright and where to upload these infographs to ensure proper citation is guaranteed. These infographs build on existing research, so they add nothing new. They just (graphically) summarize existing papers. Ideally, we would like to retain copyright but get a DOI. Is this possible / advisable or is it considered "redundant information"?
I found a comparable discussion on posters, however, I prefer something else than ResearchGate:
Where to upload conference posters and how to share them?
Any ideas? Thank you very much!

What does the contract with the company say about copyright? Start there. Either they own it, or your university owns it.

@ Jon Custer. I own the copyright. I am looking for an opportunity to retain it, despite uploading it online and without risking a "redundant publication" (e.g. a split in citations between the paper and the infographics).

Well, you retain copyright even if you upload it. And you can include the paper citation in the figure. caption (or add it to the infographic before uploading).


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Should the first editorial board position be a "big shot"?
I was recently invited to join the editorial board of a Wolters Kluwer journal.
The journal is decent and publishes 4 issues per year. It has been in the field for about 15 years.
The journal is China-based and most - but not all- members of the editorial board are from China. The editor-in-chief position is occupied by two persons: a Chinese and an Italian professor.
I reviewed for them in the past and they were prompt and swift with their decisions. The journal itself is a Q2 journal, nothing special but in line with my aims and scope.
I am currently not part of the editorial board of any journal. I frequently review for a variety of journals (about 20 reviews per year).
I saw this as a good opportunity for a first "editorial board" position and the expectations from the journal are clear. My supervisor is hesitant and recommends to decline the invitation. His rationale is that "better journals won't invite (me) in the future" if they see this.
May I ask about your opinion?

What can you learn about other members of their board? Would you be proud to be associated with them?

@Buffy Thank you very much for pointing me a direction! The majority hold professor positions in China. I do not know them (remember my field, medicine, is large, and the journal is rather general and non-specific in its scope).

First of all, congrats on the invitation. As a mathematician, I can only really speak to the culture in math, where it seems that being an editor for a lower ranked journal does not prevent you from being invited to become an editor for a higher ranked journal. Consider Emily Riehl's CV: she was an editor for Cahiers first, then HHA, then JHRS, then JPAA, and now the Bulletin of the AMS. The latter two are considered stronger journals than the first three. Similarly, Kathryn Hess was an editor for Algebraic and Geometric Topology and then for Publicaciones Matematiques (which, at least, has a higher impact factor).
In math, editors are chosen according to several criteria. Here are some in no particular order:

Geographic diversity. I was chosen as an editor for a journal for this reason, because there was no editor in the USA, but the journal did want submissions from the USA.

Prestige; having famous editors does tend to make the journal look fancy.

Is this person known to be well-organized, can manage lots of exchanges with lots of authors at once, generally can be trusted not to drop the ball, etc.

I'm not sure, but it's possible representational diversity plays a role, e.g., an all-male editorial board might look bad and also might drive away submissions from female authors.

I think previous successful editorial work will make it likely that other journals would think highly of you on point (3). Hence, it might increase the probability that you'll be asked to be an editor for a big shot journal.
Some people also deliberately go the other direction, and use their fame to pump up relatively new journals. For example, Mike Hill was an editor for Transactions of the AMS and for Math Z, but now is an editor for the Tunisian Journal of Mathematics and La Mathematica.
Being an editor is a lot of work. Your decision shouldn't be based on the prestige of the journal asking you to do this work (though, Buffy is right as usual, that you should not tie yourself to a known shady journal). Also, being an editor probably counts less in your favor than a strong publication record, from the point of view of getting a permanent job, tenure, and promotion. My advice is to only take on this work if you have the bandwidth to do it well (sounds like you do), and want to be part of the publication process for folks in your research area. Long-term, you can imagine using your editorial work to expand the set of publication venues for people in your research area, to help developing journals succeed, and to shape and improve the publication landscape.

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M1 vs M2 in France: In the French system, which one is designed for those interested in Academia, M1 or M2?
I'm applying for Master's degree in France and have learned that there are two different ones - M1 and M2. I read the answers to this question and a few websites with general explanations, but couldn't quite figure out which one is more suitable for someone who is going to do a PhD after their master's, and intends to work in academia.
Would studying a 4-year or 3-year undergrad make a difference? I've done my undergrad in the American system (4-year bachelor, but a relatively broad education), with a few extra courses that were more advanced (graduate-level courses), but I still do need to take courses to prepare for Ph.D. Can I take introductory (but graduate-level) courses in an M2, or the courses in M2 are all very specific? Do I stand a chance for a direct M2, or is it the case that a 4-year US undergrad is not considered as qualified as a 3-year French undergrad + M1?

The Bologna process was implemented in Europe in order to facilitate the exchange of students within the European Union with a uniformed educational system at the university level. Among many other things, it was stablished the system 3 + 2 + 3: three years for an undergraduate degree, 2 years for a master's degree and 3 years minimum for a doctoral degree.
The master's degree is composed by two very distinct years. The first year (called M1 in France) has a high load of lectures and usually the students do not have time to focus on research. The second year (M2) is dedicated for doing research and the writing of the thesis.
In France they use this nomenclature in order to facilitate the equivalences between the degrees before and after the Bologna process. For example, they say that Bac+4 (3 years + M1) is equivalent to the diploma "maitrise" pre-bologna. Take a look in this link for a further explanation.
So, as you can see, the nomenclature M1 and M2 is used for the same program. They expect you to finish the 2 years of a typical master's program if you want to do research at the doctoral level. However, they could give you equivalence in the M1 if you took similar courses in the US, but you need to contact the university to check.
You could have doubt about the professional and research master's program in France, but in this case the nomenclature is pretty clear I think (Masters professionnel et Master de Recherche).

Does the M2 include M1 then? Because in the application portal, I can choose to apply for M1 or M2.

You have to verify in the application website. They must have this information there or in the university website.

@nra: you need to apply for M1 first (if you don't have equivalent qualifications), and then after you complete it, you need to apply to M2. For historical reasons you don't get admitted to a complete master's program: you get admitted to the first year, and after the first year the university has another selection round to determine who gets to go on to second year.

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How detailed should PhD proposal component of a PhD application be?
Some of the PhD positions I'm applying for (all in Europe, mostly UK, Germany, and Switzerland), require a research proposal as a mandatory part of the application. I'm confused about what exactly they are asking for because the guidelines are quite vague.
I've seen this question and this one, but there are two things that are different in my case: First, the proposal for some of these programs is actually a mandatory requirement for the formal application (not for the first contact with the potential advisor), and second, unlike the former of those two questions, my field is mathematical and computational science, not Social Science (not sure if that makes a significant difference). I've also seen this question, but the question and the answers are not about how detailed the proposal should be.
My broader research interests, including a somewhat narrow area of interest for my PhD thesis (but not as narrow as a research topic), are already stated in both my statement letter (for formal application) and my contact with the potential advisor. That makes me think the proposal they expect to receive shouldn't be just my research interests, at least for those programs where, according to the guideline, it is recommended to cite related literature in my proposal. On the other hand, I really can't state a question that would be a suitable driving question for a PhD project on my own without enough help from a professor at this stage, and even if I could, I highly doubt that would be something my prospective advisor would want me to work on. So, it seems to me that writing a proper research proposal, without a substantial contribution from the advisor is impractical. (In fact, I can't even imagine how I could write about "the methodology" at this stage, considering finding the appropriate methodology in this field is often actually a very substantial part of the project.)
I'd appreciate if you could share your knowledge and experience about writing a PhD proposal as a part of the application. It would be very helpful to know what admission committees expect to see in a research proposal at the application stage, and how broad could the proposal be without turning into an SOP.

This sounds like a question that would be best answered by your prospective supervisor(s).

@astronat So you're saying there is no standard expectation for application stage research proposal? I thought there should be some standard when I saw this requirement in a few programs, not one.  Or are you suggesting that I ask the potential advisor to help me with preparing the proposal?

yes, you should ask them as a) they know the research area well and b) they know the expected format/standard of their department/ university.

Yes indeed, I think it is expected that you would first contact the prospective advisor more informally and at minimum get an idea about the potential topics they would be interested in and that would fit with their existing research and the plans they have for the future. It's nearly impossible to guess this as an outsider.
In my case, in Germany and in CS, I had to write this for applying to the funding rather than the PhD position per se (which can be given out with almost no process by the prof). I first sat down with the prof and we talked things over and he agreed to take me on if I could acquire funding. Together with my prospective advisor and the post-doc who would be supervising me on the daily, I then wrote about 10 pages, with a detailed plan of the work I would be doing, including a gantt chart of tasks etc. Definitely not the kind of thing I would've been able to produce on my own.
I also went partway through an application process for a British university, where I had two skype interviews with the prof discussing his research before he told me to sit down and write a draft for the research plan for the formal application and send it to him for comments before submitting. (I ended up accepting another offer before I finished the draft, so I don't know what precisely they would have been looking for there.)

I'm certainly contacting the potential advisor long before the application deadline. But shouldn't the professor first accept to take me as a student to be willing to spend that effort? Also, based on what you're suggesting, is it safe to say the professor doesn't expect me to be able to prepare the proposal on my own?! Because I'm starting to think maybe if I can't write the proposal on my own, I might be actually unprepared for starting the program, if the applicants are expected to prepare a proposal.

The professor should at least be willing to invest some time into your application, even if they may not want to accept you outright. If you're not getting the kind of support you need to be able to write the proposal, that's a sign that it's unlikely to work out (either the prof is not interested enough to bother, or you don't work well together, or they expect you to be more independent than you are). Profs vary in how much help they expect you to need, whereas the administration is one-size-fits-all, so I would say don't draw conclusions from the forms they make you fill out.

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How much of an academic presentation should be spent on preliminaries?
Considering a presentation is for a group of academics whose specialties are to some (unknown) extent related to the topic, how much of the talk should be spent on explaining the preliminaries?
I often have this problem when preparing slides for a talk where I know that my audience is a group of professors, postdocs, or/and graduate students in the same field or related fields, but I don't know how much background they have on the topic of discussion. The preliminaries are usually topics that could be covered in an upper-level undergrad course (or a first course on that specific topic), but are not a core topic in the field. I know that there could be academics out there who are either not acquainted with the topic or they need a refresher for their knowledge of the material, but I also know that with a very high probability, a considerable number of audience are so comfortable and deeply familiar with the topic that the preliminaries would be extremely boring and trivial for them (and I'm even afraid that it might sound offensively easy to them, especially when it is presented by a student).
Should I just skip the slides on prelims in such cases, or should I always consider the possibility that some members among the audience may be unfamiliar with the topic and the presentation would sound completely meaningless to them if I skip the prelims? I've seen both approaches in academic talks given by experienced professors, so I'm confused about how they decide when to choose which approach.

Just enough to get them all excited...

@SolarMike Shouldn't that be done in the motivation slides?
I could do the motivation slide explained technically after prelims, or more intuitively before the prelims (and I think I choose the latter one), but in any case, I think the prelims would be necessary to understand the main part of the presentation for those without sufficient background but could be extremely boring for a lot of people in the audience.
I don't if the norm is to ignore those that don't have the background or to just expect those with deeper knowledge to be patient.

@SolarMike I mean since I've been on the presentations where I understood everything without any background, and on those where I didn't understand anything with a decent level of background (for a student of course), I don't know how the presenter decides which approach to take. I'd like to hear about others' experiences with regard to this issue and their solutions.

How long is the allotted time? And how good of a speaker are you?

There isn't really an easy answer to this; it comes with experience.  Over time you get to develop a sense of "standard things" that you can expect your audience will know.  Sometimes you'll err in one direction or another, and that's just life.  And you can't expect to please your entire audience with every part of your talk.  No matter what you do, some parts will be trivial to some listeners, and other parts will be inaccessible to others.
In the meantime, if you're a student, you have an advisor, and that's a source of experience for you to draw on.  Go over the talk in advance with your advisor, and ask for their advice as to whether you have too much or too little detail on preliminaries.
One very rough rule of thumb is to assume your audience knows any topic that would be covered in a typical first-year graduate course in your field, particularly if it's the sort of course that everyone would be expected to take.

The exact forum also factors in.  A colloquium talk is frequently pretty general: anyone in the department is expected to be able to show up and get something out of it. But a talk for a Group Theory seminar will of course suppose primarily group theorists are in attendance, allowing you to assume more about their knowledge of group theory.  And a talk in a forum for Representations of small quantum groups at roots of unity is even more specialized.  University is also a factor: a teaching university with no grad department tends to warrant a different approach than does UC Berkeley.

How realistic is it to assume that everyone remembers everything from first-year grad school courses, including courses in areas one has never worked in ever since? This way one may guarantee that nobody asks, because everyone remembers that they ought to know something, but I highly doubt they all do.


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Reporting fall semester grades
A couple of graduate schools I have applied to have a section for reporting the Fall semester grades (the application deadlines were before the end of the Fall semester). My GPA has decreased by 0.1 and my previously-outstanding GPA is not outstanding anymore, and even though I haven't received any terrible grades (my grades were A, A-, and B+), I don't have a straight-A transcript any more. That being said, I have two more graduate-level courses in related topics with decent grades. Now I am wondering whether in this situation I should report the new grades or I shouldn't, given that it is an optional section of the application to be completed after submission.
I appreciate your comments on that.

perhaps not the best dupe but it would surprise me to discover this is the first time this has been asked.

@virmaior It is not a duplicate of that question because I am asking whether it is better to report or not, not if I can report or not. There is a designated section on the application portal for reporting the Fall semester grades.

If they ask you to report it, do. If they don't, you don't need to... Basically no one in your department should care about that. Maybe the graduate school itself does but if it's not required, skip it?

Wow, honestly, congrats on the excellent transcript. Not many people can say they have a straight A- transcript. I wouldn't worry too much about it.
Were those "bad" grades in important classes? How challenging were they?
Don't want to beat a dead horse but I think professors would understand if you got a B+ in some engineering calculus class but would raise questions if the B+ was in a freshman GE class.
Again, congrats, and as long as your GPA is above the 3.0 minimum, (which it sounds like it isn't) I wouldn't stress too much

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Potential conflicting grad school interview events
I've applied to several programs at several different graduate schools, and if shortlisted for interview, I expect to receive invitations by the end of January and most of them hold their visit and interview event on just two weekends in Feb. I already received an invitation, but the date will have a conflict if I receive an invitation from a few schools that I actually prefer over this one. I expect to hear from those school over the next week, but I don't know if it is ok to keep them waiting for my response to interview invitation. Is this ok to respond for making arrangements a few days after receiving the invitation?
Note 1 - The event is a 2-day event, so it is not just a short interview with me, so I am worried they might not be able to rearrange a different date only for me.
Note 2 - I have already read this and this, but my question is different! It is about whether I should keep the first one waiting to avoid a potential conflict with the interview for a preferred program.

Possible duplicate : https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/15019/72855

@SolarMike As it is written in Note 2 (one of those "this"' is the same as the link you have given), it is not a duplicate, and for the reason I've given in Note 2.

The question of keeping either waiting is germane to the question  and is covered in the linked question ie you want to make a decision of keeping one waiting...

@SolarMike In the linked question, the person has told the school that she/he is going, but then received another invitation with an overlap, and the one she/he had made arrangements with, was the preferred one. In my question, I am asking if I should just wait without responding to the only invitation I have so far, to see if I will be invited to the one I prefer. There are two differences:

I do not have two conflicting invitations at the moment, but considering not responding
If I do respond, then in case of a conflict I'd have to rearrange the interview with the school I prefer.


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Re-submission to another journal - should I include old review reports in light of the editorial board
I am new to this forum and although I have found comparable questions (Can I submit the anonymous referee report from a previous submission to another journal together with my manuscript?), none seem directly related to my specific problem.
My field is medicine and I work as a clinician scientist at a hospital. Earlier this year, I submitted a manuscript to a Q1 journal. The article has been rejected - based on 3 reports from reviewers. One of the reviewers is easily identifiable. The field I work in is very small and because of that I am 99.9% sure who that person is.
We wish to resubmit this manuscript to another journal. We revised the manuscript based on the comments. However, said reviewer is part of the editorial board of the journal we want to submit to.
How would you proceed? Shall I include the comments from the previous reviewers or shall I refrain from choosing that journal?
My field is very small and the number of eligible journals is limited.
Thank you for your advice!

Modify the paper according to the old review reports, then re-submit the article as a fresh new article ready to be understood on its own as a self-contained piece of work.

You don't know who the reviewer is, so don't assume you do.
Rejections from top journals (though, please, don't use this Q1/Q2 business... I work in medicine with a lot of clinician scientists, no one I've ever encountered in the real world says Q1/Q2/etc journal) are often less about their scientific merits and more about their overall impact. Ideally those decisions would be made at the desk stage, but often they are not, and the editor relies somewhat on the reviewers' opinions of the significance of the work in making their decision. Especially if the paper would need some work before it can be accepted, if it's not groundbreaking enough for the journal they just aren't going to take the time.
Even if an editor has seen your paper before, I'd expect them to make a judgment based on the current submission. If you've addressed their concerns, they should see it more favorably than they did before. If they decide to desk reject it, well, the turnaround time will be very short and you have little to lose by submitting it there.
It's not normal to include previous reviews with a submission, with the exception of systems that "transfer" a paper from one journal to another within the same publisher's purview. Don't include the previous reviews, regardless of who you guess the editor is or is not.

"You don't know who the reviewer is, so don't assume you do." <-- This. Nothing good can come off speculating who the reviewer may be.

Submit the paper as revised. Don't submit additional material that could (only) confuse things. Let the editorial and review process operate as usual on the current state of the paper. Its history is of much less importance than what you say and how you support it.
The editor may know some or all of the history as you indicate, but that is up to them. If they ask you for things, consider providing them, but don't make assumptions.
Let the paper be the paper.

Some journals explicitly support Portable Review; you may resubmit to these journals using the reviews you received from a previous submission to another journal.  For example: The Canadian Journal of Kidney Health and Disease.  See https://journals.sagepub.com/aims-scope/CJK where there is a detailed description of the policy (number 9 in the list of policies) and what it means.
(Disclaimer: I am not a medical researcher, but I am related to one who happens to be the editor of this journal.)

Being from the biomedical/bioengineering side of things, IMO it would be best to resubmit the paper as a new submission after having made the constructive changes provided by reviewers from your previous submission. At the end of the day, (ideally) your work will be judged based on the data and your arguments, and the opinions of other reviewers from previous reviews should not influence the decision of the editorial board. Good luck!


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Should I ask my supervisor for co-authorship for doing intermediate-step data analysis?
I worked with a gigantic research lab as an undergrad intern for a couple of months and the preprint of the paper summing up the results of the project I helped them with was recently posted on BioRxiv. My name does not appear among the co-authors and I'm wondering whether I should contact my direct supervisor, who is the project leader and the first author, and ask for co-authorship. I did read this question and the answers, but there is a fundamental difference in my case: my work was intermediate-step analysis, not final results.
I'm going to detail my role in the project in the following paragraph, and I appreciate any comments on whether this is something that'd grant me a co-authorship and worth asking for it. Briefly, my role was to do some intermediate-step data analysis in the initial phase of data analysis of the project: A data analysis that was used to do more helpful data analysis in the following steps, but wasn't a significant result from the project on its own.
The field is Comp Bio - molecular bio - bioinformatics and the papers resulting from this type of project often have an endless list of co-authors. The project took 5-6 years, but that's not at all unusual for the lab, as they often involve a long phase of wet-lab experiments and data collection, a phase of data analysis (sometimes accompanied by supplementary wet-lab experiments), possibly ending with a short phase of interpretation and theory work (Physics, Computer Science, etc.). When I applied to join the group as an intern, they'd just finished the data-collection phase, and they took me in to help my supervisor with data analysis. That was the initial phase of data analysis, so they were just getting to know the data and my supervisor would usually ask me to clean up the data, find some macro-level statistics, create some plots, and they would use those in the lab meetings to find out what could be interesting to look at and what kind of analysis could lead to a story that could make the paper "Nature-worthy". None of my plots ended up in the paper, but one or two plots are very close variations of the plots I made (say a bar plot with 6 bars showing a certain measure of 6 samples, 3 of them are also in the plots I made, 3 of them were samples they were still deciding whether they want to look into or not when I was there), and one or two are the measure I made the plot for, but they added additional parts to it. There was also some data analysis that was redone after I did it, as they decided to repeat a part of the wet-lab to collect more data and increase the accuracy. Note that the preprint was posted on BioRxiv almost two years after I left the group (so there was still a significant amount of work, mostly data analysis and interpretation, done after me).
What makes me think I may deserve a co-authorship is that, although my supervisor could have done what I did during my time there more than twice as fast, I did spend a significant amount of time and energy and saved them half as much, and there was very little technical education there for me (the education was more conceptual in data analysis and research conduct) as my technical knowledge and skills would already exceed what was necessary for that work. In addition, what I did was what they'd have to do anyways to get to know their data and learn what would be interesting to look into, so I hope it wasn't useless. On the other hand, what makes me doubt if I do deserve a co-authorship, besides the relatively short amount of time I was a part of the project, was that they paid me as a full-time intern, and my data analysis was not my intellectual contribution, rather a technical work that I'd do upon the instruction of my supervisor (my supervisor would ask me to create a plot showing X, and I'd do so). Moreover, as far as I got to know the group, they're very nice people in a lab with an excellent name recognition in the field and I'd be very surprised if they would do anything unethical of this kind (especially because adding an extra name to one of those 50-60 co-authors wouldn't even cost a penny I guess).

Can you explain why the linked question doesn't answer yours? The accepted answer was "Asking whether a contribution merits acknowledgement or co-authorship is always appropriate, as long as it is done in a professional and non-confrontational way."

@BryanKrause Because I would appreciate more elaborated answers, or at least the same answer to my question. Assuming that answer is given to the general case and with great accuracy and care in use of vocabulary, i.e. the “always” means literally “always”, I see how it could be an answer to my question too, but even in that case, I’d appreciate comments on whether it would be right to list my name as a co-author. In particular, the more general question I’m asking is whether what I referred to as “intermediate-step analysis” would grant an intern co-authorship or not.

There isn't a clear, universal answer. Based on what you wrote, and my experience of publishing 24 papers with other authors in a different field of science, my gut feeling is that your contribution did not reach authorship level. This is partially due to your position being paid, and partially due to the interim nature of the work and absence from the last few years of the project. But you can always ask, e.g., "Would it be appropriate if...?" and that gives them a fairly easy road to decline and everyone to preserve the social balance.


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Can you submit an abstract that was accepted to a conference but not presented, for a different conference?
Our group has submitted an abstract to a conference for an oral presentation (not the proceeding track), and it was accepted. We're scheduled for an oral presentation, but it seems like we cannot make it to the conference because of travel expenses.
I was wondering if we withdraw our presentation, can we submit the same abstract to a different conference? In particular, we're considering submitting it to the next conference of the same organization; would there be any upside or downside to that?
( I read this question, but this is about whether the abstract is considered published or unpublished and does not discuss whether it can be submitted for a different conference or not.)

You should see this question: https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/141755/75368. It is possible that acceptance implied that you've lost copyright. Explore that before you proceed.

In my field, and I think in other traditional disciplines as well, is pretty common to present talks or posters more than once.
Thus, your doubt has no ground. Presentations aren't papers, they are dedicated to an actual audience, so you could resubmit the "basically the same" work even attending this conference you cannot in fact attend.
(How many times it makes sense to present the same core depends on many factors I am not going to list here) .
I recommend you to explain to the current organizing committee, or the branch in charge of the scientific content of the event, about your impossibility and why. Let them know you will try to submit and attend the next conference.
Also, in case the current accepted abstracts go printed, try to reformulate it at least a bit. This has nothing to do with copyright or self-plagiarism but it something I always do not to convey the idea of laziness or that I and my coworkers are prone to sloppy copy and paste.


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Can I use a method I developed or a data collected with a group in my project with another group?
I have developed a method/measure in a project supervised by my PhD advisor, and (a rather limited version of) this method appeared very useful in a project I'm working on in collaboration with a different group (let's call it group X), which has nothing to do with my advisor or my institution. I was wondering if I need to involve my advisor in the project with group X to use this method in the project. Can I just use it without having my advisor as a co-author or do I need to ask for a permission from my advisor for that?
Conversely, the useful of the method for studying the data collected in the project with group X (by other members of group X, not me!), is a good example for how useful the method is, so I'm also considering showing this application on that data as an example later in the paper for this method. Do I need to have anyone from group X as a co-author if I do that?
More information about the situation:
This particular method itself is new, but is building on previous research done (and published) by other members of my advisor's research group. The project on this method focuses on the significance and useful of the method and has a long way to publication, but the very simple and primary version of this method at a very limited scope has an application in the project I'm doing with group X, and we're going to submit the first paper for that project pretty soon (hopefully).

I might have misunderstood something but were you thinking of publishing a paper with collaborators, regardless of the methods  used, without even talking to your PI, who's presumably paying your salary?

@posdef  I was thinking of publishing the paper without talking to my advisor, but I don't see anything wrong with that because this is a project I started before starting my PhD, and I'm working on it out of the regular work hours.

in that case you could probably just cite the paper in which the method is described. But I would still play my cards open and tell him/her that you are working on this stuff.

@posdef Sure, my advisor knows that I'm working on a project from before I join the group, but doesn't know the details.

@posdef The issue is that the method is most probably going to be published after the other paper will be published.

I have developed a method/measure in a project supervised by my PhD advisor ... Can I just use it without having my advisor as a co-author or do I need to ask for a permission from my advisor for that?

This is a very vague description, but in my field, this is the whole point of having collaborators. You might not need to ask "permission," but you could certainly mention it to your advisor. Unless standards in your field are very different, there's no reason for them to stop you.

so I'm also considering showing this application on that data as an example later in the paper for this method. Do I need to have anyone from group X as a co-author if I do that?

Typically, yes

Many universities have an academic director or someone who you can talk to about ethical issues. They are usually objective parties who give counsel on what is acceptable or not acceptable behavior when it comes to publishing.
Seeing as this case seems very specific, have you considered talking to this person? You might get better insights into how they do it at your specific university, most of the advice you will get here will be generic and not specific to your situation.


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Oral Presentation Prize at a Conference
Abstract was selected for 'oral abstracts' competition, in a shortlist of 5 presenters. I was announced winner at the end of the competition. Following the event I have been emailed to pass on my bank details as the beneficiary of the £1500 prize. My co-authors are all seniors/co-supervisors. What should I do? Should I email them all to discuss splitting up the share? Or should I not raise the matter at all, to avoid embarrassment. From reading responses to a similar post before, I get the impression that since the award is for best Oral Presentation, and I am the only 'student' it should probably just go to me. At the same time, I don't want to just keep it without mentioning it to anybody.

Can you give more details on the competition?

Where is the embarrassment in winning a prize?

See Share prize money from conference presentation award with co-authors?

hi - no embarrassment in winning. they are aware i won and very happy. i just don't fancy talking about splitting cash with my seniors. to them it is probably negligible. to me, it is significant!

"I have been emailed to pass on my bank details" I would not suggest sending your bank account information by email.

You should absolutely inform your co-authors
These people care about your career. They will be your recommenders, they will help you find jobs. People will ask them about your work. "Hey, I just won a big prize" is something I'd want to know if it was one of my students or postdocs - because I'd proceed to cheerfully show off the awesome work people in my lab are doing.
You can broach the subject of splitting the prize with them, but personally you did the presentation, and you won the award. If I was on the paper, I'd settle for a warm fuzzy feeling.

Thanks for replying  - I informed them about the winning. And they were all thrilled. But I did not know about any money attached to the presenter award..... so I just don't want to reopen an awkward conversation about money. i think for them the monetary side would be negligible, given their seniority. my one concern is whether somebody  suggests the money goes to a research 'fund' for our department. If that happened, I would be miffed!

This answer is great. As for sharing the prize: The money is yours and although it is very nice of you to consider to share it, I do not think that is necessary or expected. Maybe you could take your co-authors dinner or to a bar or something.

thanks louic - i probably agree with your sentiments the most!

Congratulations! It will not hurt to let your co-authors know about the prize, and you can certainly offer to share the amount as well. As a student and presumably the only presenter, you are the primary recipient of this award, but your supervisors will likely be glad to know you received a substantial award.

Hi - thanks for replying! I didnt actually know about the cash award until a few days later. I did straightaway inform my supervisors that I had won and they were all delighted. They all congratulated me instantly. But I did not know or mention anything about cash awards at the time.


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How to evaluate the research level of a paper before any publication?
There are three differents cases when the research level of a paper must be evaluated before any publication:

for author: to choose the most appropriate journal,
for referee: to recommend acceptance or rejection for a given journal,
for editor: to take the final decision.

If we compare this process to justice, a referee is like a lawyer, and an editor is like a judge.
Question: How an author, a referee and an editor can (respectively) evaluate the research level of a paper?
We here ask about the purely research level of a paper, so we assume that the paper is original, correct and well-written. We also assume that the paper is  not too specialized if it is a general-audience journal, and is on-topic if it is a specialized journal (idem for any other specificity).  Finally, if specific, I am mainly interested in mathematical papers.
An utilitarianism way could be to estimate how many papers should cite this paper in the next five years (self-citations excepted). Then the author can choose a journal having this number as Article Influence score (after renormalization), and the referee can check if it matches with the chosen journal. But then it would be necessary to know how to make such an estimate...
Of course, an author/referee/editor can evaluate the paper subjectively, but subjectivity varies with emotions, it can be manipulated and the process can become political. I wonder whether there is an objective way to proceed, or at least, if we can add a bit of rationality in this process. Consider the process of justice, it contains undeniably a part of subjectivity, but also rationality, called the law.

While I think your "justice" metaphor is wrong, the answer in all cases is experience. You need experience in the field as a reviewer. You need to know what has been done and what is important yet to do. As an editor you need either that field experience or experience with your reviewers - who is trustworthy and who is not. As an author in the early career you don't have any experience other than some within the field, but it will grow.
For everyone here, the way you get experience is to make best effort attempts at whatever job you have and evaluate the response. As they say in engineering and computer science, "Good design comes from experience. Experience comes from bad design."
If you are looking for an algorithm, then I would say it doesn't exist. It might be possible in theory to construct one with an AI looking at tens of thousands of interactions, but it might show bias, as many such things have been shown to do.
But the system as a whole just depends on (nearly) everyone trying to do their best with what they have in front of them in world of imperfect information.

In theory, theory is the same as practice. But not in practice. - Fnord Bjørnberger

Indeed, particularly the bit on algorithms. Another good point would be from Deming (although in my experience most quality people forget this one): just because you can’t measure it doesn’t mean you can’t manage it.

In the vast majority of cases, what a reviewer needs is exactly what you said, "to know what has been done and what is important yet to do." But I've also encountered a few cases where my reaction to a paper is to forget that and just say "wow, what a great idea!"

I think you have a misconception here about the point of the peer-review. The review process is not meant to be a future prediction of how many citations a paper might get. Yet, I have experienced in the past that some journals ask the reviewers, after the review is finished, if a paper should be highlighted in the current issue of the journal or on the journal website.
As a reviewer, I can make a personal judgement if a paper should be highlighted, but as broad, interdisciplinary and diversified as science has become, I often vote to not highlight a paper, because it would be a subjective judgement. I also leave the decision, if a script fits the scope of a journal often to the editor (and care only about the quality of the reported research), this is literally not my business as an unpaid reviewer and is based on my view, to select a paper for reading by myself by factors not biasing me too much like journal impact factor etc...
It just follows from scientific history that we often cannot predict the impact of fundamental research. I also think, there is no need to do what you ask or suggest for submitted scripts before publication, because the temporal highlighting of important research is done on conferences and later by the peers and readers in the community via review articles or even blogs, where you have much more, more experienced and objective "judges", than before publication.

The most selective journals definitely review on impact. It is not sufficient to have a 'correct' paper scientifically. Editors can do a lot of that gating themselves, but it's typical for them to ask the reviewers who are more expert in the specific field for their opinions.

@BryanKrause of course, so it remains a guessing game and also nature, science publish many low-impact papers. But as a reviewer, I don't work and want to work for the business/impact model of a journal, that's my point here. How prestigious journals legitimize their impact and if it is very helpful for the progress of the community or rather creates "citation cirles/cartels" among researchers/groups and hyped trends, is another question.


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What exactly counts as an 'unofficial transcript' for graduate school admissions?
At my school, I can request an official transcript to be emailed to me, and it comes addressed to me at the top, with a COPY watermark all over it. Since this doesn't go directly to the graduate school, would this count as an unofficial transcript? It contains the classes taken, my grades and so on.
One thing though, is that at my institution, first year grades don't 'count' per se, so they don't appear on the official transcript. Instead, these are all listed as SC [Satisfactorily Completed]. Would seeing this on the official transcript be odd to a grad school admissions committee?

An "unofficial" transcript is generally considered anything that doesn't bear the "sign and seal" (or equivalent) of the issuing institution, as well as any reproduction of the official transcript (scan, photo, copy, etc.). So your "copy" would be sufficient as an unofficial transcript.
The question about "satisfactory completion" of first-year courses is not really a big deal. Different schools know that different universities have their own systems in deciding what does and does not get graded (some schools are pass/fail for a semester, others for a full year, others allow different courses across the four years to be graded that way). So long as you're not doing that with your major courses, there's probably little harm. Moreover, freshman year is the year where little stigma will be attached if letter grades aren't reported.

Most universities allow an online version of the transcript that is 'unofficial' meaning that it doesn't have the necessary anti-tampering technologies (watermarks, raised insignia, etc) that can determine that the information (your grades and classes) contained are genuine.
As far as applications go, if you have to pay for a copy chances are, it is an 'official' transcript, if you can print it online from your university, it is 'unofficial'.

You can send them the online printout as you describe but ensure that it's easily legible. Some institutions have other basic requirements such as showing your name and the institution's name, which are good to have if only to ease processing.
What will happen is that if you accept a position, only then the school will require that you send them an official transcript. This will be compared to detect fraud, and the final award of your degree verified. This means you will (ideally) only have to pay for one official transcript. Also, it minimizes clerical problems correlating transcripts otherwise sent directly.
To answer the second part of your question, special first year grading is not odd. Some well-known institutions, like MIT and JHU have similar policies. The transcript you send should match what is shown on an official transcript.


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When is the ideal time to contact potential PhD advisors?
I'm a rising senior studying Psychology, and will be applying to PhD and Master's programs in the Fall. I have already shortlisted the advisors from the schools I would like to work with and whose research I find fascinating.
Would sending them a quick email now (late May) asking whether they are taking graduate students and expressing an interest in being a part of their lab in 2019 be too early? Should I wait until the term starts in September/October to reach out to them?

@GürayHatipoğlu That’s not true in the US and other countries where admission 8a handled at the departmental level.

@NajibIdrissi It means they will be a senior next time they're in school, but are technically not a senior right now because they're on break, or are in the last few weeks of their junior year.

Assuming you’re talking about the US, the summer would be a good time to start contacting faculty about your interest, although the exact amount of funding and the availability of open positions more than a year ahead of time is murky at best. So you’re not likely to get a commitment at this time, but you will make yourself known to the research group, which could be of benefit in getting an admissions offer.

In my experience, it's never too early to at least make yourself known to potential supervisors (or even potential research collaborators). Bear in mind, though, that different supervisors approach contact from potential students quite differently. For example, some are responsive, others won't respond until they have more information about whether taking students will be feasible, and some actively choose not to respond to potential students so as to ensure all applicants have a fair go.
Good luck!


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Etiquette for providing manuscript /poster feedback
I am occasionally asked by other students in my research group to read their manuscript/poster before it is submitted/presented. I would assume that the main reason to get another person in the same field to read your work before submitting it is to check that the content comes across clearly and without errors (although in my case I am also one of the native English speakers in the group so this might also be a factor) and that this is something different from the responsibility that the editor has.
To what extent is it acceptable to:

(1) make suggestions for fixing frequent, small grammar issues (missing articles, noun-verb disagreement etc.)

and

(2) make suggestions for modifying formatting even where it does not affect understanding of the work (e.g. inconsistent capitalization of labels in figures, bulleted lists that are not consistently either full sentences or clauses)?

I guess that the consensus is (1) is acceptable and (2) is less so, but I would be interested to hear other opinions as I am always somewhat uncomfortable making a large number of trivial suggestions when the content of the work is good and I find limited real issues to comment on.


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Ethics of dissertation / thesis proofreading
OK. Short version, I'm stuck on my PhD because of coronavirus. My university is giving me an extension to my thesis deadline, but I am going to run out of funding pretty soon.
I'm looking at marketable skills I can use to generate a bit of income to bridge the gap, and one of these is scientific writing. I know that there are plenty of people out there who have English as a second language, or who don't express themselves fluently and I think they'd be interested in proofreading / light copy editing. I absolutely don't want to become an essay mill, and I don't want to help people to cheat.
Can anyone advise me on the ethics of this? Where do the boundaries lie?
Thanks!

What could be the problem?

Some of the answers (and their comments) to about academic proof-reading, what to do in this situation? will likely be of interest.

Proofreading and even light editing for proper language usage and understandability should not be an issue at all. You are not contributing to the actual work, just to its explanation. Advisors sometimes do this sort of thing.
I'll assume of course that the theses you read aren't fundamentally about the language itself. But proofreading a math paper, say, helping the author to find the right English or German or whatever words and phrases for expressibility is ok as long as it doesn't change the content or the ideas. I'm assuming, also, that the advice you would give is non-technical.
However, the best way to do this is to make suggestions to the author about places in the text that need improvement, rather than doing a markup. This aids the author in developing professional language skills and helps assure that you don't cross boundaries.
If you are in the same field then it is easy to go too far, so you need to guard against that.

I should note that some people take a very strict view about such things and would forbid it.

I would consider giving technical advice to be okay, so long as the student does the implementation.


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Submitting a paper, and presenting it at a conference - conflicts?
So, sorry if this is a daft question...
I've recently completed a paper that I'm hoping to submit to a journal later this week.
I think we have something important to say, and I want to disseminate the results more widely, in particular there's a conference I have my eye on. Their deadline is also at the end of this week.
Is it acceptable to submit the same paper to both journal and conference? Or will I get into trouble in the same way that I would if I submitted to two journals at the same time?
Thanks!

Normally one submits to a conference and its associated journal at the same time. May be different in different fields though... mine was engineering...

yes - it's tricky. The journal and conference are two separate entities - I'm hoping to publish in the journal, because they published the paper I'm critiquing, but there aren't all that may conferences in my field - so they aren't all that closely linked

Then if they are two separate entities you may need two completely separate papers.... As most journals / conferences have a question like "has this material been submitted elsewhere"....

This really depends on the field. Some fields publish only in journals and conferences are for work in progress (including papers submitted for publication); in other fields, conferences are chiefly publication venues. In the first, your only problem will be to saveguard the blindness of peer-review. In the second, I don't know.

Fyi this is a perfectly relevant question imho.

I don’t have time to write an answer, but in my field this would be perfectly acceptable. This is because conferences are for works in progress (@henning case 1) and all conference proceedings are negligible enough that they are not considered publication by our journals. What is the nature of your field’s conferences?

@SolarMike That's a totally new idea to me - in my field, conferences don't have associated journals.

@AzorAhai well, the conference I presented at had an associated book with it 1500 pages or more at least 6cm thick....

@Solar Full of abstracts or entire articles?

I have been in the same situation, written a paper, and wanted to disseminate the findings to a wider audience and hence, presented the work at a conference. I am in applied environmental science, and I feel that this is relatively common in my field.
My approach to this situation, bearing in mind there was to be published conference proceedings was to focus on a very specific element of the new methodological development that I worked on, and presented this at the conference, under a similar - but 'different enough' title than the paper. This parallel journal/conference writing also has to be used to be able to honestly answer the journal question, 'is this work being submitted elsewhere?'. Clearly you need to be able to answer no - its not.
This approach allowed me to go into some very fine detail of the new methods that was of interest to the specialist audience at the conference, that otherwise was far too detailed for the journal readership.
At the end of the conference presentation, I also signposted to the paper that was under review and the journal it was with, and some folk said post-conference that they would look for the journal paper when published.
So, in short, I would say that there has to be differences between the two submissions, but there is no problem in having them linked by common ground and to highlight an upcoming journal paper.
All the best.

This seems to depend on the field. But, in most fields, I think that you risk being rejected by both the journal and the conference. Journals, especially, want to publish what is new and ask you to assure them that you haven't submitted elsewhere.
If you happen to "sneak it through" in one instance, don't expect a happy reception in the future.
Again, in some fields, conferences are the main venue for presenting new work. Conferences in CS, for example, also publish proceedings in which the accepted papers are printed as a matter of course.
That said, an abstract of a paper submitted to a journal might be acceptable at an unrelated conference. Likewise a follow-on result to something submitted to one is probably acceptable to the other.
But the best way to be sure is to ask. Both the journal editor and the conference chair will give you the best and only valid advice. Both the journal and conference submission procedures probably already make it pretty clear what is allowed and what is not. If either objects to a double submission, then you should tread carefully.

Thanks, definitely don't want to piss anybody off (any more than strictly necessary) so I'll do a bit of digging.

It's a matter of editorial policy: both the journal and the conference certainly have a policy in place about such cases. If their policy is not clear from their website, you can send an email to the editor asking about it.
In my experience (computer science), it is common for a conference/journal to allow authors to "submit elsewhere" , but be careful: this often implies that you would have to withdraw one of them in case you are accepted to both. Another option is simply to submit different content: usually conference papers are shorter, so in the journal one you can afford to study a particular aspect of the topic in more detail, thus making it a significantly different contribution.


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How do editors guarantee the quality of peer-review?
Inspired by this question (including a comment by @JeffE that a paper should be short to be reviewed within a few hours) and some other questions on this website.
Almost everyone believes that peer-review of a paper takes about 1 day and peer-review of 20-30 papers per month means low-quality reviews.
My supervisor receives 50-100 peer-review requests every month (I know because I organize his mailbox) and accepts 20-30 papers submitted to high-impact journals (say impact factor 10) to review. He never asks us to review (contrary to many comments) and he does the review personally. I do not have exact statistics, but based on his schedule, he shouldn't spend more than 1 hour to review a paper.
My question is: if his peer-review is careless and of low-quality (as assumed as a fact by many here), then, why do editors frequently invite him to review? Note that he is one of many.
If the editors do not consider the quality of reviews and simply invite famous people frequently. Then, there should be a flaw in the quality of high-impact journals.

The time will vary according to discipline. For example, math papers take quite a bit of time to review.

Some of my professors could read my submission in 5 minutes , ask me three questions and I had 3 weeks work - some really know their stuff...

Some professors can fit three days in what you call a day.

Almost everyone believes that peer-review of a paper takes about 1 day — For a 5-page paper, maybe.  See my answer on TCS.SE, especially point 6.

@JeffE As usual, things are more field dependent than length dependent. Where there are description of experiments, tables of data etc. a fast reader can easily read a 10-page paper in a couple of hours and make annotations. Different is the case where one has to check calculations. But not all world is math or CS.

@MassimoOrtolano Yes, but OP said “Almost everyone believes...” Perhaps almost everyone in OP’s field believes a paper review should take about an hour, but almost no one in my field believes that.

Low-quality (unless they delegate to someone else). Such professors mostly simply read the abstract if they do it themselves.

I think you're making a mistaken assumption that your supervisor's not able to generate useful reviews quickly.  How long it takes to do a useful review depends on a few things: (i) the paper being reviewed, (ii) the kind of review being done, and (iii) the person doing the review.
Yes, if you're reviewing a long technical paper with lots of details it takes a long time to read through it.  It takes even longer if you want to check all the details for yourself.  It takes even longer if you're not familiar with these calculations.
I would assume that because your supervisor continues to get asked to do many reviews, the editors asking him find his reviews at least somewhat helpful. It's true that editors, at least in my field, have trouble finding enough good reviewers, but I can't imagine they would continue to ask someone who's review are consistently worthless.
I don't know what reviewing is like in your field (doing 20-30 reviews/month in my field would be unheard of) but here are some possibilities for how your supervisor could be doing many reviews quickly:

he's only selecting reviews he can do quickly and/or only reviews papers he wants to read anyway
since he does so many, he's probably gotten very efficient about doing reviews
he knows the field very well, so he can read the papers very quickly (and possibly assess it solely on the introduction, particular if he's going to recommend rejection)
he doesn't check low-level details, and primarily gives high-level reviews (which are still useful to editors, and depending on your area may be all that's expected)
he works really long hours


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Is it possible to preregister non-experiment studies?
I am a PhD student in social science and a professor and I are planning to run a survey in South Asia. It is not an experiment. However, we were thinking of pre-registering in case it would give us more credibility when we submit it to journals. Do places like OSF accept preregistration for nonexperiment studies?

Note: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preregistration_(science)

So what is the purpose of the survey? How is it not an experiment in some way?

Also, be sure to get your research design approved in advance by your university's committee on research involving humans (whatever it is called).  Yes, surveys count.

It is probably worth stepping back a bit here and recalling the scientific purpose of pre-registration.  One of the main goals of pre-registration is to avoid situations where researchers change their hypotheses and methods post hoc after they have already seen the data from their study (or simply don't publish their results as a post hoc decision).  This is known to lead to significant confirmatory bias in science, so we want to try to avoid this happening.  Pre-registration works by having the researchers specify their research plan, including the hypotheses they will test and the methods, models, etc., they will use for their inferences.  The pre-registered explanation of these things allows readers to check to see if there has been any funny-business in the testing that ultimately occurred in the research (e.g., post hoc testing of hypotheses arising from looking at the data), and it allows them to see if there have been studies that were planned/executed but not published (to mitigate the file-drawer problem).  Pre-registration serves this purpose irrespective of whether a study is based on controlled interventions and resulting causal inferences (e.g., in a randomised controlled trial) or merely passive observation and resulting predictive inferences (e.g., from a survey).
The Open Science Framework (OSF) "...welcomes preregistrations from any field or discipline and we support researchers using OSF as a preregistration platform whether or not they will also be using its data storage, collaboration management, or publishing capabilities".  You can create a pre-registration of planned research by filling out the available form, which usually entails specifying some metadata for your study and basic study information, your design plan, sampling plan and analysis plan (including specification of the variables you will collect and examine) and any other relevant information in your research plan.  You can then refer to your pre-registration in your published research to show the reader that these aspects of your research plan were pre-specified publicly prior to collecting the data in your study.  (And of course, you should tell the reader if you have departed from your pre-registered plan in some way.)
So, in answer to your question, yes you can pre-register a "non-experimental" study (by which I presume you mean one without any intervention present).  Pre-registration is still useful in this case and it will give your research more credibility.  The reason it is likely to have more credibility is because readers will be able to confirm that you did not make post hoc changes to your hypotheses and/or methods after seeing the data from your survey.


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I see these types of plots a lot in older publications. What software/method is used to make this plot?
Anyone know what software or method is used to make these classic black and white publication figures with all caps axis labels and typically a gridded background?
Just curious because I have seen them across fields.

taken from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B0122274105002921

Once upon a time, companies and universities had graphic artists on staff to make such plots.

Just a starter
https://scipython.com/blog/old-style-matplotlib-charts/
(do you want to impress negatively the scientist? use as your only font  comic sans and plot everything in xkcd style ;) )


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Does a Dissertation need to be one big cohesive story?
I'm late into my 5th year of study. The first project I worked under as a graduate student lasted 2 years and I published 1 paper and presented at a handful of conferences. The advisor for this project is my personal/academic advisor (not the chair of my committee, since he is in a different dept). The project I am presently working on, the chair of my PhD committee is heading up (different guy).
My physics department formally requires only 1 publication for graduation.
My first dissertation proposal was on the first project. I rewrote a 2nd proposal entirely based on the 2nd project. Both were approved by the committee.
The two projects are related in that they are MRI related and at high field strength but that's about it as the first project was about human imaging and the second has to do with MR microscopy.
The chair of my committee does not want me to include this first paper in my dissertation at all. Essentially requiring me to write 3 cohesive microscopy papers for the dissertation (1 is almost done atm)
....
My question is: does a dissertation need to be a cohesive story or shouldn't it just represent the many different things I have learned/contributed to in my PhD? I would like to include the first paper I published as a chapter even though it has little in common with the rest of my dissertation. I have heard of this happening to other students and they simply put them into the dissertation as various chapters even though they may not relate.
It seems to me that the two topics are about imaging two different subjects (humans vs plants/cells/mice) but fall under the same umbrella of MRI at ultrahigh field.

I can only speak of computational mechanics. In France and in Belgium it is a cohesive story, while in the Netherlands it is a collection of published/submitted papers with few pages of introduction and conclusions.

The dissertation needs to be whatever the thesis committee needs it to be. It's rare that anyone besides them will ever read it, so theirs is the only opinion that matters.
You should work with your committee through your advisor to decide on a format for the dissertation.
If you have other work that doesn't fit in their vision for the dissertation, it's far more important and useful to your future career and the rest of the scientific community that it is published (for most fields, as a journal article), so I wouldn't worry about it too much as long as you can graduate.

Upvoted for the first sentence. I'm not so convinced, though, about "It's rare that anyone besides them will ever read it". I read this claim from time to time on this site, but it doesn't fit my experience: I find myself looking into other people's PhD theses quite often, and I also know of colleagues who do the same. One nice thing about PhD theses is that they are often less concise than journal articles, so there is a lot of space for additional remarks, counterexamples to somewhat natural but maybe not super-important questions, partial results, and so on.

@JochenGlueck Sure, maybe it varies a bit... The only times I find myself relying on a thesis is when somehow the paper itself is unobtainable, which usually raises a question about why it was never properly published - did peer reviewers find an error, did the authors just not care enough to get it published, etc. I think it's certainly worth polishing a thesis as if someone might read it, but mostly I don't want OP to think that something they leave out of their thesis somehow prevents them from getting credit or exposure for it.

This is largely field dependent. Usually a dissertation is on a single topic or a small set of interrelated topics. It might be a single document (typical in math) or it might be a collection of papers (common in health fields IIRC). It is unlikely, but not impossible, to be a set of unrelated papers; papers on unrelated topics.
But it is your advisor who is likely the only one whose opinion is important here. There may also be a committee who must decide (vote) to accept or reject your dissertation. If they don't approve your dissertation then you are unlikely to be given a degree. So, you need to talk to them. Learning this five years in isn't very professional, however, but I'll put that on the advisor, not yourself.
A dissertation is "normally" cohesive in some sense, but that is a judgement call. Work it out with the advisor.


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Do your PhD fast or strong?
I am in the middle of my PhD and have some strategic decisions to make. I have the opportunity to finish my PhD more rapid, although it would compromise some perspectives/research, it will still (probably) be accepted.
Alternatively, I can use my last year of PhD to research more to deliver a better overall PhD package, but then I would have to delay postdoc (and better pay).
My supervisor's concern is that my PhD delivery is important for future references, so it would be in my(ours) benefit to make it as strong as possible.
Is his suggestion valid? Would a stronger PhD delivery potentially be better on a "CV" than one year of postdoctoral research?

Do you already have a position for a postdoc, or are you just assuming that you will get one after you finish? Are you planning to stay in academia, or do you want to go in a different direction after some time as postdoc?

I have it confirmed unofficially. My plan is currently to continue with academia, but please feel free to share your reflections for a different direction also (e.g industry).

For the academic work, a good/strong PhD should be better. Some people pursue a PhD only for the letters in front of their name, in this case, they might prefer to finish sooner rather than later, irrespective of competence. - Also: Will the extra time improve your understanding of the topic? Taking longer is then possibly advised, especially if you want to stay in academia.

Depends on what you want to do post PhD. Finish stronger if you wanted to pursue your career as a researcher post PhD


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Is getting a reference letter from both advisors a good idea?
I am applying for a postdoc which is asking for 2 referees. I have a main and co-supervisor who would both write a good letter and know me well. Is it best that I put them both down or is it best practice to only put the main supervisor down and find the second referee from another source, even if they don't know me as well.

This is a judgement call as we can't see the letters nor guess what the hiring committee will prefer. But, if they are the two people who can best predict your success in the position, then they are probably the best letter writers.
But see if you can get them to focus on different things, so that it doesn't seem like just one letter. Maybe a three person sit-down would help for you to suggest it. You could, perhaps, just let them work out the details. But that would depend on your relationship with them so it might be possible or not. Good luck..


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Who decides on grant spending rules?
I am a university faculty supported by this Simons Foundation research grant. Who decides on the spending rules for this grant? Can my universty impose any rules, for example acomodation cost limits or a requirement that any use of funds requires a justification as to how it "benefits" my university?

It helps to realize that grants are always given to a university, not the individual PI. That's often a good thing as it can avoid individual liability and having to compensate out of your own pocket when things go wrong.

Generally speaking, with possible exceptions, spending rules are decided by the funding agencies, but universities may impose additional constraints within the rules set by the agencies.
For instance, I participate to several European projects funded by a certain agency. When travelling, participants to the same project from different institutions have different travel and subsistence limits, and these are set by the institutions. The differences in these limits across the institutions can be fairly large, and the limits may be even different within the same institution depending on the rank of the people travelling.
Furthermore, yes, any use of the funds within a certain grant typically needs to be justified. For instance, if I travel to a conference and I want the travelling expenses to be covered by that grant, I'm required to submit at least a paper acknowledging the grant.
When buying instruments, the institution can set the rules according to which an instrument can be bought and in which way its operating time within the project should be recorded.
Some institutions might have relaxed constraints with respect to others, but generally don't expect to be able to freely dispose of your grant money without justification. And the funding agencies may send revisers years later to verify that the grants had been used according to the rules.

As @Massimo_Ortolano remarks, universities frequently impose constraints on how grant funds may be spent that are over and above the constraints imposed by the granting agency.
That said, the constraints imposed by the Simons Collaboration itself are in fact detailed on the very page to which you provided a link. There are within-page links, one detailing the things on which funds are permitted to be spend (Allowable Expenses) and the other, explaining what should happen to unspent funds at the end of the grant period.
The information headings (i.e., "allowable expenditure" and "unspent") funds are fairly typical of many granting agencies. More specifically, if you locate the website for a granting agency, then you might be able to search from within the agency itself for those headings, or alternatively use Google with a search such as:

site:thegrantingagency.gov "unspent funds" OR "allowable expenses" OR "allowable expenditure"


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Posting a scan of textbook online?
I am about to teach a one semester course whose syllabus covers two semesters of materials to say the least. (I am trying to change the syllabus, but it is another complicated issue and wont be done this semester.) Consequently, I am going to teach a selection of 50% of the standard material being taught in each of these courses. I researched possible textbooks and, no matter which, the needed contents is spread across minimum 600 pages.
To help students read through them, I would like to post a scan of the two textbooks which we will use with a marking of sections, pages, and paragraphs which they need to read. I could post it say on Blackboard for registerd students only. Is there a way to do it without voilating copyright laws? (Alternatively, I could write a "guide" to the textbooks, with dozens of entries "skip from the 2nd paragraph on page 257 to the 4th paragraph on page 263", etc, but that sounds cumbersome, so I am hoping for a better solution.)

This seems like a clear copyright violation. You are reducing the value of the work to the copyright holder unless students are also required to purchase a copy or otherwise have a legal copy. It also sets a bad example for students.

No, there is no way to post an entire textbook online without violating copyright laws, unless the copyright on the book has expired, or you are the copyright owner.

Or have explicit permission from the copyright owner, which is unlikely in such a case.


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Typo in cover letter of the journal name where my manuscript is currently under review
I just discovered that the postdoc application I submitted two days ago contains a typo. It's likely due to accidentally touching my keyboard before the final compile. I mistakenly added a character to the journal name where my manuscript is currently under review. Should I send an email to the prospective professor to correct the typo?

So in my letter, Animal was written as Animcal

This is only peripheral to the actual question asked, so I put it as a comment rather than an answer: typos aside, please beware that some people do not appreciate it when they read this "submitted to ..." info in CVs. As one data point, from my point of view putting this on a CV is superfluous at best and could actually be considered as somewhat presumptuous.

One of the biggest journals in our field, called "Journal of XY", puts a note on manuscripts under review that this submission to "Journal for XY" has to be kept confidential...

@Mark Does your field use double-blind review? That would seem to be a good reason for this policy if so.

Thank you all for your comments regarding including "under review" manuscripts in the CV. The inclusion of such papers in the CV may vary across fields, but it appears to be a common practice in my field. And we don't do double-blind review.

@EspeciallyLime not sure what this would change (not in this journal, some others do) - they just made a mistake when writing the journal name. It is still clear to everyone which journal is meant.

@Mark it's not relevant to OP's question - I just wondered whether it was the reason the journal you mentioned asks for submissions to be kept confidential.

@shukurra Everyone includes "under review" manuscripts in their CV. The issue is that many people don't say where they are under review.

It seems many people in my field put journal names in their CV. But you are right, I should check.

@EspeciallyLime That's standard procedure, at least in our field. As reviewer you are always asked to not share the paper with others, without the editors agreement. Authors are free to share their submitted manuscripts as preprints, but that's up to them.

@Mark In that case I misunderstood, apologies. I thought your initial comment meant authors were requested to keep the fact that they'd submitted to that particular journal confidential.

No, you should not send an email to correct the typo.
The professor probably receives dozens or hundreds of emails every day, and an additional email to bring up a tiny mistake will likely not be appreciated. We all make typos sometimes. There is a chance they won't even notice, but if you send the email they definitely will notice.

Also if the professor knows this journal they'll likely overlook the typo in its name.

Nobody cares. Mistakes happen in life. Reserve your emotional energy, your time, and the time of others to those things that matter. Typos in journal names, somewhere in the middle of a CV, do not.

I always thought typos were disastrous-- until I sat on a committee reading applications and selecting candidates for a major fellowship. Absolutely no one on the committee cared at all about a typo (or typos) on an application. The content was key, not the minor errors. So don't worry about a typo, and there is no need for you send a follow-up email.

In contrast to another answer here, yes, I think you should send that email. A postdoc application is important enough to warrant a follow-up. For a casual mail, probably not.
Sending this shows that you are aware of the error and not ashamed to admit to an error. That is a better message to send than that you are oblivious.
Just add that you are sorry you didn't notice before you hit "send".
I wouldn't be bothered at all receiving such a mail. Just keep it short.

I think this depends on the significance of the mistake in question. If the OP had mistyped the date of their PhD degree, or their email address, or something like that - sure, send a correction. But an obvious, easily-recognised and low-significance typo does not meet that test. I wouldn't be upset to receive it, but it would make me question the applicant's sense of perspective.

If you do send an e-mail, please be 101% sure that every goddamn t is crossed, every i is dotted, every comma placed and every line formatted perfectly in the cv and in the e-mail. It would be way too embarrassing if you send an e-mail about a typo in your CV and then it turns out that there's another two in the cover letter.

If that paper is an important contribution that will enhance your application.  Send a pre-print and apologize for an apparent typo in your CV.
Otherwise do nothing and let it slide.  If it comes up in an interview apologize for the oversight.
Simply sending a email with a correction of a single word carries more risks than rewards.
If you can use it to open a line of communication proactively then it will likely be better appreciated.


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Explain opportunity gap in SoP without proving it?
I'm applying for PhD programs in Computer Science (experimental part of AI/ML), and writing my SoP for it.
A part of SoP is supposed to talk about examples of what kind of work one wants to do later during PhD.
I've developed some opportunity gap analyses with current state of the art, to propose some research in SoP.
This is based on a set of experiments and their results (line graphs, heatmaps etc) which support my point a lot more.
Should these results be included in SoP?

If not: how do I establish that there is a opportunity gap here, a problem to solve?  (without these experiments, its not obvious why there is a problem at all)
If yes: I've not seen this in any of the SoPs. I'll have to establish the experiment setting, explain the plots and then suggest solution. This seems excessive, since I do want to write about other things.

How detailed should I be?

Is "opportunity gap" a regularly studied thing in your field? I've never heard the term. In other words, will people immediately understand the term when you make application?

@Buffy Yes. I picked it up at a conference where my paper was accepted - everyone seemed to know. Essentially means you have established that there is a problem to solve despite state of the art. Borrowed from business analysis (e.g. why have Lyft when we have Uber?)

I definitely would not assume that just because you were at a conference where, in your perception, "everyone seemed to know", it follows that the reader of your SoP will be familiar with this term.

To me, an "opportunity gap" is another label for the "achievement gap" used for example in describing racial disparities. It's meant to emphasize the contribution of different access to opportunities in establishing observed gaps in achievement. I see it's also used in business, but it doesn't seem like it's being used the way you are using it.

I agree with Bryan, this sounds like you're asking how to discuss your lack of opportunities growing up, but it reads like you're asking whether you should write about a specific analysis/something in CS in your individual SOP, which makes this off-topic

"Opportunity gap" isn't necessarily an AI/ML term-of-art, but the meaning is intuitive: certain problems are already fully leveraging a given insight, whereas other problems really haven't. In context, I doubt this term would confuse a group of CS professors.

An opportunity gap analysis in this case is to help you understand how you might want to craft your career path. It’s a tool. Use the results to help you choose goals prudently. Then a concise explanatory note in your SoP will suffice.

No, do not put technical results in your SoP. These results should be written up in an appropriate venue -- if not a real paper, perhaps a preprint or even an article  on your website. Then you can briefly (in a few sentences) explain your interest / past work, with a citation to the full write-up.
The purpose of the SoP is to...well....state your purpose in applying to graduate school. For example, if your purpose is to become an expert in applying machine learning algorithms to medical images so that you can be an expert witness at medical malpractice trials, then you probably don't want an advisor whose interest is in reinforcement learning for cooperative swarms. So it's good to state your interest in specific types of machine learning or application domains. You can also explain your future goals (why are you interested in this -- not cute stories from your childhood, but actual reasons and potential future career paths) and why you think you are likely to be successful in pursuing these goals (e.g., because of previous successful experiences in similar endeavors).
However, this is not the document where  you propose your thesis topic and get buy-in from your advisor. While it's possible one of your ideas will indeed end up being your thesis, it's also very likely that you'll end up going in a totally new direction. It is good to keep an open mind about this.

Without stressing or, perhaps, even mentioning "opportunity gap" you can explain that you have some limited evidence that the state of the art of X is sub-optimal and that you would like to see if you can improve on that.
Some explanation of X is needed, of course, but probably no more than a couple of sentences. And perhaps a bit more on why you think improvement is possible and the direction in which to look.
But "opportunity gap" per se is not the important message. X... is.
Keep in mind, of course, that your goal should be to explore the unknown, not prove a point that you think is valid. Negative results are results and forcing only supporting evidence leads to error (and blindness).
And, depending on where you are, you might need to keep an open mind about what questions you do wind up exploring. An advisor may have important things to say.


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Will my undergrad thesis be considered for my Master's admission given that my areas of interest has changed a bit?
During my undergrad, I published a paper on a topic relating to Natural Language Processing since I was fond of learning algorithms. I wish to pursue a Master's degree in Artificial Intelligence and Computer Graphics.
Does the paper that I published during my undergrad still be considered by an admission committee, at least for my research skills that I have been able to demonstrate? Given that the area in which I wish to pursue my Master's is fairly different from my undergrad thesis.

Add it as part of your Resume/CV and you can discuss it in your SOP.

It’s fairly widely understood that people’s research interests can evolve over time, particularly in the transition from undergraduate to graduate. So, yes, the committee will consider your undergrad paper, precisely because it shows potential for research, even if it’s not in the field you want to study in the graduate program.
You should, however, be sure to make an affirmative argument for your new field of study in your statement of purpose: talk about why you’re gravitating toward the new field, not away from the old one.

Your answer will be really helpful. Thank you so much! :)


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What is H18 (Canada)?
I'm currently doing university level continuing education in Quebec, Canada.  As part of my degree, I want to do some courses from another university online.  I've talked to my chairperson, and he validated certain courses.  So I made an application this January, and recently received a conditional offer of admission.
One of the conditions was receiving the official transcript from my current university.  No problem, right?  Simply ask my home university to send them the document: they have an online form for it, which I filled out, and off it went.
What I'm concerned about is that under the Documents to send is listed "Official transcript" and under details, "with H18."  What is H18?  Does it refer to something that must be on the document, or something about the university?

H18 stands for Hiver 2018 (Winter 2018), that is, the current semester.
Similarly, E18 is Été 2018 (Summer 2018) and A18 is Automne 2018 (Fall 2018).
Source: I'm from Québec, and I recognize my former University software in this screen capture.

Is there any other short form, perhaps for Summer, etc? Could be useful to supplement the answer :)

The Université de Montréal uses E18 which makes sense with the french word été for summer.

@AndrewT. Good idea, I have edited the answer to add the other semesters


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How to politely tell a professor you're no longer looking for a project?
(I'm a master's student)
I had approached a professor for an opportunity to work on a project of his, which I found very interesting. When we discussed that opportunity, he deflected my questions about funding. I hadn't promised him that I'll work, but hadn't conclusively said no either, because funding was still possible.
Because of the non-commitment, I approached another professor who is ready to fund my work in their lab.
The first professor has contacted me now to ask when I'll start working. Meanwhile I know from other students that he isn't funding new students in his lab.
How do I tell him, that I am no longer looking to work with him without burning bridges?
The problem is, I was the one actively seeking them out initially.
(Don't assume the prof is a reasonable person - they're a well-regarded researcher in my field though)

Under most circumstances you won't burn bridges when telling you are no longer interested or even when telling that you found something else. They may be less inclined to offer something the next time, but a polite answer that you are no longer interested usually won't offend a professor.

I would just say that I was unable to work with him at this time as you'd agreed to another project with the necessary funding. You don't need to say a lot, nor to apologize. You could end, if you like, with a statement that some opportunity for collaboration might arise in the future and you would welcome it.
I hope the other project and its funding are secure, though. Otherwise you are taking some risk. Make sure that is settled before you do anything else.

How should I phrase an important question that I need to ask a professor? has good practical tips for actually conveying the message.
As far as the specifics of your situation and not burning bridges, no bridge has been built yet. No relationship was created where you are to start working. You can simply let the professor know you're pursuing something else.
Might he get upset? I suppose. Some people feel ownership over things they don't own, or are egotistical to the point they can't understand why someone would ever pass up the once in a lifetime opportunity to work with them. If this professor is one of those people, better not to worry about their illness and focus on yourself. If they're any other reasonable person, they'll be happy for direct communication that prevents them from wasting any time trying to work with someone who has gone a different direction, and they won't hold any hard feelings over it.

My personal view on this is that the message is what the message is, and I don't see how it makes much of a difference how exactly the message is transmitted (I assume that the idea to call them a loser or something like this won't cross your mind anyway). In any case it's a pretty standard situation and nothing personal, and I'd assume that the vast majority of professors will take it just like that. I can at least say about myself that the straightest way to say such a thing is the best, but other ways won't do much harm either except that they cost everyone a little bit more of their precious time.


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To apply for a PhD. position, should I first contact the professor I like to work with or publish a couple of papers and then make attempts?
I plan to apply for a PhD position, but I don't know where should I exactly start that process. I know that I should have an SOP and a proposal for that. But should I first contact the professor I like to work with, the postgraduate studies section of the universities, or publish a couple of papers before making all such attempts?

Of course publishing papers would be great, but how do you intend to do that?

What country are you in? What field. How to properly apply varies quite a lot.

Publish papers in what capacity? As a Master's student?

No professors will invest time in you if you are not formally enrolled in their institution.  Publishing a few papers is great, but inconsequential unless you are able to produce high quality first authored papers.  Your undergraduate or master level performance is key.

Thank you for all the comments. @Thomas I have just defended my Master's thesis, so I was thinking of extracting a paper from that. There's also this upcoming conference in the next April in our field which I plan to present another paper there.

@Buffy I live in Iran and I want to do a Ph.D. in Translation Studies in a Europe.

@Bitwise I was a Master's student until a couple of weeks ago. Now I've graduated. I was ranked as the Top student in our BA program, got a straight A in MA (not A+, unfortunately), and worked on a relatively new phenomenon in our field.

I am considering a PhD as well so I am right there with you.  I think the answer to your question depends on many factors though.
1. Did you get a masters or are you just going straight for a PhD from a bachelors?
1b.  If you received your masters, does the institution you got it from have a doctorate program and would it make sense to go there for your PhD to save on time?
2. How long have you been out of school and how relevant has your work experience been?  Is publishing a few papers first a realistic goal for you or will doing so push off your timeline of when you plan to start school too much?
In general, I think it's fine to talk with the professor you like to work with even if you end up applying right away, as it will give you a better indication of what you need to do and if the school is even a right fit for you.  And I think it would be good to talk to the postgraduate studies section as well.  I don't think you need to do any particular step before the other, there's nothing wrong with doing them all at once.  However, if publishing a few papers first is going to be a very long endeavor, then I would talk to both the professor and the postgraduate studies section first, see how many people tend to apply, how likely you are to receive the funding you need as you are now, and what steps you can take to give yourself that competitive edge before you spend your time trying to get published.  That's not to say you should put publications aside for now either, but if it turns out your resumé is pretty sufficient as is, then you can start the process earlier.
PLUS!  This way you will know when that specific professor is going to have the funds for you. It might turn out they only have the funds for this coming year and if you wait, you won't be able to work with them for a while.  Or it might turn out they won't have the funds for a year or two, and then you can discuss the ways in which you should pad your resumé to increase your chances when the time comes.  And if it turns out that for whatever reason you should wait to apply, you've already started a dialog with that professor and you will be able to strengthen a relationship so that when the time to apply does come, you won't be some random applicant to them.
Good luck,
Hope this helps!

@darriage Thank you for your answer; I really appreciate it.

Good luck!  I hope you get in to your top choice.


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How should I complete the "Statement of the problem" part of my thesis proposal if it there are very few similar works in the literature?
I don't know how should I state the lacuna in the discipline. If there were researches worked on my topic before, I could cite them and say that they have worked on A, B, C, and I want to work on D, but there is not.
My MA thesis is sort of a following to a PhD research conducted 4 years ago (but not following one of those 'suggested for further research' questions, of course), and the topic is relatively new.
To help me with writing this part, what questions can I ask myself and find answer to?
I major in Translation Studies, by the way.

See this answer to Is it acceptable to have a research paper with no references?