All Questions
743 questions
74
votes
4
answers
22k
views
What to do when you spend several months working on an idea that fails in a masters thesis?
How shall a masters student deal with the complete failure to meet the expected results when working on a master's thesis?
For example, in the field of machine learning a masters student might spend ...
- 1,001
76
votes
7
answers
51k
views
Is it acceptable to write a reference letter for yourself?
If a student needs a reference letter for graduate admissions or that sort of thing, some profs will ask the student to write a reference letter for themself before sending it off to the prof for ...
- 1,052
110
votes
3
answers
25k
views
What is a “sandwich thesis”?
On the Internet, I have found that some people have graduated with a PhD by means of a “sandwich thesis”. Could anyone explain what it is?
- 2,759
56
votes
4
answers
4k
views
Attributing contributions to academic work that occur in Stack Exchange
Sometimes we may ask questions on stack exchange or online forums wherein the response is helpful or even essential to a piece of work that gets published in an academic journal. If this occurs, how ...
- 673
65
votes
11
answers
14k
views
Are there instances where citing Wikipedia is allowed?
For example, suppose you're writing an article about triangles, and you want to include a short proof of Pythagoras' theorem, but you can't quite remember how to derive it, so you pop over to: https://...
- 761
273
votes
20
answers
36k
views
How to avoid procrastination during the research phase of my PhD?
I just finished all of my coursework for my PhD program, and am entering the research phase of my degree with a topic already in mind. I've already started the research, but I'm already finding that ...
- 11.5k
257
votes
8
answers
385k
views
How do you cite a Github repository?
I am working on a honours thesis and have developed a Fortran library that I would like to cite in it.
In some places they suggest to quote the documentation of the project but this is something I ...
- 2,673
15
votes
5
answers
7k
views
How should I cite a website URL?
I am currently writing a report and I have been compiling a list of references (from IEEE mostly) and I also have a number of websites.
My question is, what is the best way to note a website URL? ...
- 317
33
votes
2
answers
42k
views
What are the main differences between undergraduate, master's, and doctoral theses?
When I did my undergraduate thesis, my adviser was expected big on students expecting them working really hard, so it ended up as a reduced master's thesis (most of the reviewers said that it was an ...
- 12k
53
votes
5
answers
9k
views
Should I cite author names as they appear in the journal or as I know them to be complete?
Since I've been using Mendeley to manage and extract metadata from my PDFs, I've come to notice that authors are sometimes denoted with all their initials and sometimes with just one. I assume this ...
- 633
28
votes
5
answers
4k
views
Citing sources of problems in assignments
This question was raised by Dave Clarke here.
When a textbook author approaches a topic in a novel way or presents a particularly interesting example, I believe that a teacher who creates lecture ...
- 12.1k
20
votes
4
answers
2k
views
Referencing the reference?
Suppose I have a paper with the following text:
Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet, and so are you [3],[4].
As one can see, the author got the information from two other references.
...
- 399
77
votes
7
answers
69k
views
Self-Plagiarism in PhD thesis
I am a final year PhD in UK in a scientific discipline and I am writing my thesis. I have already published 2 journal papers and I have submitted 2 more papers for publications. My department does not ...
- 773
29
votes
6
answers
8k
views
What are the pros and cons of being co-supervised?
Are there any advantages or disadvantages in having two supervisors instead of one? Why would a graduate student want to do this or avoid this?
The context is in an MA where students usually have one ...
- 1,020
26
votes
5
answers
3k
views
How to react to your work being cited incorrectly or in a misleading way?
This morning when I opened my email I was very excited to find a Google Scholar update telling me of two new citations from two different sets of authors each to a different paper of mine. As usual, I ...
- 7,957
26
votes
0
answers
2k
views
What do you do when you find yourselves with an unreadable/inaccessible paper? [duplicate]
Since I started my life in Academia, I sometimes found that there are some seminal papers to which I cannot get any access.
Either they are very old, and the journal that published them charges for ...
- 12k
12
votes
1
answer
2k
views
Adding a citation after paper is accepted
I am a junior researcher in mathematics.
I worked simultaneously on proving Theorem A and Theorem B. They both generalize Theorem X in two different directions. Theorem X was proved several years ago (...
- 123
9
votes
5
answers
22k
views
What is the acceptable similarity in a mathematics PhD dissertation when checking by Turnitin?
I have checked the originality of my PhD thesis in mathematics using Turnitin. The similarity was 31%. Is this percentage acceptable by most committees?
- 481
86
votes
3
answers
221k
views
Are citations in abstracts considered bad style?
I'd like to know your opinion on citations in abstracts.
At my university, there is no rule on that matter so it's basically a
question of preference.
Do you think it's okay to have citations in an ...
- 963
77
votes
11
answers
31k
views
Is it unethical to cite a paper or book that you have never looked at?
Suppose I see that Book X is cited by several papers with reference to some particular Fact Y. I wish to cite Fact Y. As far as I know, Book X is the only reference for Fact Y.
I have never looked ...
user10885
55
votes
2
answers
59k
views
Whether and how to thank a girlfriend or boyfriend in the acknowledgements of thesis?
How is it received by the academia if someone thanks to his/her girlfriend/boyfriend in the acknowledgements of the thesis?
I have seen writers including his/her fiancee in the acknowledgements, ...
- 12.3k
40
votes
3
answers
28k
views
Is it necessary to obtain permissions for copying figures from published articles in your proposal/dissertation?
I am currently writing a proposal for my research topic and I want to copy figures from published articles into my proposal document. To put it in perspective, almost all the copied figures are to go ...
- 780
37
votes
5
answers
16k
views
What to do when you discover a mistake in the archived copy of your PhD thesis?
I've just defended my PhD in mathematics and started a postdoc. While working on an improvement of one of the results of my thesis, I realized that there are several minor mistakes and a big bug in a ...
- 371
32
votes
3
answers
18k
views
Dissertation acknowledgements
I'm at the stage in writing my dissertation where most of the substantive aspects are finished and the only tasks left are more or less administrative. However, one thing that I've been avoiding is ...
- 420
30
votes
2
answers
30k
views
Can I publish parts of the Ph.D thesis as a paper in a journal?
I recently finished my PhD thesis which will be published as a book soon.
Now I'm wondering if it's possible or allowed to submit parts to a journal?
Normally the process would be the other way round ...
- 403
24
votes
3
answers
21k
views
How to cite lecture notes? (and should I even do this?)
When learning a new subject, I would frequently use lecture notes found somewhere in the Internet. When writing a paper (or a master thesis, as in my case, but the rules should be similar, I believe) ...
- 7,182
20
votes
5
answers
2k
views
On citing "common knowledge" statements
I am an undergraduate student with no experience at all.
If you are writing a research paper, that you are planning to submit for publication, how do you state that a particular statement/fact is ...
user557
83
votes
13
answers
19k
views
Why is it bad to judge a paper by citation count?
I hear a lot from the experts that citation count is a bad idea as a measure of judging a paper. This seems simply counter-intuitive to me. I would like to know if any study has been done in this ...
- 990
60
votes
4
answers
5k
views
How to discourage irrelevant self-citation?
I once reviewed a manuscript whose authors cited many of their own published papers, which were not relevant to the subject of the manuscript. This kind of practice is evidently frowned upon by the ...
- 8,578
50
votes
5
answers
7k
views
Will self-citation be viewed as self-promotion in academia?
As we know, citation counts are important to judge one's research activity. Is it good to cite one's previous works? Will it be viewed as an act of advertisement or self-promotion?
- 4,669
37
votes
1
answer
14k
views
Consequences of a master thesis with errors
I finished my master thesis 6 years ago, since then I gained a lot of experience on my field and also in academia. I can say that in that time I was a "child" , very inexperienced. I think that also ...
- 355
30
votes
3
answers
6k
views
What software to cite in a manuscript, and how?
When writing a manuscript for a scientific article, I often wonder what software I should cite or acknowledge, and how.
The first problem is to make a choice which software to cite. On the one hand, ...
- 541
30
votes
2
answers
12k
views
How should references in non-Latin script language be treated in English paper?
Let's say I want to cite a Russian text in my own paper which is written in English. Should I:
reference it as is, in the original Cyrillic alphabet, although the readers won't be able even to ...
- 835
15
votes
4
answers
94k
views
How to cite sources written in a different language than English?
Assume one wants to cite a paper written in a different language than the article citing said paper (e.g., ones own article is written in English, but the source is French).
How to properly handle ...
- 1,810
14
votes
2
answers
5k
views
Academic fair use and using publication images in your thesis
In the introductory chapter of my thesis, I've been surveying the previous work in my field. As part of this, I've used images from some of those publications and included them as Figures in my own ...
- 333
13
votes
4
answers
4k
views
Is it okay to incorporate a block of citations from a review paper into my own paper?
I'm currently writing a paper on a certain topic for which a review article was recently published. Of course, I want to contrast my new approach to existing techniques. For that purpose, I have ...
- 1,872
10
votes
3
answers
3k
views
Will an off-topic Masters hurt my chances of a PhD place?
I have just completed the third year of an integrated master's degree (a three-year undergraduate degree plus an additional year of study at a master's degree level, with the final degree being an ...
10
votes
2
answers
20k
views
Apply for PhD before finishing my Master's degree
I am now in the middle of my master's degree and I plan to graduate in August 2015. I currently study in Germany and for most engineering students here it is common to finish the five-year program (3 ...
- 203
10
votes
9
answers
7k
views
Worldwide Dissertation Database? or French, German, Italian ones?
Is there a global/worldwide database of dissertations? If not, how can I access French, German, Italian, etc. dissertations online?
- 3,595
106
votes
14
answers
24k
views
Is it ethical for a professor to get masters students to work on open source modules related to the professor's profit-making company?
My professor of Computer Science has a company (both based in Germany) that promotes an open-source software. Of course the software is free and open-source, but his company generates profits through ...
- 4,010
94
votes
4
answers
121k
views
How do I reference the Python programming language in a thesis or a paper?
I'm writing a scientific article and a dissertation in biology, for which I used Python for simulations. Some people in our department, especially the "non-computer-people", don't know what Python is, ...
- 2,202
85
votes
8
answers
31k
views
Free, open-source substitutes for Mendeley?
Mendeley is (mainly) a proprietary social network to share basic citation data and research papers. see also
Are there any free and open source substitutes for this service?
A technical possibility:...
- 1,669
66
votes
15
answers
39k
views
PhD thesis without acknowledgements
During the process of writing my PhD thesis, I was close to falling out with my adviser, the advice I received from other staff at the lab (including the director) was unhelpful at best.
I have since ...
- 917
60
votes
4
answers
8k
views
Strategies to overcome "academic-apathy" in the final stages of the PhD?
Background - I am doing my PhD in atmospheric physics/photobiology.
Here is a scenario:
The experiments are complete - the results are far better than expected
Successfully got the computer program ...
user7130
40
votes
11
answers
12k
views
Tool to manage and/or make available a list of my publications on the web?
This some kind of follow up question to How to prevent plagiarism of my papers?, since I've been clearly convinced that it was in my best interest to put my own papers on my webpage.
Now, since I ...
user102
39
votes
4
answers
11k
views
How to deal with an unreasonable reviewer asking to cite irrelevant articles?
Two years ago, when I was doing my master’s degree, I was working on a computational project. My supervisor was well-known in the field and a highly reputed person. We were doing a great job, trying ...
- 1,405
38
votes
6
answers
5k
views
Is it ethical to obtain journal articles from places other than the publisher's official sites?
When I am at home and looking for journal articles I often find article PDFs through google that have been uploaded to various websites (e.g., universities, institutions, arbitrary websites, etc...). ...
- 713
37
votes
7
answers
11k
views
Why is it acceptable to cite unpublished works?
If an article, theorem, etc. is unpublished, presumably the work is only available to people who track down the author and get a draft copy. Today we have arXiv and can find many preprints on the ...
- 515
35
votes
2
answers
7k
views
Can I use the work in my journal/conference publications as chapters in my dissertation?
At my institution, I am required to publish four papers in addition to my PhD thesis. Of course my planned papers are related to my dissertation project, but I'm not sure if it could be considered ...
- 11.5k
32
votes
2
answers
16k
views
How to display your own name in publications list when you are a middle-author on a publication with a large number of authors?
My Name is among tens of authors of a paper on global health.
For the purpose of my CV update, I need to show my name without showing the names of all authors of the paper.
My preferred style ...
- 321