Academia Stack Exchange
Academia Stack Exchange

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1500 questions
60
votes
8 answers

Do you not belong in a PhD program if you don't live and breathe your field of study?

In my PhD program everyone talks about how passionate they are about their field of study, and how they go to seminars because they're fun. Is it expected that PhD students truly love their subject, or is it enough just to do good work and publish…
Ben Bitdiddle
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4 answers

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 academic community. In my comments, I advised the…
adipro
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60
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12 answers

Handling unsolicited proofs of famous mathematical problems

I have been receiving mails from (most probably amateurs), who claims to have proved famous mathematical problems, like the ABC Conjecture or Goldbach Conjecture. But invariably, they all contained mistakes. I decided not to waste my time on such…
Alfred Gauss
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60
votes
11 answers

Handling plagiarism as a TA

To give some background, I am a TA at UCLA for a lab class. They submit their assignments to TurnItIn, which you may know highlights any text pulled from another place. I made it clear that they are not to work together and that no text in their…
sadTA
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60
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7 answers

Results that are too good to be true - peer review

So, I'm reviewing a medical study (open-label trial) that compares the efficacy of different drug doses on a patient population (heart failure). The study is arguably of low-quality, compared to the landmark trials that established the benefit of…
Anastasios Tsarouchas
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60
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3 answers

How to evaluate potential advisers on grounds other than their research/publications?

While accepting an offer to grad school, one is basically entering into a lasting relationship with one's adviser - most likely, someone whom the applicant has never met before, and the only exposure has been through the potential adviser's…
TCSGrad
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60
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14 answers

I received an allegation of academic misconduct from my university. What should I do?

I wrote an exam a couple of months ago and I recently received an email accusing me of academic misconduct. I had just finished my first year of university and this is the first time that I am receiving a letter of this kind. One of the long answers…
Kadie
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60
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5 answers

Is giving condolences to a professor socially acceptable?

I'm an undergraduate in the US. My professor just told us via email that he will not be able to grade an exam until next week because his family member died from complications due to COVID-19. I don't care much about the delay, but I do like my…
Mike Ainsel
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2 answers

My friend listed my name as a co-author on two journal papers without my permission

Recently, I found that my friend published two journal papers. He listed my name as a co-author without my permission. He used to send me a draft of the 1st paper, and wanted to add me as a co-author. After reading the manuscript, I found that this…
wsspzwps
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8 answers

I'm afraid of chemicals. How do I handle my required uni biology class?

I have a freshman requirement as a science student for at least 3 core science classes, and I picked physics as often as I could. However, I must choose either chem or bio as my third. I chose bio. The thing is, I'm deathly afraid of chemicals. I…
Greta
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11 answers

Can I publish a paper which 1) proposes an idea and 2) proves that the idea doesn't work?

I wonder if is it okay for a researcher to suggest a new technique in a field of research and prove that this new suggested technique is a bad suggestion and gives no or negative gain and publish his work as a research on bad idea? (I'm in computer…
Ariyan
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60
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11 answers

How to deal with unnecessary stress introduced by the supervisor?

I am doing my PhD in a high prestige UK university. I am finishing my second year and I have funding for three years in total. I have already two papers finished (pending to be published) and working on two more. I like research and I like being…
Aventinus
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60
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6 answers

Is it OK to review a paper which builds on my work?

Suppose I've written a paper which someone else (who I do not know) has built on. The new work is intimately related to mine; it would not have existed without my paper. I'm now asked to review the paper. Should I: Accept because I am an expert on…
Allure
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60
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5 answers

As a new PhD supervisor, how should I deal with taking a student to a wrong direction?

I am a postdoc who was supposed to co-supervise a PhD student along with another academic who invited me for that. However, I ended up fully supervising the student after the supervisor became too busy to attend meetings. Eventually, I also ended up…
Pioneer83
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9 answers

Professors/Teachers only replying to part of my email

I've been a Computer Sciences student for 4 years now, give or take, and my experience with emailing teachers/professors (teachers from now on) has been either of two cases: they reply to my entire email they read the last sentence or paragraph…
Diamundo
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