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1500 questions
45
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8 answers

Strategies for facing an "impossible" required course for PhD

I'm enrolled in the last doctoral-level course required for my PhD, and the course material is very difficult, requires a tremendous amount of time, and yet has no relevance to my research. I'm a hard worker who regularly puts in 90+ hour weeks…
ybakos
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8 answers

What if the lecturer is not rigorous?

I study mathematics as my major subject and theoretical physics and statistics as my minor subjects. I found that, sometimes in physics or statistics lectures, the lecturer makes mistakes, like forgetting to prove that a series converges, or…
studying
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10 answers

Having children while at graduate school

I am finishing my first year of Masters and have always thought of going for a PhD in North America. I and my girlfriend are going to have a baby which is totally unexpected. The due day will be somewhere this december which I am still half year…
user34872
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45
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5 answers

Why do reviews of articles often start with a summary of the article?

In my field, peer reviewers often start their review with: This article reports on a study that did X, using Y, in the area of Z. It found ... This seems like a waste of time and effort to me (and I never do it). Why is it done? To prove the…
Jeremy Miles
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6 answers

Will people judge me negatively for skipping department seminars?

I'm a graduate student in the Earth Sciences. The breadth of my departments runs the gamut from geobiology to geophysics and everything in between. As a result, a large number of the department seminars that get hosted are on topics that I have…
jurassic
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7 answers

Do journals in general have any kind of policy regarding papers submitted by someone without a research affiliation?

Assuming that there are no ethical or legal concerns involved, in general, how would academic journals handle research submitted from the general public (e.g., if a carpenter were to perform a study on memory)? Would it be published if it held to…
Speldosa
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45
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5 answers

Is it legal (USA) and ethical to use international edition textbooks? When I pay for a textbook, where does the money go?

Background: I am a student. I didn't have anything in life for four years, and I worked myself silly at times for it. So now I ask - when I pay hundreds of dollars over the production cost (new textbooks are over a week's pay each) what and whom am…
user1833028
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6 answers

Is it unfair to regrade prior work after detecting cheating?

I teach various undergraduate courses. I make the cheating policies clear on the first day of lectures, check the student's understanding of this with an on-line quiz, and remind students of the policy almost weekly in class. I try hard to detect…
Village
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14 answers

How can one differentiate between Dr. (PhD) and Dr. (MD or DO)?

Reading the question posted here left me with a more general question: Given the professional title and name: Dr. (First Name)(Last Name), is there some way to differentiate between the holder of a philosophical doctorate and a medical doctor?…
nbn
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9 answers

Are there tools to prevent students from cheating on a programming exam administered on computers?

I'm teaching an Introduction to Computer Science Course, where we mainly do C programming. I've been assigned a lab for teaching the course, but there are more students than available computers. Also, I have no control over those PCs there, and…
Guillermo Guardastagno
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6 answers

What should I do if I don't know the answer to a question posed by a student?

If I am the TA for a class, what should I do if a student asks me a question which I can't answer? While "tell the truth and say you don't know" is one approach, are there other options?
M R R
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11 answers

What do instructors need to know to accommodate Muslim students?

Increasingly, my school has been recruiting students from Central Asia, so I see 1-3 Muslim students in each section. Near the end of the last term, one student asked for leave for some religious activity. He was surprised when I said he could go,…
Village
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45
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5 answers

Writing papers in language X and translating to English vs. writing papers in English to begin with?

I'm working with a group in China, and we were discussing the following question, which I would like to ask here too: Question: Is it better to write a paper in Chinese, then translate it into English, than to write it in English to begin…
Douglas S. Stones
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5 answers

How many times can you present the same material at different conferences before it becomes stale?

I just finished my PhD in Mathematics and am in between my PhD and postdoc positions. I was very fortunate to have the ability to present my research to seminars and conferences over the last couple of years. My complete results all reduce to a…
T K
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9 answers

Going back to university after suspension, how do I move past the shame?

I was suspended for 1 year from my university for copying an assignment from an online source. There were several extenuating circumstances but I won't go into them as they are irrelevant, I did cheat and I do deserve the punishment I was given -…
anonymous
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