Academia Weekly Newsletter - Friday, February 27, 2015

Top new questions this week: As a department head, what to do if a professor leaves without giving out grades? I am department head. An adjunct professor teaching two courses in my department left without notice. He did not deliver the grades to me. We have no staff in that field to give the final exam again. ... professors administration   asked by Mohammad Hassan 82 votes answered by Anonymous Mathematician 82 votes PhD student, issued contract at year 3 which will sign over intellectual property. Is it legal? I'm EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Science Research Council, the biggest UK funding source in the sciences and engineering) funded. Several months into my PhD an industrial sponsor came along. In ... phd industry united-kingdom intellectual-property contract   asked by user2350366 60 votes answered by EnergyNumbers 72 votes How to clarify that supervisor writing a reference is not related to me even though we have the same last name? By chance, one of my supervisors in which I worked on a project under shares the same last name as I do. If I ask him to write me a recommendation letter, will the admission committee misconstrue that ... graduate-admissions advisor recommendation-letter personal-name   asked by Mat.S 49 votes answered by Corvus 88 votes Is talking about quitting to your supervisor a point of no return? I have been feeling miserable about my PhD degree situation for a bit of time, and I just started therapy. So far I've tried not to take drastic decisions such as quitting, because I know I am ... graduate-school career-path quitting   asked by user3411792 46 votes answered by Dave Clarke 111 votes Would it be acceptable to occasionally sleep at the lab? I'm currently an undergrad, and work as a researcher in an EECS lab. Recently, I discovered a novel application to work on, and so for the last few weeks I've been staying at the lab late almost every ... etiquette united-states research-undergraduate academic-life   asked by Snakes and Coffee 37 votes answered by Benjamin Mako Hill 52 votes Are you permitted to forward the reviews from a rejected manuscript when submitting to a new journal? Suppose I have a paper rejected from a top tier journal. The anonymous reviews highlight a number of strengths of my paper, but ultimately judge that the paper does not merit publication in that lofty ... publications ethics peer-review editors rejection   asked by Corvus 33 votes answered by Boris Bukh 27 votes How to prove/deal with plagiarism that is hidden behind bad synonyms? I have had more than one undergraduate student who I have very strongly suspected of routine plagiarism that I cannot prove. There is a certain style of writing that is just inexplicable except as an ... teaching plagiarism   asked by Brian Z 26 votes answered by StrongBad 33 votes Greatest hits from previous weeks: To what extent can I use the concept of "God" in a meteorology lecture without offending anyone? In about a week I'll be introducing the Coriolis effect to a group of about 50 undergrads. This means I'm going to have to at least touch on fictitious forces and frames of reference. These aren't ... teaching physics religious-issues   asked by Steve V. 19 votes answered by jakebeal 36 votes Useful strategies for answering "dumb" questions in a talk? It has often been said that there is no such thing as a dumb question. And yet - perhaps due only to inattention, lack of sleep, or hunger - otherwise brilliant people sometimes manage to ask some ... conference job-search presentation seminars answering-questions   asked by Dnuorg Spu 96 votes answered by David Richerby 81 votes Can you answer these? How has the application review process for NSF graduate fellowships changed? I was looking for some information on the site that might help for applications to the GRFP. I found JeffE's answer to an old question extremely useful. However, I noticed that some of the advice he ... application funding nsf   asked by ColloidSci 5 votes Can I get a second masters in the same subject but with a different focus? I'm doing a ma in economics which isn't very technical. It's focused on macro and international economics. Once I finish this program I'm going to try to apply to another program for an ma in ... masters economics second-degree   asked by Kevin-lt 1 vote Is there a way to find review articles by the keyword? When I search for papers using some keywords in academic databases (like Google Scholar), there are lots of papers, but I would like to read literature reviews first because I'm new in that area. (By ... computer-science literature-search review-articles   asked by huammmm1 1 vote

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