Academia Stack Exchange
Academia Stack Exchange

Most Popular

more tags
1500 questions
44
votes
4 answers

Who said that one should change one’s direction of research every seven years?

A piece of wisdom I have heard several times is that an academic should change their direction of research roughly every seven years. This change needs not be radical but clearly more than what you naturally do within those seven years. Does anybody…
Wrzlprmft
  • 61,194
  • 18
  • 189
  • 288
44
votes
4 answers

Is it wrong for students to report suspected / borderline plagiarism?

Last year I came across a student in our department (we are both PhD students) who copied a journal article in her final paper. To be sure, she didn’t copy the article word from word but did use the exact same research design (variables, data,…
Kayla
  • 439
  • 2
  • 6
44
votes
5 answers

Negotiating startup package given differences in institutional norms

There is a story on Inside Higher Ed (based on this blog post) about a candidate who received a tenure-track offer from a U.S. philosophy department. She emailed the search committee with some requests related to: salary, maternity leave,…
ff524
  • 108,934
  • 49
  • 421
  • 474
44
votes
8 answers

Co-authorship in exchange for paying conference fee

My BSc dissertation has recently been accepted for publication in the proceedings of a small conference. My supervisor has co-author credit as his assistance was naturally instrumental. While I'm been working a career, my supervisor has very kindly…
ConnieMnemonic
  • 446
  • 4
  • 7
44
votes
5 answers

Are there any examples for an ArXiv publication nurturing or preventing plagiarism?

First of all, this is about plagiarism in the sense of stealing ideas. Copy-and-paste plagiarism is included but not likely to happen in the cases relevant for this question. Considering the publication of a paper prior to peer-reviewed publication…
Wrzlprmft
  • 61,194
  • 18
  • 189
  • 288
44
votes
10 answers

Promised authorship was not given; am I supposed to get an automatic acknowledgement?

TLDR: I spent a long time helping with a paper from a group at another university. The first author, who was at the same institute as me, promised multiple times I would be one of the coauthors. But, the night before submission, he informed me that…
High GPA
  • 4,442
  • 1
  • 26
  • 50
44
votes
4 answers

What can academics and students do to reduce racism in academia?

I am a postdoc at a university in the UK. Before I came here, a friend warned me that racism is common in the UK. True enough, during my first few months here, I have already received a couple of racist gestures and jeers, including one instance…
adipro
  • 8,488
  • 6
  • 44
  • 88
44
votes
6 answers

Can I tell the authors I was a referee for the same paper for another journal?

I have reviewed a paper for a journal, which I rejected. I wrote a 3 page report with major and minor comments. A week later, I received an invitation to review the same paper in another journal. The authors have nicely decided to ignore all of my…
AnonRef
  • 433
  • 4
  • 5
44
votes
15 answers

Is it important to maintain a work-life balance as a PhD student?

My apologies in advance for asking such a trivial question. My concerns may not be as urgent or serious as some of the others on here, but I have been worrying about this for some time now. My life since starting my PhD has can typically be summed…
user126346
44
votes
12 answers

Is it typical to work 60 hours per week as a PhD student?

I was wondering whether this was just a local phenomenon or it's the generally accepted status-quo around the globe. Preface: In my part of the world (German-speaking Europe), we have a terribly underfunded scientific landscape. I have to caveat…
Questionairee
  • 565
  • 1
  • 4
  • 4
44
votes
7 answers

Acquaintance is paying friend to do his coding for an Ivy League master's degree. What should I do?

I'm relatively close to someone who is currently attending an Ivy League graduate program. He believes he has it all made in life and yet here he is paying one of my friends to do his coding assignments and projects. It is an online program, so it…
youravgguy
  • 465
  • 4
  • 3
44
votes
1 answer

Why is Brill selling chapters of my book for $30?

I just found that PDFs of chapters of my book (Semitic Noun Patterns, Harvard Semitic Studies 52, 2003) are being sold for $30 each by Brill, a giant academic publisher, who did not publish the book. The whole thing can be bought on paper for $32…
Joshua Fox
  • 1,061
  • 9
  • 18
44
votes
17 answers

Should a TA point out a professor's mistake while attending their lecture?

I faced the following situation a few days back. I am doing my teaching assistance work under a professor. I attended one of his classes as a TA during which he was teaching some technically wrong stuff, which he assumed as true. Since most of the…
hanugm
  • 7,779
  • 9
  • 43
  • 79
44
votes
6 answers

How does the US government shutdown affect academics?

I hope this question does not offend our American fellows. I've read in news that the US government is partially closed and many agencies and services run by US federal government is no longer available, for example national parks, many websites,…
user4511
44
votes
1 answer

Can I ask a publisher for a paper that I need for reviewing

I was asked to review a technical paper for a journal at a large commercial publisher. The paper extends on another publication that is cited several times throughout the document. The cited paper was published at the same publisher but in a…
rams
  • 543
  • 4
  • 7
1 2 3
…
99 100