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Do I need to cite the source every time I paraphrase in this particular project paper?
This is my first question in this forum and although I have gained a lot of information about proper citation from the web, I am still confused in this case. We are assigned a task by college to make a study from resources available online on a particular topic and prepare a project.
Now, I know the fact that I need to cite everytime I use someone else's idea. But this project work has to be prepared in this order: Title, Abstract,
Keywords, Introduction, Review of Literature, Methodology, Results, Discussion, Conclusion,
Acknowledgement, References. This basically means that none of the work is our own and we need to study e-resources available and complete the task at hand.
What I am confused about is the particular heading called Review of Literature. I think that what we are going to write is entirely some sort of review of literature of others work since we've done nothing on our own. So, after making a thorough study of the papers available online, I paraphrased and put proper intext citations as well. Basically, methodology and results are also paraphrased from others work and as such I have put in-text citations not only in case of Review of Literature but also also in Results and Methodology.
So, I want to know whether I am doing it in the proper way or not?
This means, do I really need to provide in-text citations in this particular case in every part of the document if it is someone else's idea?
Sample:

REVIEW OF LITERATURE:
The study made by Gautret et al. (2020)  notes that hydroxychloroquine (an analogue of chloroquine) has been already demonstrated to have an anti-SARS-CoV-2 activity in vitro. Moreover, hydroxychloroquine’s clinical safety profile is better than chloroquine during long term use and also allows higher daily doses and interaction with other drugs is less as well (Gautret et al., 2020).

I have written the Results like this, but I think I've put too much in-text citation here:

Results: Patients treated with hydroxychloroquine (6 out of which received supervised doses of azithromychin as well for initial five days) were aged an average of 51.7 years (~14 years older than mean age of control patients) but not much difference was seen between two groups regarding “gender, clinical status and duration of symptoms” (Gautret et al., 2020).
As time passed, the study showed notable results and the percentage of patients showing negative PCR test of their swab samples at “days 3-4-5 and 6” during study period showed remarkable differences compared to “controls” when 70% of hydroxychloroquine treated patients were “virologically cured” but only a meager 12.5% of the other group achieved this feat (Gautret et al., 2020).

So, this brings me back all way round to the same question: Do I need to cite each and everything which is not my own idea? And is the approach that I am taking correct?
Edit:
This is what we are asked to do:

The Guidelines:

No such thing as citing too much. Better to be overcautious than not give credit for another's words or ideas.

When the source of a statement is unambiguously clear from the context, you don't have the give multiple references. Giving redundant references is not technically wrong, but stylistically not optimal, as it breaks the reading flow ("Yeah, I know that it's that particular study, you just said it in the previous sentence.")
I suggest to rewrite your sample 1 as follows:

REVIEW OF LITERATURE: The study made by Gautret et al. (2020) notes that hydroxychloroquine (an analogue of chloroquine) has been already demonstrated to have an anti-SARS-CoV-2 activity in vitro. The authors find that hydroxychloroquine’s clinical safety profile is better than chloroquine during long term use, allows higher daily doses, and shows less interaction with other drugs.

Reading sample 2, I assume that there is some text between sample 1 and sample 2 (otherwise it's still the same context). In this case, I would keep the first reference, but still drop the second reference, as it's clear that both paragraphs refer to the same study. Actually, it might make sense to merge the paragraphs.

Thank you for the response. That means I can use to 'the study' or 'the authors' to refer the work and get away without citing the source for that line?

@Sanu_012 Yes, exactly.

I can see the use of many references for the review of literature which is to be expected as that is establishing the state of play at the moment.
In the methodology section you describe how your experiment will be carried out, possibly referring to another’s paper or experiment as a “support” or justification. But it is a description of your method, not someone else’s method so it is unlikely to need referencing.
Then, the results should be those from your work, and only your work as any references to the results of others will be in the discussion.
Then in the discussion you would compare your results with subsequent analysis with the results from others so references will be needed.
From what you show and what I understand is that you are referencing all the material for every section from others - where are your results, analysis and conclusions?

Thank you. From what you show and what I understand is that you are referencing all the material for every section from others - Yes, that is what I think we students are supposed to do. Because, we didn't do any of the work ourselves; but everything starting from the Review of Literature to Results is taken from other papers that are available online. We are told to make a thorough study of e-resources and then complete the project, nothing physical is needed to be done from our side apart from writing. So, referenced everything that I took from other papers. I hope I am clear:(

Am I doing the right thing for that case? I mean there was nothing to be done from our side apart from writing. We were asked to read the resources available and write the project in that particular order. So any idea that I wrote about in the paper is not mine but is taken from others' work :( Please elaborate.

@Sanu_012 It would seem, imho, that the only part you are doing is the review of literature and a discussion & analysis with a conclusion. As you don't do any experiment then you will not have results. Your best course of action is to discuss with the lecturer/professor.

I have written other parts of the paper as well but the things that I wrote under the heading of Review of literature, Methodology, Results and Discussion are entirely the works of others. I am editing the question to upload a snip about what we are asked to do, just to make it clear :(

@Sanu_012 so have you asked your lecturer/professor?

This is organised by the college authorities. They have just provided instructions to do this. I have not asked any of the professors till now. Should I?

Please have a look at the edited question. I have included the guidelines as well, but the only thing is that we are not going to do any physical work and we just need to write everything from online resources.

@Sanu_012 Based on the instructions, it looks like you're supposed to come up with your own methodology and results for this assignment. The methodology and results of others would entirely go into the "Review of literature" section. I think it's a relatively ambitious assignment.

How am I going to do that? I am not doing any experiment whatsoever :(

@Sanu_012 If you feel like your previous studies have not prepared you to do that kind of task, you should seek clarification with the lecturer/professor. For example, you could ask for existing samples for that kind of task.

You know what, they just want the completed work and clarify nothing more. No contact info to clarify doubts, nothing. I do not know how one can come up with his/her own results without doing an actual experiment or research. Is this even possible according to you?

@Sanu_012 how come you don't have contact info already? I used to know the building, room number and the names of all my professors and when they were likely to be in the office.

We are under lockdown for more than 70 days, everything is closed.

@Sanu_012 I even had the emails of the profs and email was new then. Comes down to commonsense. Plenty of communication is possible lockdown or not.

I have his whatsapp number. I tried texting him but he's not seen yet. Anything else, i should try?

@Sanu_012 Sounds like you've been given an unreasonable task with no way to seek clarification or guidance. I would escalate the situation (turn to the student union, department head etc.)


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How do I approach my group about dividing up the work?
I am an International Civil Engineering student. I was assigned with a project that consists of three stages for my steel design class. Although we are a group of five people, it seems that no one wants to take the lead and divide the tasks. I don’t mind doing that but at the same time I don’t know how to approach the situation. I thought it might be a good idea to email them about this. Please see what I have written below and let me know whether I need to approach it differently. Also, feel free to fix the grammar.  Thank you.

Hello everyone,
I think it’s a good idea to plan ahead our steel project. Do you want to divide the phases between us so that each one or two people would work on one phase together? Or would you prefer that each person contributes to each phase? Let’s vote on your guys’s preference, so that we can start dividing up the work.
Looking forward to your responses!

I removed the engineering tag as I think that the field of study is irrelevant to the question.

Your approach is fine, even though I would propose a face-to-face meeting in which the assignments are made.
Tipp: Try to make the work packages independent of other peoples result, especially make sure that noone is idle in the beginning because they have to wait for a result of another one.

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How to address the german “Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. X” in writing?
I’m not familiar with German academic system.
I got a name card from a German professor and found that his title is as

Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. X

When I am writing a mail to him, can I starting the mail as follows?

Dear Professor Dr.-Ing. habil. X, […]

No, just "Dear Professor X" is correct and completely in line with the German conventions. The "Dr.-Ing. habil." part refers to certain qualifications (PhD in Engineering and a Habilitation -- a German qualification to teach at a University), but is only ever used on name cards and CVs etc.

If you yourself are not a German academic, I am certain it would be quite fine to refer to him as "Dear Professor X" rather than specify the full academic title. I've heard people refer to German academics using this abbreviation (although, frankly, not in German).
I also suspect that this would be ok even if you are a German academic and are writing him in German - but that's pure speculation on my part, based on how it's unlikely you're supposed to use such long titles. Edit: Comment seems to verify this.

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Resources for English speaking students with poor command of grammar and writing style
I sometimes read student assignments  where the grammar and writing style is poor. Paragraphs don't really flow. Sentences go on for ever. The ordering of words is awkward. Instead of concisely introducing the subject of the sentence, it goes on forever.
I'd like to be able to recommend resources to such students. Ideally, such a resources would be available online so I could just give them a link or two to some writing style and grammar materials with exercises.
What is a good resource (preferably online) for teaching English speaking university students how to improve their writing style?

There's the new English Language Learners StackExhange.

@FaheemMitha that site is directed to people who speak English as a second language; In this case I'm interested in native English speaking university students who need to improve the quality of their writing.

This might help you, please have a look : https://class.coursera.org/composition-001/class/index

Looks like a boat programming question to me.

I know that this can be the source of great frustration for teachers, especially when they do not teach writing. However, writing is one of those things, like other communication skills, that I think we all need to teach (at least a little bit) if for no other reason that our students will fail if they cannot compose a well-reasoned essay, even if they understand the material from our subject quite well.
There are plenty of universities which provide very good source material for this. Here is one from the US. Here is one from the UK. I have used materials from both (and many others) but I do not find that I can simply point the students to these sites and expect everything to work out.
As educators, sometimes we need to teach things which are more fundamental in nature. Unless your school has a 'writing center' so you can direct students there for help (my school does not). I find I need to spend 1-2 hours per semester to cover core writing issues.

+1 - One of my colleagues actually assigns Strunk and White as reading material at the beginning of his course (for a course that is a subject in criminology - so nothing to do with English or writing directly).

A selection of the best online writing sources from different universities is available here. In addition to writing, resources are available for assignments and grammar.
Moreover, library of some universities have books (hard copy or ebooks) for these purposes which are very useful. Personally, I liked Writing academic English by Alice Oshima, Ann Hogue as a start point.

I've progressed in my writing ability as I've progressed in my reading commitment. Have you tried assigning papers to read, followed by a short essay describing what they read?


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What exactly is a Postdoc in industry?
While looking for research jobs in industry, I noticed that some companies over both, research positions and postdoc positions. What exactly is a postdoc position in industry and how is it different from a research position that requires a PhD? Is it just that you spend your postdoc years in a company instead of academia?

Sounds like a brilliant way to underpay PhDs for their work.

Certainly in the 'old' days, both Bell Labs and IBM Research had post-doc positions that were equivalent to university or national lab post-docs. Although, one could argue that the funding and support at Bell/IBM was better than at a university. But, they were the same paradigm, and offered an opportunity for a new PhD to show that they can act as a PI (and get to know, and be known, in the company).

One thing in particular is that a "postdoc" position may be set up so as to make it easier for the researcher to return to academia after completing it, if they so choose.

Post docs in industry do work similar to university post docs, but their research is a property of the company they work for. Typically, a position advertised as an industry post-doc is one that would allow for external publication (i.e., in scientific journals) of the work completed (but if publication is important to you, you should of course verify this before taking such a position).
Post docs in industry are typically fixed-term appointments, like in academia; there may be opportunities for continuing or for promotion within the company, but these aren't guaranteed, and you wouldn't have to be "fired" or "laid off" at the end of your term to be without a job - you would need to check with someone to see how this would affect your eligibility for unemployment benefits, etc, depending on your location.
I would expect that a company that is offering both full research positions and a separate post-doc program is expecting that applicants for the full research positions will have either relevant post-doctoral experience or industry experience: their post-doc program is probably intended for recent PhD graduates.
Lastly, although these generalities may help you, there is no legal definition of a post doc for these purposes, so you should be prepared to ask questions about everything that is important to you before accepting a position.

I'm more familiar with their existence in the pharmaceutical industry, but that might be because I'm a neuroscientist, I don't know about other fields. Google search for "industry postdoc" turned up a recent article from Science Careers and one from Nature Biotech. I think from an academic perspective, these sorts of positions are really rare (i.e., despite the hype, probably not easy to go from industry postdoc back to academia).

...but maybe not as rare as "entry level" PhD positions in industry (I have no clue of the statistics). Also @JonCuster mentioned Bell Labs, etc from the past; I wouldn't be surprised to see some "industry postdocs" at the modern government contracting level, companies who are bidding for govt research programs and the like, but again, I'm not as familiar.


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How can one carry out a "Russian style" seminar?
A "Russian style" seminar, as in the Israel Gelfand form, breaks from the traditional format of talk followed by Q&A and just opens the floor to questions at any time. I've seen a few professors who follow this format, so I definitely see its value.
What is the best way to start something like this, and how do you get the most out of the seminar?

The Gel'fand style is far more than allowing interruption during the talk.

To elaborate: just let me note one aspect of the Gel'fand seminars. Seminar participants would often be called upon to go up to the board and re-explain what the speaker has just said. This to keep participants focused and make sure that the speaker isn't trying to hand-wave away some details. I doubt many (most?) of us will have the energy to keep up a seminar in that style.

I use a version of this in the weekly research seminar that I run.
This format typically works best when

the speaker knows ahead of time that he/she is likely to get questions during the talk and
at least a few of the audience members feel comfortable asking such questions.

If the speaker is a regular attendee of the seminar, then (1) works itself out naturally; otherwise, I recommend that the organizer mention this ahead of time to the speaker.  Generally, more experienced speakers are more comfortable with this model.  As I'm asking questions during the talk, I watch the speaker's responses.  If the speaker starts to get flustered or is unable to answer well a few questions in a row, then I often will stop asking questions.  Actually, I usually talk a little with the speaker ahead of time about what I'm hoping for from the talk, who the typical audience is, how long the talks usually go, etc.  I find that a few minutes beforehand can save you from the awkward experience of having a talk that is at too low or too high a level.
For (2), I am usually quite comfortable asking questions, and I generally find that at least one other faculty member in the audience is.  As Jeromy mentioned, typically this model works best when the questions are asked by well-informed audience members (since they can more easily discern which questions will and will not be helpful to the rest of the audience).  If you find that no one else in the audience is asking questions, I suggest that you talk with a few of the regular attendees and ask if they would be willing to start asking questions.  (This conversation probably will work better outside of the actual seminar.)

One of my favorite conferences to attend (but not so much to present at) gives instructions along the lines of "Talks are 1 hour long and should consist of a single slide and 5 minutes of prepared presentation." Many people prepare more than 1 slide, but they never get past the second slide.

@DanielE.Shub I am curious -- which conference is that?

@StrongBad: Do presenters actually convey any information in that talk format, or do they just suggest a general topic (that seems a suitable content for one slide), from which point the discussion evolves into arbitrary directions unrelated to any publication?

I have seen this format work well in colloquia.
The speaker generally says at the start that they are happy to answer any questions during the talk.
If needed  at various points the speaker can also ask if anyone has any questions. Ideally, after asking the speaker pauses for a couple of seconds to give people a chance to ask before moving on to the next section of the talk.
It can also sometimes be necessary to close off a particular discussion if it is going on for too long and is not of particular interest to the general audience.
In general, I think the format works best when the presenter knows the material well, and the audience is reasonably well informed.

I have rarely attended talks where this is NOT the case. Wasn't aware that it was called the "Russian" style.

@Suresh: it shouldn't be. Allowing interruptions is just the tip of the iceberg that is the Gel'fand seminars. It often lasts in excess of 4 hours (with no breaks), with Gel'fand doing as much of the talking as the seminar presenter. From what I've heard it has on occasion been more like a non public thesis defense that somehow gathered a large peanut gallery.

Right. but "usually" the questioners understand the difference between things that need clarification NOW and things that can wait till the end. I can see how the system can get abused though.


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When should an author retract their paper as a result of misinterpreted results?
I'm curious when should an author make a call on retracting their paper vs. sending an errata or a correction. Many say it is when an error is involved that influences the interpretation of the paper.
I'm finding it hard to understand when a paper should or shouldn't be retracted, since there are plenty of papers out there with errors at every step of the process but they are still available. There are also several papers that have been outright wrong but they are still available. There are several papers that have been performed incorrectly, interpreted incorrectly, and still published in a high profile journal that haven't been retracted.
This is distinct from retractions due to fraud or other ethical issues.

Outside of ethical issues, I'd argue that the only time that retraction of a paper is warranted,  is when there is a methodological error that is so great that it completely invalidates all or almost all of the paper's key results. For example, if a paper is supposed to observe phenomena A, B, C, and D, I wouldn't retract the paper if the experiment that was supposed to measure D was done incorrectly, but the results of A, B, and C remain unchanged. A correction or erratum should suffice in such cases. However, if a paper was trying to derive X, Y, and Z, but faulty assumption Q invalidates all of the derived results, then that paper should be retracted.

I agree. Most papers I see retracted in chemistry are retracted for ethical issues. Mistakes or flaws are handled by corrections or errata, or in some cases through new papers by the original group or someone else.


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Is it possible for MSc (India) student to pursue MS in US?
Is it possible for an Indian student with M.Sc degree to do M.S course in USA? I heard BS degree in USA is of 4 years, but in India MSc is done after BSc.

Yes. Why wouldn't you be able to?

Honestly, it really depends on the University. Some universities do not allow you to do a masters in the same field, twice - for example : http://cs.stanford.edu/admissions/faq#a2
Some of them will waive GRE/GMAT scores if you hold a master's degree (couldnt' post the link here, apparently I need 10+ reputation to do this). Other universities are more interested in whether your graduate degree had a research/thesis component to it, or if it was just a course based masters, like the one from NorthEastern (CS dept), for example, where a thesis is optional.
For the most part, masters in science, AFAIK, are seldom course based, and more research oriented - so any university worth its soul will not want its students wasting time/resources on a second master's degree in the same subject - they encourage applicants to consider a PhD instead.
However, if you hold a master's degree in, say, Physics - and want to pursue graduate studies in computer science, this is usually okay.
Could you post details about which subject you've done your masters and bachelors in, whether your graduate degree was had a paper/thesis component, and what you want to pursue in the states? That may help narrow down the answer.

So long as you meet or exceed (but not by too much!) the graduate admission requirements of a department, there's no reason you shouldn't be able to study there. There's no fixed rule that says that you can't do a master's in India then do one in the US as well. (If there is such a rule, it applies only to the departments or universities that impose them; there are no universal rules that govern US graduate admissions.)
The best bet is, of course, to contact the schools you're interest in attending and ask them directly what their policies are.

Absolutely!
M.Sc. from a recognized Indian university usually meet the admission requirements in the US. Except if you had a M.Sc degree from IISC, IISERs, IITs, NITs and a couple of good universities; I think its advantageous to apply for a MS in the US in the perspective of research experience. Else and if you wish to do a PhD in the US, better appear GRE.


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How to write a Cover Letter for applying to a PhD programme
I am applying for a PhD programme in Europe. For that I need to write a cover letter. It will be more like a SOP (technical but shorter version, as it's one page) or it can be more general stuff, as in why I want to do a PhD, what I like about this particular field, what background I have. Any suggestions welcome.

There's plenty of examples on the Web of the basic format a cover letter should take. There's a good template here on page 23 from Harvard. (Make sure to do it in TeX if applying for a math or comp. sci. PhD.)
Otherwise, my own personal advice ...
What not to do
The most common mistake I have found in cover letters is that they are too generic. Either they could have been written by anyone ("I have a keen interest in science. I was always curious as a ...") or could have been written for any programme ("I want to do a PhD as I believe I would be well-suited to a career in academia ..."). Keep such generic sentences to a minimum: the more of these a cover letter has, the more impersonal and unremarkable it is, and the more it leaves the suspicion that the same cover letter has been recycled for multiple applications and/or by multiple students.
Also, avoid hyperbole ("I am the best candidate for this position because ..."). You cannot know that you are the best candidate.
What to do
Make your cover letter personal, remarkable (i.e., stands out from other cover letters), specific to you and specific to the position at hand. Be enthusiastic. Be specific. Show that you've put thought into the position and why you are applying.
Relate your specific skill sets and previous experience to the programme you are applying for. Relate the content of specific aspects of your CV to the programme:
"During my masters, I enjoyed working on the topic of A, which relates to your programme [in this way]"
"I worked three summers at company B, where I gained experience in topic C ..."
"I visited your university in March last year and was impressed by ..."
"I read paper entitled 'D' published by your group at 'E' and was interested in ..."
"I recently published a paper 'F', which I believe complements work by 'G' in your department on 'H' ..."
... and so forth.

In addition to all the advice above, there are two more Europe-specific issues you might want to keep in mind:

Many European universities and funding agencies expect a very specific and advanced research proposal. It might be more important than the cover letter itself.

In Europe, you often know beforehand who your supervisor will be, and you will have likely met them. Feel free to ask them (or the admissions office, departmental secretaries etc.) what exactly is expected from each of the application documents - expectations vary between universities, and Europe is a different academic landscape than America.

Good luck with your applications!

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After PhD in Aerospace Engineering, could I be admitted into a top university for a second PhD in Computer Science?
I currently work as an Aerospace Engineer for the Department of Defense for nearly 6 years now, and I have a PhD in Aerospace Engineering from a top-10 university in the United States. I am seriously thinking of doing a 2nd PhD in Computer Science, because I want to eventually own an Algorithmic Energy Trading Firm and need to become an expert in Machine Learning algorithms.
As of now, I am working on a few journal papers to publish and I am not going to have any problems getting strong letters of recommendation from my employer and professors on campus.  I ought to be able to get a letter from the Dean of my college as well.  So, I am thinking of a second PhD in Computer Science because I really want to immerse myself in Machine Learning and figured a PhD was the way to go.
Question for everyone:  Would it be a challenge for me to acquire entrance into a top 5 school in Computer Science for a PhD?
I ought to mention that my PhD research was in Computational Fluid Dynamics, Turbulent Flow and I had to develop my numerical solver and turbulence models in Object-Oriented C++.

Question is: do you need a second PhD? There are other ways of becoming an expert in a given field than getting a second PhD… Ways that can be less costly (in financial terms, but not only)

I suggest learning some statistics. Bayesian statistics in particular. Take some classes, perhaps? Machine Learning is basically statistics, except CS people are doing it. Doing a second PhD really sounds like overkill in your case.

Related: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1836/when-does-one-go-for-a-double-doctorate

In addition to the objections in the other answers, you should know that some institutions, as a matter of policy, do not award second PhDs (even if the first one was at a different university and in a different field). The University of California is one such.

Seconding @NateEldredge's point: many places in the U.S. will not consider an applicant who already has a Ph.D. Univ of Minnesota is another, in addition to Univ of California. And, as in other comments and answers, probably the kind of certification that'd provide is mostly irrelevant to you by this point, and the style of education might be inefficient, too, for an experienced, practiced person.

I have nothing to add to the already given answers, they seem great. Yet, I have a question of my own: why is your obsession with top ranked colleges? You seem to overstate it in your question many times? Is college ranking that important in US? Both if you decide to pursue a career in academia and industry? Will the employer necessarily look at the college you have studies or the GPA, or maybe just the skills you have acquired along the path should be considered?

I don't think you need a second Ph.D. What you might want are collaborators. Since you are affiliated actively with industry, if you approach University professors (this is especially effective if you are allowed to provide funding for this project) then you may find many who are interested.

You really don't have to do another PhD.

A major part of doing a PhD is learning how to do research and handle working on problems which sit on the edge of what is known. You've done that already. Doing it a second time is unnecessary, expensive and time consuming.
If you've been doing aerospace engineering then you almost certainly have the necessary calculus under your belt already. And if you have a PhD you can teach yourself stuff. Buy a few good textbooks - I recommend "Pattern recognition and Machine Learning" by C.M. Bishop; "Information Theory, Inference and learning Algorithms" by D.J.C. Mackay (this one is free to download on the author's website because he's nice like that). Look up material universities and other insitutions put online - e.g. https://www.coursera.org/course/ml is a free course, whose description sounds like it covers a lot of the necessary basics.  A lot of machine learning conferences make their proceedings available for free - ICML and NIPS I think both do this, and the work is good quality.
Start getting up to speed on all this stuff. If it still interests you and you want to go the academic route, go looking for postdoc positions and then try to find a couple of talented people you can form a startup company with.

+1. I agree that a second PhD sounds unnecessary in this case.

I agree that a second PhD is unnecessary in every case. You know how to do research, read papers, write papers, etc. Need some background on a new area? Sure, that's what online courses, books and papers are there for (and stack exchange sites, and so many things). Bureaucrazy, a supervisor and mandatory useless courses would be of no help, that would only be a handicap.

@Trylks, if a "supervisor" is generally of no help, even to a slightly experienced person, the purported "supervisor" is simply incompetent. Not that I necessarily make any claims of competence or not for "supervisors as a class". :)  But, srsly, an expert mentor is helpful.

@paulgarrett maybe my supervisor is incompetent, actually other people have agreed on that, I have also seen worse cases. By being incompetent and not spending much time on a PhD student he is able to have many PhD students at the same time, check the grammar in many papers, publish some of them (because his students don't want to perish), get a nice h-index, projects, etc. Maybe he is perfectly competent at getting good positions in the rankings that should measure how competent researchers are, and only at that. (I continue in the next comment)

To complement your postdoc position, you may be able to find a fellowship that encourages people with previous experience to enter CS. These are fairly common in biology.

I received my PhD in Mathematics 40+ years ago and considered getting a second PhD in Computer Science. Spoke to a professor at a University about my plans and the advice he gave me "You have a PhD from an excellent University.  Take a sabbatical come here for a year, publish a few papers and join the club".  Ultimately I went into the medical instrumentation industry where I have been for the last 31 years and I am now planning to semi retire and start my own business.
My advice to you, why bother with the second PhD. Get more focused on your goal.

You gain nothing from doing a second PhD in a professional capacity. If you want to do some type of algo trading work the best thing to do is get a job in the algo trading world. Given your background they are likely to hire you.

I think you should study Machine learning by yourself instead of going for a second PhD, which is a huge task! You can learn a lot about any subject by yourself specially when you already have a PhD that proves you can do research by yourself. There are free online lectures from MIT almost about anything related to AI, including Bayesian inference and machine learning. I don't know what your needs are specifically but I suggest you try to research by yourself first and then decide if you need more.
I will give you a personal experience that may or may not be relevant to you, so don't laugh. It seems your interests are similar to mine if not exactly the same (according to your last paragraph c++,turbulence,CFD..). I presume you frequent CFD-online too? Anyway I recently got a PhD in CFD related engineering field, but before that I was very interested in artificial intelligence. So I have acquired a lot of knowledge about it by myself as to even write a top-10 computer chess program that can beat almost any human. Computer chess is not really AI but there are other games like GO where many machine learning / data mining techniques are used to write the best programs. I have been doing this as a hobby, but anyone can learn anything programming/AI related, and you don't necessarily need a degree in Computer Science even for AI.

You do not need to be an expert in machine learning to own an Algorithmic Energy Trading Firm. If you had a choice between (i) going as a junior researcher to an existing firm right now, or (ii) spending 3-5 years in a machine learning PhD; well, (i) will take you much faster to your end goal.
It is also not just about machine learning. You also need to be good at signal processing, econometrics, object oriented programming, have great domain knowledge, big data experience, linux programming skills, scientific programming ability (R,Matlab), scripting experience, etc. The best way to get good at all areas at the same time is just to go into a firm right now.
What is most important is research experience. It matters far less what type of research you did (as long as it was heavily quantitative) than the fact that you actually have good research experience.


text:
Where to publish supplementary math intensive material for magazine article
I received a review report on my magazine article (Impact Factor 7.6). Based on magazine restriction we can not use more than 3 mathematical equations. But the idea I presented in article require some mathematical evaluation as well. The reviewer suggested that we should publish relevant result and cite them in magazine article. They didn't mention whether the results should be peer reviewed or not. My question is for such a high impact factor (in my research area the magazine is listed as 99 percentile in JCR) magazine article is it acceptable to refer something which is not peer reviewed?If its ok then what is best way to do so? I don't have personal website and my school don't have publicly accessible repository and arxiv accept only the full articles not just some kind of mathematical evaluation.
 Is it fine to use researchgate to publish mathematical results?

Have you asked the editor whether your results should be peer-reviewed? (If they say "no," then, since you mention that you don't have a personal website, I would get one, and then post the supplemental material there.)

What a sad state of affairs where journals put a limit on math at 3 sad and lonely formulas for an entire article.

@Wolfgang it's a magazine article, not a journal article. If the OP's field is like mine (where this kind of restriction is common), magazine articles are very different from journal articles - they're mainly meant for introducing a piece of work to a broad audience (including non-specialists) in a friendly, non-technical and accessible way. Readers of the magazine article are then referred to the "real" publication(s) for the technical content.

@Wolfgang the limit on equations + references is largely to highlight to authors that a magazine article (in this field) is not like a journal article, and shouldn't be written like one. See What is a magazine paper and how it is different from a journal paper

@ff524 -- ah, I had missed that distinction. My bad.

If the main idea of the mathematical evaluation can be explained in words, then the details may not be necessary to make public, as the motivated reader can certainly rederive them.
If on the other hand the math is non-trivial, then it should be explained in a high level way, with appropriate references to the more advanced techniques used.
If the math is highly non-trivial, then that would be sufficient material for a publication in mathematics, and the full paper on the math may be posted on the arxiv.
And no, personally I wouldn't use researchgate. Researchgate is not a journal, and submissions there do not count as publications. The same applies to arxiv too, and if you have a paper-worthy mathematical result, it ought to be eventually submitted for publication.

I'm not sure about whether it should be peer-reviewed or not, but if not, a place that would be better suited to host this than ResearchGate is FigShare. Using FigShare, your result would actually be available without account, it would have more guarantees about remaining available, and it would actually receive a DOI.

It's a policy, not a law, and so likely can be circumvented at least to some degree if you ask the editor. For example, if you need 6 or 7 formulas that are sufficiently simple that a typical reader would understand them, then an editor may make a reasoned exception. If you have trouble getting things down to that level, try expression some of them in terms of formulas.


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Professor only teaches what is already in textbook. Should I quit going to the lectures?
I've become quite upset with how lectures for my courses are conducted.
Everyday, I attend lectures where the teacher simply writes definitions and theorems on the board straight from one of our textbooks (or another professor's published lecture notes). They then prove a handful of the theorems, or part of them, and leave more than half as an exercise. They do little to motivate the material or provide insight based on their professional experiences, and are often scribbling material onto the board as fast as possible to cover some predetermined amount. And sometimes the professor writes proofs straight from their notes and, when questioned, has a hard time explaining the gaps between steps (as they are simply regurgitating and not really even attentive to what they are explaining).
Ultimately, I feel like these lectures are a waste of my time. To be blunt, I can read a book and I can do exercises. I don't need someone to paraphrase a book for me and then tell me to fill in the rest myself. Moreover, since I cannot afford to live on/near campus, I have to commute an hour each way to sit through such lectures, which hardly seems validated.
I would like to attend lectures where the professor engages the students. Often, my professors are so rushed to scribble things on the board that they take few questions and relegate them to exercises (yes, I had a professor answer a simple question about his proof by assigning it as an exercise). If an instructor wants to cover some predetermined amount of material, I would prefer they assign this as reading beforehand and then take questions on that material in class. It'd also be nice if they presented us with hard problems in class and then we all worked through them together (with students presenting them, everyone critiquing, etc.).
Should I approach my professors about my feelings? How should I go about this?
To be honest, I am becoming quite bored (and frustrated) and starting to skip lectures in favor of office hours (which are far more engaging), reading the book on my own, and working extra problems. I do not like that I am not enjoying my educational experience (since I love to learn math!).
Or should I quit going to lectures and move on to doing what I am tending towards now, anyways?

Re: On-holdedness: I don't see how this cannot apply to graduate students as well. Indeed, I have friends who are graduate students with similar complaints. They attend lectures at some point, no?

Sure. Edited to reflect the request.

I'll go ahead and reopen this.

If you can find the same syllabus on a book, I'd go with the book. I had the same type of lectures, but usually there wasn't a book available, in the cases where there was a book I was very happy for finding it. That means you can read as fast as you'd like, you don't need to take notes, etc. That saves a lot of time, you are missing nothing for not attending the lectures and in general is a big win. I got higher qualifications in those cases and I was very happy about the whole situation, but I'm not able to give an advise that is general to everybody (or you in this case), sorry for that

@Trylks: These are my feelings exactly. For instance, my analysis course lectures are following Rudin verbatim. My other courses are similar. I feel that doing more problems will give me more understanding than listening to someone read Rudin to me.

I would prefer they assign this as reading beforehand and then take questions on that material in class. It'd also be nice if they presented us with hard problems in class and then we all worked through them together. This is known as a flipped classroom, and it's gaining a lot of traction. There's probably a faculty development office at your university, you might see if they've covered that. However, don't expect an overnight change: change in academia often happens quote slowly – as the saying goes: "one retirement at a time."

I feel that doing more problems will give me more understanding than listening to someone read Rudin to me. Great, then do more problems. What's stopping you?

By any chance is this 1st or 2nd year?

This is a common frustration faced by college students, especially in lecture-oriented STEM majors. Unfortunately, the truth is that the lectures may be a waste of time and there is little you can do to change that. If you can cover the material more efficiently on your own time (especially since you're commuting), you shouldn't necessarily feel guilty in doing so. You can see similar sentiments expressed on ratemyprofessor where students often question the value of lectures and simply go to the library as opposed to lecture.
Yes you're paying for the lecture, but if it doesn't help/contribute to your understanding, there is no point in going. I knew students who went every time out of habit, but it was an absolute waste of time.
I've had physics professors who wrote starting problems on the board and then the solution only to say that if we were at his level, we should 'see' the dozen steps in between. Needless to say, lectures were fairly empty after that. He was very well versed in the material and many students would come to office hours, it's just that he couldn't lecture.
Depending on the age/tenure of the professor, they may be receptive to making the lectures more engaging, or they may "brush" you off. Simply express your interest in the subject to the professor and ask them to make the lecture more engaging/be better prepared. Depending on the college/class, the professor may be unable to accommodate you because your peers may not be at your level. Be aware that some professors cannot lecture effectively, or have had unwanted courses foisted upon them. No matter your school ranking or major, you will encounter lousy enthusiasm-killing professors whom you'll have to endure. For many professors, your best shot for a more engaging experience would be to visit them during office hours.
In a certain sense, to quote Mark Twain, "Don't let schooling interfere with your education." You won't have this professor forever, though you may unfortunately have them or those like them again. Don't let them dampen your passion for the subject.

+1  the professor may be unable to accommodate you because your peers may not be at your level

It's not that I am "above" the course level (I find the courses sufficiently challenging), it's just that I don't find the lectures an efficient or helpful way of learning this material.

@5space, that's fine. You should be aware that your experience is not isolated. I had courses where the professors went through the power-point slides and "talked at" the students for the allotted 1 1/2 hours where most students couldn't remember most of the material covered past the first dozen slides. People learn differently and there's no reason why you shouldn't try to learn in an efficient manner. There was a Ted Talk that noted some of the inefficiencies in college education at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piSLobJfZ3c

And yet, the lecture is still the overwhelmingly dominant format for instruction in college.  This is a paradigm that needs to change.

Bad teachers give bad lectures. Also, don't use ratemyprofessor as it treats human beings like objects.

I would like to attend lectures where the professor engages the students.

Well, isn't that what we all want? Some professors are very good at this, and, unfortunately, others are not.
I would recommend attending the lectures, even if you're finding little benefit. Why? I think skipping lectures altogether is a bad idea. You never know when a professor will offer some tidbit of information that will help you on an exam, or help clarify an assignment. It's one thing to miss a lesson every now and then, but habitually missing class doesn't seem like a good way obtain an education.
After class, I would talk to fellow classmates, and see if your feelings are isolated or universal. If your opinions are shared by a majority of your classmates, perhaps you could get a groundswell of support for being very blunt in your end-of-course surveys. That feedback should be candid but constructive. In other words, don't just say, "His lectures sucked," say, "His lectures would have been a lot better if..." If enough students voice a consistant message about the low-quality lectures, perhaps the professor will try to take some of your suggestions to heart, or perhaps the department head will pressure him to do so. That may not help you this term, but it might help other students in the future.
As for the long commute, I feel your pain, but the way I'd handle that is to plan to do other things while you're on campus. Maybe you could start working out at the campus gym, or start writing for your campus newspaper. Driving an hour each way to just sit through a crappy lecture does seem like a waste of time – and gas. Driving an hour each way to become engaged on your campus – even if that time happens to include a lecture from a professor who may not be so gifted in teaching in lecture halls – may not seem so bad.
I think it's rare for a professor to drastically change tactics midway through a course, so this is a matter of you making the best of a bad situation. Sometimes, that's part of getting an education, too, even though you won't get credit for it on your transcript. Just remember, many employees like to hire students with degrees, not just because of what was learned in the classroom, but for things that were inevitiably learned in the process of obtaining the education: time management, teamwork, dedication, extra curriculars – and making the most of bad situations.

Some professors are receptive to feedback, but not all are. It depends heavily on the college, the course, and the professor whether you can expect any change.

I think it's also worth noting that students (as a collective; myself included) are generally pretty bad at being engaged!

It is difficult to know the reason why the lectures are not working for you without more information about you, the professor, and the course, but there are a few possibilities:

The professor is not doing a good job of engaging the students because of a lack of interest or competence.
The professor does not have the the flexibility to alter the way the course is taught due to institutional limitations.
The professor should not alter the way the course is taught because overall it is working for the majority of the students in the class.
The professor is unaware that the lectures are not working and would change the approach if he/she knew.

Of these only #4 will result in a change if you provide feedback but you should go talk to the professor because you are struggling with the class.  Struggles do not have to be only low grades, if you are disengaging from the class that is a problem.  Your approach should be one of requesting help understanding how the lectures are supposed to fit into the overall learning goals of the class, not one of offering lecture style critique.  For the reasons listed above, I can't promise it will change anything but it may offer insights.
That being said, you should still go to the lectures.  Lectures are only one part of a course and unless the professor stipulates otherwise, you should consider them non-optional.  Your full participation in all aspects of the class is your responsibility as a student.  There are lots of things that we have to do professionally that are inefficient (e.g., all my faculty meetings) but participation is a requirement of being part of a professional community and is a prerequisite of gaining the other benefits of that community.  For example, I would be very reluctant to invest a lot of time in a student (however promising) who regularly came to my office hours but skipped all my lectures.

The "come to lecture no matter what" attitude is silly. What will you have to show/gain for wasting hours of your day? If you show an interest in the material and have the performance (a 4 GPA) to back it up, professors are generally responsive. If they ask why you aren't coming to lecture, you should let them know that you honestly don't find them sufficiently engaging and that you're commuting. A lot of this depends on the personality of the professor and the attitude of the student. Personally, I found that professors are responsive to well-performing, well-intentioned students.

@KennyPeanuts: Can I ask why you would be reluctant to invest time in a student who is obviously working very hard on the course work (and scoring very well), pursuing further related topics outside of class, and is asking engaging questions about the course during office hours, but is not going to lecture?

@5space - Rightly or wrongly, skipping lectures habitually can be interpreted as a sign that you're not taking the class seriously. Moreover, I wouldn't want keep going over material that was covered in my lectures but the student wasn't attending, simply because that student felt like the office hour format "was far more engaging."

@J.R. As long as there grades are there, it would appear the student takes the class seriously. I remember some professors took it as an affront that students wouldn't attend, but still performed and understood the subject at or better than peers who did. The student wouldn't necessarily go over the material that was covered in lecture (they can learn it sufficiently well on their own), but may be more interested in "extending" it.

@user389823 I think it is safe to say that the 4.0 student who skips all the lectures is a rare bird. In this case I would question why the student was in the class in the first place.  Despite the how it may appear, most faculty consider the information provided in lecture to be a relevant component of the course, thus full course participation requires that you attend lecture.  Grades are not the only measure of student engagement, a student that is not attending the lectures is not fully participating in the class no matter their grades.

@5space it sounds like your professor may be inexperienced or just not very good but in general professors carefully consider the way that the lecture integrates with the total course design. Why should I fully engage a student who is unwilling to fully engage the course? I do not take it as an affront (as user389823 suggests) but rather that the student is not serious about taking full advantage of the opportunities to learn in the course.

@KennyPeanuts Well, in my case, I am WILLING to fully engage the course. But I don't feel that the instructor is fully engaging the course nor providing an environment that encourages students to be engaged. That is why I am upset... because I WANT a fulfilling, engaged experience. Commuting to hear a professor read the textbook to me nearly verbatim makes me reluctant to invest my time in this aspect of the course.

@5space: Okay, so you find yourself in a class with a professor whose strength is not lecturing. It happens. Some lecturers are brilliant, some are capable, some are tolerable, and some are inept. It's highly unlikely you'll earn a degree without encountering all types – great, bad, and in-between. Now that you find yourself with a bad one, how will you react? Drive yourself mad? Sulk and complain? Be "reluctant" to invest in the lectures? I get that you're frustrated, but I think KennyP makes a good point: if you just stop showing up, it sends a message, whether you mean for it to, or not.

@J.R. Going to lecture purely to save face, 'wasting' hours doing it, and wearing yourself out commuting is not worth it. This is something you'll eventually experience and have to comet to terms with in college. There are professor's who will almost recite the book verbatim, or provide watered down summaries. For those who are allergic to reading, this helps, for others, it is a nuisance.

@user389823 this discussion is getting too long and should likely go to chat if you want to continue, but I think where we differ is that you appear view courses as a set of isolated components as opposed to an integrated whole that leads to a single set of learning goals.  Likely this is because you are student and have not designed a course (I am assuming).  All the parts of a course are integrated and you cannot chose to omit some parts an claim to be fully participating in the course, it is as simple as that.

@user389823 Does this mean that all courses are awesome? No. Nor does it imply that you will never have a course where it makes sense to partially participate but you are responsible for your level of participation.  You seem to view the main goal of classes to be content acquisition, in that the student should be able to settle in on the best method to get new content.  In reality, content acquisition is only a small part of the learning that develops in your courses.  Much of the important learning comes from interacting with other students and profs and this requires full participation.

@user389823 - RE: This is something you'll eventually experience and have to come to terms with in college. LOL, that future tense you used makes it sound like you think I've yet to experience this. Believe me, I've had plenty of opportunities to sit in classes where I've composed poetry, designed quilts, wished I was sailing, and did whatever else it took to cope with the frustration and boredom. The O.P. asked for advice from the community; you've given yours and I've given mine: I'd advise going to class despite the "nuisance," as you call it. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. :^)

@J.R. Why would you advise someone to go to lecture so that they could doodle their frustration out? That's absurd. And yet I remember seeing people do that because they didn't know better. The primary focus of most STEM lectures is content acquisition and a demonstration of application. If you're not learning, why would you go to lecture? This is most evident in med schools where students typically go to the library as opposed to lecture because they're capable of learning the material more efficiently on their own (and can listen to the recorded lecture at 1.5x).

I did not advise anyone to go to lecture to doodle their frustration out. I advised the O.P. to keep attending lectures in hopes of trying to glean something, to interact with other students after class, and to avoid "checking out" of the lecture hall altogether. Doodling is a way to cope, not the end goal. Sorry, but I don't feel like that's "absurd" advice – but maybe we'll have to agree to disagree. "You're [allegedly] not getting anything out of this, so you should just quit going altogether" seems like an expedient approach that has a lot of potential to backfire, esp. as a life strategy.

This depends on the type of student you are. I got a lot out of going to lectures (this is mostly in maths), because I did concentrate fairly hard and make notes to myself where I didn't understand things. A friend of mine got nothing out of lectures and was better off studying by himself.
A few comments.
In my courses, lectures set the pace for the course, so it was necessary to know what was going on in the lectures even if you didn't turn up. If you aren't going to turn up, I hope the course has a good web page or equivalent.
Going to the lectures meant that during the lecture hour I was working on that subject. You need a fair amount of self-discipline to keep up steady work in all your courses without going to lectures.
As a lecturer (which I became), sure office hours are more engaging, but it is a much better use of my time to talk with a student who has been to lectures but is having trouble than to explain something to some student who could have got the information from the lectures but couldn't be bothered.
We gave a few marks for attendance, not many. We wanted students to get into the habit of turning up - this is particularly important for those who are not so able or don't have good study habits (yet), or whose background is a bit lacking.
A couple of times I have heard about courses where there are no lectures, just largely self-directed projects and support in the form of office hours. In these cases there was a small class of highly selected and very able students, the institution had the resources, and the students had a high degree of commitment. We would all love to have such classes, but the reality is different for most of us.

Sounds like you are just not at a competitive math department.
I am not trying to put you down.  I'm only attempting to give a candid answer.
In our math dept, a top 5 department -- and top-ranked in several areas of math, our professors' lectures are pretty amazing.
There's a lot of intuition, elegance, and rigor during the lectures - most of the proofs are actually different from ones found in the books.  And the profs explain why they want to do it differently.
Also, there's usually distribution of handwritten notes by the profs - stuff I had never found in the books.
If you want to continue to grad work and really love math and want the lectures that you dream about having, try to get into the strongest math department that you can.

This doesn't answer the question: "Should I approach my professors about my feelings? How should I go about this? Or should I stop going to lectures?"

I understand your frustrations. One positive thing you can get from going to lecture is to interact with your colleagues. Remember. you might be engaged in team projects or study together for an exam or a test. Another thing is, you can always ask your professor questions in class! Even a well written book may not discuss/provide all necessary information. One last thing, some professors like to mention real life examples or stories related to the subject, some might even discuss examples similar to ones s/he will use in exams.


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When referring to study at Oxford why is the word "read" used?
When reading about people who have studied at Oxford the word "read" is used instead of study. Example:
"He read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford"
Why when discussing study at Oxford (and maybe other universities) is the word "read" used?

This is just a slight difference between American and British English. The one that confuses me is "giving an exam".

That question would also be well suited on English Language & Usage. However, since it's also about academia, I suppose it is on topic here too.

@F'x, and everyone else who suggests migration - The first question to ask when considering migration is, "is the question on-topic here?" Here, the answer is "yes", so no migration necessary.

@eykanal I think F'x's answer demonstrates superbly why this is a question for [ELU.se] and not here

To be fair, "read" is only used by some at Oxford and Cambridge in the UK these days (perhaps Durham too, but very seldom outside of these two or three institutions). It usually has the effect, intentional or not, of appearing pompous.

"Read" is used 3 times in this context in a recent article in The Economist The study of history is in decline in Britain. "Study" is used 9 times in the same article, including the title.

This is just a peculiarity of British English that read can have this particular meaning. The New Oxford American Dictionary says:

read
  3. chiefly Brit. study (an academic subject) at a university: I'm reading English at Cambridge
    [ no obj. ]: he went to Manchester to read for a BA in Economics.

So, it's more about language itself than the official title of the diploma or an academic custom.

— Hey, wait, but where does this idea come up to associate “read” with “learn, understand”? Surely there is a reason? And why is it English only?
Well, as it turns out, the meaning of “learn, understand, think, explain” is actually the original meaning of the Old English word from which we inherited read! The Old English word is rædan (“explain”, amongst its meanings), from Proto-Germanic raedanan, from Proto-Indo-European root re(i)- (“to reason, count”).
Now, in many languages, the words derived from this root kept their original meaning. In German, raten means “to advise, counsel”; in Icelandic, ráða means “advise, decide, solve”.
Now, at some point something in Old English went sideways. Wiktionary states very clearly:

The development from “advise, interpret” to “interpret letters, read” is unique to English

Etymonline is more specific:

Transference to “understand the meaning of written symbols” is unique to Old English and (perhaps under English influence) Old Norse raða. Most languages use a word rooted in the idea of "gather up" as their word for "read" (cf. French lire, from Latin legere).

Now, the original meaning of the word read is retained in some contexts in British English, but was lost in other forms of the English language, such as American English.

As a summary, the hard question is not really “why can read mean study”, but instead: why did read come to mean “read”?
(source for the above: my memory, which is backed by the most excellent Etymonline)

It's always confused be how the students are reading and the lecturer is a reader.  By my logic he should then be a writer ;)

But then he'd be a scripturer, not a lecturer!

I want to add something, though it is probably doesn't have connection to the question, but maybe some linguistic borrowing here. In Russian language there is a phrase "Read a lecture", this is word by word translation. It basically means that you are reading the lecture material out loud for the audience, even if you don't actually read anything, just having normal lecture. So at least in Russian language there is a meaning of a word "read" in a sense that you "teaching others by reading(maybe not literally) them some stuff". Again, not sure if applied here, I am not a linguist.

@ScienceSamovar, in the olden times (before printing, and also after) the reader was supposed to read (the text aloud) for the students to write down longhand. Perhaps this comes from here...

I'm not sure this answers the 'why' part. In my experience, this is quite an Oxford & Cambridge thing, and quite posh, public school thing. That might be because there are lots of public school educated people at Oxford and Cambridge. Not certain.

It might also be part of the language and culture of an old and exclusive club, I think they have lots of other ones (e.g., the quads)

But for sure, there's more to this than just saying it's a synonym.

The respondents so far have missed a crucial point. When one ‘reads’ for a degree in the sandstone Unis in the UK, it is different to a normal course of study. Reading for a degree involves few lectures or tutorials, and consists mainly of being allotted texts by an academic supervisor, who then discusses what you have learned, and possibly sets essays for you to demonstrate logical argument and research. There’s no classroom study as such. It’s more about analytical thinking to earn your ‘Oxbridge’ degree.

While I have received only a master's and not a bachelor's at Oxbridge, my experience is that this overstates the case. Lectures and tutorials seem to me to be central to the Oxbridge experience, which is moreover assessed by exams not too dissimilar from those seen in the US system.


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Should I supply code along with my paper submission?
I am submitting a paper to a machine learning/computer vision conference. Is it worthwhile to include some source code of my implementation so that the reviewers can test it themselves or gain a greater understanding of my idea? It will take time to clean up my code and make sure it is anonymised.
Is this a common practice? If so do reviewers pay attention to the code?
Is it worth the time to prepare anonymised and clean code?
The code will be included as a ZIP archive through the paper submission website. After the paper has been accepted I intend to release it with an open source license.

Could you clarify if the source code is to be in the paper/pdf submitted, or is a link to a repository where it's stored like github?

@user389823 It is to be suppled in a ZIP archive on the paper submission website.

What do you mean by anonymized? Are you anonymizing yourself (and the other code authors) or the subjects of the study?

@DavidRobinson The former.

Should I supply code as supplemental material?

Yes, but it would be better if you published it in an open access fashion.

Is this a common practice?

No.

If so do reviewers pay attention to the code?

Depends on the reviewers.

Is it worth the time to prepare anonymised and clean code?

That depends, don't do more than necessary.
Also read:

Ten Simple Rules for Reproducible Computational Research
Top Ten Reasons to Not Share Your Code
(and why you should anyway)
Open Source Software Publishing for University Researchers

I plan to release it under an open source license once the paper is accepted somewhere.

@StephenTierney I may have misunderstood the question. In this case I'd suggest to protect your work by publishing it. In some areas it is customary to send the paper to arxiv.org  or similar repositories before sending it for review, I don't know how trustworthy may be the reviewers in this specific case you have. IMHO the design of the whole review-publish process is wrong, but that's a different matter.

Making code available is always a good idea, as long as the code works. It is probably a good idea even if it doesn't, since even non-working code can help reviewers and users/readers of your work to understand details of your implementation that your paper does not cover. However, if the code does not work, you should clearly indicate this in the source. In the case of working and tested code, bear in mind that sufficient documentation to run the code is highly desirable. You only mention reviewers, but you should also be thinking about general readers of your paper.
I think it is probably reasonable to supply a current snapshot of the code to the paper as a zip archive (or similar) for reviewing purposes, but why not just put it online directly as a Git or Mercurial repository on Bitbucket, Github, or similar, and reference this on the paper? I also recommend making repositories available in more than one place, in the interests of redundancy. For example, I have used both Bitbucket and Google Code for my Mercurial repositories. This has various advantages over a zip archive file; for one thing you can push corrections and other changes to your repository, and everyone will immediately have access to them.
If you are concerned about releasing your code before your paper has been published might mean someone else will "scoop" you, that seems unlikely to me. At least, it is not something I've ever worried about.

I am only concerned with the impact supplying code has on the review process. I cannot supply the code on an external website as it may compromise anonymity in the review process.

@StephenTierney I understand your point. However, you seem to be referring to a situation where the reviewers do not know the author's identity. However, my impression is that this is rarely the case in practice, because such a restriction is difficult to enforce. For example, how does one handle the case where the author refers to his/her previous works in the bibliography?

When you refer to your previous work you say "Tierney et al. proposed" rather than "We previously proposed".

True, but if the paper in question depends on earlier publications by the author, and those earlier publications are in the bibliography and not anonymized, then often the current authorship is quite clear, if only from style/content considerations. Anyway, enough said.

Absolutely, yes.
If you don't release code, then your work is not de-facto reproducible; and if you will get me as a reviewer, I will do everything in my power to either get you to publish code, or get rejected. Rare exceptions to the contrary, where an implementation is trivial. But implementations are rarely trivial; and often a great place to sweep a lot of quirks under the rug which conveniently arnt mention in the paper.
Granted, it is not hard to get away with not providing code; journals are particularly lax at enforcing or even adopting standards, even though most people in the field will decry the lack of reproducibility of published work. But nobody will resent you for providing code either. Writing code you actually feel comfortable releasing out into the open requires work of course. Time which you could spend doing other things. If you don't feel comfortable zipping up your code and providing it right now, that's probably a good indication that any papers written about said code arnt ready to be published yet either.
Unfortunately, there is a tension there, between doing what is right scientifically, and doing what is right for your career. But as for me as a reviewer; no code == no publication.

Love it, love everything about it!  Although I'd still say, hideous code can still make a huge impact.  So if it's clean code vs hideous code.... then yea clean the code.  If it's hideous code vs sans-code, no question still publish code.

This largely depends upon the reviewers and the field customs. Some reviewers, specially in journals, may ask for source code. However, it is unlikely that in Computer Science conferences reviewers ask for source code specially when the paper is well-written.


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Does one need to be affiliated with a university to publish papers?
Assume you have already completed your undergrad and have been working for a number of years. Does one need to be part of a university or a learning institution to publish papers?

Here is a recent paper published by someone affiliated as "Independent Scholar": http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-12-00171.1

I have published as first author without a university affiliation and did not encounter any problems.

Do you consider national research centers to be part of academia?

@mankoff That paper was coauthored with someone else affiliated with a University.

Absolutely not. Affiliations do not matter; what matters is the value and the fit of the contribution to the journal or the conference to which you are submitting.

It's probably best to add something like. You don't need to, but it helps a lot because it is the norm.

This is very true. I know of an IBM employee who publishes about star formation in astronomy journals; he's not associated with a university.

@mac389 I'd say it depends on the venue. If the review is double blind, for instance, there is absolutely no benefit in having a certain affiliation.

@mac389 why would being the norm be useful in the context of research? Isn't quality more important than any factor?

@190290000RubleMan In theory quality is paramount. We can't read every paper that is published. We use, instead, heuristics like 'norms' to identify papers that are likely to be substantive.

I think it matters, when you have a well established university and your leading professor, at least reviewer would pay more attention. Otherwise  you're like nothing, and your paper can be thrown away without proper judgement. It's what I've heard. Not sure if it really is like that.

Last I checked, affiliations do certainly matter. It may not be an academic institution; perhaps it's a private company, but the literature is not replete with authors having no affiliation. Moreover, I am confident that Joe Sixpack is going to have some problems passing peer review regardless of his great ideas. To suggest otherwise is disingenuous though I share your philosophical view.

@Geremia IBM employee is IBM employee, IBM already stands for affiliation in your example

@maximus The question is about affiliation with a university.

This answer seems simplistic and doesn't capture any of the complexified implied by the question. What we would want to be true, it is not necessarily a good description of reality. This THE Article explains the difficulties faced by displaced academics and the exclusions editors normally apply to authors without affiliation. Exceptions are just that.

This accepted answer states how things should be, not how things actually are. Speaking from first hand experience here: Try and contact a professor telling him you know the field very well, that you are motivated and are willing to work for free. Chance are, you'll never get a reply.

While it is not true that you should be in academia to publish papers, I'll give my two cents on what I learned so far:

If you work in industry and you write technical papers, your contributions are well-accepted, although they're typically more focused on certain practical aspects.
Authors writing by themselves are welcome, but they somehow are not very common because they lack the ability of writing an academic paper: they do not lack the message or the content of a paper, but just the structure, and that's something that you learn in an academic environment.
The reviewing process is not everywhere "double-blinded", so as a reviewer you do see the affiliation of who wrote the article, while they do not know you as a reviewer. I know that it's frowned upon, but I've read comments in the afterwards discussion (before the formal decisions) where reviewers pointed at the lack of a proper affiliation, or the "Who's this guy? where's s/he coming from?" sort of questions.

So all in all, there's no need to be an academic.  But if you're not, stress enough your industry affiliation!

Interesting points ElCid. However I am currently doing my honours level at the moment and I am doing modules that focus' on research and how to go about it, how to structure it, how to do reviews of papers etc.. But perhaps I should have mentioned that I was thinking about once my studies are completed, if i could contribute then.

@Maurice: I can think of the PhD students I supervised and who are now working outside academia. We always say that we should get together and write some more... but I can honestly say that this is possible only if your job is somewhat related to writing papers, otherwise there's not enough motivation for it. Again, my experience :)

What if you point your company as affiliation which is not really research publishing company or industry related?

Technically, Maurice is right.  You really don't have to be in academia to publish (even in academic journals).  One famous example is Paul Erdos ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s#Career ), who I believe had no affiliation (at least in practice) for much of his life.  However, most cultures have certain standard ways of doing things.  Academia, and in particular the part of it that you want publish in, is no exception.
One thing you can do to help get your ideas accepted is to learn to write and talk in the language common to your research area.  Specifically, find some papers in your area that you really like (even better if they are widely cited) and study how they are written.  When you write your own papers, make a conscious effort to copy the writing style of the papers you like.  One key part of this is to thoroughly know the relevant literature (previous work on the problem) and to mention it in your introduction and explain how your work relates to it.  For each research area, there are numerous other hurdles you should jump.  For example, if you're writing a math paper, do it in LaTeX.  If you don't know LaTeX, learn it (ask Google, if you need help), since using it will make your paper more readily accepted.  For a list of other criteria often used by mathematicians to quickly judge a paper, read http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=304 .

I guess that all the disciplines have got a standard structure (abstract/intro/related/methods/ etc), so I would try and learn that structure as the writing style, otherwise it's very simple to shoot down a paper just because "it's missing the discussion&implications part" or whathever else

@ElCid Yes, most disciplines do have a standard structure, but even more subtle things (how long should your bibliography be; how do you phrase certain things) will differ from one area to another. If you are outside academia, but writing for academic journals, I strongly recommend that you get a few people inside academia (possibly professors that you've had) to read your paper and give you feedback before you submit it to a journal.

good points. The immense challenge then becomes to stay on top of the related work even when not being part of a group that circulates such knowledge

Technically yes, all scientific disciplines have got the same paper structure, based on the OHERIC methodology, itself based on the Médecine Expérimentale by Claude Bernard (which is in fact the author of the modern scientific methodology): http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/OHERIC

This answer by Dan is extremely good. I like how it motions toward first principles reasoning and emulation of similar successful implementations. I think a person should be able to publish based on those simple quests and the final result content, assuming the paper is of substance. There should be a delineator somewhere that makes credentials of rapidly diminishing importance. For example, if new math or logic is revealed -- not theorized, revealed.

The Ronin Institute aims to facilitate precisely this type of independent scholarship. Its members include a number of very accomplished scholars who not do have university appointments yet publish regularly in top journals. Doubtless this is not the easiest route, but it clearly is not impossible either.
That said, the original question suggests that the researcher in question has a bachelor's degree but no PhD. In general, publishing from this position (with a bachelor's degree) would be more difficult than it would for a PhD who has left academia because the PhD would have had extensive immersion in academic culture and the experience in scholarly writing that comes with it.
Similar institutes are listed here.

Not necessarily. You can publish with your name only. In fact the value of the work is judged mainly by the readers who are the end users, and if you believe you can add something meaningful to the knowledge then go for it.
From my own experience, some universities take advantage of having their name thrown in while they provide little support to the work produced. Go for it and best of luck

I was going to up-vote this answer when I read the first paragraph. Then I want to down-vote this answer when I read the second paragraph. I ended up with doing nothing.

@scaaahu why so? if work is good, and university helps publishing it by being affiliate, whats the problem? just want to understand your point

@maximus I have no problem with if work is good, and university helps publishing it by being affiliate at all. But, the second paragraph of this answer  "some universities take advantage of having their name thrown in" sounds negative.

I agree with @scaaahu there. Not exactly because it sounds negative, but because it is (i) irrelevant to the question, (ii) mostly nonsense. On (ii) one should not conflate the universities with their staff. Some individuals may unfairly benefit from their institution/lab names showing but nonetheless the institution itself ought to be acknowledged if it was the host.

In theory, no. There's though a practical implication that you will have to pay the publication costs from your own money. For example, if your paper is accepted to a conference, you'll have to pay the participation fee and then actually travel there.

Theoretically yes not but this is generally difficult, as requirements for the article will be higher and chances to prepare it really well are lower.
I would suggest to cooperate with some scientific institution that may also give good ideas how to improve the article. Maybe some extra experiments could be done using resources of that university. Or, if you represent a company, maybe a shared grant can be written getting more money for your project.
Also, unless you have experience in writing the scientific paper, it is very difficult to put everything into required structure, provide reasonable introduction with all necessary references and the like. A university professor can do this much easier as he does all the time.

In principle no, but...
In my field of study, you do have to declare some affiliation as an author. Publishers are claiming their submission system needs some official affiliation. A friend of mine was a senior co-author on one of my papers, and yet he holds no official degree (a renowned part-time investigator working as an architect). He opted to declare an institution within which he had many friends, and the editor was happy enough.
I believe however any official institution will do, even if not academic (e.g. Ministry for Environment, some private company).

Does one need to be part of a university or a learning institution to publish papers?

No, one doesn't.  If your company is unrelated to your submission, it might be even wrong to put its name on it.  However there is a practical aspect: providing the editor or the PC with the affiliation tells them a potential source of the conflicts of interest (COI). In other words, finding a reviewer without COI might get easier for them if the affiliation is listed.  It is in your interest to support their work.

Some preprint services, such as MindRxiv, require you to have an affiliation with an institute to submit.


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How to create PDF of slides with audio?
When creating online learning materials, I like the idea of sharing slideshows with audio commentary for each slide.  I know it is possible to do this with PowerPoint (e.g., see this MS Office tutorial).
However, I prefer to create PDF slides using tools like beamer.
Questions

Is it possible to create PDF presentations with embedded audio?
What is a good workflow for implementing this (e.g., recording the audio files, storing the audio files, sharing, etc.?

Ideally, the solution would be cross-platform and minimise external viewer requirements.

You can do this with LaTeX. See for example this thread in TeX.SX.

Any reason you want a PDF with audio and not a video?

But then your Pdf file size will be very big, which is against one of the original ideas that Pdf is supposed to be small. I am sorry if my comment is too strong.

@earthling Maybe to reduce file size?

Could you clarify what, exactly, you want as the end result? Do you want something where the user can click to play some audio (like, "click here to read this passage") or do you want the audio to automatically play and scroll the PDF to keep the audio synced with the document (like, playing background music or narrating while you scroll through the file)? If the latter, should the audio automatically sync with the PDF position in case of going back a page or two?

In case somebody wonders what happened to my bounty.

If you don't want to pay for Adobe Acrobat Pro, as @schultem mentions, LaTeX can do this with embedded hyperlinks. See this page, Section 3.5 for more information. Note that if you use this method (as far as I know) you will have to click for sound, it cannot be automatic.

+1 Thanks. The LaTeX option is much more appealing to me. One challenge that remains is how best to distribute the audio online with the presentation. Can it be embedded in the pdf for example or does it need to be a large number of external individual files?

Put the PDF and audio in a folder, zip the folder, and distribute the .zip file as you would have distributed the PDF. In the PDF make the hyperlinks all assuming the audio is in the same folder.

You need Adobe Acrobat Pro to record audio and integrate it into your PDF files.
Anybody can access the PDF+audio via the free Adobe Reader.

Note that this does not work universally anymore due to Flash being dead and Adobe not having offered any replacement.

Adobe Reader does not work on my platform. And if it did, I'd prefer using my default PDF reader.

If you don't mind hosting your files online, SlideShare is a good solution. You can create an online audio presentation by combining your slides with an audio recording of yourself (MP3 format, for example) and a list of timings at which slides go forward.
I have used it myself, and it is a decent tool for this purpose.

Another solution, which is technically far from optimal but just works, is to convert your slides + audio file into a movie. This can be done with any AV recording/capture software. Then, you encode the movie into a Web-suitable format before putting it online.
Depending on your OS of choice, there are tools to do that. My wife does it on the iPad, for example, with ExplainEverything and the workflow is quite neat.

You can make slides with LaTeX/Beamer and embed audio (and video) with the media9 package ---  \usepackage[...]{media9}.  The presentation becomes system-dependent, however.  Embedded sound in my slides plays in Acrobat Reader but not (on a Mac) in Preview.

Note that this does not work universally anymore due to Flash being dead and Adobe not having offered any replacement.

Note: This is not an answer to the question!
As the answers have explained,
you can embed audio into a PDF file,
but why would you want to do that?
Personally, I make my slides using Google Slides,
and make a video recording, which I post on my YouTube channel.
The result is, in my opinion, superior to a PDF file with audio,
because I can use a pointer (a red dot that moves as you move your mouse)
to highlight the portion of the slide which I want students to focus on.
In addition, although I haven't tried it myself,
I believe that it is possible to draw on your slides by hand,
e.g., using an iPad, as you are delivering your presentation.
By using a pointer and/or handdrawn annotations on your slides,
you can communicate your ideas far more effectively and dynamically
than if you use PDF slides alone, which tend to be static.
(Yes, I know that you can program animations into your slides,
but the effort-to-reward ratio does not seem worth it to me,
in almost all cases.)

I find just adding the audio to the slides in powerpoint and using highlight functions such as drawing a loop around a number or underling something works fine... Don't need to use any other programs at all.

@SolarMike Your method works as well!

Depends what you need. The other comments provide enough sources for typed out equations. However, in the event that you are doing this live/informally, I find it sometimes better to use handwritten equations, it which case I use Notability.
This may be an extremely niche use case, but it comes up often enough that you may want to consider it.

Welcome to Academia.SE. I also really like Notability, but I'm not sure how this answers the question. The question is about producing PDFs (i.e., with Beamer) and embedded audio. Notability is an alternative to PDFs, and can produce PDFs, but I don't think it meets the asker's requirements.

@cag51 I was referring more towards handwritten PDFs generated by notability as the niche category this may fill. Notability also allows one to attach audio, hence I thought this may be helpful.

You can do this easily using Jupyter Notebooks.  It works great if you have embedded code (in Python, R or Julia), but the code element isn't necessary - it makes very pretty slides using markdown.
See this StackOverflow answer for guidance. You can add the autoplay=True argument, and the audio file can also be audio from a url.
If you've never worked with code in Python, R, or similar, then the learning curve on implementing this will be steeper.  But wouldn't this be a great time to learn the hot open-source languages anyway?

Hmm, this answer is a bit like recommending to use Powerpoint instead. Also, even though being familiar with Jupyter notebooks, the linked question does not seem to help me having the audio played without some code cells being run.

You can turn Jupyter notebooks into PDFs using nbviewer.  I'm not sure if it will preserve auto-run audio though, and I didn't see that mentioned.

another way to approach this is the LaTeX route with beamer for generating the slides and use a screencast software (eg Camtasia - but there are also free versions around) to record your voice ... this works really well for me

But then I would end up with a video again and use all the advantages of PDFs (small file size, vector graphics, etc.), right?


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Translating British faculty titles into American equivalents
A recent job posting at a British university has specified available openings at multiple levels: lecturer, senior lecturer, reader, and professor. However, it's not clear how to map these titles to American equivalents. For instance, where would someone who has finished up several years of an assistant professorship and is interested in moving into such a position be classified? Would it be as a senior lecturer or reader?

Googling "British academic ranks" turns up some general information, but I'm guessing you did that already.

Yes, but I'm looking for some more clarity in what the titles actually stand for, and as a discussion of what someone coming from outside would apply for.

It varies by institution. The right answer for any one university would be too specific. The right "general" answer would be a list of all UK universities and their job titles.

I got my PhD in the UK and have been working in the US for the last 5 years. My understanding is that an Assistant Proffessor is basically a lecturer and a Full Professor corresponds to a Professor in the UK. Things get somewhat trickier in the middle though. A US Associate Professor could be translated as either Senior Lecturer or Reader but I would go for the latter.

The UK Professor rank is quite a bit more selective than the US full Professor rank; it more closely matches a Distinguished or named Professorship.  Most American full Professors would be classified as Readers or Principal Lecturers in the UK system.  (Reader and Principal Lecturer are generally equivalent; the older UK universities tend to use "Reader" while the newer ones tend to use "Principal Lecturer.")  Look at faculty lists of UK universities and see how few Professors there are.
Many American Associate Professors would be placed at the Senior Lecturer rank, although some would be Lecturers.  While the US hierarchy requires promotion from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor after five to seven years, some UK universities have faculty (aka academic staff) who serve in the Lecturer rank for longer than seven years.
American Assistant Professors would be placed at the Lecturer rank.
These equivalencies are generalizations, of course.  You may want to look at the distribution of academic ranks among the faculty (and their corresponding scholarly accomplishments) at the universities you're interested in.

Do you have anything other than your observations to backup these statements? In my experience, the mapping of the UK lecturer/reader/professor to the US assistant/associate/full the UK is LESS selective than the US. In other words, both a Reader in the UK and an Associate Professor in the US would both stand a better chance of getting prompted to Professor in the UK than in the US.

Academic rank data for UK faculty (i.e., “academic staff”) are compiled by the Higher Education Statistics Agency.  Table 11a at https://www.hesa.ac.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3081 (bottom of the table) shows that of full-time faculty, 14% are Professors, 27% are Senior Lecturers or Senior Researchers, 52% are Lecturers or Researchers, and 7% are “other grades.”
I assume that Readers and Principal Lecturers are included in the “senior lecturer/researcher” category, since the Reader and Principal ranks are not always used at the newer universities.  (Note that these data are for 2007/08.  The 2008/09 data seem to combine full-time and part-time faculty, and the more recent data require payment for access.)
Data for US faculty are available in the 2014 Almanac of Higher Education (Chronicle of Higher Education) at http://chronicle.com.www.library.manhattan.edu/article/Full-Time-Instructional/148195/
Among full-time faculty, 24% are Professors, 20% are Associate Professors, 23% are Assistant Professors, 14% are Instructors, 4% are Lecturers, and 14% are "other ranks."
For a general overview, see the sources cited by William J. Moore et al. in “Academic Economists’ Pay and Productivity: A Tale of Two Countries,” which is freely available through Google Scholar.  Moore et al. state, “For many years, the rank of professor in UK universities was reserved for a very select group and often there was only one professional chair per department and that person served as head of the department (Brown, 1963).  ....  To control costs, the UK system has placed limits on the proportion of faculty in the senior ranks (reader/senior lecturer and professor) at each university. Periodically, the University Grants Council and government have raised the senior limit in response to market forces (Bett, 1999). In contrast, most US universities do not place limits on the number of senior positions. As a consequence, the proportion of professors is much higher in the US than in the UK. Currently, less than 25 percent of UK academic economists hold the rank of professor (Blackaby and Frank, 2000).”  This isn’t the best source, of course, but it came up right away in Google Scholar and it seems to address the question reasonably well.