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64
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5 answers
Do academic integrity pledges work?
Our students are asked to sign an "academic integrity" pledge with each assignment and exam, vowing that they have not given nor received unauthorized assistance on the assignment.
What (peer-reviewed) evidence is there to support the claim that…
alexw
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Can a professor force me to submit my incomplete paper to a journal?
I am taking a graduate class requiring that I submit a paper to a journal at the end of the semester. The professor sent out an email informing us that we can either hand off a copy of the paper in an addressed envelope to her, which she will then…
kaye
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64
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10 answers
Is it true that 'nice' professors fail to produce good students?
This is a very tough question to ask because there are so many advisors on this forum so I am expecting most inputs from the current grads. This question largely stemmed from a post I read online about picking advisors.
The top recommendation…
Olórin
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64
votes
8 answers
Should you conform to journal formatting requirements for the initial submission?
In my past experiences, I have almost never typeset my manuscripts according to the formats required by the journals to which I would like to submit. I leave my manuscripts as produced by the LaTeX article documentclass.
Recently I am wondering:…
Yes
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64
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5 answers
Is it reasonable to worry about lack of potential for dating in postdoc positions?
I am 25 years old, and in a few months' time I will have to decide whether to get a job in London or apply for a postdoc somewhere.
Apart from all of the usual pros and cons (eg. job security, salary, lifestyle) associated to each path, one thing…
ChrisA
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64
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11 answers
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:…
Jamie Twells
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64
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9 answers
Why are low pass rates (below 50%) for exams considered acceptable in Germany?
The Law Stack Exchange question “Can you take action against a miserable pass-rate of an exam?” is about an exam at a German university where:
The first exam had a failure-rate of 58% (265 paticipants), after the bound to pass was lowered. The…
Brian Drake
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64
votes
14 answers
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 students who wish to participate.
For example, if…
Anonymous
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64
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11 answers
How do I stay focused during an online conference?
Conference season is coming up and my supervisor signed us both up to a series of conferences that are running over the next few weeks. Having already participated in a couple of them, I kind of know what I'm in for and wondered how you guys tackle…
Dimitri_896
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64
votes
10 answers
What should I do the day before submitting my PhD thesis?
I am submitting my PhD thesis in less than two days. I have checked all the tables, figures, appendices, references, and also checked spelling and any potential typos (which I believe there might be more!). I would like to ask, in addition to all of…
Josee Luis
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64
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4 answers
What to do when I can prove a conjecture of a paper I'm peer reviewing
I was given a paper to peer review. A result of that paper has been obtained with some extrapolation trick and so they present it as highly plausible conjecture.
It turns out that me and another collaborator computed the exact same thing (for other…
BlueElephant
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64
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3 answers
Paper was rejected for high similarity with parts of my own dissertation
My PhD thesis consisted of two published papers and one submitted paper embedded in some additional framing. For completion of my PhD, I had to upload my thesis to the servers of our academic library, where it is now publicly available.
However,…
offeltoffel
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64
votes
14 answers
Should I avoid admitting female students for now?
I am female and an early-career PI (principal investigator) in a discipline that tends to attract women, and people with high levels of anxiety (this is documented). In my first years as a graduate supervisor, I have selected a balanced group of men…
Nemo
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64
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8 answers
An undergraduate said they may hire a freelancer to do their work for them. What should I do?
I, a graduate student, have started tutoring undergraduates in computer science at my university to help make ends meet. One student who inquired about my services turned me down upon hearing my rates and remarked (in writing) that they might as…
ArnoldF
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64
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8 answers
I'm in a religious country, and my religious supervisor is praying. What should I do?
My supervisor and all his other doctoral students are practicing religious, while I am not, I am "non-religious".
We never discuss religion together, but sometimes they all leave to pray together, and leave me alone, which makes me…
Motaka
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