Is it taboo to disclose info to 3rd parties about the review status of a paper of other authors? I was under the following situation and I'm not sure which would have been the right way to handle it.

I was refereeing a paper. I suggested that the authors could cite a very recent paper which was uploaded on a repository (so, not official publication but publicly available nevertheless) that could have solved one of the conjectures they mentioned.

They respond that they do not want to cite unofficial publications that have not been fully verified yet (as indicated in their opinion by acceptance on one of the venues). This respond is somewhat understandable.

But they went an extra step and they said that the mentioned pre-print probably has mistakes (no reference) since it was submitted to XX venue and was rejected thus they do not want to cite it.

  Is it normal that they disclosed to me some private information about a submission of a paper and its status?

I felt uncomfortable about this disclosure of private information. How could they know that it was indeed submitted? How could they know why it was rejected? Even if they know (for example by communication with the authors) what gives them the right to announce this to me (an anonymous referee-maybe I'm one of the authors of that preprint). Note that the two papers have disjoint sets of authors.

  Question: What would be the most appropriate way to handle this situation? I let it be, but I feel that the authors have crossed many lines with their responses and I still feel somewhat uncomfortable for this.

To me, their response was very unprofessional. I'm assuming that the review is still blinded and further communication with the authors directly may not be possible or even useful.

As a peer reviewer, you are a volunteer for the journal. If the lack of professionalism of the authors made you uncomfortable, you could communicate this with the editor. Although the editor might not do anything about it, he or she might reconsider publishing future papers from authors who do not respect blind peer review. Publishing our work is a privilege, not a right. I am not an editor, so I'm not sure how editors may handle such a situation. Although this case involved the reviewer and not the authors, PLOS ONE received attention a few years ago for removing a reviewer who made a sexist remark in their review: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/05/plos-one-ousts-reviewer-editor-after-sexist-peer-review-storm


Can someone else publish a paper based on independently achieving a result that is in a preprint of mine? I have a paper that is currently in review but that has been available via bioRxiv for a while. While my paper was in review, a paper was published elsewhere which essentially scoops my paper. I am wondering how this could affect my paper in review seeing as my results were available earlier.

To clarify, I guess my question is about priority. We uploaded the manuscript because we were scared of being scooped. We thought that by uploading the manuscript, it would make it impossible for another group to publish the same results. The question is twofold:

  Is it ethical that the other group published the same results whilst they were aware of the preprint? Secondly, would a journal take preprint priority into account when assessing a manuscript which has been scooped by another paper?

Do you know that they were aware of the preprint? Scoops are bound to be common if many groups are working on the same problem or starting to flesh out a new area with lots of low-hanging fruit. If they were aware of your preprint, and you can prove it, they should have cited your preprint at the very least, and you might get them to publish an errata with the citation. But, if they didn't know about it, they got there first, and you'll just have to accept that.


Is a hypothesis necessary for empirical research? Suppose I would like to do an experiment that compares two existing methods for solving a certain problem, and decides which method is better (in some predefined metric).

I can start with a hypothesis: "Method A performs at least as good as method B", and then do the experiment and refute the hypothesis by showing that method B performs better and the difference is statistically significant.

Alternatively, I can just do the experiment without any preliminary hypothesis, and find out - again - that method B performs better and the difference is statistically significant.

Is there any advantage to the first approach? Why do I need to start with a hypothesis if I end up doing the same experiment and getting to the same result?

You fail to recognize you already had a hypothesis. You have method A and method B, so clearly both are important And you knew that a priori.

That said, you can remain agnostic as to the direction or non-direction of the effect (better? Worse?) - and that is the difference between one-tailed and two-tailed tests.


How can a non-native English speaker get assistance in publishing a manuscript in English? I am not a native English speaker, and I am writing a paper in English (maths) with the aim of getting published in a peer reviewed journal. If I write the manuscript myself, the poor grammar would prevent it from being accepted. If I give the manuscript to a native-English speaking expert in my area of maths, they may steal my ideas. If I give the manuscript to an expert just in English, they  won't be able to fully help because they won't understand the ideas comprehensively.

Would someone please guide me how to solve this situation?

In mathematics, it is entirely reasonable and acceptable to begin by posting a draft on arXiv.  Once it's up online with your name and a date-stamp, you need not fear anybody stealing your ideas, and can work on improving the manuscript, both in content and grammar, with whatever combination of colleagues and collaborators you find best suited for the task.


Why publish a research paper when a blog post or a lecture slide can have more citation count than a journal paper? I am quite surprised to find that a lecture slide for a course has 133 citations from highly reputable researchers across the world. The main contribution of the lecture slides (which seems to be the reason for the citations) appears in 1 line on 1 page of the slide out of 30 slides. (Citation count according to Google Scholar)

Another set of random course notes from lecture 12 of a course just happens to have over 100 citations, Reinforcement Learning and Control - CS229
This 8 page course note has 200 citations, which is more than many of actual research papers
Also, another summary of a blog post (less than 14 pages) has over 700 citations (From the paper: This paper originally appeared as a blog post on 19 January 2016.)

Citation count from Google Scholar. This paper isn't even published anywhere aside from Arxiv.

What is the point of even publishing a paper and going through the painstaking process of peer review and editing if you can just write some blog post or a lecture slide on some hot topic and accumulate citation counts (which is crucial for securing funding, etc.)?

It's not fair to only look at the peak of the distribution. For an apples-to-apples comparison, you need to compare peaks to peaks and averages to averages.
The two sources you mention are both in the field of machine learning. If we assume that they correspond to the blog/lecture notes sources with the most number of citations (i.e. the peaks), then we can conclude that these venues can generate at most ~700 citations. If you compare to the most cited machine learning papers, these 700 citations are minute. For example putting "machine learning" into Google Scholar yields:

Scikit-learn: Machine learning in Python (journal article) -- 14919 citations
Data Mining: Practical machine learning tools and techniques (book) -- 34724 citations

What about averages? I don't know what the average number of citations a blog post or lecture slide gets, but I'd guess less than one, since many blog posts don't attract comments. The average number of citations for a journal article however is easy to find - just look at the impact factor. Putting in "machine learning journal" into Bing, I get journals such as Machine Learning (IF = 1.855 as of time of writing) and International Journal of Neural Systems (IF = 4.58). Clearly the average journal article gets a lot more citations than the average blog post or lecture slide.
tl; dr: What's the point of studying machine learning instead of playing soccer and earning hundreds of thousands of dollars a week? The answer to that question is similar to the answer to this one.


Consolation position after tenure is denied In my department, an assistant professor was denied tenure. However, he remains in the faculty as a lecturer.

Is this the typical protocol of departments.  If a professor is denied tenure, do their departments typically offer them some sort of position of lower stature?

No, this is not common.  Someone denied tenure is generally allowed to stay in their current position for another year, to give some time to find a new job.  However, it's not standard to offer them a non-tenure-track job as a replacement.  Theoretically there's no reason they couldn't apply for such a job, but it sounds really awkward.  I imagine most people wouldn't want to stay in the same department in a lower status position, and the department wouldn't want them to either; I've never seen it actually happen.  When it does happen, I'd bet there's some compelling reason behind the scenes.  (For example, perhaps the lecturer in your department has a strong personal reason to want to stay in the area, and there are no other suitable jobs available.)


How to prove receipt/no receipt of work? Last term, I collected some important projects from about 200 students. When I returned all of the work the next week, one student claimed that they had submitted their work, but never received it back. A misplaced project was highly unlikely, as they were individually bound in a uniform, bright cover and carried in sealed bags, so I assigned the student a 0. Still, I would like to have proof of “no submit”, especially as my supervisor occasionally wants an explanation for failing grades. But not having something is not proof of never submitting. What method can I use in the future to prove that a student did not submit their work?

I doubt this will work with 200 students, but the first thing I do when I collect assignments is check to see whose assignment is missing, and send the relevant students a message via the class messaging system. This does two things:

if there was a slipup at either end, this catches it quickly. Most often, the student says that they're turning it in late (I have an automatic submit-late-and-get-deductions policy).
By using the class messaging system, I'm on record as having asked the student about the missing assignment. If they complain a week later that they did turn it in, I can point to the message and ask why they didn't respond to it.


What should I do if my admission letter doesn't say anything about funding? I have received my admission letter for a graduate program. But there isn't any information about funding. I have talked to my professor about the availability of funding. what should I say to my professor?

It is very common that an admission letter itself doesn't contain any information about funding. However, it is assumed (at least in the US) that information about funding will be made available to you well before you have to give an accept/decline decision. This often comes in a separate letter/email, sometimes within 1 day of the first letter, and sometimes more than a week after - all depends on the University processes and timelines.

Regardless, it is perfectly acceptable to contact (call or email) the University to inquire about funding offer timelines. Usually you would ask the graduate program administrator, and they can answer or direct you to who you should contact instead. It's fine to ask the professor, but they might not know and thus haven't answered (they may very well have seen your email and sent off an email of their own and are awaiting a proper answer). Funding in academia is often weirdly complicated, and often requires multiple calls and emails to multiple people to figure out all the exact details. Often this process is made invisible to the student.

If you've had silence from all channels for over a week - or if there is some very pressing deadline approaching for you - you should re-attempt contact and politely inform them of the deadline you are under, and your need to hear about funding prior to that time.

As to what to say to your professor, if you haven't contact them already, it's usually safe to confirm you received your offer of admission, say thanks and express that you were excited/glad/pleased to receive it, and note it didn't mention funding. Then just ask about the status of funding available for you - and that's pretty much it.

Congratulations on your offer of admission, and good luck!


Thesis supervisor is too much focussed on formatting and typos, rather than content. Is it normal? I'm a master's student and my thesis supervisor is quite a perfectionist. She's too much focused on pointing out errors relating to formatting and typos, and less on the content. She gets absolutely furious at even the slightest use of passive voice in thesis, and whenever she comments on the content, she just writes "why?" at the end of the sentence. How can I handle this problem?

Talk to her, openly and honestly. Try to figure out what bothers you most. Is it the extra work? Or is it the absence of response or guidance on content? In the latter case, maybe you could arrange an extra supervisor or sounding board for that part.
I understand it can be annoying. I had a supervisor once, who book keeped whether all his comments were addressed by me, and not only his comments, also the comments of other supervisors. On the other hand, your thesis will be online forever. It is a public document. Your name and your supervisors name will be on it. So a little bit perfectionism now will benefit you in the long term.


How do academics deal with growing old? Everyone grows old, grow less dexterous and energetic, lose cognitive ability, and so on. In most jobs these don't matter that much since one doesn't need to be the best, and "good enough" is good enough. However, academia is unique because it lives and dies on ideas. Without ideas, there is no funding proposal, and with no funding proposal, there is no money, no students, and no job.

This sounds like a very difficult situation for academics: they grow less and less able to come up with good ideas, but still have to compete with the legion of younger researchers at the peak of their mental capabilities all coming up with ideas. Furthermore, younger researchers are also in better shape physically, and can put more energy into their work.

How do academics deal with growing old in a job where growing old directly impacts one's ability to perform?

All people deal with getting old(er) in some way, but I can think of a few aspects that are unique to academics.

One way to keep up the performance is to gradually shift from hands-on work to advisory work. It is clear that an aging professor can't keep up with the hours invested, enthusiasm, desire to prove oneself, etc. of a PhD student or junior faculty. However, our older guy has participated in a lot of academic craft (writing papers/grants, advising, doing research, reviewing, etc.) over the years, which can give a significant edge to junior people around him. Guiding others can and does produce scientific breakthroughs even though the senior professor didn't think it all up by himself. Further, it also educates the next generation of researches which also an important and challenging job.

People outside of academia are usually obligated (with exceptions, of course) to retire at a given age. On the other hand, a professor has the possibility to attain the emeritus rank, which lets him be an active member of the academic community theoretically until the end of his life. This partially offsets the time investment of PhD studies, postdocs, etc., if the argument is that people in academia have fewer "productive years" as opposed to people who start off right after undergraduate.

Finally, professors are usually respected members of their communities, so even if some of them perform less in their later career, there are always other duties they can excel at. For example, focus on teaching or department duties or writing books.

In my opinion, none of these options is inferior to the "pure research" track and I feel that many come naturally as personal development. In other words, I don't think aging professors find it necessary to outright compete with their younger colleagues, but rather mature into other roles that benefit the academic community.


How to read effectively a research paper? I am a student and I have been assigned to read a research papaer in the robotics field, understand it, elaborate it and write an essay about it. I have never done something similar, so I am a little bit lost.

How should I read a research paper in order to do this? Is there a particular way of reading a paper or I just start from the top and follow the order of the pages? And is there an effective way to elaborate it?

Thanks in advance.

Read it from top to bottom, try to understand everything in it (that is, do the math on your own and check that you arrive at the same results), and try to write the essay without looking much at the paper.

At my department, we offer a course like this and the most common reason for bad grades are students who just copy-paste selected paragraphs from the paper.


Can I hide the fact that I dropped a PhD program when I apply for another PhD? I am an international grad student in the US. I would like to quit the PhD program(mathematics) in where I spent 2 years without "any degree" for some reasons. I am in the status prior to the research. If I want to apply for another PhD in other universities, will leaving the fact that I dropped a PhD program without a degree off make serious problems?  Does it make some legal, ethical, moral trouble in the academia?

Lastly I just wonder whether, if I am admitted to another grad-school, the department will track or check my previous academic record by inquiry VISA status, SSN, or the other ways.

According to the FERPA(Federal Education Rights and Privacy Act) act, can I control my educational records myself? I asked about this to some schools, they said, even if it's true, the school can also have the right to require the student's educational record in the case of application to the school.

If I got a degree in a school, I also think I should put the fact in the application.
But should I write my all post undergraduate record in my PhD application even if I didn't get any degree and just quit?

Most (all?) universities in the US require that you mention all the schools you attended on your application, regardless of whether you obtained a degree from them. Omitting any school is a violation of the rules and, if discovered, could be grounds for rescinding a potential admission offer, even long after it has been granted.

In other countries, it varies.


How to ask other researchers to share their datasets? For my Computer Science Master Thesis Research I need some large pre-processed datasets.

I know the names of researchers who have those sets (or at least can point me to the source).

My question is: do you have tips on how to approach those researchers to increase the chance of success to share data? What to do absolutely not?

Thanks

Email, unless they happen to be at your university.

Just introduce yourself, and the possibility that their data might be useful for advancing your project. Leave open flexibility about the possibility of acknowledgement/authorship (depending on the effort you're asking them to go to), IRB approvals, data sharing agreements, etc.

Be prepared for rejection, but I've had something like a 60% success rate with this approach, and birthed several really productive collaborations.


What does "principled approach" mean in papers? I encounter this term "principled approach" in some papers of computer science. Since I' m not a native speaker, I don' t quite understand what this means. And I didn' t find any results online.

I' m not sure if this site is appropriate for such questions. Please let me know if I posted at the wrong place.

(I am in mathematics, but similar language is used roughly similarly, I believe.) As a place-holder answer: a "principled" approach in science is at least opposite to a quick-and-dirty, or ad _hoc_, or "kludge-y" approach, the latter three synonymous expressions meaning that the priority is getting some result out, perhaps even finding some rationalization for the conclusion one wants. Obviously a non-principled approach more lends itself to corrupted (but also quick, desired, easy) results.

The "principled" approach "takes the high road", does not bias conclusions, does not rationalize-away weaknesses or flaws in methodology or information.

That is, one could hope that a "principled" approach involves no conflict of interest for the parties involved, and could be trusted. At its worst, "unprincipled" approaches (which no one would ever admit to, except perhaps as a mildly perverse claim to fresh unorthodoxy) produce completely untrustworthy outcomes, because those outcomes are chosen in advance, and whatever results are obtained are "interpreted" to support the original premise.

A hilarious example I witnessed was a computer science M.S. (details elided to protect privacy), on which I was an "outside examiner", in which "the goal" was to prove that two bunches of events were correlated, thus proving that the people who were promoting the one as "cause" of the other were right, and people should invest in their product. (Nevermind that correlation is not causality.) The guy failed to find any correlation in any of the first twenty or so statistical tests he applied... but he kept at it, until he found a statistical test that did seem to assert a slight correlation.

Of course, what he had really proven was that there was apparently no correlation... but, taking an "unprincipled" approach, claimed the opposite of what his own evidence showed, etc.


Advisor asking me to work on research not covered by my grant I have a rather difficult quandary. I'm a first-year student, and I joined my lab group to work on a clinical psychiatry/neuroscience grant. I've been making slow progress towards familiarizing myself with the grant. However, my advisor (actually, one of my two-advisors... they both run the lab together) has been having me work on a separate project of his, completely unrelated to my work. From what I can tell, this project would take a few months to work out, and the result would be my co-authoring on a small paper with another graduate student in the lab.

My worry is, I receive a stipend from the university every month, and that stipend is paid for my the psych/neurosci grant. By working on the second project, I have the feeling that I'm "stealing" from the first grant. I was told by my advisor that this sort of time-sharing between grants is normal within the research world. My question is, is that true? If it is a problem, how should I deal with this?

I think it's true that the time-sharing between grants is quite normal within the research world, at least, I've observed it a lot, and in any case, you shouldn't have to worry about that, because it's under the responsibility of your advisor.

Actually, one of the problems when it comes to funding is that in order to make a grant proposal, you somehow need to know precisely enough where you're going, otherwise you have the risk not to be able to achieve what you promised. Hence, I know that it's quite normal that when applying for a grant, some parts of the results promised at the end of the grant are already done, although maybe not finalized. So, you can use the time you would have spent doing the research you promised (but already done) to do some other research on another topic, so that you can apply for another grant on this topic.

That's why in the end, the main question is whether it benefits you, as a first-year student, to work on the other project. Clearly, working on a different topic is always a good experience, especially when there is a potential publication at the end. I don't know how long is your grant, but if it's 3 years, then spending a few months on working on something different will not really impact it. Of course, if you have a grant of only 6 months, then maybe you can't really spend half of it working on something different.

So, to summarize: don't feel guilty about it, I believe this kind of things is pretty common, and just consider whether it can be good/interesting for you or not.


As someone with low grades how can I prepare myself to study MSc in CS in USA? I have completed Bachelor in IT from a third world country in 2008. I have achieved 49% marks.
I am 30 and working in a bank.
Now I want to study MSc in CS in the USA and eventually PhD.
I believe that this world is not all out for me.

How can I prepare myself so that I can improve my chance of admission in post graduate level?
Money/GRE/TOEFL/IELTS/Vendor Certification....what should I need?
how can I show that I have potential research capability?

Since you intend to do it on CS I want to point out that the GRE Subject Test on CS (the one usually asked) will not be administrated anymore.

According to the ETS website:

  The last administration of the GRE Computer Science Test will be in
  April 2013. The test will be discontinued after the April 2013
  administration. Scores will continue to be reportable for five years.
  (https://www.ets.org/gre/subject/about?WT.ac=grehome_gresubject_121017)

I wanted to say this in a comment (since it's not exactly an answer, but I think it's an important information to you), but I can't since I don't have enough reputation on this website to do it :(
Therefore, even though I think you wanted more a opinion from people already in academia, I feel obligated to put some more thought on my answer:

I'm a student, currently undergrad (will graduate at the end of this year) and I'm "kinda on the same boat" (from a third world country, wanna do a Ph.D. on in US in CS and I've being somewhat lost regarding what to do).
Here is a compilation about what I have found so far that may be helpful to you:

The notions of PhD and MSc in the US may be somewhat different from what you are used to. Quoting from something I've read in a university website (can't remember which one right now) "Masters is about breadth, PhD is about depth".
At least in my country (and I'm guessing it may be the same for yours), both are pretty depth-oriented. -> Keep in mind that, some MSc are breadth oriented, these may not be the droids you are looking for.

Also, the programs vary a lot from place to place... (And if you are used to the fact that you have to do a MSc prior to the PhD, this is not true for a lot of PhD programs in the US, you can join then directly if you have a bachelor's degree).
Example: At CMU, the masters degree is "breadth-oriented", meaning that you take a lot of advanced courses in various topics, and the PhD is totally research-oriented (average 6 years, in contrast to the average 2-year MSc + 4-year PhD in my country). But in MIT, as far as I've understood, you apply for grad school, if you are accept and you don't have a MSc, you are put on a MSc program, if you already do, you are put on the PhD program (so, seems to be a lot research oriented on both programs). -> Make sure you read thoroughly how the programs in the universities you intend to apply are, cause there's no "standard".

About the "money" part of your question, as far as I've seen, it goes something like this:

MSc: You have to pay for tuition, you may get a paid TA-ship
(Teaching Assitant paid position), you may get an RA-ship (Research
Assistant paid position), but nothing is guaranteed.
PhD: Top universities usually pay you monthly and if the professor    that is orientating your research doesn't have funding, you need to      get an RA or TA job. On other universities,you may need to narrow       your options to professors that have funding.

-> Keep in mind that, PhD is a better option money-wise, but harder to get in.

As pointed on the comments, research capability is a must (for the "depth" programs at least) and matters even more than grades. Quoting from a CMU professor on the "Grad School Talk" available at their website:

  It does not help you, in my opinion, to be closer to 4.0 [GPA] as
  opposed to 3.5. It’s a much better idea to spend your time on research
  than on optimizing your GPA.

- Keep in mind that proving your research capability matters a lot.
But another important quote from this same pdf regarding grades is:

  Your grades may be somewhat low – under 3.0 – because you were having
  a good time in college and you may therefore be having trouble getting
  into a Ph.D. program. In this case, you may want to do an MS and use
  the time to boost your grades and reapply after the MS.

Another important thing to note: The things that each program prioritize when looking at your application seem to vary a lot, even among programs at the same university/department. -> Try to figure out what the programs you are aplying prioritize. (eg: by reading their websites well).

About TOEFL: It matters a lot, but as far as I understand, it matters in a sense that it prevents you from getting in a program if you don't have the minimum score needed. *Each university asks for a different TOEFL score.*
The top universities (regarding CS programs) usually ask for 100 on the IBT (internet based test, out of 120), an exception being Stanford, that asks for 110.
Regarding IELTS: All universities seem to accept TOEFL, a lot of them seem to accept IELTS, but you need only one of them, so I suggest you go for the TOELF (for US universities).

As a plan of action, I suggest this one (which is kinda what I'm doing myself).

Boost your ability to prove "research capability": It's VERY important that you have some prior research experience. Have you ever done research as an undergrad? Do you have professors that can write a recommendation letter for you? If you don't, you are (probably) gonna need to pursuit this kind of stuff. My suggestions if this is the case: Pick a professor that does research in a area that you are interested (better if it's a professor that may remember you from university) and try to contact then to see if they can let you assist on any research projects (even if voluntarily), or take some time to read his recent published papers and understand then, then go talk to him about this. Also, try to see if getting a job at any private research company is an option (in case they exist in your country, in mine "private research" is pretty much nonexistent :( ).
Figure out what your "level" is: What universities/programs that you want to get into that you can realistically hope to get in. This can be done by reading the programs/universities' websites, search for some information about the qualifications of people that got in, etc.
Make a list about the programs you are interested in: After figuring out your "level", what universities from this set have programs that you are interested to?
Read everything you can about this programs and pick the ones you want to apply: Learn what these programs prioritize on applications, what options do you have regarding money, etcs. Finally decide which ones you are going to apply and see what each of then require.
Get ready for the aplications: Taking the GREs (or whatever they are gonna use, now that the CS subject test is gone), TOEFLs and bla bla bla takes a lot of time. Prepare for the stuff you need to take, search for example tests on the internet, study for them, etc... and take they as soon as you are ready.
FYI: As far as I've seen, the deadlines for applying for grad programs are usually in December, for pretty much all universities (they gotta have something in common, after all).

Some useful stuff to read:
 -

CMU's "Grad School Talk" www.cs.cmu.edu/~harchol/gradschooltalk.pdf -
The one I quoted a lot in this answer.
Demystifying the American Graduate Admissions Process: nlp.stanford.edu/~rkarthik/DAGAP.pdf - I found this paper extremely
helpful, it's written by a guy that worked on Stanford's admissions
committee, he also has a blog where he talks about this stuff (link at the end of the paper).

Additional Notes:

In case you are unfamiliar with how the GPA works in the US, here is
some explanation:
http://www.ehow.com/how-does_4619318_a-gpa-work.html
If your grades are low, it may be hard to enter the top universities (although I don't see it as impossible) but keep this in mind: A) A lot of "not the top, but good ones" are very good, and may even be very strong in research at an area you are interested in. B) I believe that any recommendation letter saying something like "This guy showed up out of nowhere wanting to assist in my research (even though he was out of academia for some years and was working on a regular job) and helped a lot" shows a lot of "research capability", a lot of self-motivation and can be VERY strong.

Good luck. :)


Presenting Barely Complete Results I'm in a bit of a predicament. I was awarded a small grant to pursue a research topic over this summer under the authority of a professor. I had worked with this professor previously (on a research topic that led to my summer research topic) and had great results.

This professor had very specific ideas as to what he wanted me to do and what goals I should accomplish. I was fine with this as previously this method had worked well with us. This is important; I'll explain in a second.

This summer, my professor (for lack of a better phrase) suddenly dropped off the face of the Earth. He stopped responding to my emails, and the few times he did respond (maybe twice in the span of three months) it was merely saying "I'm very busy; we'll speak eventually; I'm working on other things that are much more important".

This put me in a very bad place. I had done what he asked me and had at that point committed a fair amount of time to the direction he had asked me to pursue. I didn't have enough direction to keep going unsupervised, and didn't have enough time to go in a new direction that I could manage by myself.

I need to write up a summary that discusses what I did and my findings. What I have is a methodology that should solve a particular problem faster (in theory) than current methods (To be more specific, it's a faster implementation of an algorithm--unfortunately I couldn't improve the algorithm itself). I did not have enough guidance (or access to my funds for equipment) to actually test my theory.

Part of receiving the funds was a requirement that I present my findings in my school's undergraduate research journal. Is what I have really enough to present? I know it's an undergraduate journal so no one will actually read it, but I feel silly presenting something so small and trying to trump it up as an actual scientific accomplishment.

Do I try to present the small amount I found? Will I look like a giant idiot if I present a methodology that is completely untested as findings?

This question is rather difficult to answer without more information, and I believe one needs to have more details to actually judge things. I will do my best to address several of your concerns:

You are right that "a faster implementation of an algorithm" is not something very remarkable by itself. There are two possible interpretations:

Your algorithm does the same thing as the previous algorithm, but you have either changed the insides of the algorithm or performed a better analysis and you have got a better time bound on the algorithm. In this case, I believe it should be okay to publish in an undergraduate journal.
The algorithm is still the same, but you have discovered a flaw in some implementation of the algorithm and corrected this flaw, so the running time actually corresponds to what the original time complexity bound promises. This is more literally "a faster implementation of an algorithm", and by itself is not a large contribution.

The usual methodology in Computer Science for measuring complexity of algorithms is either worst-case complexity, average-case complexity or amortized complexity. You seem to suggest that you have some novel kind of methodology. If that methodology is more useful for some practical problem which you set out to solve, I believe this might be definitely something to include in the publication.

It is difficult for me to estimate the amount of novel work that you actually have, but you seem to suggest that it was a requirement to submit to an undergraduate journal. Therefore, it makes sense to me that you should write up your work regardless and try to submit it.

It is not the end of the world if a grant fails, but you should try and fulfill the requirements regardless. If you do submit, it may happen that your work does not get accepted, but if you fail to submit, this becomes a certainty.


Does it look bad as a candidate if I apply to two post-doctoral positions at the same national research laboratory? I am generally applying to lecturer/post-doc/assistant professor positions right now and the laboratory I am interested in has two positions opened and they are closely related in terms of research areas. I am curious whether to apply both at the same time with different cover letters stating why I am suitable for each position or would it look bad and desperate rather than interested if I do that?

It's fine.  A lot of times the divisions are pretty separate profit (err...cost) centers.  I've also seen people apply to CRD and an SBU also at conglomerates.  It's usually fine.  Just let them know if things get serious with both of them (invited for visit, say, or for sure competing offers).  They won't want to negotiate against each other and one will likely bow out.  You should have a preference at that time to control which direction you want to go, rather than letting them make the call.  But this only applies when things are at a later state.

If you are just prospecting, spread your availability wide like tree pollen.  Ideally, you will have some competing offers that are completely outside the given national lab as well (so you still end up with multiple offers).

P.s.  (in answer response to a comment above)  I would not feel bad about HR seeing resumes that differ slightly either.  Go ahead and tailor the resumes versus the opportunity.  Obviously your name, etc. should be identical.  And use the same format.  But if you have enough experience that you can emphasize computer work for the computer position and lab work for the lab position, that is fine.  Don't misrepresent yourself.  But respond to their stated needs.  That is normal.  I would also add that the likelihood that they end up on the table together is low.  Even if you go through a central system, they will probably be presorted by job posting.  In any case, as long as you can look at the two documents and see that there is not a lie, you're fine.  Emphasizing Aishness for A and Bishness for B is not wrong.  And in fact, HR experts will tell you to do that!


How can a commentary be published before the commentary it’s commenting on? I submitted a commentary on a paper authored by the chief editor of a publication¹. After over six months, my commentary was finally placed in the peer-review queue. Before the review of our commentaries were even completed, two commentaries discussing our commentary were published. It should be noted that we still haven’t seem a response/reply to our original commentaries from the original author.

I am questioning the ethics of allowing commentaries of commentaries being published before the original commentary has been put "In Press" and would like to get other peoples perspective on the situation. Bottom line I am asking: Is there any explanation how this could have happened with an ethically operating journal or an ethically acting editor, respectively?

¹ I am being vague on specific details for a reason

Assuming your "commentary" was not publicly available (e.g., as preprint on your homepage or some server), and assuming that you submitted it to the journal under an assumption of confidentiality (in the first place), a reasonable editor and/or referee would certainly not publish commentary on a thing they had under confidential review... IF "commentary" means something at all conforming to the usual rules-of-the-game with "papers", which I can't quite tell from the sketchy details you've given.

That is, in the world (academic mathematics) in which I operate, if in the course of refereeing papers submitted to traditional journals I learn something interesting/useful, or disagree with various aspects, my main channel of response is (anonymously) back to the authors through the editor, requesting or recommending a revision. It would be highly inappropriate for me to write and make-public, whether on a web site or any other venue, a paper either extending or contradicting or critiquing that paper prior to its official public appearance.

If anything like that has happened, then it does seem well outside the bounds of propriety, yes.


What are the restrictions placed by copyright laws on reuse of figures in dissertation defense? In some sense this question follows the question: Is it necessary to obtain permissions for copying figures from published articles in your proposal/dissertation?

Following F'x's advice and my own university's very stringent requirements, I have applied for permissions for reuse of figures in my dissertation. I plan to drop the figures, the permission for reuse of which has not been provided freely by the respective holder.

I hadn't given this much thought before, but what permissions are necessary for reuse of figures in a dissertation defense? I mean the powerpoint presentation slides. Of course, clear and prominent attribution is the minimum requirement, but is there a clear law on this? It's become reasonably convenient to obtain permissions from US publishers (copyright.com), but what if the publisher in question is based in Europe?

If you aren't planning to publish you slides, I would advise you to not worry about copyright law in this case. Copyright law applies to your use of material in slides just like it does any other medium, but there is more possible latitude for fair use claims. That "possible latitude" means legal grey area and lots of possible time and money that can be sunk into a likely fruitless attempt to achieve clarity, since many edge cases may have no official legal determination yet.

Thus, my real advice is this: worry about communicating, not about copyright. Nobody at your defense will report you for copyright infringements. More care is appropriate when posting online, but it is still the case that a) probably nobody will care and b) if somebody does care, the expected action will be to ask you to remove the image from the posted slide.


Will an industry funded PhD hurt one's research career? Most students I know in computer science are funded either by the NSF or their professor's startup package [in the US]. But it also isn't completely unheard of for a company to give a gift/grant to a professor to fund a student.

This seem to have a few implications, such as the student's dissertation being tied to the company's interests and the student would probably be expected to work onsite each summer.

The students I have known to do this, go on to industry after graduating (not necessarily the company that funded them). This brings up the following questions...

Would a hiring committee at a university consider the close ties to industry a negative?
If the student continues publishing regularly, is there anything about this scenario that can hurt one's research career?

Note: Suresh's answer to the question Will self funding a PhD hurt employment chances? is very relevant, but I think there are some different obstacles for industry funding.

I see no inherent problem with industry funding for Ph.D., and in many cases it can be a benefit.  Certainly in computer science there is a broad spectrum of options for different types of research career (government, large industry, startups, etc.), and it's not unusual for people to move between them multiple times over the course of a career. As long as you are publishing well and frequently, you'll have lots of options.


Using reference as a subject in writing Is it acceptable to use references as a subject in a sentence (in the context of academic writing, preferably in computer science)?

For example:

  An extensive research has been done on eye capture by [Bérard
  et al. 2014].

Versus:

  An extensive research has been done on eye capture by Bérard
  et al. [Bérard et al. 2014].

I feel like it removes tautology and makes the text easier on eyes. Moreover, I have seen published papers where authors write like this (although not many). However, it is considered to be bad style by a couple of people who I have asked. Their reasoning is that a reference should be an additional information and if you remove all references from the text, the text should still be complete and make sense. I understand this reason, but I feel like there are no real cases when this can be needed.

I don't know about computer science, but we would do

  An extensive research has been done on eye capture by Berard et al. (2014).


Academically dismissed from grad school but want to reapply Back in the Fall of 2013, I attended a masters program straight out of college. Turned out to be extremely overwhelming relocating to NYC, living on my own and starting grad school. I knew I was in the right field but my anxiety got the best of me and I struggled speaking up in class which of course negatively impacted my grades. By the second semester I already knew I needed to leave and recuperate before I could return just to work on my anxiety problem. The problem was that it was too late for me to withdraw and I ended up trying my best to complete the semester even though a huge part of me did not want to be there anymore, especially since my teachers felt I was not ready for the program given my lack of contribution in the class discussions. By the end of the semester I decided that I did not want to return to the school (was not thrilled with the program there or the faculty) but later on found out I had been academically dismissed since my GPA fell below 3.0 to 2.96.
Since last Fall (2014), I have been just focusing on work and working on my anxiety with a therapist but have been thinking about applying to the same field (mental health counseling) at another school for the fall of 2016. Would I have a fair shot at being admitted into another school in the same field given that I was dismissed from my previous program? Just wondering if anyone else has been in a similar situation.
Thank you in advance for your feedback.

For the poster, I recommend you take this very carefully, and perhaps read it a few times. I hate telling people that their dream may not be achievable, because I was in those shoes at one point, too. However, I can't advocate blindly trudging forward and not giving up because that wastes both your money and your time if you don't objectively evaluate whether or not your goal is still achievable.

A while ago, I was in a Master's Program in Biological Sciences, with the ultimate goal of eventually going to medical school. I struggled as much as I could, but in the end, failed to meet academic standards and was told that I was no longer in the program. BAM! Just like that, my dream of going to medical school was over. What seemed achievable, in a year, became a flight of fancy, and a disappointment that I took deeply for a while.

Needless to say, when you fail out of one program, the chances of you continuing in the same field drop dramatically, even if you can explain it as a medical issue, because the onus of proof points to the fact that you were unable to complete your original program.

I gave up my dream of applying to medical school and started working on a Master's in Computer Science. I had some experience, and I knew I could do it. It wasn't brain surgery, but it was something I was good at. I've been done with the Master's for a few years, and have been VERY happy with what I am currently doing. If you had told me right after I failed my first Master's that I would find something better to enjoy doing, I would probably have just flopped over like a fish and not cared.

I now call this event my "early-life crisis." A lot earlier than the mid-life crises that people feel regarding their work, because we reach the point where our dream not being attainable actually becomes a plausible or even likely scenario.

I hate to say it, some of us aren't really prepared or capable of achieving our "dream" jobs. I say "dream" because dreams can change, and they certainly should, given how your life plays out. Lots of people want to become the next Lebron James, but very few can. You can take 24/7 basketball courses and weight training, but sometimes, we just don't have the traits we need to reach that level. We make do, and we should course-correct if we know that making do is not sufficient for us.

You state that you were uncomfortable participating in group discussions regarding the subject of your Master's, mental health counseling. I'm somewhat familiar with this by prior trade, but communication is a big part of that field, and unless you get around the issues preventing you from participating, the same failure is likely to happen. Given what you've said, I would like to put to question whether or not you feel that you are a good fit for the program you're enrolled in.

Instead of jumping immediately in and trying again, you definitely evaluate your short-term and long-term career goals with your therapist. You should seriously consider additional programs and subject fields as well.


Is a graphic that shows mainly code a listing or a figure? I am using the following (graphical) element in a document to introduce the concept of a linear revision control history:

Once printed, it is, by definition, a listing ("a printed list of lines of computer code") . Actually, three listings. But clearly it has visual elements beyond a typical listing. In fact, the source code doesn't even serve the purpose of the graphic.

So: is it a listing or a figure?
Should the caption say "Listing x.y" or "Figure x.y"?

It' s a figure. Without the graphical elements, it is not comprehensible any more. A listing could be formated in other ways without changing the meaning, but changing the graphical elements would change the meaning.


Conference rebuttal: can I add results? I have just received my reviews for a paper I submitted to a CS conference. I would like to address the concerns of the reviewers, but doing so would require adding new results. For example, if Reviewer 2 says, "This method looks great, but it lacks X and Y evaluations", am I allowed to perform that evaluation and say, "Thank you for this feedback. We totally agree. We have run X and Y evaluations and can include it in the final copy."

I can do this extra work, but adding such evaluations would represent a modification to the final paper—in my case, probably adding one plot and one table of evaluations.

I've only submitted to journals before, in which case the above was the norm. In the context of a CS conference, it is not clear whether or not I can modify the paper in this way.

You should check the conference's policy on rebuttals.
In general, you can add results in the rebuttal, but they may or may not be ignored. A rebuttal should be equivalent to a minor revision, not a major revision. That said, there is not much harm in trying as an author to promise more in the rebuttal.

The problem is that rebuttals sometimes promise amazing improvements to the paper, but there is no way for the conference program committee to evaluate the promised improvements before making an accept/reject decision. So the general policy is that authors should ensure that the original submission is up to scratch and not rely on the rebuttal to make major improvements. Reviewers are instructed to evaluate the submitted paper on its own merits.

In your case, the reviewer has explicitly asked for something -- that is a clear license to provide it. If space allows, you can include that in the rebuttal and promise to add that to the final version of the paper.


An unused reference in a research paper I am in a process of making a paper camera-ready for publication. In the reference section, I have listed some works, which are not referenced in the text.

For example, can I write in the main text:

  This result1 is cited from [1].
  This result2 is cited from [4].

… and in the reference section:

  [1]  cited from here
  [2]  cited from here
  [3]  cited from here
  [4]  cited from here

I have not referenced [2] and [3] anywhere in the paper.

Is this paper is valid for publication? Or does it not affect the paper?

This depends on the journal's style sheet, but usually you only list the references that are cited in the text. Thus, I would delete the superfluous ones (and renumber the notes).


Sent emails asking for letters of recommendation, but no responses/agreement to write letter At my undergraduate school I was hired by my advisor to work in his lab. Now I want to apply to graduate school at the same institution and have begun asking for letters of recommendation, but the only responses I've received have been no, I'm unable to write letters at this time or I'm at a meeting (conference) and will reply when I get back (not automated and I'm pretty sure the prof is already back because we work in the same building).

The other people still haven't responded and it makes me think they're either really busy and can't do it and so are delaying informing me they can't do it or they didn't see it or saw it and forgot about it. The deadline is approaching quickly.

Is it obnoxious if I email them again to ask if they received it or when I can expect a response?

They are probably just very busy. Try to ask in person if at all possible, since emails just get lost in inboxes.

Also, the referee may not feel they have the time to write a reference, since there can be a substantial upfront cost in time just to figure out what needs to be said. You can help them, and you, by providing a draft of a reference that contains the main things you think should be said. This sounds a bit cheeky, but can be very effective at cutting the perceived effort in writing your reference, and thus improving the chances they'll agree to provide one.


PhD applications: ethics of not informing other universities after accepting an offer I have accepted a PhD offer from university A. I have informed a not so prestigious university D that they should dismiss my application (they invited me for an interview, offered me to pay the flight, etc.). I am still waiting to hear from very prestigious universities B and C (which, as A, are top 10 in most rankings). Is it ethically acceptable for me to wait for the decisions of B and C and inform them about my choice of A afterwards? I am curious whether they would have taken me. Informing B and C late means wasting their time, but I paid application fees for B and C.

To clarify: I do not intend to attend either of B or C.

I think you should withdraw your applications from B and C.

By keeping your application active, not only are you wasting the committee's time, you are potentially hurting other students.  Most graduate programs can only accept a certain number of students per year, but there may be many more applicants who would still be well qualified and able to succeed.  If the committee accepts your application, that means they are denying admission to someone else who might be equally deserving.  If you withdraw now, you open that space for someone else.


How many assistant professor or postdoc jobs do people usually apply for in mathematics? Assuming you want a good chance of getting at least 1 offer from a research university, is applying for 20 jobs average? Is applying for 30 jobs overkill?

Would most letter writers feel hassled by having to send off letters to like 10-15 different websites, or would they expect that is normal?

1) Unless you have something close to an Annals level paper, I would say you should be applying for close to 100.  This probably isn't actually possible; to hit this number reasonably, you have to apply for temporary positions and for non-research oriented positions.  Think of it this way.  Positions taking applications on Mathjobs are getting something like 500 applicants.  You're probably more qualified than most applicants, but if you're in the top 100, and a position hires uniformly at random from the top 100, then you need to apply to 100 to have expected value of one job.

2) Most recommenders are willing - they're blaming the university for not taking Mathjobs applications, not you.  If you want to save your recommenders trouble at the expense of your money, you can use Interfolio, which is a company that sends out applications - including confidential letters - for you.


Letters of recommendation from undergrad professors after you have a masters I'm in a masters program in mathematics (in the United States) and I plan to apply for PhD programs in math (in the U.S./Canada) in a few months. I'm going to need at least 3 letters of recommendation for my PhD applications. I'm definitely going to ask my masters thesis advisor for a letter, but the other two letters can come from any of the following categories:

Other professors from my masters program (which are all lecturers/postdocs)
Undergrad research advisors (I have three)
Other professors from my undergrad program

My question is this: after completing a masters degree, will letters of recommendation from my undergraduate professors carry much weight? Would it be better for me to ask for a letter from a postdoc who taught one of my masters-level classes than to ask for a letter from my undergrad research advisor (who's been teaching for 10+ years)?

There are two general categories to consider for deciding who should write letters of recommendation: the recommenders familiarity with you, and their standing in the field. In this case, those two criteria may be in conflict.

As you have described it, the standing of your masters faculty leaves something to be desired, conceivably being people who do not have tenure, and may not even be in tenure-track positions (as it is unclear what you mean when you say someone is a lecturer, which I realize in United Kingdom may sometimes be the same as a Assistant Professor). While these letters of recommendation are not worthless, they certainly won't go as far as a letter of recommendation from somebody who can more reasonably evaluate you in comparison to other people in the field, and whom people in the field have reason to believe will make that evaluation correctly.

On the other hand, the professors who have advised you as an undergraduate may be less familiar with your work, and therefore less able to write a good letter of recommendation. Importantly, your graduate work may have been at a much higher level of proficiency then your undergraduate work, meaning that the letters of recommendation that your undergraduate professors could write for you would not reflect your more advanced standing in the field.

In this situation, the most important consideration is how good of a letter of recommendation can your thesis advisor right for you? If your thesis advisor can reasonably cover the work that you have done in your masters program, that inclines towards letting your other two letters be tenured professors from your undergraduate institution.

A secondary consideration, however, is how long ago you attended your undergraduate institution, and how long your masters program has been. If you went straight through after undergraduate, and you are essentially only one or two years removed then other than your education, little has changed and your undergraduate faculty is likely to be able to write accurate and helpful letters of recommendation. On the other hand, if you have taken several years off and returned to school, then a lot about you has changed and should be reflected in your letters, and your undergraduate faculty does not know you nearly as well. As a rule of thumb, more than five years without significant contact is too long for a letter of recommendation, but your mileage may vary.


Should you list irrelevant work experience on graduate school applications? (1) On graduate school applications that ask for a work history, is it permissible to omit jobs--such as waitressing, temping, working retail--that have nothing to do with the program to which you are applying?

(2) If so, where is the line drawn to make a job something you are truly expected to report on the application? If you babysit now and then, do odd jobs for a day, or "help out" in a store for a few weeks, are admissions committees truly interested in knowing that? More to the point, is it dishonest to leave it out?

For an idea of the specific context, here is text from one graduate school's question about employment history:

  "[List] employment experience (including part-time) since secondary
  school""

I ask about the general case here.

1) If we're asking, we want to know. It's fine to list workplaces that seem irrelevant -- for the (professional) graduate program I teach in, a little workplace seasoning is a distinct plus no matter how connected it is to the program. Moreover, some of our applicants are surprised by the variety of experiences we find relevant. (Retail? You bet. Sales? Absolutely. Office temping? We won't have to teach you what a memo is, good.) So yes, it's "permissible" to leave these jobs out, but you're more likely to hurt than help yourself thereby.

2) Rule of thumb: if you wouldn't put it on your résumé, we don't need to know about it. If you babysit regularly enough that you have certifications and know CPR, sure, tell us about that. Help out the neighbors with their kids occasionally? We don't need to know, and we'll suspect that you're trying to pad your application.


Review after minor revision I submitted paper in a elseiver journal.It first asked for major revision. After a month of submitting revised manuscript it asked for minor revision.I adressed all the points submitted. Now it is again showing reviewers invited since last 10 days. Should I be worried.

Hard to say as the process can be unpredictable. But generally spoken, being worried will not alter any situation in this case. So don’t!

The most likely scenario seems to be that the editor send your work after minor revision to the referee who was asking for it. Then it will take probably one month to get your work accepted.

Unfortunately new referees can be invited by an editor when an old referee drops out by just not responding. For that reason, I hope that referees always finish the task they accepted.

Another reason for inviting new referees might be that an editor is just not sure about certain aspects of your work. Maybe because one of the referees indicated this in the ‘message to editor section’.

A third reason for inviting new referees might be a reject from the final reviewer after your minor revision (assuming the editor had send it out again).

It is just guessing. From my own experience I once reveiced in a row major revision, minor revision, major revision. Two referees accepted, one referee dropped out and the new referee kept raising issues over and over again. After having addressed five extensive review reports we contacted the journal and asked for an editorial decision because the last reviewer showed no intention to finalize the process. We were lucky. ‘Do not try this at home’.

A respectable colleague of mine (and excellent scientist and author) received two fresh reviews after major revision. You can review a paper to garbage if you want. Insecure or too busy editors are also not helping.

Publishing can be very frustrating. Reviewers and associate editors are volunteers and there seems to be a persistent believe among scientists that although not perfect, this is the best possible system to maintain scientific quality.

An eye opener for me was an editor telling me that it is an autors’ duty to defend his/her work against low quality review reports (scientific integrity). However, it is risky. This editor also told me that even non constructive review reports have a potential to improve your work. We can learn from everyone. I do agree with that and it helps me in being more patient.


Path to AI research from math undergrad, no CS background? Suppose someone has a math bachelors with a developing interest in AI research but has not taken a single computer science course.
Is it advisable to "start over" and try to be admitted to a masters program in computer science, perhaps by taking prerequisite courses as a non degree student somewhere?
Or is it possible to approach the field from the perspective of statistics, getting an MS in Data Science or Statistics and self-teaching programming and CS along the way, before applying to a CS PhD?
In other words, is there really any AI or machine learning research being done in most statistics departments?

In the field of AI, there are many mathematicians.  For example, they may focus on the theoretical aspects of AI algorithms, e.g., non-convex optimization.  Knowing how to program is a definite requirement, but I do not believe you need an entire degree for that.


IEEE Style for Number Array What is the IEEE preferred style for writing a number array with a specific step size? There seem to be several options:

1: (start, step, stop)

2: (start:step:stop)

3: start ... (step) ... stop

There are a few other (seemingly) equally valid representations, even ignoring the differentiation between inclusive and exclusive brackets. I say start/stop instead of min/max because at least one of my arrays has a negative step size, that is, the numbers are getting smaller.

Is there a prefered style or is it just whatever floats my boat? I can't find any suggestions in the IEEE Style Manual.

IEEE doesn't care: use whatever best communicates to your readers, and make sure you explain it if you aren't using a blatantly obvious notation.


Copy pasting definitions and theorems from other papers to my own paper I am writing a mathematical paper.  Since my English is not perfect, i am borrowing sentences from English-speaking authors. I have some questions about copy and paste from other papers to my paper. As you know, one needs some definitions and theorems from other papers. I cited all of papers that i used either definition or theorems from them.

1)Can i copy and paste the original either theorems or definition from the papers to my paper or i have to change them?i mean writing somehow that is not as same as original one.  Because i have seen English-speaking authors often change original theorem or definition in their papers. On the other hand, i have seen someone does not.

2)As i mentioned, i am borrowing sentences from English-speaking authors. When i look it my introduction, i see this sentence from that paper, that sentence from that paper and ... It makes scene. My supervisor read it and he said it is okay( it is not ambiguous) but i'm scared that referee rejects my paper.

Please do not borrow sentences

Instead, borrow sentence structures. If the original sentence is, "Our results also have implications on the study of öhkömönkiäiset.", you might write "Our main result also has implications on öhkömönkiäis-studies."

First, this way you are not copy-pasting. Second, this forces you to think about the language and therefore learn it, thereby reducing the need to copy and making writing a lot easier.

Also, go ahead and improve your English. There are many free resources online, but simply reading a lot is a great help. For more specific advice on how to learn the language, https://languagelearning.stackexchange.com/ is a fine place to ask. For specific questions about the English language, maybe ask at https://ell.stackexchange.com/.

(The easiest improvement to the English in this question would be to capitalize "I".)

Quoting definitions and theorems word-for-word

For many basic definitions, there are only a small number of ways of writing them clearly and compactly. Just use an established way of writing.

Sometimes, if a definition or result is complex or not yet established, there are better and worse ways of writing it and maybe even several variations that define slightly different things. In this case, cite the source, since the exact definition matters.

Usually you are somewhere between these two cases, in which case I would recommend you to write the definition or theorem by yourself, so that you are more likely to write it in the same way as your other results and to use the same notation.


Refereeing papers on behalf of a professor: should it be listed on a CV? My professor sometimes asks me to referee papers for him.
Should I list the corresponding journals in the professionals activity section of my CV?

Yes. It is the very prototype of service to the professional community that you want to show that you are willing to perform.

The question that Scrooge linked to has good advice for how to do so.


Daily Habits to Prepare for Graduate School I'm currently interested in pursuing a graduate degree in computer science, but right now I am working full time and will need to continue to do so for a few more years until I can pay off my undergraduate debt.  I also have very limited research experience as an undergraduate. That said I was wondering what are some small things I could incorporate into my daily routine to both prepare myself for graduate school (I've noticed the work in the corporate world is very different than school) and make myself a more attractive candidate when I am able to apply?

To prepare yourself and keep your skills in shape, one idea is to gradually go through advanced undergrad/beginning graduate textbooks, including doing exercises.  (Reading is good, but also doing exercises (both theoretical and programming) is better.)  It might also be good to do a programming project or two, from which ideas might naturally stem out of your reading.  What to go through also depends on your situation (what area of CS, what you learned already, whether you're already programming for work...)

However, to make yourself a good candidate for graduate studies, you'll also want good letters of recommendation, which means you want someone (ideally an academic) familiar with your further preparations.  Therefore you might try contacting one of your old professors or a professor geographically close to you to see if they're willing to help give you some guidance in your studies and/or involve you in a research project.

See also: How to show graduate schools my strong self study background?


Coronavirus, school lockdown and future uncertainty I am a master student expected to graduate in April. I want to work as an R/A for my thesis advisor after graduation and want to do a PhD afterwards. However, the entire school is closed and I cannot meet him in person. When I asked him about meeting after the corona is over, he said “don't worry about graduation, you will be able to graduate online”. It seems that he does not want to meet me, which makes me feel very depressed and anxious. My only option now is to write an email. I want to talk with him over several things:

Is my thesis good enough that justifies doing a PhD? If yes, is it possible that I publish it with him being coauthor?
Is it possible I become his R/a? Even if my thesis is good, that is not a guarantee.
What can I do to improve PhD chance?
Will he write me a letter of recommendation?

I think that asking all of these in one email is not a good idea. So I am thinking to start it with the email:

  Dear Prof.A, I am very grateful for your advices for my thesis.
  Without you I would not have been able to graduate. I learned a lot
  from you and now that the thesis is finished, I discovered my passion
  for research and realize that this is what I want to do for the rest
  of my life. I have some questions, I would be very grateful if you can
  answer them:

  do you think my thesis is good enough justify me going to phd. If it is good can we coauthor on my thesis and publish. That sounds a bit
  too arrogant from my part, so I do not know how to word it.
  Is it possible I become your r.a. Your research is very interesting and you taught me so much during our time working together . I wish to
  learn more from you.
  Do you have any advice for me to get into good Phd school?

  thank you so much again!
  regards,
  B

Can you give me some advice? I am very depressed and anxious to the point I cannot move for many days.

“don't worry about graduation, you will be able to graduate online”

In this context, I would translate your advisor's thought process as:

  This student sounds like they are anxious and worried about graduation. The best way I can help them worry less is to simply tell them not to worry.

Nothing there about wanting to meet or not. Indeed, if your advisor does not want to meet in person, it's more likely to stay out of the public and help contribute to reducing disease spread.

I think it's fine to write an email with some bullet points about things you'd like to discuss further. Thank them for reassuring you about graduation, but make it clear that there are in fact things you could use advice on besides just a path to graduating.

Then you can ask whether the professor would prefer to discuss those things over email, to meet via phone or video chat (like Skype, Google Hangouts), or to meet in person.

Be as patient as you can be, because this is likely a stressful time for everyone. Your advisor may not be able to meet or respond right away - don't let that worry you.


Is it a good idea to email the admission committee after a suboptimal interview? I didn't do well in a part of a technical interview for a master's program, which was a question in the field X.

The most important subfield of my major for that program is X and X is not particularly my strength, because I took more advanced courses in other subfields during the last two years of my undergrad. But that is exactly why I want to do that master's program. I've had the necessary elementary courses in the field X, but did not go deeper in those topics, simply because there is not enough time to take all the helpful and good courses as an undergrad. That's why I decided to take some other courses as an undergrad and leave advanced courses in X for my graduate degree. I also want to do a Ph.D. after my master's and the field I want to do my Ph.D. is quite directly related to the master's degree I was interviewed for and involves a great deal of X.

To me, it makes perfect sense to apply for a master's program in a field that I'm not strong in, because otherwise, I wouldn't need to take more courses in that field and I will learn whatever I need, quite easily, through self-study. Is it a good idea to email the admission committee (or the professor who interviewed me) and explain this to them now? (Please keep in mind that I could have mentioned this point in my SOP, but I didn't. Probably a bad decision...)

I think you are overthinking this. A polite email followup to an interview is always fine ("Thanks for the opportunity" "I was really impressed by ____" etc), but it shouldn't be used to make excuses or justify deficiencies in the interview.

It seems likely to me that one of two things are true:

A) You are not adequately prepared for the master's program. This is okay, it doesn't mean you are a bad person, but it means that other people may be selected instead of you, and it may mean that you would struggle in the program and are a better fit elsewhere.

or

B) You are overestimating the importance of the answers to the questions you were asked about X, which may have been geared to measure where your current knowledge is at rather than an exam per se.

In neither of these cases does it matter if you try explain your interview performance after the fact.


small sample for an article proof, how to deal with it? I have written an article about using technique X as a methodology for lecturing an Information Technology classroom. At the beginning of the experiment I hypothesize that the use of this technique would have a negative effect on the learning outcomes of the students, even though a colleague was pretty sure that it was going to be the opposite way around. Anyway, when the experimentation part ended I was right, the methodology applied was worse than the old method applied and we wrote a paper about this experience. The problem is that we tested the methodology only in a small group of students, 30 approximately, but we have some doubts if it could get rejected because the sample is too small considering other experiments in which there are involved hundred of students.
Bottomline, how to deal this issue in a research paper? Should I only present the results and not make any statistical hypothesis testing? I have performed an h-test, but one colleague told me that still the sample is too small.
Any help?

The proper way is to conduct a power analysis and present its results in the manuscript. Of course, such an analysis

might show that your sample size is too small for conclusive results
should have been conducted prior to the study.

As a result the paper might be rejected during review, but one could argue that it should be rejected. If the power analysis shows that you need to increase sample size, you could repeat/extent the experiment until you achieve sufficient statistical power.


What visa is required for a TV-L PhD position in Germany I am a citizen of a non EU country with an offer for a PhD position in a research training group with a TV-L E13 (65%) salary. I was told getting a student visa would be problematic. Which visa would I require to work under TV-L salary.

A student visa is definitely wrong (and something you can't fix afterwards!) You need a visa for a long-term stay that allows you to earn money; this is usually called a "national visa type D". This will allow multiple entries. Be aware that it will usually only be issued for three or six months (I've seen both), and you need to get the "real" visa for the full duration of the contract ("Aufenthaltserlaubnis") at the foreign office ("Ausländerbehörde") once you have arrived in Germany.

To get the visa, you need to provide some documentation about your employment in Germany; specifically,

date and place where the contract will be signed,
duration of the contract,
exact description of your position,
income.

The university should know about this and provide you a letter of confirmation
In your case, something like

  $NAME, born $BIRTHDAY, is supposed to be employed from $STARTING_DATE
  to $ENDING_DATE as a wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter (TV-L E13) with
  65% of full working time at the $DEPARTMENT of $UNIVERSITY.

would suffice, since it's a standard position the embassy will be familiar with. You also need to present your Masters diploma to verify that you are qualified for the position.


What's the best way to present regression results in a conference? In many disciplines, regression results are a key finding that we use to present in conferences or seminars. I've seen many presentation slides full of numbers where in the end no auditor can identify a singe number.

What's the best way to present regression results (and other numeric tables) e.g. in seminars or conferences?

For example, what about mrkers for statistical significance instead of standard errors (or t statistics or p-values) and colors? Or should I prefer additional visualizations of coefficients?

I'd avoid presenting tables but would focus on (margin)plots that tell a story (which, of course, is based on your hypothesis/es). Here are a few links/references that might get you started:

Using Graphs Instead of Tables in Political Science
Interpreting and Visualizing Regression Models Using Stata
Graphische Darstellung regressionsanalytischer Ergebnisse (if you speak German) or Graphical Display of Regression Results


Handwritten vs printed assignments I am taking an Introduction to Differential Equations class. There is assigned homework. It is specified that we must turn it in on paper.

Is it wrong or odd to use LaTeX and turn it in as computer generated instead of handwritten? I am in fact using a computer to do the assignment so it would be extra work to write it on paper.

I've seen it done by some students at Utrecht University, while I was a fellow student, and as Master/PhD teaching assistent. I think this was never frowned upon, and personally I'd have a slight preference even for LateX-ed homework, because it is guaranteed to be legible (although I've also seen homework that was poorly LaTeX typeset).


How much feedback to give for an undergraduate / master's thesis? I'm a post-doc who has been the primary supervisor for two master's students this year (computer science, UK). Their theses are due in soon, and I have asked for a draft beforehand so that I can give some feedback. However, I am now wondering how typical this is, and whether it is fair on other students in the year (because more senior supervisors would have less time for this than me.) It has been so long since my master's that I cannot remember how it was for me!

I believe that this is slightly different to a PhD thesis. Whilst my PhD supervisor was rather uninvolved with my PhD thesis, I know that some PhD supervisors are very hands-on, even to the point of correcting spelling and grammar. However, it seems to me that doing a PhD is more a collaborative process with the supervisor, whereas a master's thesis should be more independent, and a more rigorous evaluation of the student's own abilities.

So -- how much feedback should I be giving to my master's students, if any at all?

As noted in a comment, this is probably highly dependent on the university culture and field. My answer is based on my impressions from CS in Germany.

In my subfield (HCI-related), it was most usual for doctoral candidates to supervise between one and four Bachelor/Master theses a year, maybe a bit less for post-docs (each of which took exactly 6 months). (Depending on the topic, supervision occasionally took place in groups - i.e. two or three supervisors for one student, taking turns at supervision tasks or focusing different aspects of the work.)

As a rough guideline, the "amount" of supervision provided was usually a weekly meeting (typically, between 10 and 60 minutes in length) with the student to give them advice and answer questions. And, realistically, in some phases and for some students, to remind them that they should get some work done because they cannot work on their Bachelor/Master thesis forever. As a secondary channel of supervision, students were free to ask urgent questions whenever they came up, via e-mail or by just dropping by in the supervisor's office whenever it was convenient.

The kind of supervision covered a wide spectrum - essentially, everything from high-level advice (decisions about the content and how to proceed, developing some basic ideas for solutions together, scientific best practices, ...) to low-level operational details (technical issues in the code and in the LaTeX document, stylistic writing and layouting questions in the document, ...) could come up.1

As for looking at drafts, I agree with semi-extrinsic's answer in that it's likely too late if the thesis is almost due. Personally, when I knew the student was in the phase in which they had already scheduled some writing, I would ask my students on almost every meeting whether there's a new or revised section that I can read and comment on (not necessarily because I was so keen on commenting, but first and foremost as another means of urging students to do the part of the task that most liked the least - writing the thesis document). Moreover, at least at my home department, we usually required students to use the department's Subversion version control system, which was another way how supervisors could look at the students' progress and the current state of their thesis when they had a feeling progress wasn't as smooth as it should be.

Lastly, concerning fairness, I must admit the thought that there could be anything unfair (in a way that should be avoided) in this never crossed my mind. Of course, supervisors in different institutes may hold very different opinions as to what amount and kind of effort is optimal and feasible in their supervision. But then, students are not assigned to supervisors in my place; they usually pick a topic they like and they know beforehand who is going to be the supervisor for that topic. Anyway, as a result of the different opinions, supervision between institutes differed. Students could have bad luck with their supervisor, or with the typical style of supervision in the institute that focuses on the subfield they like. But the question is: Should you do anything about it? I'd say no. First, because I consider it part of a university graduate's skills to also get along with supervision that does not ideally suit their personal preferences. And moreover, because I firmly believe that unfairness should not be countered by removing any advantages until every option is as bad as the original quality minimum.

1: This does not mean that students would have supervisors do all their work. The goal was rather guiding the students towards a balance between working out problems autonomously and not being shy to actively contact the supervisor about any current roadblocks.


Should the introduction of a thesis have figures/pictures? I'm writing my master thesis in network formation theory. I believe that a picture with network nodes in the introduction will help the readers understand what my model is and what I am trying to prove. I doubt most readers would read past the introduction anyway so if they do not understand the introduction then that would be a big problem for me.
Is that advisable or not? What if I am using the introduction as the writing sample for my PhD application?

I can't think of any reason in general that you should not do this if it makes sense in the context of the paper. If you can express the underlying concept better with a figure then it is better than to use words.
But an advisor might disagree, in the context of this paper. And an editor or reviewer of the paper might disagree. In that case, change it.
But the paper is yours. Do what you thing makes the most sense and makes the paper accessible to your audience.


Saying thank you to professor & asking for a reference at the same time? I would like to say thank you to a professor for a conversation we had when I was not in a good place. However, this is > 2 years ago now. I also have not been in touch, so I'm not sure he will remember.

Lastly, I will need a reference at some point in the future, and I am going to ask this professor.

I am worried that saying thank you now will look like I am just getting in touch because of the reference (which I will possibly have to ask for in already a month or two).

Could it be interpreted this way, and should I maybe just leave this now? I am worried it will look very fake and like I am only emailing now to secure that reference. At the same time I would like to say thank you, which I was not ready for before.

How about if you put it the other way around? Ask for a reference first and add later something like "I'd also like to take this opportunity and thank you for ..." and explain your situation. Then it at least seems less suspicious, since you are asking for something first.

Alternatively, ask for the reference in one email, and if you get a reply, thank him/her in a second email.


How should I cite presentation slides? A friend has made some nice slides that I could reuse (similar topics). He sent me the slides and commented that if I use them and could cite him that would be nice, I asked him how should I cite the slides but he said that whatever suits better to me he said "Just add my surname in some place where it's not very intrusive".

I'm not sure if he doesn't care or he doesn't want to be too picky, but I'd like to cite him, to each one his own.

AFAIK, they are related to a paper (but not in the paper) and to his thesis, where they could be as a diagram but definitively not animated. The slides (as such) may be available at some URL, he said they will be but they are not available yet (so I don't have the URL yet). If citing by the URL I guess I could use this: "How to cite a website URL?"

Should I cite slides? If yes, how?

There are two practical purposes to scholarly citations:

acknowledging scientific contribution of others, the borrowing of ideas (mainly) and content (sometimes, in the form of quotes)
helping people find relevant content if they want to read it
bookkeeping, for scientometric/bibliometric purposes

In your particular case, you cannot fulfill #2 and #3, because your friend's slides are not available for others to read, and even if they were, random documents on the internet are not really used for bibliometric purposes.

So, you want a solution that will achieve #1, i.e. make sure his contributions are recognized by people who will read your slides. To do so, you don't need to give your citation any specific format. I suggest you simply write, at the bottom of slides you borrowed from him:

  Slide courtesy of John Doe

or

  Slide modified from John Doe, with permission

In addition, you can thank him in your acknowledgements at the end of your talk.


Should one add the 4th LOR for the admit panel (PhD CS USA Fall 2022) Background: CS undergrad
I have 3 Letter Writers whom I have done in-depth research with (published, to-be published work). But I have not performed any coursework with any of them because 2 of them are outside my university and the 1 within my university is in a different department.
I have my "class advisor" whom I have done minimal research with and attended 4 of her courses (mostly programming and 1 Software Theory Class).
Question: Should I ask her to be my 4th Letter Writer?
Many applications say that they will allow a 4th letter but one needn't submit them. Hence the question.
Do LOR writers need to be someone who's taught you a class? I am aware of the similar question here but this is specifically in regards to the 4th letter writer for course work.

If the fourth letter will strongly support your application and is from someone who can fairly judge your work, then it would be better to send it than not. But a lukewarm letter won't help you and might dilute stronger letters. You have to judge that.
The letter readers will be looking to make a prediction of success for accepted candidates.


Applying to Law school in USA with an Econ BS degree from another country My friend moved to Los Angeles a few months ago and she wants to go to law school in here. She got a Bachelor's degree in Economics from another country (she is a resident in USA). The university she studied in is one of the top in the country but is not known in the world. She is thinking of going maybe to UCLA or USC law schools.

I am trying to help her to see what will be the best for her. We are planning to talk to a school counselor hopefully next week, but doesn't hurt to ask the question here :)

What is better?

If she goes to a community college, then transfers to a 4 year university and majors in something different (maybe engineering or something else), and then applies to Law School

OR

She takes some classes in a community college (she needs to improve her English so taking the classes will be helpful), then evaluates her BS degree in USA, then applies to law school?

Another friend thinks that if she does the second option then she won't have a chance to be accepted the schools she wants to since the BS degree university is not a known university.

What do you think she should do?

Thanks a lot.

There is a lot more we could know to help give a better answer, but from what you've said about your friend's situation, I think that the second option would probably be better. If your friend already has a bachelor's degree, that would mean she completed the equivalent to an undergraduate program in the U.S. and can apply for a law school program.

Since you mentioned her English skills needing to be improved, it would be advisable for her to go to a community college as either a transient student or for an English language course. You mentioned that she has residency in the U.S. but "residency" is different from "citizenship." If she is a Green Card holder and English is not her first language, she might have to take the TOEFL (Test of English as Foreign Language). Universities vary on TOEFL rules for Green Card holders, explained in this link here.

Despite not having a name brand recognition, if the university your friend attended and received her BS from is truly one of the top schools in that country, that should not be much of a problem. Smaller universities may not have the same impact when mentioned like Yale or Virginia Tech, but it won't diminish its rankings or its graduates. What will effect your friend's admission chances however is her GPA (or more likely GPA equivalent). Obtaining a degree is no small feat, and is rewarding in itself. However, a law school like UCLA will most likely weed out applicants with lower GPAs.

Going to a school counselor is the best thing that your friend can do. A counselor will know more about the ins and outs of the admissions process at UCLA or USC and might have experience in counseling students from similar situations and backgrounds. Again, of the choices you presented, the second one is the best option. She already has a baccalaureate and taking non-credit courses at a community college can not only improve her English skills, but acclimate her to how college classes in the U.S. are structured.


What should someone do if he/she found a very similar published paper to his/her thesis work? Assume while someone writing his/her master's thesis, he/she found that there was a very similar paper to his work (90% similarities) 3-5 years ago? Does that make a problem and how to tell your advisor about this?

There is no question about how to tell your advisor. Just do it. He or she will help you decide what to do. If the work is independent and the other paper is obscure enough you might have no problem with your degree, but might not be able to publish this work as is.

Not to tell your advisor would be a serious breach.

However, if it is work that you should have known about (literature search, etc), then you may be unable to use it at all and have to revise your research plan. An extension of the work might be one option.

At the doctoral level the answer would be a bit different, leaning more toward abandonment of the work, but, depending on your advisor and any committee involved, you may be ok.

I'll note here as I have other places, that parallel work (and overlapping work) is very common, especially in fields with a lot of research activity. Your advisor will know about this, I'm sure.

The age of the other work is a bit of a problem, of course, but it can reasonably happen this way in certain cases.


How to review similar academic papers for a literature review? In writing a literature review, assume you have the paper X and the paper Y. The two are similar in the study and the results. How can I write a review in this case?

It looks that it is an example of two independent studies that obtained similar results so you might comment that this reinforces the claim that the reported results are correct. However, most probably the studies weren't exact replications so it might be good to mention the differences between the studies.

It is also a good idea to investigate the journals they were published in - maybe the earlier paper was published in some obscure journal and the second one appeared in a high impact factor one? Have you looked at 'cited by' numbers (in Google Scholar)? Which paper got more citations? Maybe there are some publications that mention both papers? This might give you a clue how the community finds both papers and which one made more impact. It is also plausible that one paper got bigger publicity simply because of more known authors/research group.