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Would it offend my advisor if I wanted to work outside her lab, with a co-PI for a brief time?
I'm a Ph. D student. I have been fortunate to have an extremely supportive advisor against whom I have only positives and literally no complaints so far. She offers me sound technical guidance, almost always available, refines my problems, never rude, given me several weeks off when I had some personal family emergencies, and of course, helps me get my work published.
My advisor collaborates with a Co-PI from another university (for a couple of projects) who is a few years senior to her. The Co-PI is from a premier high-ranking university, has stellar track record of publications, co-founded manufacturing startups, and is an overall rock star of sorts. Co-PI has several industry connections. I have had few brief interactions with Co-PI, but never worked with him in the projects that my advisor collaborates with.
As I plan to get into industry after I graduate, I would like to further my association with Co-PI in the hopes that : 1. I could get letters of recommendation from him 2. Get contacts in the industry for internships/full-time jobs. 3. Get a peek into how research is done as competitive high-ranking universities.
My concern is, if it would be taken negatively by my advisor if I express my interest to work with Co-PI for a summer/semester. I do not want my advisor to think - "So my student thinks I am not good enough", which is certainly the farthest from the truth. Any advice on how best to discuss the subject with my advisor without complicating things would be helpful. Or if at all its a good idea to work on a different lab for a brief period.

It looks sensible what you want to do, and normally it should be understood and even supported by your supervisor. But then human beings are strange animals and we can't know what kind of person she is, which in the first place will determine how she will take this.

This somewhat depends on the academic culture of the country you are currently doing your PhD in....and may also depend on the funding source. Perhaps you may want to add some level of detail here?

@DCTLib I am in the US. I do not have exact details on the funding source, except that is through some grants secured by my advisor.

My concern is, if it would be taken negatively by my advisor if I express my interest to work with Co-PI for a summer/semester

This seems like a bit of an X-Y Problem. The real problem (X) is broadening your network, since you'll need more than one letter of recommendation when you graduate. Your solution (Y) is to work with this co-PI. But by only broaching Y with your advisor, the conversation may indeed go in an undesirable direction.
Instead, be clear about the problem you are trying to solve. It's perfectly fine to also suggest Y as one possible path forward. But this minimizes the chances of a misunderstanding, and if Y is actually a bad idea for some reason, your advisor may be able to suggest an alternative path.

Or if at all its a good idea to work on a different lab for a brief period.

Generally speaking, it is a good idea to work in different labs if possible. You get to know smart people and their approach to solving problems, you learn new techniques or analytical skills, other people get to know you and your approach to solving problems, etc. So it only makes sense to work in a different lab if there will be a realistic chance that indeed there will be sufficient opportunity to benefit from each other. The visit to the other lab must therefore not be too short. What is a good timeframe for the visit very much depends on what exactly you want to achieve in the other lab. I recommend that you think about that first and write it down so that you have some sort of plan which defines what you want to do when, how long each step takes, possible alternative routes when things go slightly wrong, etc. If you have no specific idea about what you want to do, how do you want to convince the Co-PI to accept you as a visiting researcher?

Any advice on how best to discuss the subject with my advisor without complicating things would be helpful.

One approach would be to use your plan to point out how everybody will benefit from your visit to the other lab. This will be useful in discussions both with your advisor and the Co-PI. Is there a fancy technique that you could learn and import into your advisor's lab, or vice versa? Would it be possible to collect data in the other lab that you could not collect in your home lab? Things like that. Your advisor might be more inclined to agree if she also sees how she would benefit. Maybe you could discuss a roadmap how you could make it likely that a joint publication will result.

I do not think this would be a problem overall.
Express your interest in building up your CV for the industry and listen to what she has to say. If you have already zeroed in on the co-PI, you might open with that.
She is great for your PhD, but not as great for some of your future goals, she does not have to feel bad for it and you do not have to be sorry. You get help from her, she gets an industry connection with a cordial relationship and the knowledge she has immensely helped someone on their path in life. All is well.
That said, there is one part in this post that seems to be bothering you and which sounds potentially capable of causing trouble. Specifically, your third point makes it sound like your current research is not "competitive", which is not a great point to make. I would not bring this bit up. Or at least try to reformulate it.
While we appreciate an "overall rock star" as someone obviously doing a lot for the society, the ability to be one is heavily personality-dependent. The history knows stellar researchers who have changed the science forever with a few dozen theorems to their name, and those who did just a couple of really really important things. One is not better than the other; you might indeed want to discover which pace and style of work suits you better. But this is just exposure to different work processes, unless you have something very specific in mind (e.g. "I spend weeks on setting up the working environment for each new experiment and want to see how they do it; clearly, it takes much less effort for them").
Importantly, the statement you want to make is about you, not your advisor. Take caution to not impose potentially incompatible values on her, especially given you are not too sure about them yourself. Be sure to make it clear how everything you bring up is relevant to your future career. And consider asking an open-ended question instead of putting her on the spot with a yes/no question. This I consider to be a more general advice: you get more cooperation and opportunities from people if you let them express themselves instead of asking them to comply with the plans you made up already.


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Collaborator asks me to share a paywalled article - how to deny that request?
A collaborator has asked me to share a PDF of a pay-walled article with her. She can't access the article because it's pay-walled (though her institution should be wealthy enough to provide access).
Whereas I don't have any ethical qualms about such a request, I do have legal qualms, since sharing such article would provide evidence by which the publisher might potentially sue me for copyright infringement.
So I'd rather not do that. What are possibilities do deny that request while saving face?

Why not use the same reason "sharing such article would provide evidence by which the publisher might potentially sue me for copyright infringement"?

"the publisher might potentially sue me for copyright infringement." My advice would be to check whether this indeed is the case. It's a common and accepted practice that papers are shared between researchers. A different story would be if any of you made the paper available publicly, on a website such as SciHub.

Simply tell your colleague, that in order for you to send the paper, she must promise not to share the paper with anyone else, and especially not to upload it to public internet sites, because the pdf you downloaded will probably be watermarked. You should not worry about getting a lawsuit, the chances of that happening are ridiculously low. Of course, if you have little trust that your colleague will keep the promise, that's another story....

You can also refer your friend to internet sites or social media groups which are less concerned with the ethical issue. Nevertheless, sending papers is standard practice and it might even not be illegal if you two, e.g., collaborate on a research project or similar.

Do you intend to use this article in your collaboration?

@mihalu: can you explain?

@Ambicion: there exist sites that either let you illegally bypass paywalls and online communities that are willing to shaper papers between members. So you can refer her to them in which case it is her decision to use them, not yours.

@mihalu, if you judge one act to be unethical, why try to substitute another which is more likely to be viewed as unethical. Substitute "illegal" if you like.

@Buffy: I do not find sharing or illegally downloading academic papers unethical at all. I am a great supporter of open science and I find paywalls deeply problematic; so I think it is completely ethical to illegally download papers, especially in situations where your institution can not afford to buy them. My solution was meant to answer Ambicion's concern that he might be faced with legal consequences (which is highly unlikely anyway). If you are interested in the issue, I can recommend some good research literature on the topic.

The following is not a legal analysis (IANAL), but a social/academic one. The problem, as I'm sure you recognize, is that passing on an electronic version makes it all too easy for it to be widely distributed by the recipient. Hopefully you can trust them to honor a request not to pass it farther. Hopefully, they will comply with such a request.
If you want to be absolutely sure that you are staying within all bounds, make a printed copy of the document and send that, along with a request to have it returned to you when your colleague is finished with it, however long that might be. In a working group that has always been done and is certainly covered under fair use for scholarly work. This is probably more than is really necessary, but it is conservative enough that no publisher should object. That is especially true if this paper is important to your collaboration.
But you almost certainly have a right to make a printed copy and you almost certainly have a right to share it. Hopefully your colleague won't make and distribute a can of the document, but that is on them in any case.
Sharing such a document with a colleague isn't "publishing", and while it might reduce the economic value of the publication to a minor (minuscule) extent, a publisher would only be likely to object to it if they were willing to spend money to "make an example" of someone. And likely it would only occur if the person sued had deep enough pockets or if the problem became extreme in some way.
And publishers need to be able to support scholarly work if the next work they hope to publish is to ever be created. The recognize this, actually, and benefit from it.

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Review request for DFG (German Research Foundation)
I recently received an email, requesting me to review a grant proposal for DFG (German Research Foundation, https://www.dfg.de/en).
Though in other circumstances I might be happy to accept this, right now I am extremely busy applying to multiple positions and finishing papers under tight deadlines (I am a postdoc). I am also a bit surprised that they considered me to do the review, since I would've thought only people with permanent positions would do this kind of thing. So at this moment, I must approach this in a selfish manner and ask whether acting as a reviewer could bring any benefits for me.
I have a few questions:

Is this something I could mention in my CV? Would it be useful?
How much time would it take for me to finish the review? Unfortunately it seems that I cannot access much details about the proposal without accepting to review it. Therefore I am asking for estimates, perhaps from someone else that might have done this before.
Would it be beneficial for me, in terms of experience? I anticipate to eventually find a position and having to apply to grants such as these myself.

Thanks.

What type of proposal is it? They have very different lengths. "Sachbeihilfe" (standard individual grant) is ~20 pages, an application for a "Sonderforschungsbereich" is typically >200 pages long and includes an on-site review. Proposals are pretty much always as long as they can be, so knowing the type gives rise to a good estimation on the effort. Reviewers "just" need a PhD, so a postdoc can be reviewer.

@DCTLib I don't know. I only saw the summary, which is a few paragraphs. I have written to ask how long is the full grant proposal.

Funny. I just had a look at a DFG grand review invitation I once got, and it also didn't mention this. It did mention a "GZ" in the title of the e-mail, however. If it is of the form "/-", then it is most likely a "Sachbeihilfe". They can have 17 pages for actual scientific content in 11point font size, plus 8 pages of information about ethics and formal stuff. The 8 pages should be quick to read, the 17 pages tend to be a bit dense, but good proposals are still easy to read. Hope it helps with point 2.

Let's assume it's a "Sachbeihilfe". I presume I'll have to write a report. So just to have a qualitative idea of the amount of work I'd have to do, what's the expected amount of pages I should write , more or less?

@DCTLib please see my previous comment (I forgot to tag you)

If you don't accept it, there is really nothing to put on your CV. Only if you complete a review is it an "accomplishment".
Reviewing grants is beneficial in two ways. It is a service and will be recognized as such when you list it, and it gives you access to research and other ideas earlier than you would otherwise be able to get it.
How long it takes is difficult to say, and I have little advice on that. It depends on field and on the grant proposal itself as well as on how detailed the agency needs you to be in review. You can ask them about the latter. You might also be able to see the proposal before making a decision, though that won't always be possible.
If you decline, tell them that you are interested in general, but are too committed to other things at the moment to help them.

Regarding your second paragraph: It can perhaps be added that having seen a grant proposal and having thought about what you liked and didn't like about it helps with writing your first own grant proposal.

@DCTLib Yes, that's something I'd value.

Seems like a good answer, but I'm not sure the first point ("could I put it in my CV?" if the review is carried out) is addressed yet. Any thoughts?

As a postdoc you need to learn how to write grants.  One of the best ways to do this is to read other grant applications.  In particular being involved in the reviewing process can teach you about the unstated aspects of how particular grants work.  I would definitely recommend taking every opportunity you can in your early career to be involved in grant review in order to improve your own grant writing and understand the grant application process.

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How to find out the tier of a university in the USA?
How I can find out the tier of a university? Is it available in any website or report? If yes, what is the link?
I tried to find out the list and I got some pages which says how the universities are evaluated. I was more interested in current list.

A partially "shopping" question.

Best to ask a senior person who has "been around". The highly-publicized rankings are not reliable, as they are more like "advertising" than they are about "results/production".

Global and local rankings are generally very different. What country are you interested in?

Rankings we have in the US are not for universities as a whole, but for individual programs.  For example, it could be that Johns Hopkins is number 1 in medicine, but not in computer science.

Rankings for universities are not an official measure.  Rather, people each have their own opinions, and occasionally someone takes a poll of these opinions and publishes them.  So if you need to know what are the best universities for a particular purpose, then ask the people who will be making the judgements for that particular purpose in the future.

I do not see this as a shopping question. On the contrary, I would very much like to see an answer to this question. I (and I guess others too) also wonder how people can say (or write) "top tier university", "top 20 university" and such. I see this regularly on this page by both new users and well established ones. I would guess that the only answer is a vague "Well, the 'tier' is not well defined and kind of a guess of the overall reputation." but I would really like to see the answers of our well established users even if they are that vague.

For some reason I feel inclined to believe assertions that an institution is highly selective, but information about the nature of the students seems hard to come by. There's a difference between students who get good grades because they ruthlessly compete for grades, thinking that that's what being a student is about, and those who get good grades because they learn well, thinking that that's what being a student is about. Maybe asking a professor who's taught at the institution in question and also at different sorts of places is the only way to find out about that.

Different countries have different scaling and tiers.

@Dirk Thank you for awarding the bounty, I hope that you enjoyed reading my answer. :-)

Typically, when people talk about tiers in context of universities, the assumption is that they refer to levels of teaching and/or research activity within some standardized framework. As far as I know, the most well-known framework of this kind is Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. Based on this question, I further assume that it implies an interest in university research tiers (which matches the traditional Carnegie Classification framework - the Basic criterion).
Thus, in order to find a research tier of a university, click LOOKUP link in the main menu of the above-mentioned website and enter your search criteria on the Institutional Lookup page. The request will generate a list of results or a single result, depending on your criteria. Click on the linked title of the relevant institution and browse the resulting webpage. On that page, find Basic classification row, which contains the target value. For example, performing the search for my current institution (employer), Georgia Institute of Technology (aka Georgia Tech), we find that it belongs to the category of Doctoral Universities: Highest Research Activity. This is what usually refers to as (the highest) R1 tier (for more details about the shorthand labels, see this page).
Note that, while level of research activity is the most popular classification criterion, there are other criteria (see Listings -> Standard Listings). Also note that Carnegie Classification is focused on the academic ecosystem in the United States. I am not familiar with similar national or international frameworks (but have no doubt that some exist).

The OP didn't mention he/she is focusing on the USA, so I'm not sure the answer is relevant.

@Dilworth Well, the OP didn't mention their focus at all, so this is a moot point. Additionally, US academic ecosystem is a part (subset) of the global one, so I believe that alone makes the answer relevant. Finally, the answer can serve as a direction in searching for relevant non-US classification frameworks, which, I hope, makes it additionally relevant and valuable.

Since this seems to be accepted as an answer, it means indeed that the OP meant to ask only about the USA, so I changed accordingly the title. Also, your answer didn't reserve itself to the USA. Perhaps you can add that you are talking only about the USA.

@Dilworth I have mentioned that in my answer: "Also note that Carnegie Classification is focused on the academic ecosystem in the United States".

Thank you both for the discussion. I was actually referring to USA based institution only. Sorry, I had to clear myself in the question, which I did not do.

@Imran No problem. You're welcome.

I don't know if it includes a "tier" designation anywhere, but the Times Higher Education website has published rankings and there is a very handy search tool where you can sort universities based on the calibre of research they were evaluated to have. Another page discusses the methodology used to arrive at these rankings, and Wikipedia also lists criteria used.
This isn't a perfect list of Tiers, but it should be a good place to start when searching for universities conducting quality research.

I don't have a quick and easy answer for you, but I'd like to point something out that might help-
There are general tiers, and then tiers for a specific field. For example, you can google a list of the top 50 schools for Computer Science.
Some also happen to be top universities like Stanford, MIT, etc. But not all.
So if you do have an area of study in mind, I'd try searching google for that.
I hope this helps a bit!

Note, however, that every ranking website will give you different results, sometimes a top 20 university on one site is not even top 100 on another one, as they have other criteria (which they don't publish, of course...). If you then start to only look at certain fields, things can differ even further.

For world university ranking, I can suggest Academic Ranking of World Universities, it is based on scientific method.
Another one that uses my university is enter link description hereQS ranking
and as mention above  Times Higher Education website and Wikipedia pages on the Quality rank of university.
Also, this may be unpopular opinion since members of this website tend to attack RG, but I would also take a look at ranking and points of universities, departments, faculties and research groups that are available via ReserchGate website.
Why I think RG is helpful metric because it can visualise collaboration and impact of publication and research teams.

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Importance of the current postdoc advisor's letter in TT job search
I have strong publication record in my Ph.D. and 1st Postdoc that went for two years. Got 4 TT interview calls before last year.. but not successful in any. Last year did not apply, but this year, after fixing a few shortcomings noticed in my previous interviews, started the search again. In the meantime I published a couple of top journals as the corresponding author. However, I am not in harmonious professional relation with the present postdoc advisor. I am working for a little over one year in this position but did not yield any journal publication. I am sure that this advisor's reference will have negative impact on my search, if at all he agrees to write one. The only best way for me is avoid this advisor's letter, since I can arrange the required number of good letters from my previous affiliations. If I proceed with out my present advisor's reference, will it have any bearing on my chances? Expecting some suggestions from the people having experience in search committees.

It might have a bearing on your chances, but your strategy still seems the best one given the situation.

If you'd been in this postdoc a bit longer it might be a red flag. But you've barely broken a year when the other postdoc was 2 years. I would just assume the Ph.D. advisor, 1st postdoc advisor, and long-time collaborator knew you better. If you'd been in this postdoc 2 years, I'd wonder why a letter didn't come from them.

In my view, strong letters are extremely important. You certainly don't want any letters from people interested in sabotaging you in any way. Even poorly written letters can be a setback. So can letters written by non-native speakers who may not grok the nuances of certain phrases.
There is the concept of Damning with Faint Praise that can be absolutely deadly in a letter. It can be intentional or not, actually.
Get letters from people who know your potential and are willing to speak for it. They need to know about your past work, of course, but people will be looking for potential and how it relates to a particular position.
If you have any doubts about what a person might say, ask them about it, or go elsewhere. In certain situations (non-native speakers, say) you might even request that a letter writer check their letter with a neutral third party, such as a department head. This would have saved me tremendous grief long ago.

Thank you for the suggestion. I can get strong letters from my previous advisors and the other known Profs. Since I am working with the present advisor currently, is it okay to apply without this advisor's letter? How should I defend if it is questioned in the interview?

If a letter from your current advisor will harm your search, you must apply without a letter from your current advisor.  Will that omission have an effect?  Of course!  But the effect of a negative or weak letter is far worse.

I am not sure at all there will be any effect for this omission. If the OP has good three other references, possibly big names, etc. there is nothing wrong in not asking for a specific person for a letter.

"This would have saved me tremendous grief long ago." Is that a story you can share?

@darijgrinberg, I had a great advisor who wrote me a great letter if you knew how he meant it. Unfortunately he was Czech (not a native English speaker) and a classically educated mathematician. His description of my essential knowledge (classical real analysis) made it sound like all I knew was Calculus. Of course, both of us knew what he meant, but it was years before another faculty member reviewed that letter and saw the implication. Moreover it was a difficult time to get an academic job in math (70's).

@Buffy: Ah, the classical European humility plus the non-existent separation between calculus and analysis outside of the US :)

@darijgrinberg, yes, we (folks like myself and my now, sadly  deceased, advisor) think of Calculus very broadly while many think of it as a first year course (or even one for secondary school). The man was honored posthumously by Charles University, though he had left (escaped) Czechoslovakia many years before. (Before it was the Czech Republic, of course). He went out the Western border while the Russians came in the Eastern in one of the iterations of invasion and domination.

There is no problem in asking other people than your postdoc host to provide letters for you. It is you who decide who to ask, and recruitment committees will probably not even notice, nor will care whether your postdoc host is missing (unless there exists a special relation between a committee member and the host, in which case you can still not ask the host for a letter).

I recommend having someone from your current institution write a letter showing that you are good to work with.
I have served on several search committees. I read letters not for information on research productivity (which is better shown in the CV) but for indications of how the candidate would be as a co-worker. I do not want to hire a jerk.
For someone in your situation, I would notice that you did not have a current reference and I would be concerned that you might be a jerk. If a co-worker, preferably someone who is more senior than you, can speak to what it is like to work with you and perhaps even show that your advisor is the problem, that letter would make me much less concerned.

Interesting. However I disagree that a common recruitment committee would care who the references are not. Obviously, if the OP has three references from e.g. world leaders and his PhD advisor, then it is not necessary to ask more people to chip in (as most job postings ask for three letters at most).


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How to deal with advisor writing a thesis chapter for you?
How would you respond if an advisor writes a chapter of your thesis for you and asks you to rewrite what they wrote? Something seems wrong but I can't pinpoint it. It seems like a grey area. What are the potential plagiarism implications if I do this? And how can a student rewrite it any better than what someone with so much experience has written?
What would be an ethical and courteous way to respond? If there are any other sources or places you think I might be able to find more information or help from about this, I would like to hear that too.

More detail is needed. Why does the advisor want to do this? Is it just a matter of being a more natural writer in the language of choice? Whose work is it (the underlying research)? Who gets credit?

@Buffy I'm not sure why the advisor wants to do this. I don't think it's being a more natural writer, but they are much more knowledgeable about the topic than me. I don't know how it works in research and so am unsure about whose work it is: I did the work but the idea is from the advisor and they have been assisting. Does that still make the underlying research my own work? I am the one being assessed for my own thesis so I would be receiving the credit.

What level thesis is this? Undergrad? Masters? Doctoral?

@Buffy Undergrad

And, is it the crux chapter or just "fill in" information to make it more complete? I don't know if I have an answer. I can imagine a benign scenario or one that is not so good, but I'm hoping it is more toward the former than the latter.

In an ideal world, you would ask the advisor why, and ask them what are the consequences. Maybe you can do that.

Maybe the idea is that it's a sample of how to write - it might be a didactic trick to teach a student who does not know how to write, how to do so. After all, they ask the student to rewrite it, and the other chapters need to be written, too. I am hesitant to judge before I have the whole picture.

@Buffy, It's the crux of the chapter. I think there is room for me to add some "fill in" information.

@CaptainEmacs That may be a reason. I am not familiar with writing thesis chapters yet and what they wrote seems like a good sample.

@Buffy I asked. They said it's for learning purposes that they did that and that it's ok for me to do so. But it just doesn't sit right. I'm not sure if I can ask them about the consequences.

What discipline is this? I imagine this could be a very different case depending on the discipline. If it's a discipline where writing mostly involves reporting results of research, and you've done the research and gotten the results, then I see this as being a possibly valid pedagogical approach. But in other disciplines, where writing is more integral to the research itself (humanities disciplines, for example), I'd be more inclined to think this was either really poor pedagogy or even unethical.

Forget issue as plagiarism. It can mean various things. Some acceptable some not. Some related to ethics but just marginally. I've personally upvoted Spark answer. I could extend that answer, but all boils down to your relationship with the supervisor. Ideally, there should be a discussion. I can also imagine desperate cases in which at the end the supervisor has no choice but to write. I personally think that a undergraduate thesis is anyway interpreted as a product of the student and the supervisor.

@transitionsynthesis It's a discipline that mostly involves reporting results of research, which I guess makes it more of a pedagogical approach

A few possible reasons:

The advisor is not very experienced with advising students and is not clear on what they are supposed to do.
The advisor intends to publish the thesis with the student and is therefore interested in ensuring that the specific chapter is properly written.
The advisor is not confident in the student’s ability to correctly formulate certain ideas.

What can the student do? Ask the advisor politely to lead the writing of the thesis, write a first draft that they can later review. If the advisor insists, I suggest letting it go. It’s one chapter and is not a very big deal if it is indeed an undergraduate thesis. Helping students write is not unethical unless the student is really not leading the project. However in that case I fail to see why the advisor would take the thesis writing as their own project...

@[Spark] For an undergraduate thesis, what does it look like if the student is leading the project? I'm not sure, maybe I am not leading it? I don't know how much advice an advisor should give to new students because doesn't the student first have to learn the ropes first? My advisor gave me many things to do and there wasn't much chance for me to go my own way yet.

One rule of thumb would be - can you confidently explain every idea that you present in the thesis to a professional audience? I don’t think you need to necessarily come up with all of the ideas but you should absolutely know in detail what’s happening

@[Spark] Thank you for the rule of thumb. Yes, in that case, I think I can explain it to a professional audience.

For PhD students: If the advisor conducts the research, the student must not submit that research as part of their thesis.  If the advisor did the research, it does not matter who did the writing: for the student to include it in their PhD thesis would be plagiarism if unattributed or, if attributed, fail to meet the standard required for a PhD.  A PhD student in this situation should respond by expressing a desire to demonstrate their ability to work independently.
If it is not a PhD thesis but at a lower level, it might be okay for a student to write about someone else's research if proper attribution is given.
If the student did the research but the advisor wrote it up, this is not ideal.  However, in some disciplines it may be considered acceptable for an advisor to give extensive writing assistance to PhD students.

And how can a student rewrite it any better than what someone with so much experience has written?

Probably the goal is to rewrite it to be in your own words, not to rewrite it to be better.
I would suggest outlining the writing, and then changing the structure of the outline.  Check the new structure with your advisor to make sure it is acceptable.  Then rewrite according to the outline.

I guess I missed the "undergraduate" tag.

@[Anonymous Physicist] How might proper attribution be given in this case? Do I write a sentence at the beginning of the chapter? Thank you, that's a good way to think about the goal of rewriting, like writing my own notes from reading.

Ask your advisor.

@[Anonymous Physicist] Ok, thank you I guess they might know better.


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What should I do if a Professor yells at me and a fellow student in class?
So I'm taking a storyboarding class at my college and we have a big project coming up. I've been working on it a lot and talked about the story with my professor and he seemed to really enjoy it. We're on week two of working on it and I've finished my treatment and have been working on the storyboards digitally at home. When I went to class, my friend who gets sick often was there (a rare occurrence even though she tries her hardest) and we chatted a bit at the beginning of class. The professor handed out a list of shots we should use in our story if we wanted. As I already had my shot list at home with my storyboards, I decided to help my friend since she didn't completely know what to do.
I was helping her develop her story and we decided to watch some videos on my computer for inspiration. The project theme was "Escape" so we were watching escape scenes from movies. The professor notices and comes over and I make a joke about how we're watching one of the best scenes in film history (it was a scene from Shrek with the princesses). He tells me to stop the video so I do, but at this point I can't tell if he's joking or not. I stop the video and he tells me to turn it off so I exit full screen and close the video. He then proceeds to ask me a question I don't hear (tight fitting mask plus my anxiety making my blood pound made it hard to hear). I ask him to repeat his question and he gets mad. He then asks me what the video has to do with my story and if I'm using it for my shot list. I explain to him, no, I'm helping my friend since I'm pretty much done with my project. Then he asks me something else, this time I didn't understand him at all and my anxiety was through the roof. The class by now is dead silent. I ask him to repeat his question and he takes my handout of shots he gave us earlier and rips it in half. He asked me what about the shots we talked about last week. This still confuses me because we didn't discuss shots. I told him about my story and that was it. He then asked how long we've been working on this project. I say "around two weeks" he said it's been longer than that (it really hasn't). Then he tells me if I don't tell him what shots I have I get a zero in class for the day. I said that I have my shot list at home but I can gladly go through the script with him and tell him what I remember I wrote down for that scene. He gets mad and rips the paper in half again.
At this point, he turns to another student and makes him read what he has so far for a shot list. Then other students. By now, my friend has gone to the bathroom because she started crying. She can't handle being yelled at.However, the teacher keeps going. One class member has less than I do, but he tells them good job. I keep working silently and decide to just copy down what I have on my computer at home onto my notebook so he won't blow a gasket again. I felt humiliated and angry, and I don't know what to do about it. My brother says I should go talk to the head of the department but I don't know if that's appropriate to do in this situation.
TL;DR: I was helping my friend in class and my professor thought I had done zero work, embarrassed me and my friend, yelled at us, threatened me with a 0, then humiliated me by using my classmates as "examples"

What would you like to accomplish? Your question is very long and with no paragraphs it is very difficult to read. There is lots of unneeded information that has no relevance, like the theme of the project, Shrek, etc. Can you stick to the key details and organize a bit to improve the readability?

Shrek themed projects are a pretty big deal, +1 for important context.

This professor has behaved in a completely unprofessional way that could be extremely triggering especially to students in the class who have experienced physical and emotional trauma in their personal lives. Your friend literally fleeing the classroom to escape the emotional abuse of the moment is a perfect example of someone who was massively triggered by this awful exhibition.
The fact is that time is up on this type of behavior in the modern era, and you don't have to tolerate it. I would lodge a formal complaint with the university, explaining that the professor shouted, ripped up papers, and belittled you in front of the class. Clearly, he was "having a day" and couldn't handle the fact that (in his estimation) you were being disruptive and not staying on task. However, it is part of a professor's job to stay calm and grounded even when students exhibit behavior they find challenging. This needs addressing and luckily there are channels to do so.

I recommend following up with the professor himself. Ideally by asking for an appointment (and feel free to bring someone with you if you're uncomfortable going alone), but e-mail will do in a pinch. You should (1) concisely and clearly explain what happened (much more concisely and clearly than you did above), and (2) state that you found his reaction in class to be humiliating and unnecessary, and you would like to request that he not do anything like that again.
I also recommend being polite and avoiding accusatory language; the goal is to smooth over a misunderstanding, not to assign fault. Hopefully, this will lead to a friendly conversation, and he will take the lead in acknowledging that he misjudged the situation and his reaction was inappropriate. Sadly, I cannot guarantee this; he may entrench himself further into an adversarial position. In the latter case, it would not be inappropriate to discuss the situation with the department chair or another trusted professor; however, I do not think that doing so is terribly likely to lead to a more favorable outcome.

Tearing up a piece of paper is a fairly aggressive act. If the professor had humiliated OP in a way that could plausibly be explained by a misunderstanding, I might agree with your suggestion, but in this case I think it would be appropriate to go straight to the department chair without attempting to confront the professor first.

I definitely see where you're coming from, and I agree that discussing directly with the department chair might not be inappropriate. But I stand by my answer; I think attempting to discuss with the professor directly before escalating is the right thing to do. You should consider posting a separate answer with your alternative approach, though.


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Will ResearchGate eventually find and create links to my publications?
I have many publications in my profile that I had to add manually, but ResearchGate seems not to recognize any of them sufficiently to create links to the online full text (and other info) that is readily available for all of them (Google Scholar, for example has links to every one of them).
Will ResearchGate eventually find and connect these publications? (Is adding this information manually myself the only option?)

ResearchGate does not support this feature, and has no current plans to do so.
The only way to attach information to publications that ResearchGate must be added manually (because ResearchGate fails to find them) is to add that information manually for each publication as well.

ResearchGate will try to suggest papers that closely relates to your name provided. It will mostly suggest papers whose details are in its own repository (and probably some others). It does not have an effective crawler like Google Scholar.
I would consider adding them manually to be the better option.

Adding manually is not practical. So RG is a dead end for publications it doesn't already have in its own repository then? I guess I'm unclear on why anyone would use RG (say, over Google Scholar): it seems to rely on people doing all the work of posting all of the details of each of their own publications.

@raxacoricofallapatorius. Well, kind of. I just update my publication in RG each time it is published. RG is just an additional exposure.  Furthermore, it provides additional reviews and comments for the publication that Google Scholar doesn't support. It not like it is to be used over Google Scholar, but alongside it.

@raxa Why is adding publications manually not practical? You can use DOIs and a few other things to speed up the data entry aspects.

@JeromyAnglim Precisely

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


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Finding all communication related to any research paper
Is there any resource (blog or website) where one can find all communication related to any published scientific paper? For example I found some advise on how to write a "rebuttal letters" but not a "real life" rebuttal letter. Same is true for cover letter or reviewers comment. Is there any open-access journal which make everything public (or any researcher have done so)?

Are you working at some institution? Don't you have access to the respective communication of other researchers within your department, or can you ask them to send you some examples from their earlier publications?

Try having a look at the various Copernicus/EGU titles - all reviewers notes and responses are public. This won't cover other correspondence with the editor but the reviews & responses are the major element.

It might highly depend on your field of research... But here is a list of tools / resources that can help you track all the documents associated with a paper:

Altmetrics track all the online activity associated with a published paper, including Twitter, Facebook or blog posts. Exemple here
Pubpeer is a platform for post-reviewing about any published papers
Exemple of open access journals that include the reviews with the publications: eLife , Frontiers

I hope it helps!

Your best bet, oddly, might be to guest-edit a journal issue. Canvass your acquaintances for journal editors who might appreciate an apprentice.
You'll also see some of the correspondence just by peer-reviewing, but editing will give you access to the entire process.


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In journals submissions, what does "Confirmation of Intent" mean?
I am planning to submit a manuscript for a special issue in a journal. The guest editor puts a deadline for Confirmation of Intent. What does this mean? What the editor expects from the authors at this level? are there any samples of such thing?

The editor wants to know how many people are submitting for the special issue.  All you need to do is say you'll be submitting, and perhaps the approximate length.

As @vadim123 said in the comment, this is to estimate the size of the special issue. If it were too small, the journal may decide to:

make a very small special issue;
join special issues from two conferences into one;
cancel the special issue and propose acceptance of the paper through a standard process.

If the special issue is too large, they would typically make it into a supplement.
What should you do? Reply yes or no for your participation in the special issue, and if yes, then the estimated length, like: "We'll provide the full proofs while in the 10-page extended abstract there were obly sketches, it'll be circa 20 pages long." If they wanted more information, they would have asked for it explicitly.


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Is it acceptable for authors of papers in a special issue of a journal to review each others' papers?
A journal publishes a special issue on a controversial area of research studied by a rather limited community of researchers.  Would it be acceptable for the editor of the journal to use the authors of the papers comprising the special issue as the pool of reviewers, so that each paper is (anonymously) reviewed by two of the authors of the other papers ?  Would this constitute a conflict of interest, given that all of the authors will be receptive to other papers supporting this line of research?
Edit: The editor also works on this topic, and it is an area with some controversy.  Should the editor include scientists who have published papers critical of this topic in the pool of reviewers, even if he personally doesn't agree with the criticism?

In general I would say it would be very poor judgement to use only authors from the special issue as reviewers. But, if the theme is such that they would constitute the best choice for reviewers it might be difficult to avoid. The best way, in my opinion, to try to circumvent the problem is to use one reviewer from the group and one external. this way it is possible for an editor to identify issues.
One problem with the scenario you paint is that it seems you suggest the editor is more trustworthy than the authors, or conversely that authors would be worse than the editor. Although I am sure some special issues may suffer from problems such as those you describe, most scientists, editors and journals want high quality work, not sloppy work and so the process is to some extent self-correcting.
In terms of publishing, the term conflict of interest is usually not considered other than in situations where, for example, an author has received help from a person who later is requested to be a reviewer or where the author feels that a certain person will not provide a fair assessment of the work. Usually such conflicts will be flagged by the people involved since the editor is in no way positioned to know about all such potential problems. It is thus not difficult to trick the system but uncritical reviews are usually quite easy to see through.

+1 the "one from the group and one external" seems a sensible suggestion.


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To stick or to switch topics
I'm currently starting my PhD and I'm contemplating whether I should stay with my current advisor and topic or switch before its too late.
Current subfield

The recent work in this subfield has been very cool and my advisor's strong track record in this area was what attracted me to his lab.
I don't have much of a background in this field. I feel like I'm struggling when I do research in this field, and I'm not sure how effective I would be if I went into this long term. (I don't think I'm playing to my strengths if I entered this subfield).
I have heard from others that academic job prospects in this subfield are lower than other areas.

Other subfields

I feel more comfortable with other subfields and I think I would be playing more toward my strengths even in certain other subfields where I have less of a background.
The labs in other subfields are more popular amongst grad students, and I suspect each student gets less attention than they would with my current advisor.

Any advice on whether to stay and switch? Is it best to wait and switch, or switch ASAP.

They say a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.  Meaning, scope out possible projects/advisors before burning your bridges.  Really, it is very difficult to weigh the options here, because one of your options (change subfield) is totally at the fantasy stage right now.  Well, a fantasy is a starting point -- now try to flesh it out and build it into an actual option to weigh!

Let me react to some specific comments
I don't have much of a background in this field. I feel like I'm struggling when I do research in this field, and I'm not sure how effective I would be if I went into this long term. (I don't think I'm playing to my strengths if I entered this subfield).
If you're just starting your Phd, I'd be surprised if you were an expert in the field, no offense. There is much to learn, and most early grad students - good and bad - feel they're struggling. The important question is are you struggling because it's complicated (good!) or because you don't care about the topic (bad!). If the latter, consider switching.
I feel more comfortable with other subfields and I think I would be playing more toward my strengths even in certain other subfields where I have less of a background.
One's comfort zone is seldom where significant progress is made. Again, if it's an interest issue, consider changing, but if you just feel overwhelmed by a new research area, consider embracing it - you will learn a lot. Moreover, perhaps you can bring your 'other sub fields' strengths to bear on your current subfield. Some of the best students I've known have used analyses and thought processes foreign to their immediate field.
The labs in other subfields are more popular amongst grad students, and I suspect each student gets less attention than they would with my current advisor.
Any advice on whether to stay and switch? Is it best to wait and switch, or switch ASAP.
If you're set on switching, do it asap. Just make sure your motivation is sound. You want to be able to stand out, for sure, but every field is going to have difficulties. It's a Phd.  If it were easy, everyone would have one.

Good answer.  (I upvoted it.)  I found this statement to be curious: "One's comfort zone is seldom where significant progress is made." I think that's true only in the sense that significant progress requires significant effort.  But the OP means that he is more comfortable with certain material/subjects than others.  I certainly think that most of the time, significant progress is made by people who are strongest / most comfortable / most expert in that particular subfield.

The best advice is to select a topic based on your knowledge, backgrounds and your interest.
Do not rely strongly on your advisor expert, because this is your thesis, not his(her) duty.


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Theoretical paper without implementation and results
I got an idea for a research paper in the field of Computer Science, the topic related was about computer networks. At the beginning, I was working with a colleague who had a lot of background in programming networks protocols, but the problem was that due to some other tasks of him he had to left the project.
Now the problem is that I do not have anybody with the programming networks skills enough to continue with this research, so I decided to turn it into a theoretical paper; like the ones that are presented in other fields like math.
I would like to know, in a bird's eye, what should I include so that my research would be considered and not rejected because it is missing the experimental part. I have based my article in theoretical parts of CS such as graph theory and so on.
Any advice?

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it's not about academia generally, but about a specific concept in computer science. It might be better suited to the [CS.SE] Stack Exchange site.

@Bill: I respectfully disagree with the close vote.  The OP's question is about the academic process.  It is not about a specific concept in CS: in fact, she hasn't mentioned any specific concepts in CS but only made brief, broad allusions.

Related: Which articles don't need experimental results?

There is an academic field called theoretical computer science (TCS), which lies at the border of math and CS.  There are lots of venues for work in this area.  However the motto for TCS is certainly not "We couldn't do the implementation, so we decided to make it theoretical"!  I am by no means an expert in TCS (I know just a little more than absolute zero), but I don't think that computer networks is a key TCS topic: it sounds more applied than that.  (I just checked this wikipedia article, which seems to largely support my position.  Obviously an expert opinion would be better here.)
My advice to you is to find someone else to help you with the implementation / experimental part so that you can carry out your research along the lines you originally envisaged and not theoretically-as-a-consolation-prize.  How can you do this?  You could (try the things at the top of the list first):

Ask people in your department.  Even if they do not have the skills themselves, there are more of them than you so the chances they know someone who does will increase.
Ask about it on the internet, including various SE sites.
Attend relevant conferences and seek out people with this expertise.
Visit another department and/or a specific person whom you think can help.
Write up a preliminary version of your work which only does the theoretical part and makes clear that you are looking for someone to help with the implementation.  Post this work on your webpage / the arxiv / some (presumably not top tier) conference.

As someone who sits between theory and practice of computer networks research, it is hard to advice what you need to do without the specific topic.  I suggest that you model the fundamental problem mathematically, and then evaluate the problem analytically as well as conduct some numerical studies.  This still requires some 'implementation', but it is no longer packet-based simulations per-se.  I would also look at papers from IEEE INFOCOM or IEEE Trans. on Networking or Elsevier Computer Networks -- these journals tend to carry more 'theoretical' papers.  Quite often, they apply tools/concepts from TCS.   Hopefully, these papers give you some ideas the level of theory and implementation that you need to present.  Note, in general, you need to have a feel of the expectation of a given community.  Some venues reject a paper without any actual implementation whilst others will drop a paper if there are no proofs in sight.


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How can I compile a study material of a course in this case?
Last year I was appointed to lecture a Data Structures course in a university in my hometown. The material for making my notes were based on several books, articles and also some material from Coursera in the cases that I needed to simplify some material or needed some exercises.
The notes included a final set of references at which the student could look after, like books, articles or urls of some online courses that I found interesting and from where I based my lecture notes.
This year the Dean of my Faculty has told me to convert all that study material into a book that could serve as a guide for the new students. The question that I have is if this would be really necessary? I mean it is not enough that the students could check up the material on this course based on the primary authors in which I based my set of notes? I bet to have a look in the original source would be far way better for the student than just considering the set of notes that I made.
What suggestions do you have to convert this study material into a small book for the students who would take this course?

I suppose you are obliged to prepare what some may recall as a minimum learning material. It is what a student might need to get the a broad knowledge of the subject before s/he is to delve into the details.
If you are concerned that the original source ought to be referred due to its importance, then you might include this sentence...

The provided study material is by no means a complete replacement to the prescribed textbooks/sources on the subject.

...somewhere in the beginning of the material, such as the preface section. It what I usually do when compiling such notes.


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Transitioning between two advisors who work in the same department
A PhD student has been working with Prof A. However, after a year, the student decided that he doesn't like the field and wants to change his advisor to Prof B, who works in the same department with Prof A.
Would there be any potential adverse effects on relationships if the student changes PhD advisor from Prof A to Prof B within same department, especially when the student has strong previous connections with Prof B?
Can Prof A advise Prof B not to take the student in such a case? Has anybody experienced cases like these and what the results were?
Assume Prof A is tenured and Prof B is not .and Prof A was against co advising from beginning.

http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/17791/what-is-the-best-way-to-deal-with-two-advisors-when-one-of-them-doesnt-like-co

It depends on the personalities of the professors involved and in how the student handles the switch. If they really are working in two distinct fields, and if that is the real motivation of the student for switching, most likely there will be no issue.

It really depends on the reason between the switch.

Changing fields: If changing fields in the only reason for the switch, then there would be no particular adverse effect to this problem.
Discomfort with old supervisor: This would be a different story, if the professors A and B of the department is close enough, then you might see a direct influence of opinions. It should be up to you to figure these out when making the switch. This post should help you in this case: How to find a new PhD advisor if relationship with current advisor is not working out?


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Moving from a R2 university to a R1 university
I am currently negotiating a TT position with a R2 university. This is my first faculty job offer after 4 years of postdoc experience in ecology and biogeochemistry related area. My long-term goal is to land a TT position in a tier 1 and/or R1 university. To that end, is there any pros or con that I should know before signing the contract with a R2 university. Does this count against you if you are trying to apply for a R1 university after you served as a TT faculty in a R2 university?

"My long-term goal is to land a TT position in a tier 1 and/or R1 university."  Why?

Because I enjoy research more than teaching and want to have the hard money funding in my bucket too.

Could this question be edited to make it more accessible to international readers? I have no idea why "TT" is, and readers outside the US may not know what "R1" and "R2" is.

Who can say how individuals would react, but I would find it preposterous if anyone counted it against you. Of course, the competition for such faculty positions is very fierce, so make sure that you build a record of accomplishment in your first job and build a strong "stable" of collaborators.
The difference between a given R1 and a given R2 can be quite small, and not consistent across fields. Do the best you can and you will be more likely to have the best career you can have. It is more up to you than to somewhat arbitrary and subjective designations.
It may take a while to move up, of course. And don't give colleagues the impression that you are unhappy or that you think you are "below your station".

Thanks Buffy for your thoughtful suggestions. One quick question is that should I focus more on building accomplishment that is expected from R1 universities (e.g. number of publications per year). Also, should my experience as a TT faculty in R2 be valued (or counted) when I apply for R1 job later on?

Do good research. Write a lot of papers, Find collaborators. Depending on the field, go to a lot of conferences. Yes. All of that. If you move prior to tenure some of your time may be counted, or not, depending on a lot of things. Sometimes it is actually and advantage to set the clock back. Othertimes no. It depends on your record at that point. And note that there are at least a few people who disagree with my advice, given the voting. I'm assuming they think you can only go down, never up, but they haven't revealed any reasons.

Thank you both. I am curious how "it is advantageous to set the clock back". I also thought about doing another prestigious postdoc, but also took a few steps back thinking that it may not look good on your CV if you are a eternal glorious postdoc. Another reason is that postdocs are not eligible to serve as PI for most of the federal grants. I feel like I'm ready to lead federal grant proposals and for that, I need a platform with a faculty tag. I also felt the need to have one or two federal grants on my CV to be competitive for academic jobs in R1 universities. Is this making any sense?

Since a tenure decision is final for that institution, if you are "moving up" to one with higher standards, it may make sense to give yourself more time to publish those all important papers. But it highly depends on individual circumstances. Sometimes good, other times not. It depends on your record and your trajectory.

Makes sense, thanks for the explanation!


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I can't afford to pay for Statement of Purpose (SOP) proofread. What should I do?
Reliable SOP proofreading services are very costly, almost around $150-$200. I have written an SOP for my Ph.D. program in the USA, which is almost 1400 words, but I need to reduce it to 1000 words. Moreover, needs some proofreading as well. Is there any free or cheaper service (but reliable) available that can help to reduce the size and proofread my SOP? I don't want my professors to check my SOP since they don't know what the admissions committee in the USA (or other Western countries) really wants. Thank you.

When something so important is free, the value is zero. But you can try your luck with chatgpt, or fiverr.com to find a freelance with a lower rate.

"I don't want my professors to check my SOP since they don't know what the admissions committee in the USA (or other Western countries) really wants." What makes you think that the people who charge $150 for proofreading know more than your professors? If the logic is simply "they ask for money, so they must know what they are doing", this is false.

Sadly, if you are in the situation you indicate, that is, of needing someone else to ... "refine" ... ??? ... your SOP, you are already somewhat out-of-the-running. That is, if your genuine experience and qualifications are not up to expectations, making a personal statement fancier will not change anything.

For a basic check, either free version of Grammarly or ChatGPT can be of some help. Paying for one month of premium for these is relatively affordable, so you might want to try that too.
On the other hand, you write that your supervisor does not know what US universities want. Without any judging, you can always ask in the sense that your are more interested in grammar and typos. You can also disregard the possible suggestions on removals.
The combination of the two approaches could be significant already.

I agree with the other comment, that grammarly and  Chatgpt can certainly be helpful. However in my experience you would need the paid version for them to "reduce word counts" in any meaningful method that would still keep your words at heart and not lose meaning.
You could also try to do a run through again yourself. One thing that is sometimes helpful is to use the text to speech option in a word processor or similar. Then you can "hear" how it sounds. Sometimes this can be helpful to identify portions that don't make sense or don't need to be there.


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Can ibid. be used under the Harvard referencing style?
In other words, not the other styles (e.g. APA, Chicago, Oxford) that uses the author-date format but the plain (Australian?) Harvard style.

What does "used" mean? Where precisely? What is "Harvard style"? "APA/Chicago/Oxford" styles? I've written dozens of papers and never heard of these terms.

@Dilworth Those are all well known, writing style guidelines.

Certainly, it is not THAT well known... Indeed, these are not even writing styles, but referencing styles!

@Dilworth Please don't be pedantic: the question is quite clearly tagged with "citation-style".  Likewise, please remember that academia varies more than you may think.

@jakebeal, as I said, I've written dozens of papers and have never heard of these styles (perhaps only extremely vaguely I recall the term "Harvard style"), so I was not being pedantic at all, I truly think many readers will not have a clue what the question is about!

@jakebeal, please also note that your link supports my complaint: since academia varies a lot, what is evident to the OP is far from obvious for most readers.

@NajibIdrissi, Please note that I have already explained that as someone who published many papers, I should be more qualified on average than most users here to answer such questions, and still I have barely heard of these concepts. A reasonable question should explain the concepts it uses to the reader. Also, these questions are here for reference, not just for the use of the OP, making your first argument dubious.

From the examples at the University of the West of England:

Generally ibid. and op.cit. tend to be used more in the body text for the Harvard system, and more in the reference list for the numeric system, as you can see.

They also note:

There is no single authority that defines the 'Harvard' referencing style. Please seek guidance on the preferred scheme of referencing from your home institution or the journal in which your study will appear.

So I'm going to say yes, there is no reason as to why you couldn't use ibid with the Harvard citation style.


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Declined PhD offer, but now I regret it
Last summer, I was offered a Ph.D. position at a famous University, but unfortunately, while initially I accepted it, then I had to reject it due to significant family circumstances that I explained to my potential supervisor and they understood (at least that's how I understood).
Until last December (2021) the position had not been filled by another candidate (curious about this), and the position re-advertised the same month.
I contacted the supervisor, if could I apply again for this position, and they told me that of course I can, once again.
Do you believe that I have possibilities to acquire again the position or the behaviour that I showed will play a significant factor to reject me?
I'm so anxious about this, because ever since I wanted such a position, and the time that came, life circumstances did not permit it.
I would appreciate any response!
Thank you!

A very similar question with similar idiosyncratic writing style has been asked. Have you already asked this question here?

@AzorAhai-him- Are you referring to I rejected a PhD offer but now would like to accept it again?

@shoover That might have been it

They've already told you you can apply, so of course you can apply. If they were going to reject you they'd presumably tell you not to apply to both save your time and theirs.
On the other hand, you'll need to compete against this year's prospective PhD students. Maybe a particularly outstanding student applied this year. There's no guarantee you'll be accepted.
Good luck.

Re-apply and see what happens.

[will] the behaviour that I showed will play a significant factor to reject me? I'm so anxious about this

With respect - I believe this is more of the issue. Academia can be very anxiety-inducing (as many questions here on the site indicate). You need to think about ways to relieve stress, and deal with the fear of being categorized as inadequate, unworthy etc. - which, based on what you've told us, you really aren't!
See also:
How to effectively deal with Imposter Syndrome and feelings of inadequacy: "I've somehow convinced everyone that I'm actually good at this"


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What sets "top" universities apart from "mediocre" universities in continental europe?
Every year rankings are published that list Oxford, Stanford and the like at the top, while many(most?) universities in continental europe share ranks well beyond 100. I myself am a Phd student at a technical university in Austria that is ranked somewhere beyond 300 and I don't quite understand what makes the difference.
Some things that occupy my mind:

Like my own many european universities are free to enroll, which means a lot of candidates and also unfortunately many drop-outs (especially in STEM), which affects the score negatively as I understand. I assume that top-universities, that rely heavily on expensive enrollment fees, take more action to keep their students. Am I correct in this assumption?
Do top universites have simply more money to make better research?
Are the people there actually much smarter? Is there a different mindset that leads to more/better research? A fellow student of mine who spent some time in the USA told me that the people there are not "more knowledgeable" than us here in our bad university but I don't know which university it was.

We do have a lot of satisfied business partners here so I don't think our research is "bad". On the other hand my kinsmen always say "those rankings are arbitrary bullshit anyway", and Austrians like to sugarcoat reality a lot. We often hear some self-praise about how our institutions are well regarded but then there are those rankings, wich makes me very doubtful.
I've only ever seen this small academic world of mine as I never had the chance to study abroad because of my family so I am hoping that someone who knows both sides can shed some light. Am I missing a chance to become so much more than I currently am because I'm at the wrong university?

Relevant: Why do Russian and Israeli universities score low in various world rankings?, particularly this answer about Austria.

Huh, that does kinda answer my question. If anyone has some insight experience to compare the systems even deeper I would still be glad however!

To my personal experience rankings and the prestige of universities and instructions among researchers are different things. This is discussed in its many aspects & facets here and in the linked question. But to exaggerate and be clear, ranking might include if an university has sport facilities.

I think your question is literally answered by the formula that the rankings use. Have you looked at the criteria, how they are measured, and how they enter in the final score?

To be honest, I don't much like the idea that some people suggest there are "mediocre" universities. Good research can be done just about anywhere in many fields. Caveat: Some fields require funding beyond what is available at other than the biggest, richest, universities.
But there are several things that go into the rankings. I suspect that most of them are cumulative in some way. A lot of great research gets done at Oxbridge because of its size and history and attractiveness to scholars (and funders). Other schools don't have the same features. But the ranking is due as much to the quantity of good research as to the quality, as the quality can be good anywhere, but the resources available don't support as much of it.
A larger university has an advantage since it can more easily support working groups that can collectively produce great research. A smaller place leaves its faculty more isolated (less true today than historically - but history is part of this) with less opportunity for sharing and synergy.
Some of it is just luck over time. Good faculty attract good faculty. Researchers attract researchers. An older university, if well managed, has an advantage over a newer one. It takes time to build reputation. The magnetic attraction of a good place increases over time. Harvard University, like most others, had a modest beginning. Its founders would be unlikely to recognize what it has become. Certainly its mission is quite different than it was originally.
A good reputation attracts students. Often it attracts far too many students. This lets such a place choose really good students who wind up having really good careers, adding to that reputation. And for some of those graduates it means wealth and for some of those, contributions back to their university. Harvard graduates tend to be pretty smart. But they were already judged to be pretty smart before they went to Harvard. Ubiquitous? Maybe.
Resources matter a lot. Especially today, with a more mobile pool of researchers than was possible in the past. For example, Europe is largely without borders and the links between Europe and the Americas are strong. So people can go where there are other compatible people (and good funding). So reputation tends to build on reputation.
But not every brilliant researcher or teacher wants to put up with the constant pressure of a "top" university, so it is possible to find that brilliance spread out. Just because you happen to be at an R2 or a teaching college doesn't make you mediocre. It can make you sane, actually. Hence my objection to the "mediocre" characterization.

The ranking quite often depends in the university's attitude. All ranking are done by metrics and you can (and some universities often do) game the system. One example I remember is that one of those metrics, supposedly, had library working hours as a criteria and a university decided to keep a working hall open 24 hours just to register as if the library were open 24 hours.
If a university cares about its rating then they might try to increase their rating. But you must understand that everything has a cost and name of the game is cost analysis. Some required changes might cost a lot and even can be counter productive. Impacting both teaching and research. From what I see, European institutions care more about their national (or within EU) image rather than some arbitrary metric. I certainly have seen some universities in a country ranking higher than some of the elite universities of that country. Still it does not make a single difference. 99% of the candidates still regard the elite colleges higher and society deems graduates from these elite universities much higher.
What I suspect dictates the general phonemea is that American public (or at least candidate students) value these metrics. Furthermore it seems these metrics are often designed with focus to the American system. As of 2020, in THE rankings, India does not have a single university in top 300. This is a country of 1.3 billion. I would be suprised if they didn't have a single university that is worth a top 300.

I don’t think that university quality is proportional to the population of the country it’s located in at all - given India’s status as a developing nation, it doesn’t surprise me at all that their universities are poor quality.

Given that many Indians who graduate from Indian university excel in many major universities in the US for instance, such as MIT, Princeton and Stanford, it is impossible that Indian universities are so bad. It is evident that the rankings are simply false or fake as I demonstrated in my answer.

@dilworth there are, to my suprise as well, many reasons people turn back to their own country. I have seen many examples of it and sheer amount of people, who could be in a top tier institution, returning to their home country or never leaving it. Reasons vary, people are different, not all stay. However, stastistically speaking there would be some decent amount of really good students returning. For perspective, India has many more people than North America and Europe (continental) combined. They would statistically have at least the same amount of really smart people.

@BoatyMcboatface, thanks, but your comment is completely unrelated to mine. My comment was not about Indians returning to India. It was the opposite: I was demonstrating why some Indian universities must be good because many of their Indian graduates get top notch education that allows them to proceed to get higher education at international competitive institutions. (P.s. such success cannot be attributed to "smartness".) This proves again that rankings are fake.

The answer is possibly simple: university rankings are simply false, and some are allegedly fake.
University rankings produce false data (i.e., rankings) based on self-invented metrics that are dubious, and some are even speculated to fake their results.
Their falseness is two-fold:

The parameters they measure are invented and subjective, and  do not necessarily reflect inherent quality of any sort, or reflect personal preferences. E.g., "international outlook".
Assuming the parameters are accurately measured (and this is doubtful), the falseness of the rankings is in the use of the term "ranking". This term presupposes a linear (total) order on universities' "quality". There is no justification to assume such a linear ranking exists.

Their alleged fake-ness is:

University rankings are speculated (though I don't know if this is verified anywhere) to calibrate their data based on pre-conceived rankings. For instance, a ranking may calibrate its parameters ("play with them") in order to result in Oxford being number one. This is allegedly done for two reasons. The first being to convince the ones doing the ranking that their parameters are calibrated "correctly". Hence, resulting in a ranking that pre-supposes what they set out to find in the first place! Second, it is allegedly done in order to gain reliability and popularity in the public, by exploiting the pre-conception of e.g. Oxford as being number one.

Proof of falsehood:
Take any two rankings. You will see that many university, say 30%, rank completely differently in them. One being say 100 in ranking A and 250 in ranking B.
Possible indication of fake-ness:
Although universities that are less known may have extreme discrepancies between them exhibited in two different rankings, 90% of those universities that are perceived as top lack this discrepancies. Hence, Oxford would rank 1 in ranking A and say 3 in Ranking B. While lesser known university x would rank 100 in ranking A and 250 in ranking B.


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Cold emailing professors as a potential doctoral student 2024
I graduated with a B.Sc in Robotics and Mechatronics Engineering from the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. I am planning to apply for Ph.D. programs for the spring/fall 2024 intake. My research interests include in the application of 3D computer vision, Deep learning and deep reinforcement learning.
I've been emailing potential supervisors in the US for if they have any vacancies in their lab/research group for the past one month. So far, only three professors have replied, one of them gave a generic reply and the other two professors said they will not be taking new students next year.
Can anyone point out anything that I'm doing wrong? Or suggest me some better way with anything? Also feel free to roast my profile, my resume or anything you don't feel is right! Or anything else that might help me in improving my profile. I would really appreciate it
For your reference:
[Here's my personal website][1]
[Here's my resume][2]
[Here's a sample of the email I've sent][3]

Could you kindly redact (sanitise) your sample emails.

done, thank you

Sorry, i missed that, I redacted that too. I'm not really asking for evaluating my website/resume here. I just posted them in context so it might be easier for someone to advise me. Thank you for the feedback though

What you need to do is to take TOEFL/IELTS, maybe GRE, then apply for PhD programs for Fall, 2024. The profs will not offer you RA unless you're their student.

I am scheduled to take IELTS next week and GRE on the 18th of September

We have a number of relevant previous threads.

Let me say this. The profs have not seen your transcript, your ILTS score and recommendation letters, there is no way they will give you good reply regardless how well your e-mail is written. I think you should forget about the email, concentrate on the IELTS/GRE test right now.

VTC as if we took a question asking for evaluation of an individual's materials, it would seem that that is acceptable, which it is not. Also, I don't think "spring intake" is very common or exists at all.


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Figure of merit for scientific performance?
It is becoming increasingly important to keep track of performance, do scientists have a good figure of merit to measure their performance?

If anyone is down voting this question is constructive knowing, why?

One reason may be poor English which makes it difficult to understand your question.

I see your point. I tried to improve my question .

For a downvote, the criteria are "This question does not show any research effort; it is unclear or not useful". The original version was unclear. The edited version is slightly better, although "figure of merit" is still a bit confusing. That aside, there is also the matter of what effort you've already made to answer your own question before posting it here. That is currently lacking.

The lack of research to answer the question is because as you can seeing the answer below , it is unclear if there is a good indicator to measure scientific performance .

"The lack of research" is valid issue. Have you read about pros/cons of H-index? have you searched for "tenure hiring criteria"? there are many attempt at quantifying research performance.

There is no single measurable criteria by which one can easily evaluate the researcher performance.
Some quasi-efficient metrics include:

publications - but it is relatively easy to produce a large number of low-quality papers (salami slicing, guest authorship, incremental research, unnecessary duplication of studies, paid-for publications, etc)
publications in top-quality journals - better, but leads to massive bias towards well-funded groups and neglects good research from low-funded countries, individuals and research areas. Some very excellent researchers may decide not to go through peer-review system and publish their results only on preprint platforms like arXiv
publications and citations (e.g. h-index) - better, but can be manipulated through excessive publishing and self-citations

There are other metrics, but none is perfect. Generally speaking, research is about the study of unknown, and you can't put a good KPI for this sort of activity, because you can't reliably measure what you don't know.

Since this is an academic forum, the top of the heap, elite scientists measure their own performance through their students performance and success.
More generally, esp for non teaching academics, see Dmitry's answer.

The h-index is the most common metric, but as this article shows, it can have counterintuitive behavior. Therefore, there is no good KPI for scientific careers.

Welcome to Academia.SE. Please note that our format is Q&A; answers should ideally stand alone, or at least have minimal dependence on other answers. I've made some edits to try to achieve this while preserving your reference.


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Found mistakes in my PhD application research proposal after acceptance
I was recently going over my PhD application research proposal and to my horror I found a few mistakes that might constitute as plagiarism. Even though it is fully cited and even though it is common knowledge, there is half of a sentence of about 28 words that might be paraphrased too closely to the source. The kind of sentence it was was basically x is something that is y. I only added or changed two words for clarity. This was completely unintentional and I didn't realise it was so closely paraphrased to the source till I looked at the source again during a literature review.
I have already been accepted into the program and I feel terrible, like I have cheated my way in. I do have kind of a sense that I might be making a mountain out of a molehill but I can't help but feel like they're going to revoke my degree if it ever was discovered or even if they never do discover it, I feel fraudulent?
Can someone put my anxiety into perspective? They don't throw you out and take away your degree for a few sentences, right? Do I need to address this in some way with my advisor or the university? I definitely will be more careful in the future. I have booked an appointment with the counselling service at the university to see if they can help too.
Edit: In other instances, I found a two word phrase that probably should've been in quotes and forgot a page number.

Just so that someone says it: You're making a mountain out of a molehill. Nobody will be interested in 14 words close to the source. That's just not remotely enough to make a case.

How in the world did you become aware that some sentence of yours was "too close to the source"? Were you just cutting and pasting and then changing a few words? What the heck!?!  General advice: write your own sentences "out of your own head", and don't worry about whether someone else might have uttered the same sentence in the history of humankind.

I was looking at the source again when I was reviewing the literature. I don't ever copy and paste except for quotations but in this case it could look like I did. I guess I subconsciously kept most of the words because it was a relatively short sentence that was clear and to the point.

Some sentences or ways to phrase something simply get stuck in your head, and you'll write them down as if you just came up with them without noticing immediately that someone else or yourself already phrased it like that elsewhere. It happens. I wouldn't blow it out of proportion, since it was only one sentence. For future papers you can use plagiarism software to check your papers for (self-)plagiarism, however during the review process you'll make so many changes to your manuscript that any of such 'accidents' will likely be removed in the process.

there is a finite number of combinations within the acceptable set of synonyms  that you can use in a phrase. After millions of publications there is a reasonable probability of finding someone that used the same words you did to describe something, specially when you are writing introductory paragraphs with fundamental ideas.

It is difficult for me to tell (resulting in perhaps silly questions like this) because there is no hard and fast rule on how many words you are allowed to borrow and whether generic phrases like "the modern US judiciary" or "World War 2" will count in the number of words you are taking from the source.

You are fundamentally misunderstanding what plagiarism is if you think it has to do with "how many words you are allowed to borrow" and counting "the number of words you are taking from the source". Setting the special case of self-plagiarism aside, plagiarism is using someone else's work without giving them proper credit. Plagiarism is not "the edit distance between a substring of my text of length at least 36 characters and a substring of some other text is smaller than 17" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edit_distance).

But isn't plagiarism about the words just as it is about the ideas? I am specifically concerned about this type of plagiarism. https://poorvucenter.yale.edu/Turnitin-too-close-paraphrase where you can have everything perfectly cited and still be in trouble.

Sure, one way of using someone else's work without giving them proper credit is if you take their writing and copy-paste it (perhaps with minor modifications) without attribution. My point is that plagiarism is about what you did or did not do, not about the distance between a sequence of words in your text and a sequence of words in some other text. "There is a sentence in my text that coincides with a sentence in some other text" is not plagiarism. "I copied a sentence into my text from another text without attribution" may be an instance of plagiarism (but probably a very minor one).

You seem to misunderstand plagiarism and maybe confuse it with copyright as many do. Paraphrasing, whether done closely or not isn't a guard against plagiarism. Only citation is. And if you have cited the source and then paraphrased it you aren't guilty of plagiarism.
However, copying, even with citation, can be copyright infringement and even paraphrasing may not be an absolute guard against that as copyright owners take a broad view of their rights (especially Disney). Copyright issues are mostly important when they affect the economic (or other) value of a copyrighted publication. That doesn't seem possible here.
You also can't plagiarize "common knowledge", though it can be a judgement call as to what is commonly known. Nor can anyone copyright "common knowledge" though they can copyright certain (creative) expressions of things known. A lot of poetry, for example is creative expression of known things.
Another issue is that your application materials aren't a "publication" so some of  the rules don't have the same strength. You can share copyrighted material in a small working group, for example, though you still can't claim the ideas of others as your own, even there.
I'll guess that you are fine. You have an opportunity after acceptance of an offer to update your research goals and statement. Few would hold you strictly to a research plan as it would be foolish to do so. One modifies research plans as one learns more.
If you are guilty of anything, I'd say it is only sloppiness. I suspect that with experience you will correct any such tendencies. Had you made a grievous error it would possibly have been caught and you'd have some explaining to do. But as you describe it, I think you can move on.

Even though this seems to be minor, do you think it is worth telling him 'Hey, I messed up a few things in the original proposal, here is a corrected version for reference'

I probably wouldn't do that at the moment, since you have been accepted. But later, it might be worth having a conversation or mentioning it in passing. Establish a working relationship first, I think.

If that is the only concern, I don't think it applies for me because she is the same supervisor I had for my master's and know each other well. So if you don't have any other objections, I might just do that. And thanks Dr Buffy.

Others have be provided some good advice. As the lead of a higher degree program my advice would be to have a discussion with the lead of your program and see what they think. Honesty is the best policy. I think you'll be well received. Document the discussion. My other bit of advice is learn from this. Maybe you need to improve your writing practices. Maybe you need to be mindful of not falling prey to the imposter syndrome. Whatever you need to learn, learn it. All the best

As the top comment to the question says, you are indeed making a mountain out of a molehill.  The basic reason is that what you did is not really plagiarism.  There are two kinds of "plagiarism": plagiarism of words, and of ideas.  The former is more often taught in schools, probably because it is easier to explain to children.  This concept of plagiarism of words is the origin of ideas like five consecutive words means plagiarism
However, in higher level academic writing and for research papers, it is plagiarism of ideas that is far more important.  It is fine to have a string of 20 or 30 or even 50 words being nearly identical to difference source, if it is a precise description of a technical subject.
In general, in scientific writing, "plagiarism of words" is at most poor practice, on par with bad writing (grammatical errors/word choice) or formatting errors.  The worst case is that you will be asked to change it.  It is not a form of misconduct like plagiarism of ideas would be.
As a rule of thumb, you should always write your own text rather than copy and pasting. However, you should also avoid rewriting things or changing words just for the sake of avoiding plagiarism.  For example, don't change "when the atom is in a strong electric field" to "there is a powerful electric field around the atom" just because the former shows up in another source.

Most institution use Turnitin and other tools. The main focus is mostly on the percentage of plagiarism because humankind is capable of thinking alike. The principle I made myself is to ensure I don't go beyond 4% if the document is uploaded to Turnitin or similar tools. So I believe you may not need to stress about sentences but rather stress about percentages.

I really recommend against relying on percentages from software tools this way. It totally misses the purpose of avoiding plagiarism, and turns it into a game instead. Do not do this.


text:
Is it a bad sign if a review of a revised manuscript completed within few hours?
Has anyone had a similar experience? My revised manuscript was sent out for a new round of peer review yesterday. This morning, I found one of the reviewers had already finished the review, which is unusual. Is it a bad sign?

Better to let the process play out rather than fortune telling from every piece of information. Stop checking manuscript status and do something more productive.

Also see: Can I predict the fate of my manuscript (from information other than a decision letter)?

If you addressed that reviewers comments adequately it should not take long for them to check. Particularly if it is a minor revision. But, really, you have no authority or influence over the result now, and can only accept what happens.

Given that it's a revised manuscript, this is not a bad sign. It just means your reviewer had time to check it immediately (or that the requested revisions were minor so they didn't need much time to check it). In fairness, it's not necessarily a bad sign even if it's not a revised manuscript, as well, but revised manuscripts tend to have a faster review time.
Either way there's nothing to do except wait.

As so many other things about peer review, you just don't know. There is no way for you to know what the reviewer wrote, and more importantly, there is nothing you can do about it. It is not worth worrying about this until you get the paper back from the editor.
Move your brain to more productive things. Write the next paper. Grade those homeworks. Do the review you were invited a few hours ago and get it off your desk within just one day, taking the time to write useful feedback to the authors.


text:
Google Scholar picks up right article but wrong pdf
My Google Scholar picked up the right article, as in, the title and abstract is correct, but the wrong pdf. How do I fix the link to the article?
Please suggest.
Thank you!

you may be out of luck: see https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/106764/correcting-the-authors-name-on-google-scholar; https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/117354/how-can-an-error-in-google-scholar-be-corrected; https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/105480/is-there-a-way-to-report-to-google-scholar-some-systematic-mistakes/105497#105497