Questions tagged [communication]
Questions about how to communicate with others appropriately and professionally; communication etiquette.
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How are academic writing conventions decided?
Suppose one would like to propose a new way of performing a specific task in academic writing, for example, a different/new way of citing. I realise this example is vague, but the example is not the ...
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Right time to reach professors requesting to be my guide in Ph. D
I am completing my masters in a few months, and going for a job. I want to pursue my doctorate after 3-4 years of working. Is it better to speak with professors now, if they want to be my guide once I ...
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Explaining what a PhD is all about to parents
I am joining a PhD program in mathematics in a few months. But I am having a hard time explaining what a PhD is to my parents! They ask: Why is it not enough to complete a PhD just for the sake of ...
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How to be professional when being patronised?
I had an interview at a reputable business school for upcoming MBA intake. The interview was informal and was conducted in the coffee shop on premises.
The first issue happened when the interviewer (...
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How to motivate and encourage scientist to give clarifications and respond to my questions about their work?
A year ago a small team (2-3 prominent scientists) from prominent academic and industrial collaboration published 120+ page long research preprint that could be very important contribution to the ...
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How should I approach my studies in the Humanities area if I'm a contrarian?
Before I start, I should mention that the closest thing I found here was this post, but the comments say something I really want to avoid, which is to sound like a [political ideology here]-nut.
I am ...
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What does a professor aim at when talking about communication?
I am a PhD student at a good university in the US. I am good at my work and do my assigned tasks well. But this is the second time I heard from the second professor that I should communicate more with ...
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How should I write a letter to ask the author of a research paper some questions?
Can I write:
Hi Prof. xxx,
I am xxx, PhD student from xx University. Recently I am studying your paper titled “xxx” in xxx. Could you please help me understand why xxx? I assume that there may be two ...
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How does one appropriately navigate the situation of having a lot of prior knowledge before applying to university + courses not on main interests?
I am new here (but have been around MSE for some time). Generally on the mathematics stack exchange it's considered inappropriate to ask for personal advice but I see many such posts on this stack, so ...
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Is it normal to keep contact with profs after a phd rejection?
I applied for a PhD position and got rejected. But the profs suggested I stay in touch (in the sense of regular meetings)—apparently I was not a terrible applicant.
Are such offers normal?
Are ...
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Is it appropriate to cold call a prospective postdoc PI?
If a professor shares their office phone number on their website, can I make a call and ask them about postdoc positions? What should I say to them?
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How to get in touch with researchers for sparring/discussing
I am a PhD student in computer science at a German university, working remotely on the PhD. I do not get much support from my professor (anymore) in terms of time for discussions and I have little to ...
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how to deal with difficult students who do not reply to teacher's email?
I hope all is well,
I find myself in a situation where one student keeps a grim face when I teach. It seems he is not happy with the way I deliver the material. This makes me feel uncomfortable and it ...
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Giving profile updates to a potential supervisor
I had been interviewed for a research-based master's position two weeks ago. Since then, I have submitted two papers to top-tier venues in my field.
Additionally, a few days before the interview, I ...
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Communication change from pre-application to post-application for admission
I reached out to a contact listed on a department graduate page at a university two Fridays ago, expressing my interest in the program and asking questions. I was amazed that not only did he reply two ...
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example of department letter in support of waiving article processing charges
Looking for examples/ drafts of letters from department head in support for waiving/ getting discount on article processing charges. The journal is asking for such a letter stating that there is no ...
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Is comminit dot com a scam site?
I recently published an open-access paper. Shortly after, someone from the 'Communication Initiative' reached out, regarding a 'summary' of the paper which they would like to share, asking me if I'd ...
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Should I phone a professor if they haven't replied to my email?
I'm a Master's student in Physics. The summer vacations are coming up, and we need to do a few projects under various faculty to know their work and field. I'm interested in experimental high-energy ...
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I took Pre Calc II and Calculus at community colllege. When I transferred, they accepted my calculus credit but says I need finite math? [closed]
The prerequisite for the Calculus class that they accepted was the Finite Math. They accepted my Calculus class with an A. My precalc II and calculus class should suffice the Finite math, right?
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Professor has not responded to request for letter of recommendation, what to do next?
I am in the process of applying for a Masters programs and I am trying to get my letters of recommendation squared away. One of the professors I have asked has failed to respond to my emails. I sent ...
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Maximizing chances of answer when contacting authors
I plan to perform a meta-analysis for which I will need to contact some authors (not professors) because their articles do not mention the outcomes relevant to my study, although they most probably ...
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First year postdoc at career crossroads - how do I communicate this with my PI?
I'm in a predicament on where and how to take my next career step, and how to communicate this to my PI. Important note - so far they've been really supportive of me and my career. TL;DR at bottom of ...
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How long should I wait to contact an Editor-in-Chief if she told me she would contact soon but has not yet done so?
In another post, I mentioned that I have been waiting for a decision on a revised article for more than 11 months.
During those months of waiting, I have contacted the Editor-in-Chief (EiC) twice to ...
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A potential supervisor asked for a Zoom meeting, then didn’t show up. What should my next step be?
A potential supervisor asked to speak with me over Zoom, and sent me a Zoom link. However, the day came and went, but they didn’t show up, and haven't replied to my emails (for about 5 days now, as of ...
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How do I request my teacher to stop apologizing and being too nice when correcting my mistakes?
I have a teacher who honestly is a bit over the top. I like her teaching skills and appreciate being in her class. Sometimes, though, when I'm having a debate with her, she disagrees with me.
Me: ...
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How should I reply to an email from a student who took a test and failed, and promises to do better?
Below is an email I received from a student whom I'm giving Spanish lessons to. He took a assessment test and failed it. I received this email (which I've attached below) from him today, and I'm not ...
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Contacting a professor of an ancient language I translated poems to
I am a high school sophomore and have been studying Sanskrit for 6 years. Recently I started studying Pali (similar to Sanskrit) and translated some classical English poems.
I am in India, and luckily ...
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Balance between spending time on research and preparing for presentations
Recently I noticed that whenever I have presentations to give, I end up spending quite a lot of time preparing for them. I imagine perfecting presentations takes time for everybody. But probably I ...
user32442
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How to respond when a professor compliments you via email?
In a certain STEM graduate course, my professor made a claim and provided an solution without showing any derivations. After doing this, he mentioned that the students should derive the solution at ...
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What is the best practice to deal with students who sit in the back and laugh at other students' questions?
Term just started and I think every class does have some students who sit in the back (which is totally fine) but sometimes are challenging to deal with when they show some disrespect towards other ...
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How to ask for letter of recommendation without giving the impression you want to leave the group?
I am a final year PhD student and given the competition and burden of finding a PostDoc position, I want to try to apply to some positions early on. At this stage I am satisfied with the group and ...
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How to start working independently in a project?
It has been two months since I joined in this new project. I have put to work along with another postdoc researcher. Now we both have been asked to set a pipeline for sequencing analysis. This person ...
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Email from one after-PhD-scientist to another after-PhD-scientist. Private or institutional email address?
Suppose I (a senior postdoc in Europe) write an email to another not-student scientist (a postdoc or a professor also in Europe) that does not know me nor directly nor by publications. I am either ...
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If I ask a question that turns out to be something basic I'm missing can it damage my reputation?
I'm a PhD student and I'm getting started in the field I want to work on after I finish my PhD. There were some very important works done by a very experienced researcher and collaborators that I've ...
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When to switch from "Hello/Dear Professor X" to "Hi X" in email [duplicate]
I am just starting a PhD, and I have been in contact with the supervisor for about 3 months now, that means before the interview so you can assume I was SUPER polite when emailing him!
Since then, I ...
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My interview went well but at the end the interviewer said "All the best for your future endeavours". What does it mean?
I was interviewed for an academic job where I pretty much answered all the questions and the interviewer seemed positive. He even shared his contacts for further questions and said there would be more ...
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Misgendered by senior academic in email to people I don't know
I am a PhD student, and also trans (MtF, she/her). I've recently done some work with a research group based at the same institute as me, and this has led to me being CC'd in a few emails to various ...
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Advisor will not write a recommendation letter for me to participate in a conference
There is a leading conference that will take place in Jan 2022. Graduate students are encouraged to present a poster about their thesis work, however, the slots are limited so a recommendation letter ...
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How to get published research covered by science magazines so as to promote the research among the community?
I am a researcher in the early stage of my career with a few publications. I work on High Energy Physics and published papers in top ranked journals with relatively high h-index. My query is regarding ...
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Professor not replying after agreeing for internship
A professor had agreed to an internship and asked me to remind her again before the start of August.
She has not responded to the reminder email I sent 10 days ago. Should I mail her again? Is it ...
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Is this way of writing e-mails to professors asking for funded PhD positions to work under their supervision good?
I am a person in an Asian country who plans to write to professors in Europe for a PhD position in Math for the session of 2022. I know Europe has a lot of countries and is certainly not a uniform ...
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What channels do people use to challenge or provide criticism for newly developed theories?
I currently not in academia, but I am an undergraduate alumnus with no graduate experience.
What are the normal processes for academics to challenge each other’s theories or findings, or to support ...
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How to deal with professor who is ignoring my questions? [duplicate]
I am studying data mining in a college in Nepal. In Nepal, students and teachers communicate using Facebook Messenger. Teachers don't share email, and are instead friends with students on Facebook.
I ...
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How to get feedback from my supervisor about me
I'm a first year PhD student in mathematics. One day I was having some conversation with my supervisor and we got to a point where he casually mentioned about his other students and said that one of ...
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How do I deal with a collaborator who stopped working at the final stage of a research project?
I am a graduate student who started to collaborate with a postdoc last year on a research project which we both came up with. During the past year we had several discussions about this project. I ...
anon
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Regret after not being able to solve a problem that my supervisor did easily
I'm a first year PhD student and I was asked to think about a problem last week and I tried to work out some examples, did some computations, but I wasn't successful. Basically, I didn't really make ...
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First-time teaching PhD students make course assignment way too demanding for a new lecture
I'm attending a graduate lecture at a university in Europe. Two lecturers, both PhD students, are giving their first lecture. One of the PhD students is senior and another just recently enrolled in ...
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I am about to apply for a tenure-track position close to my spouse's workplace. How do I reflect my intent wisely in the cover letter?
I currently hold a TT position at school A. My spouse's job (not in academia) is at a 4 hours commute from school A. We underestimated the hassle it would bring when I accepted the position at School ...
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It is appropriate to call the professor for this situation?
I have a great relationship with one of my professors(at least I think), and a few weeks ago we discussed the possibility of doing a research project together this summer. However, he never replies to ...
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Can I use a fake email address for asking simple questions to experts?
I am a postdoc in math. From time to time, I have some simple questions, which I believe most graduate students know in their field. So, I email specialists to ask them. I sometimes noticed that ...
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