Questions tagged [etiquette]
The customary code of polite behavior amongst the academic world.
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Using rage faces in presentation
I was asked to give a talk at a workshop. I plan to tell a short story, 5 - 7 minutes, about how my collaborator and I came up with the idea presented in the talk. This story would:
Give the ...
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I might be rediscovering someone else's result. What should I do?
I am writing a paper presenting a mathematical theorem I recently proved. However, while reading one of the papers that I am citing, I found out that the same result (or something very similar) might ...
user98721
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How to move forward following an unpleasant situation with colleagues?
I'm a recently hired assistant professor at a small teaching
university. The department head has been successful in dramatically
increasing student enrollment, such that our department is viewed
...
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3
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OK to ask a professor at my institution with whom I have no previous relationship some questions relating to hobby-project?
I go to community college so our professors aren't busy with lab research. They're still busy people though and I wish to respect that.
I'm pretty much just working through some neuroscience ...
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4
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Children in the Classroom
As a new semester of school approaches I have begun updating my syllabi for the classes I teach. I have lately used a clause in the syllabus about no children in the classroom as I feel it is a ...
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Does wearing a university t-shirt imply that the wearer is affiliated with the university?
My friend studies at a very prominent university and has invited me to visit her. Coming across the university shop, I was considering buying one of the t-shirts with the university logo.
I am ...
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6
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Is it more difficult for teetotalers to develop academic contacts?
I see a number of answers in this site where building contacts over a glass of beer is encouraged. Moreover the cream of academia belongs to the Western world, where beer culture is common. ...
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9
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How to address email to a professor who prefers informality?
How should I address an email to a professor who hates being called "Professor ___" or "Dr. ____?" He has made it very clear to students that he prefers to be referred to by his first name in person, ...
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5
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How to deal with a professor skipping his office hours?
As a preface, this is a related question but it is from a different perspective.
I am an undergraduate student in physics and have a professor that routinely ignores his own office hours. He has ...
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6
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What to do when no one speaks English around you?
Often when I attend conferences and meetings, there are some social activities sometimes specifically for graduate students to mix with each other and get to know other students and build possible ...
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When trying to establish a connection with a STEM field professor, is it appropriate to ask them out for coffee?
I have a friend who is trying hard to establish a connection with a well-known professor at a generally top 5 school for STEM in the U.S. This professor is frequently at some good seminars around the ...
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What should I do when I can’t replicate results from a conference paper?
There is a theoretical computer science paper that is published in a very good conference. The paper essentially comes up with an algorithm and an explicit function (mentioned in the paper) of some 20 ...
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5
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Is it appropriate for a prospective PhD student to contact phd students at a target school?
I am a prospective phd student. I wish to know if it is fine to contact the phd students of my target schools?
If answering this question requires more information, please feel free to state that.
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2
answers
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How to acknowledge unhelpful conversations
In an acknowledgments section to a mathematical paper, one conventionally says the paper has benefited from "helpful conversations" with so-and-so that clarified matters in some way, started one's ...
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How do I tell my advisor about mental health problems?
I'm an undergraduate student (20f). I have 2 academic advisors - one in the Honors College & one in my department. I met with the Honors advisor recently to discuss study abroad and we somehow got ...
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5
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What to do when expecting a negative recommendation letter?
I'm a postdoc having a difficult relationship with my adviser. Rather unexpectedly, he started literally bombarding me with all sorts of mostly unjustified accusations, including that I'm not ...
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Withdrawing conference paper (after acceptance) due to budget issue
I'm wondering if it is ethical to withdraw an accepted conference paper because the registration fees exceeded my budget?
The fees were only announced after the paper submission deadline thus I didn'...
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How do you respectfully give a teacher feedback about their teaching?
My teacher's teaching style isn't working for me, and he asked for feedback about the class and how he could teach it better. He teaches with powerpoint and gives quizzes that are all about rote ...
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5
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How can I deal with a professor with very weird English?
I have recently enrolled in an elective course from our degree program. There is something that sometimes annoys me, namely the English used by the professor.
He is not a native English speaker, but ...
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3
answers
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When to answer and when not to answer a brief e-mail from a busy academic?
I frequently receive brief, usually confirmatory e-mails (such as "Can do. Best" in response to a request for a letter of recommendation) from academics with considerably less time than myself.
Each ...
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4
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How to politely decline an interview for a PhD program?
I've applied to three US universities (A, B, C) for PhD programs. Universities A and B offered me interviews on two separate weekends, which I accepted. I then made travel arrangements with ...
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4
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Do I have to make someone coauthor if he/she solves a problem in StackExchange, asked by myself, which is later used in my paper? [duplicate]
Suppose, in my research (mathematical) I have a critical step that I need to solve, and, due to various reasons I cannot find decent answer to that step by myself or by contacting friends or ...
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10
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Would it be rude to ask a famous professor who doesn't know me personally for a recommendation letter if I have published in a high ranking journal?
Would it be rude to email a famous professor asking for a recommendation letter to Dphil, if I had published in a high or moderately high ranking journal in her/his field and just have letters from ...
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How to deal with presentation time running out in a scientific conference?
I understand that it is not a good idea to speak more after your time is out during a conference presentation. So we generally distribute our total times among each slide depending the contents and ...
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What is the de facto standard while writing equation in a short email to professors?
In a research field that math is frequently used, while sending a long note/paper, attaching a pdf is of course the best. But for a short email that only involves few equations, a pdf file might be ...
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answers
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Do universities care about bias experienced in group projects?
I am a master's student, and I will complete my master's program soon. During my second year of my MA program, I had to work on a two-semester group project because it was a requirement for the ...
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votes
9
answers
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How to show extreme gratitude in an email?
When contacting universities, in many cases, I find the replies to my emails extremely well detailed and helpful, therefore in such cases I find a simple "Thank you" to be just insufficient.
For ...
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3
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How should I politely address an email to two professors, one who holds a PhD and one who does not?
I am planning to request an override via e-mail for a class which is taught by two professors; one of them holds a PhD, while the other hold a master's; I have never met either of them. Usually my ...
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3
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Best way to politely remove someone from paper authorship who planned to contribute but did not?
(There is a similar question but not exactly.)
When you write a paper, you need various views. So you invite collaborators and it often works well. But assume that out of 5 invited, for example, one ...
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11
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Is it good for the speaker to read notes during a presentation?
I am wondering whether it looks odd if a speaker reads notes during a presentation? I am asking this because, I noticed that a few presenters can’t present their work or research well due to ...
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5
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Non-binary, more modern alternative to "Dear Sir/Madam" [closed]
I'm emailing a graduate STEM admissions department in the UK, and don't know the modern preferred way to begin the email.
Many authors suggest "Dear Sir/Madam," but of course this implies a ...
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4
answers
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How to respond to the teacher who puts the feet up while talking to student?
A friend of mine who is from Japan told me that his professor in USA puts the feet up while talking to him. He was saying that he felt very bad with that. Is this acceptable culture in USA academia?
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Is it appropriate to register a girlfriend with "companion registration" for an academic conference?
Maybe my question is rather weird, but actually it turned out it is also a question of my colleagues.
Usually when you register for an academic conference, there's an option that you can register a ...
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4
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Is it appropriate to reply every time to a professor's "thank you" email?
I want to know, since I am not a native English speaker, whether or not it is appropriate to reply to a thank-you email from a professor?
For example, if every time you get an email from a professor ...
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25
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1
answer
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How to respond to my name being included in acknowledgements of incorrect/misleading paper whose authors ignored my recommendations?
My colleagues (grad student + their advisor) from my department approached me, a fourth year PhD student in STEM, for comments on a manuscript written on a topic related to my research.
In two ...
user6800
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2
answers
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Reproducing figures in blog/SE posts
Sometimes when I am writing a review blog post (or an answer on SE), it is convenient to include a figure from the original paper. Some journals (say PNAS) have policies that explicitly allow non-...
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4
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What's the shortest "acceptable" postdoc length?
So, the postdoc is going ok and there might be one or two publications after a few months. However, I've realized that I'd like to move forward and start applying to industry jobs.
Now, my concern ...
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3
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How can I thank a senior faculty who's written me a good reference which helped me land a desirable job?
I recently got a good job and I want to thank a very senior professor in my department, who spent time to write me a very good reference.
I am thinking maybe to give him a thank you card when I go to ...
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12
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Is it okay to address "Prof. X" as "Mr. X"?
I am from the Netherlands.
I have seen quite a few threads which address the question of whether or not it is acceptable to address a professor by their first name. However, none of them seem to ...
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Addressing a professor - culture clash
I am a Ph.D. student in a country where everyone is addressed by their first name (professors etc.). I call my advisors by their first names and when we have visitors in our research group I go by ...
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Should one offer to take over a lecture that the lecturer is struggling to teach?
Once upon a time in a lecture I attended, the lecturer had clearly not fully understood the material and was struggling to explain it. I was a student, but very knowledgeable about the topic, and had ...
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Why do strict designs of theses exist?
Why do many universities require strict format on theses, when the most important thing in them is the content? A beautiful design will make a good thesis better, and a bad one worse. The work can be ...
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Etiquette of wearing the wrong academic robes at graduation as a lecturer in the UK
I have graduated three times from UK universities. First was a bachelors' degree, then a Masters' degree, then a PhD. The graduation robes associated with my PhD graduation are absolutely horrible. I ...
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Is "working from home" a bad thing in academia?
Is it a bad thing in academia if a student works from home? Missing department talks and seminars is obviously bad, but in case a student is pursuing a problem alone and he feels comfortable ...
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Is it appropriate to bring coffee and cookies to a PhD defense?
First of all, I've already asked my adviser about this, but I just want to see what is the overall idea of the community on this.
In Mexico it is usually required for the student to do this, but that ...
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10
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Is it ever appropriate to correct a non-native teacher's English?
Four of my Japanese teachers are, as you would expect, Japanese, and they all speak English fluently. But now and then, there will of course be slip ups: I often see small grammatical errors in one ...
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2
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What to do about fellow student that hogs lecture time with many questions
I am in a master's program, and one of my peers in the program is in two classes with me. He is a nice person, but he tends to ask a lot of questions in lectures; both of which are very large, and ...
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Is it acceptable to email the authors of a paper for the slides they used while presenting it in the conference?
I've noticed that while there's no alternative to going through the actual paper in detail, it often helps if I've gone through the presentation based on the paper, which the authors had used while ...
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4
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What is the etiquette for repeatedly emailing questions to an author whose work I'm building on?
I am doing my master thesis on wireless networking. I am working on the source code, which the writer of one of the articles provided to me.
Initially, I sent him an email and I asked him to send me ...
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5
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Why do PhD students complain so much? [closed]
This question has two parts. First, a comparative question. Second, a broad question about why PhD students get so stressed and complain so much.
Do PhD students complain more than people in other ...
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