All Questions
43,059
questions
11
votes
3
answers
1k
views
Skimming through a math paper with a group
I am an M.Sc. student in mathematics. I was recently invited by some Ph.D. students and Post-Docs (a group of 5 people, including myself) to join their study group. We are reading a specific text, ...
- 455
5
votes
2
answers
255
views
Is it the norm to allow professors from different departments on a PhD committee?
Or is this the exception to the norm? I know that it's allowed at Brown - but I wonder if it's unique.
- 10.8k
24
votes
3
answers
2k
views
Ways to manage something like a 'work-life balance'?
According to a recent international study on work-life balance within academia
"a majority of researchers and scientists had conflicts between their work schedules and personal lives at least two ...
- 341
8
votes
2
answers
6k
views
How should multiple Harvard references with same first author but different coauthors be made?
This question was written by a friend of mine. I'm helping them by posting it here, with permission.
How should I use the name-year referencing system (loosely speaking, the Harvard system) in such ...
32
votes
4
answers
38k
views
When is it appropriate to decline a review request?
There are some clear reasons to decline a review request, such as conflict-of-interests or not enough free time (e.g., going on a vacation..).
But what if you are just not interested in the paper you ...
- 7,444
47
votes
8
answers
4k
views
Can I publish the reviews I write?
This is a follow-up question to Open versus Blind reviewing process, and is somehow related to What happens to the reviews that people write for journal articles after they're sent back to the ...
user102
98
votes
9
answers
22k
views
When should a supervisor be an author?
I understand that in a lot of big-lab fields it is common for the principal investigator to append their name to a paper even if they did not write the paper, design the experiment, or collect data ...
- 8,567
54
votes
5
answers
23k
views
How to handle not having my PhD advisor as a reference?
I received my PhD in 2009 and my adviser will not provide a good recommendation for me. This is mostly because we have fundamentally different approaches to science, and in retrospect I see that I ...
- 3,275
35
votes
3
answers
4k
views
How to efficiently read mathematically and theoretically dense books in STEM fields?
When it comes to reading, there are literally thousands of methods from Speed Reading to SQ3R to Sequential(Word by Word till the end). My question is regarding reading mathematically/theoretically ...
user107
36
votes
6
answers
1k
views
Open versus Blind reviewing process
A question I have been wondering for a while is if there exists an actual proof that a blind reviewing process (i.e. where the reviewers are anonymous, and the reviews not published) is better than an ...
user102
98
votes
8
answers
8k
views
Is web-presence important for researchers?
How important is web-presence to researchers? How does its importance vary by fields? (My interest is STEM, theory in particular)
I noticed that there is a pretty large variation in amount of web-...
- 8,567
25
votes
3
answers
4k
views
How do you join programme committees for conferences?
For most conferences in my field it seems to be invitation-only, i.e. somebody has to suggest you/remember you. Are there any conferences that have open calls for applications to the programme ...
- 5,220
11
votes
3
answers
560
views
Looking for sources of online graduate-level education
Can anyone suggest sources of online graduate-level education, as well as some criticism of them? Both free and paid are valid. I'm familiar with these sources:
Academic Earth
MIT OpenCourseWare
Kahn ...
- 297
26
votes
7
answers
14k
views
How common is it to write out a script for a talk? What are the benefits?
I have never written a verbatim script for a talk. I have at times written notes or outlines, but I never read from them when presenting (and rarely when practicing). With enough (weeks) of practice, ...
- 3,275
14
votes
3
answers
2k
views
Do professors benefit from undergraduate research?
And does it depend on the type of field? Undergrads in biology can do the menial work, but what about undergrads in the computational sciences?
Are they more or less likely to benefit from ...
- 10.8k
13
votes
3
answers
47k
views
What should be included when inquiring about the status of my application?
I am currently applying for research and faculty positions. After an initial phone interview, how can I politely ask for feedback on the status of my application?
What are the necessary, optional, and ...
- 3,275
10
votes
3
answers
3k
views
Who pays travel & per diem costs for invited lecturers?
When an academic is invited to give a talk at another university, are their food and travel expenses usually fully reimbursed by the university that invited the professor?
- 10.8k
11
votes
3
answers
2k
views
How can a graduate school applicant improve his application for next year's season?
It seems I'm about to have a bad application season, as all schools I'm waiting to hear from have given out offers of admissions to other applicants. I'm trying to come up with a viable plan to turn ...
- 113
13
votes
6
answers
2k
views
How does making notes of what you read help you in research/teaching?
I have always refrained from making notes from my childhood. But now, my adviser wants me to make notes of what I study saying that it would be very beneficial for me in future. So, following his ...
user336
11
votes
2
answers
2k
views
What are the primary causes of conflict between PhD advisors and their students?
Here's a very interesting analysis from a professor's point of view on the primary causes of conflict between PhD advisors and their students:
In my experience, incompatible personalities account ...
- 10.8k
3
votes
2
answers
108
views
Are the Survey rankings for the National Research Council really more objective than the Regression rankings?
This blog post argues so, but I have my doubts since the author works at a graduate program whose S-rankings are much better than its R-rankings. I have a feeling that R-rankings do capture some ...
- 10.8k
16
votes
1
answer
7k
views
What percent of assistant professors generally receive tenure, and how does this percent vary depending on both school and field?
Are new assistant professors more likely to receive tenure in an expanding field, like biology? And are they less likely (percentage-wise) to receive tenure at elite schools?
- 10.8k
8
votes
3
answers
3k
views
How many minutes per day do most professors spend reading and replying to emails? [closed]
I know that the time greatly varies from professor to professor, but what are some good 25th percentile to 75th percentile estimates? And does the time spent reading/replying to emails generally ...
- 10.8k
18
votes
3
answers
1k
views
What role do professors on a graduate student's PhD committee serve?
Do they discuss the graduate student in meetings with each other? Or do they have any obligations to interact with the graduate student in other ways?
- 10.8k
7
votes
2
answers
342
views
Alphabetical author list in non-alphabetical journal
(A followup for this question)
Say your field's convention is to have alphabetical-ordered author list. What should you do when your work is accepted to a (multidisciplinary) journal in which the ...
- 7,444
11
votes
1
answer
977
views
Does a informative and clear professor webpage often increase the number of prospective PhD students who apply to work for the professor?
Here is what I would call a particularly informative and clear professor webpage.
Of course, it's not the most important thing (for me, personally, I mostly discovered professors through asking ...
- 10.8k
13
votes
3
answers
32k
views
How good are "For Dummies" books in Academic Study?
I am often faced with questions in areas which cross my boundaries of knowledge. For instance, as an engineer, sometimes I am needed to study the basics of Anatomy or something like that.
This might ...
user107
5
votes
3
answers
303
views
How often do graduate students help connect professors with each other?
I know that a couple of UChicago professors told me that, especially if a graduate student ends up co-advised with two professors. Maybe there's an additional factor too: maybe students actually have ...
- 10.8k
15
votes
6
answers
943
views
What happens to the reviews that people write for journal articles after they're sent back to the author?
Are they almost always kept confidential? Or is there protocol for sharing them?
- 10.8k
52
votes
3
answers
23k
views
What does author order indicate?
When you look at a paper, what order to you assume the authors are in? Most important/most work done first or alphabetical? In my group we usually use alphabetic order, but I've been wondering if that ...
- 5,220
63
votes
9
answers
51k
views
Doing research outside of academia, without a PhD?
I love learning and solving problems (I'm in math/ computer science) and I'm also very motivated. However, I don't have fantastic grades and so I don't expect to get into any top graduate program. ...
- 813
15
votes
3
answers
357
views
Can teaching help one's studies?
Most of the questions about teaching assistantship portray TA'ing as a waste of time that only damages research. Although I am not TA'ing this year I consider applying for a TA position next year, ...
- 7,444
23
votes
3
answers
22k
views
How do you make corrections to a published paper?
What's the best way to make corrections to a published paper? Should I amend the original paper and mention in a footnote (or similar) what was changed and why or prepare a completely separate ...
- 5,220
28
votes
6
answers
2k
views
When is it a good idea to let an academic department (or a professor) know that I have Asperger's (or ADD)?
With Asperger's, the trick is always when to explain it (in a non-awkward situation). I'd like to avoid mentioning it if possible, but it has gotten to the point that I only mention it after ...
- 10.8k
16
votes
7
answers
2k
views
What are some practices for getting a name change so that people can find me more easily?
For a similar thing, see this thread, where Jay Wacker managed to get people to call him by the name Jay even though he didn't need to get a legal name change. I'm not sure how to go about this though....
- 10.8k
8
votes
4
answers
1k
views
Is a self-taught person allowed to compete with other in a prize like Nobel Prize, Field Medal, etc?
If a person studies and/or does experiments at his/her own home or laboratory because of some reasons, is he/she still allowed to compete with others to get a prize like Nobel Prize, Field Medal, etc?
...
- 215
14
votes
1
answer
284
views
When should I tell a potential employer about a spousal accommodation?
The title sums it up: At what point during the interview/negotiations do you let a potential academic employer about spousal accommodations?
- 1,718
11
votes
4
answers
1k
views
How to choose the most worthwhile research papers to define my thesis?
I'm a first year PhD student. I'm just reading background papers trying to find a topic for my thesis: my subject is turning around tree different elements (XML (as a tool), complex data, and the ...
- 461
38
votes
9
answers
2k
views
Scope for the role of peer reviewer
As a young scholar I frequently struggle with knowing the extent to which I should be critical of particular components of papers I am reviewing. I can formulate a rough hierarchy between major ...
- 3,551
25
votes
5
answers
2k
views
Subtle (and not-so-subtle) humor in scientific literature
Tonight I was scrolling through my RSS aggregator (which includes subscriptions for several journals I follow) and the abstract for All Your Base: a fast and accurate probabilistic approach to base ...
- 1,267
7
votes
3
answers
314
views
Are there any online tools for student collaborative learning?
There are many disciplines where collaborative learning is the norm; group projects in engineering, working in pairs in bio & chem laboratories, writing papers in a variety of fields, and Team-...
- 109
8
votes
3
answers
161
views
Are university counseling services usually able to help with the professional troubles that PhD students face?
The thing with PhDs is that it often takes someone who knows the politics and people of the field in order to really understand (or help) a PhD student's troubles (if any arise). At the same time, ...
- 10.8k
11
votes
6
answers
3k
views
Where to continue my research-oriented studies after Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science?
I have a bachelor's degree in computer science. I am looking for an appropriate master program. I am interested in algorithms.
My question is not about where I should continue my education. My ...
- 477
10
votes
1
answer
246
views
Are there any students at the United Nations University?
The United Nations University (UNU) is an academic arm of the United Nations.
If I understood well, it is doing only research.
Are there any people who are actually enrolled as "students" there?
...
- 201
19
votes
3
answers
1k
views
How many weeks of break (per year) should a graduate student reasonably expect to have?
Here are the details for one of my schools so far:
At UChicago, my prospective adviser said that I should expect to have around a month off per year (probably 2 weeks in winter and 2 weeks in summer)....
- 10.8k
7
votes
2
answers
258
views
Software for managing departmental alumni relations [closed]
My department is looking for a CRM tool to manage its relationship with graduated students (either on BSc, MSc or PhD level). What we want to achieve:
Show our candidates that you can get a well ...
- 958
38
votes
7
answers
28k
views
What are the advantages and disadvantages to completing a Masters program before applying to a Ph. D program?
I've been considering applying to graduate school of some form or another in Mathematics. During my undergraduate years, I did decently on my undergraduate coursework (mostly A-s, some As, a B) but ...
- 381
11
votes
3
answers
334
views
Publishing a creative, important result – does it create any real finance opportunities (jobs, etc.)
I often fantasize that when I will get my work to successful end, then I will have new possibilities open – and that maybe I will even receive scientific job offers. The work is obtaining new ...
- 879
17
votes
2
answers
283
views
Historical data for success rate of grant/project applications?
Is there any publicly accessible information regarding the success rate of grant/project applications for science/technology and other research grant programs (e.g. NSF grants) and its variation over ...
- 366
28
votes
6
answers
5k
views
How do I find research groups that do work in field X?
What is the best way to go about to find a certain research group that do work in a specific field (e.g research groups doing empirical brain investigations but working from a dualistic perspective, ...
- 2,472