What to put in the CV for a masters application I am wondering what I am supposed to put in my CV/Resume that is asked for Masters applications.

I was thinking about a general structure of

Education
Work Experience
Publications
(Technical Skills?)
MOOC Certificates
Awards & Scholarships
Engagements
Ancillary Work (Awards not related to CS domain)

Then, in Germany I would not be expected to list technical skills (would be just a boring list of 10 languages and a vast number of frameworks, Libs, etc.). However, I saw that in the U.S. some people even start to list their skills by categories such as Hardware, Software, Databases, Scripting languages.. - Should I mention any technical Skill on the CV, and if yes should it be organized in a classified manner as described?

I did an integrated, corporate degree and after that worked for one year full time. Therefore, I held 7 different positions, from which three were not technical positions. It would show my diversity but on the other hand also occupy some additional space. Should I still mention them?

Besides of my last question, is there any other suggestion for the structure of a US CV? Research led to so many completely different approaches how to structure a CV for educational purpose applications that I am not sure anymore.

Mine has been organized like following and I received a very positive feedback from my current supervisor (from world top 20 school) within contacting him for the first time with my CV:

Contact Information: actually, I can assume that you didn't name it, but implicitly are going to consider.
Research Interests: an important part, because the first impression of your CV on potential supervisor could be her persuasion about your agreement on the same research topics, potentially.
Education: Top-Down chronological list of educations from the most recent one to the others (Don't forget to cite corresponding GPAs).
Publications: The impact of journal publications are often higher than proceeding ones for the reader. So, I'd just classified my publications into two groups as Journal Papers & Proceeding Papers. You better consider a hyperlink for each paper's title addressing to the internet webpage of that paper. Probably, the potential supervisor will be eager to check some of your publications. If you do, she might be more satisfied than sending you an email and asking you send her the target paper.
Honors and Awards: Just do mention really glorious things, such as scholarships, amazing ranks, olympiad medals and so on. As an instance, my B.A.Sc. was nominated for the best thesis award of IEEE Iran section and it was among one of 5 finalist papers; and I did mention this stuff within this section.
Academic Experiences: I filled this section out with my TA experiences. Furthermore, I did assert my experiences to collaborate with some journals and conferences as guest reviewer. You may find a variety of other different items to cite.
Industrial Experiences: Some positions (for example technical Ph.D. positions in north Europe) are considerably industrial, in that the applicant will be supposed to work on a project defined by industry. In such cases, you can address your relevant professional experiences (if you have any) to show your familiarity with industrial atmosphere and its required level of commitment.
Computer Skills & Programming: Inseparable implicitly-required items from almost all kinds of positions. But be careful just to mention the capabilities of which you are master, noticeably. Because the reader will expect you to be fluent on all the things you have already claimed.
Linguistic Skills: Just pinpoint grades of your linguistic tests (TOEFL, GRE, etc.)

Arbitrary sections: I did consider sections, below, but one may posit that they are not necessary:

Memberships: If you are member of any particular organization "related to the target program", you can address it. As an instance, being a PEO (Professional Engineer of Ontario) may be interesting for a potential supervisor with an industrial project.
Hobbies: be careful list the things not to present you as a nerd. :)

Good luck


What should the startup package consist of at US (primarily) undergraduate institutions? What should one list in the startup funds if you are taking up a tenure-track position at a public undergraduate university in the US, mostly focused on teaching? I'm asking specifically for mathematics/applied mathematics/computational mathematics.

What do you think you really need in order to conduct your research program? Can you justify why you need these things in order to conduct the research?  How much of this is so important that you'd turn down the job offer if you didn't get it?

Things that you might ask for include summer salary for yourself for a year or two, computer equipment (say $3K for a nice desktop computer up to $100K for a high performance computing cluster), funding to travel to conferences or money to pay undergraduate students to work on your research with you.

At a regional comprehensive undergraduate only public institution, chances are that there isn't much money available for a startup package.  Based on my experience, I'd be surprised if you could negotiate for much more than a couple of months of summer salary, a few thousand for travel expenses and a few thousand for a desktop computer.  At an institution with a graduate program, you might also ask for support for a graduate student.

In negotiating these things, you're likely to find that the chair of your department (or search committee members if the department chair is negotiating with you) can be helpful in telling you what others have received in the past and what the administration is likely to fund.

Whatever you do ask for, be sure to ask politely and don't let it seem as though you won't accept the offer unless your wish is granted.  It's not unheard of for offers to be retracted in the face of startup package demands that are too high.  You should also give a budget with justification rather than negotiating for a simple dollar amount.

The strategy of negotiating the salary and startup package verbally before a formal offer is quite common.  It is a smart negotiating tactic on the part of the institution since you have nothing to fall back on until they make a first written offer.  If you demand too much, they can simply move on to another candidate without ever making you a formal offer.  Another advantage of this strategy is that it forces you to make a decision quickly- you can't draw out the process with multiple rounds of offers and responses.


How to start writing my statement of purpose? I completed my undergraduate studies(B. Tech in Computer Science and Engineering) in 2012, and have been working in a tech start-up since then. I am planning to go for MS in Computer for fall 2015, I wanted to know what all material should I collect, before I start jolting down the initial draft(s) for my statement of purpose,

While this will depend partly on the formal requirements of the course for which you are applying, here are some general things that I look for in reading these statements as admissions tutor for our department:

Demonstrated enthusiasm for the subject.  Your CV and transcript will provide basic factual information about your technical skills and ability to succeed in an academic environment, but the statement of purpose lets you round out that profile with memorable detail.  Be specific.  If you've worked at a tech start-up, how did that inform your decision to pursue further study?  What new skills did you learn, new challenges faced and overcome, etc?
Demonstrated awareness of the programme.  I've read essays that clearly had no understanding of what our programme covered and how we taught it.  Be familiar with the prospectus and don't be afraid to contact the admissions tutors to clarify anything.  How does the style of teaching at your target university relate to your interests?
Ability to write coherently.  Regardless of the subject, you will need to be able to communicate clearly.  A poorly structured essay, full of grammar and spelling mistakes, is a sure-fire way to end up on the 'no' pile.

Good luck!


Can/should one put a copyright notice on one's CV or resume? Why/why not? I have not yet seen anyone in academia put a copyright notice on their CV or resume. Why is this?

One might expect that even if the content is implicitly copyrighted, the layout/format/style of the document -- perhaps more so for a graphic designer -- is part of one's intellectual property.

While your CV can technically be regarded as a piece of intellectual property, the usual reason why people assert their copyright to a work by putting a copyright notice on it is to deter and prevent other people from copying or sharing that work (usually so they - the authors - can profit by selling the work).

With your CV, it is actually in your interest to have as many people as possible sharing it and passing it around, so the incentives work completely in the opposite direction from a more traditional type of intellectual product.

Now, if your CV is such an amazing piece of work that people will be willing to pay for a copy, we’d be having a different discussion...


PhD by published work I have developed a logic and consistent body of research of 8 papers about a research topic. I've heard I can do a PhD by published work. It is just compiling the papers and writing the scope and importance of the papers  in 5000-10000 words, then the viva.

I know universities in the UK where I can do this, but they charge like 5000 GBP for the submission.

Do you know other universities in other countries that charge less? I am thinking of norway, finland, germany, as they seem to have low tuition fees. However, I am willing to consider any country in Europe.
I am living in Portugal, so I would need to submit my thesis online, and travel to the university for the viva

Any help appreciated,
Thanks,

Proceed with extreme caution.
What you are describing is known as a stapler thesis or sandwich thesis. This is a common practice for submitting theses, if the advisor, department, and university permit it.
However, such theses are submitted by students who are already enrolled at a university. Virtually all reputable universities will require you to enroll as a student for a period of time before you are eligible to submit your theses, and you generally have to show that you have made contributions to your field during your period of enrollment. Taking a bunch of previously submitted papers and submitting them as a thesis at a school you have never attended, particularly for a large fee, reeks of a school being a diploma mill, a plain old scam, or just desperate for cash.
While the UK offers such programs, they are normally for their own alumni and employees, and it can be a very time-consuming and frustrating process. Moreover, such programs are not well regarded by many employers, and you will be at a disadvantage for many jobs if you have to compete with recipients of standard research PhD’s.


What is the difference between a review paper and a research paper? I have been working on a review paper. After publication, how will it add on my academic research profile? When I will apply for MS or PHD admission, will it count as publication?

A review paper is likely also known as a "survey paper", where you read (i.e. survey) related works in the field and then comment on them. Usually, a review paper should be able to contribute a small amount of knowledge in its own right to the field by providing a taxonomy of work.

Another type of paper that reviews extensively related work but isn't actually a review paper is a "systematic review paper" in which you usually ask a meta-question about the field.

If it appears in a refereed, peer-reviewed journal, then yes, it is a publication. In fact, if done well, these works can often have pretty high impact and can be cited very frequently. However, as already noted, since they don't usually involve substantial original research they need to be augmented with traditional research papers. If a graduate student has only survey papers or systematic review papers, I'd wonder as a search committee reviewer if this student did nothing but read related work rather than working on research.

With respect to MS or PhD applications, I'd think that the fact that you have a publication at all is already a bonus point for you. Most students who apply to these programs don't have publications.


Is it a good practice to end a mathematical equation with a comma or a period in a scientific article? I have noticed from different published articles that mathematical equations may or may not be ended by a comma or a period (depending on their position in the text).
Which is the best practice?

In-line formulas are punctuated as required by the grammar.  For displayed formulas there are two conventions: punctuate as required by the grammar; or no punctuation.  See if the journal specifies this in their style (most don't).  Example

[Jahnke & Emde, Dover Publications]


Isn't ghostwriting reverse-plagiarism? Ghostwriting is when an author writes a work and attributes it to someone else.

Isn't this reverse-plagiarism (someone taking credit for someone else's work, but with permission)?  I'm not sure it happens in academia a lot, but I've seen instances where a professor "ghostwrites" course notes for another professor.  Actually those notes are really bad and it seems like he doesn't want to take the hit of delivering the course himself.  Instead he ghostwrites it for other people.  It seems wrong to me.

Unattributed work in academia is generally considered unethical. In my own experience, however, I believe that I've come across very few instances of actual ghostwriting where the real author was unnamed. Normally, at least some acknowledgment is called for, either in an editor's note or introduction.

Now, to answer Mankoff's comeent below, by "unattributed work," it can be okay for authors to choose to remain anonymous, if they feel it is in their best interests to do so. However, to take someone else's work and to pass it off as their own is clearly unethical behavior. However, from an ethics standpoint, even if the ghost author is asked about attribution and declines, the "named" author should not attempt to claim sole credit for the work. Instead, the author should make some sort of reference to those who assisted in the preparation of the manuscript. Otherwise, they're passing off someone else's work as their own.


What could be incentives for publishers to waive fees for reusing figures? I'm in charge to obtain permissions to reuse figures from previous publications for our future work. Our publisher is a STM-signatory so for most journals there is little problem as their publisher are also STM-signatories and therefore allow to reuse up to three figures free of charge.

Other publishers request substantial fees which are sometimes waived when our head editor gets involved and states that the purpose of our publication is purely academic (though it is published for a profit by our publisher).

Sometimes even that fails and there seems to be no other way than paying the fee or not using the figure. We don't have a budget for this though.

My question is, are there any other non-monetary incentives for publishers to allow the reuse of a figure? I'm thinking of appealing to their "academic consciousness" to help to contribute to scientific advancement or possibly include a line in the figure caption: "With very kind permission from PublisherX" (is latter a common approach or desirable for a publisher)?

I've never had a problem getting permission to use a figure with proper citation – ideally such a usage drives traffic back to the original article / source too.  So that's one incentive right there.  Be sure to let them know you will send traffic / credit back and ask how they want to be cited and / or linked.

But authors ordinarily do not really expect to lose control over their IP, so authors would probably avoid such publishers if they found out that a journal "jailed" their figures. This is obviously a stick not a carrot, maybe saying something like "I think the authors would be very disappointed to find out if they have been disadvantaged by publishing with you, it might discourage them working with you in the future."


Shall I apply again after all my PhD applications are rejected? I am 29. I've had informative, goal-driven, well written SOP, I'm guessing good recommendations. I have a masters in the related field (Computer Vision) with tier 2 publications. I'm in a research engineer job which can not add publications to my profile. I have been rejected by 13 US universities (all not Stanford, Berkeley). I had contacted the professors. Many did not respond though.

How do I ask for recommendations again if I try next year?
What can I add to my profile in this scenario?
Are younger students preferred?
Will there be sufficient opportunity if I complete my PhD after 35?

Age is not a discrimination in your age range, there will be opportunities when you complete your PhD but you should ask yourself what kind of opportunities are you seeking by completing a PhD.

If you stay at the same job your LOR will likely be the same in one year, so you have to change something else. I would suggest you reach out to 1-2 professors whose work is closely related to your job and see if you can be involved in one of their projects, and see if this can also benefit your company. I am afraid if you don't build a more direct connection with academia/research your chances will stay low. Otherwise you have to aim lower, less prestigious schools, but then we go back at WHY you want to do a PhD.


Is a postdoc-interview presentation a norm? I have been invited for a postdoc interview. After reading some questions and answers, I noted that sometimes the applicant is required to give a presentation/talk. In my invitation, nothing is mentioned about a presentation or talk during the interview. Now I am not sure: should I prepare a presentation because it is the norm?

(Of course I have some presentations from my previous talks/conferences. I just have to review it and do some changes.)

Edit: after a short email, they replied that presentation is not needed

At least in my field and country, giving a talk about your previous work is pretty common for the hiring process of any academic position. But that does not mean you should prepare a talk.
Nobody can seriously expect you to know this and automatically bring a talk to a job interview just because it’s the unwritten norm (and you probably do not want to work with the people who do).
Moreover, it is impossible for you to deduce the desired length, audience, scope, and other aspects of the talk.

Instead, you have to estimate how likely it is that this aspect was just forgotten in the invitation (e.g., going by the other details it contains).
If you think that there is any non-negligible chance that this is the case, just ask them.


Is it ethical for a graduate student to provide juniors with paid graduate school application guidance? I have several friends, all graduate students at decent universities, who are providing paid graduate school application guidance services, where they help the future graduate applicants stand better chances to get admitted.

Originally, I regarded this as a 100% OK behavior, until I realize that they are very sneaky about their services, as if the services are something underhand. Some of them even provide the services anonymously.

My guess is that they may leak some information obtained from the admission committee to their clients. However, I feel that they can neither obtain any critical admission information nor make admission decisions, since after all, they are just graduate students. But why are they hiding?

Are such services unethical? If so, how will the school deal with such cases?

I think you have largely hit the nail on the head in your own post. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with charging for valuable experiential information. In fact, this really could be an extension to charging for 'edits' or tutoring. Really if they are providing non-sensitive information regarding the procedures and what the admissions panel look for - then I don't see any major ethical quandaries.

However, you highlight a key point. They could be leaking information explicitly obtained from the panel (that I assume they would have delivered in confidence). If this is the case, then I imagine it should be intuitive what the schools reaction would be. The reason this is unethical (from my POV) is that they are no longer sharing experiential information, but providing them with explicitly 'leaked' outcomes that would give a disproportionate advantage.

By analogy with the edit example. It would be fine for a tutor to edit and provide feedback on a students work. To the majority of people, I think they are aware this occurs and there are no ethical problems. In fact, a tutor might go so far as to show them example assignments. In fact, my department actively encourages students and postgrads to seek and help out students, respectively. However, if the tutor provided the marking key (obtained from another postgrad running the unit) and gave this to the student - that is blatantly unethical.


Direct quotations and quoting 'questions' If I am solving a case study for a class and I had to mention the questions asked by the authors above or below my answers in a Powerpoint presentation. I made it clear that the questions are asked by the authors of the case, however they were not put into direct quotation marks (questions were, obviously, copied verbatim). Is this a form of plagiarism? (I have added quotes later on and resent to the instructor just in case)

No

I don't see a strong case for plagarism here. According to Google:

  [Plagarism is] the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own.

It doesn't sound like you've tried to do this if: despite not being in quotation marks, the quotes were clearly indicated as the work of others. Furthermore you've corrected your mistake which shows good willing. I'd rest easy and wouldn't lose sleep over the matter.


Is it possible to survive in university academia without applying for grants? I see that many professors spend all of their time applying for grants, minus a little bit of time to interact with the graduate students on their grants and a little bit of time to fulfill their teaching obligations. They are of course doing a great service to their graduate students, who perhaps otherwise would not be able to do research, but it doesn't seem very enjoyable to be in such a position.

I've spoken with many researchers at national laboratories who say they chose to go that route so that they could be mostly freed from the grant game (of course some of them still have to write grant proposals).

I enjoy doing research, but my real passion is in teaching, so my goal has always been to be a university professor. However, I am not fond of the idea of "hustling for money" (as one researcher at a national lab put it). I personally would much rather spend most of my time preparing strong lectures. (I would consider high school but the topics I would like to teach only are offered in universities.)

So, my question: can one survive in university academia without grants, perhaps at the cost of not having graduate students? Is it enough to be an effective teacher, with a strong albeit grantless research portfolio?

There are certainly some situations in the US where you can be a tenured professor, do some unsupported research, and never bring in grants.  However, the expectation that you will bring in research grants is fairly wide spread, and having at least some grant funding is necessary to obtain tenure at a surprisingly large number of institutions (not just the "Research I" nationally ranked universities.)

Research funding varies dramatically between disciplines.  In the following I'll restrict my attention to mathematics since you mentioned that was your area.  I'm including statistics since in many cases statisticians get jobs in mathematics departments at these kinds of institutions.

The exceptions boil down to universities in which research is not a high priority and teaching is more important.  These institutions are typically "Regional Comprehensive Universities" often with names of the form "directional state university."  For example, in New Mexico we have "Eastern New Mexico University", "Western New Mexico University", "New Mexico Highlands University", and "Northern New Mexico College"

Teaching loads at such institutions are typically high (3-3 or 4-4, plus lots of advising) and graduate programs are small or non-existent.  Undergraduate
science and engineering degree programs are also small.  Many of these universities don't offer any degrees in engineering.  Much of the enrollment in math and statistics courses is in freshman level service courses like college algebra and intro to statistics.

In order to get hired into a tenure track position at such an institution you'll need a PhD and some teaching experience (many candidates for such positions will have worked in "visiting assistant professor" positions for a few years.)  There will typically be some expectation that you will publish research during your time as an assistant professor, and you may be encouraged to apply for research grants, but very few faculty at such institutions actually have grant funding from the NSF or other federal agencies.

In mathematics, the number of tenure track positions has been in decline in recent years.  The competition for these kinds of positions has become extreme, with institutions reporting hundreds of applications for each position.


Taking a break between master’s and PhD in Physics To any PhD holders or candidates out there, how common is it to take a break after your master’s before applying for a PhD course? I currently have my master’s and due to bond fulfillment have a research attachment for a few years.

Would my PhD candidacy be any more difficult/less viable because I’m both older and have been away from academia longer than those who have gone directly from an MSc to a PhD course?

Many people find it more difficult to pass their PhD exams if they take a significant break.  It can often be helpful to have things fresh in one's mind for the exams.  However, this, of course, can vary by the individual.


Are there studies testing whether academia rewards researchers based on number of publications? I would like to know whether any scientific study has tested a hypothesis relating number of publications to career advancement.

It is often suggested that hiring and promotion decisions at research institutions are based heavily on the number of publications produced.  That is, one is more likely to get a tenure-track position and subsequently to get tenure if one has a larger number of publications (independent of quality).  One could also introduce an opposing argument that large numbers of publications are negatively correlated with quality of work and therefore negatively impact career advancement.  Are there any studies supporting either of these views?

Some remarks: I understand well that even if there is correlation it would not imply causation.  Also, I suspect that the relation between publication quantity and career advancement is very different between disciplines and between world regions.  I would be interested in studies that address the question globally or among some subset of academe.

I believe this question is different from Whether to publish one big paper or many smaller papers for a given research project?, since I am asking for general scientific studies rather than opinions.

I am aware that, for many reasons, reaching valid conclusions may be impossible.  I am interested in whether it has been attempted.

There's quite a bit of this sort of thing in economics. One early and now classic study, Katz 1973, performs a regression of salary on the number of books, articles, "excellent articles", and other variables associated with a faculty member, and finds what seems to me to be very low impact of publication on annual salary even in 1973 dollars: an article is worth $18 and an excellent article worth $102 in annual salary.

A later study Diamond 1986, estimates the marginal value of a citation on lifetime salary: somewhere in the $50 to $1300 range (!!).  Note that is in economics where citations are somewhat stingy, back before people started gaming citation rates as much as they do today.

Since there has been a huge volume of publications on the determinants of faculty salary within the economics literature. For some reason, this particular labor market has been of exceptional interest to academic economists.


Can a journal article contain a personal circumstance description as motive for justifying the literature approach? I was recently invited to have a paper published.

Unfortunately, a similar paper is about to be published on the practical/fun aspect of the project so I've had to re-frame the topic to focus on what we understand about the need for the project rather than the fun stuff itself.

The new paper required discussion on some aspects of psychology. I need to justify why I, as someone not in the field of psychology, felt capable of identifying it as a subject relevant to the discussion and presumably why I have slightly more than a fleeting grasp of the concepts. The gist is a long history of interacting with professionals on what defines my mental processes.

What would be the best way to say the discussion is best accompanied by an overview of the side subjects?

If you submit the article to a peer-reviewed journal, the reviewers should not (be able to) look at your academic history or status. If it gets accepted, the fact that it has been accepted shows that people think the findings are relevant for the field. There is no need to defend yourself in the text.

Furthermore, I would avoid any personal statements, especially if it concerns your own mental health, as it may jeopardise your career in the future.


Scholar One Email System I sent an email to a journal's editorial office via Scholar One's Manuscript Central. I had clicked on the EO's link , which led to a popup and then sent the mail by clicking on "Save and Send". My Question now is, where can I find the record of this email? I cannot find it in my email ID's sent folder nor does ScholarOne have one for this.

When a journal is set up on ScholarOne, one piece of information they provide is an EO email address. When you filled out the form, ScholarOne sent the email to that address "on behalf of" you. There is no direct way for you to view this correspondence through the system. You could contact the EO office again, and ask for a copy to be forwarded to you. You could also reach out to ScholarOne support to see if they could get you a copy.
Disclaimer: I am an employee at ScholarOne, but the opinions and posts here are my own.


Prestige of publishing in special vs regular journal issue Some journals bundle relevant papers on a currently hot topic into special issues. As far as I know, potential manuscripts must be specifically submitted for inclusion in special issues rather than the journal itself (or get selected from conference proceedings).

In my field, special issues tend to have shorter review periods which makes them interesting venues. I have heard that special issues tend to have lower impact than regular journal issues, though I am not sure if this is factual. Do special issues usually meet the same standards as regular issues?

Is there any difference in prestige in publishing in special issues vis-à-vis publishing in regular issues? Do hiring committees make meaningful distinctions between both types?

I have not been a journal editor.  But I have dealt with many journal editors, and in my experience the kind of thing they are most concerned about is maintaining and elevating their journal's standards at all times.  So I have to imagine that when they put together a special issue, they take pains to ensure that this does not result in any measurable lowering of their journal's standards.

In my branch of mathematics, special issues are not that common but not unheard of either.  I have never noticed any difference in the quality of the papers published in these special issues.  Also in my experience people may not even list on their CV that the publication has appeared in a "special issue".

I have on the other hand been on many hiring committees, and I have not heard a thing about this.  Again though in my field this sort of publication is relatively uncommon and it may even escape our notice.  I suppose that if a candidate had ten publications and they were all in "special issues" that might be curious.

All in all, in my neck of the woods there is nothing to worry about here.


What should the chemist who synthesized a drug expect regarding coauthorship of papers on clinical trials? Should the  industrial chemist who conceptualized , first  synthesized , characterized and patented a novel drug , transferred the synthetic technology (at the 3 Kg scale ) to a CRO for preparation under cGMP conditions,substantially helped in drafting the CLINICAL TRIAL INVESTIGATOR BROCHURE , and provided advise throughout the trial be granted coauthorship of the paper reporting the trial ?

The ICMJE guidelines says that authors must meet four requirements:

Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
Final approval of the version to be published; AND
Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Without knowing your field, it sounds like you think you satisfy the first requirement. It doesn't sound like you meet the final three. While I disagree with the guidelines and think hat everyone who meets the first requirement should be given the option to meet the other three, the guidelines do not require that.
This sounds like a situation where you should talk to the lead investigator. Ideally the conversation should have happened early on, but now is better than never.


Data supporting educational entertainment media as an ineffective method to stimulate students to learn academic concepts outside of the classroom? I define educational entertainment media as books, films, animation, video games, board games, toys, and such, designed with embedded practical examples of academic concepts. I am unfamiliar with a better word for this category of commonly entertaining things with embedded education components. Please let me know if there is a better word for educational entertainment media. I narrow the criteria of educational entertainment media to something that students would be willing to buy for their own pleasure.

I have noticed that many of my students spend a lot of time reading books, watching movies, episodes, animation, playing video games, board games, and such. I pondered the idea that if all of my students could perform these activities in such away that while they have fun on their down time, they would be indirectly applying, relearning, and studying core academic concepts, they could improve their performance in the class and final exams.

I have no idea how to engineer educational entertainment media to entertain students during their down time, yet engage them to learn academic concepts, but if such existed they may be providing subtle results on academic performance in classrooms.

Is there data that either supports or denies engineered educational entertainment media as an ineffective method to stimulate students to learn classroom concepts outside of the classroom?

If you consider the ability to perform robotic surgery a 'classroom concept', there is this study showing that surgeons who play video games are doing better:

http://archsurg.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=399740&resultClick=1

On the other hand, it cites an earlier study that links violent video-game use (for kids) to lower grades:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140197103000927


What pronoun should theses use? It is generally courtesy to use the plural 'we' or 'our' in papers, even when the primary author was the only contributor. While using personal pronouns in academic papers is typically a very bad idea, I have seen them being used in theses. What gives? Technically a PhD thesis is only meant to be the candidate's work, but if this work features previously published work surely you'd expect to same rules to apply to the thesis as applied to the academic papers?

So in terms of professional appearance and etiquette what is the (typically) correct approach? Should personal pronouns be used in a thesis?

I used “we” (except for the acknowledgements). It’s what I’m used to when reading academic writing. Anything else wold seem weird to me.

Although the primary reason was that It was a stapler thesis and that is what the papers I was copying from used. It would have been too much effort to change it.

Customs may vary by field and country. The best thing to do is look at a few theses coming from your department and copy their style.


How to calibrate the time constraint of an exam for a new course? I am preparing an exam for a course I'm running. It's an engineering course; the exam problems require students to apply conceptual knowledge and quantitative skills taught in lectures and labs.

It's the first time the class has been offered, so I don't have a frame of reference from previous years. There haven't been any in-class quizzes or other opportunities for me to find out directly how long students would take to solve problems similar to the ones on the exam. I also haven't found any similar exams from other universities to serve as a reference.

Obviously, I am much more experienced in the material than my students, so I can't really generalize from how long it takes me to solve these kinds of problems.

This question is for the more experienced educators out there: in a scenario like this, are there any methods or general rules for determining how long you can make the exam, given the time allotted?

I don't want time to be a major issue on this exam; I want most students who are reasonably well prepared to be able to complete the exam in the given time.

This is totally unscientific, but for my exams (mathematics) I use the following rule of thumb:

After writing the exam, I sit down with a stopwatch and work the exam from start to finish. Of course, I know how to solve the problems (since I wrote them) but I go carefully through all the steps and write what I would consider a thorough and exemplary solution. I note the time I spent  on each problem.

Then I take the total time and multiply it by 3 (or sometimes 4). If this exceeds the allotted time for the exam, I remove or simplify some questions. (This is where it helps that I wrote down the time I spent on each question, so I can remove a question and recompute the time without actually retaking the whole exam.)

As a side benefit, this also helps ensure that I haven't made any mistakes in creating the exam, and that all the problems have the solutions I intended. It also gives me an answer key.


Resume writing guideline for applying a PhD position I've been working a Software Engineer for almost 7 years. A few months ago I finalized my Master's degree on Computer Science, and now I'm thinking in applying to a Phd program in a European College.

I have no prior experience in research -besides the Dissertation for the Msc- so now my resume is very enterprise oriented. I'm a big fan of Gayle Laakmann resume tips, so the current version of my resume is very goal-oriented and brief but I'm not sure if that's what academia expects of a resume.

Do you have any suggestions on how to do a resume to applying to a Phd Position in Computer Science? Also, a template or an example would be of great help.

I've never heard of a University admitting students based on a resume.  Universities use transcripts, standardized test, statements of purpose, and letters of recommendation to admit students.

The statement of purpose is probably the closest to a resume, but this is meant to be more of a narrative of why you're pursuing a PhD, not a sales pitch about how awesome you are (which is what a resume is).

From your question it sounds like you may not have much experience with graduate research.  This is fine, but it sounds like you're approaching the PhD as another job, which is wrongheaded.  A PhD gets you out of the trenches of customer demands and allows you to focus on "pie in the sky" problems.  If you want to remain business focused, a PhD may not be for you.

If you do want a PhD, you should speak with your profs. from your MS degree.  They will be able to guide you towards universities and programs that will appreciate your industry experience.  Is there a reason you don't want to apply in the US (using the word resume suggest you're American).


How do you decide between two PhD offers? I have two offers for graduate study within the UK and I am trying to make a balanced decision.

My offers are:

Four year doctoral training centre at University of Oxford (approx. £14k/year)
Four year PhD at the Cancer Research London Research Institute (LRI) (approx. £21k/year)

I suspect that the Cancer Research institute does not have a comparable international reputation when compared to Oxford. On the other hand, I've met the research group at the LRI and they seem nice. At Oxford I wouldn't be choosing my research group until after the first year. I already have significant ties to London and have been living here for four years.

What other factors should I be considering in order to make this a rational decision?

I am answering this on the basis that I was making this same decision myself a year ago.

Firstly, the LRI will be joining the Francis Crick Institute next year as it opens, which may end up being esteemed in it's own right if all goes according to their plans. It depends what you want to do after the PhD, if you want to stay in academia and cancer research, then it is the supervisor's esteem that is more likely to help you in the long run, as well as the impact of your papers. The label on the institute makes less difference as you go on (within reason of course).

Have a look at the recent publications of the group, maybe see how many have PhD students on good author positions in good journals; that's what will get you a post-doc ultimately.

The two being 4 year funded, the London one may be better financially overall. Integrated PhD programs (where you have 3 small projects in the first year, getting an MRes, then pick the final PhD project for 3 years, I presume this is the case for Oxford) in my experience tend to be more trouble than they're wort, unless you're not sure on picking a definite research project yet or don't have a Masters.

The issues can come from firstly, not getting the project you were hoping for after the first year, after the MRes, but now you're tied down to Oxford (may not happen, but does all too ofter) and also you now have 3 years to do your PhD, not 4. Why waste time on multiple smaller sub-projects at the start if you have a clear idea on what you want to do for your final project? Of course, the corollary here, if you don't have a clear idea exactly what you want your PhD to be on, then integrated programs can be a godsend.

My best advice on the rational decision front is don't. Relationship with group and particularly the supervisor is the main factor in a PhD, with a bad supervisor able to kill your career dead in the water, intentionally or not.

If you have a passion for the research, and get on well with the group and supervisor then I would definitely go for that PhD. Lack of these both for 4 years will likely mean you either drop out, or have a horrible 4 years and then hate your research.

I went for the lower paid, lower ranked Uni offer, and have no regrets. In fact, the higher paid one was industry funded, and they've since gone under, so I dodged a bullet there.


Is withdrawing from two courses in my PhD bad for my future? I am a 2nd year PhD student. So far, I've taken 5 courses, 3 of which I got A and the other two I withdrew from. The reason was mainly it was not until the 6th session that I understood those two courses were not particularly relavant and helpful towards my thesis. My question is how bad is my situation regarding gettting a post doc, faculty position, or a position in industry, in the future?

For postdoc and position in the industry, it will not cause any problem.
However, faculty positions depend on grants, and commitees pick people who are able to obtain fund grants, and publish papers. It is unlikely they will care about your grades.


"Undeserved" patent attribution I work with professor from my college and it seems like we are close to invention, so he said me to collaborate with his old friend and patent it. All amount of work was divided between us unequally. Idea belongs to my professor and he did some minor measurement, I've done about 90% of work, including writing text of patent itself, while his friend has no idea about the thing or process and simply gives obvious advices, such as "search for other similar patents and use them as reference" and "you should be comfortable with these topics" (Oh, thank you very much, I never would have guessed without your advice).

Just out of interest, I've searched for all professor's patents and found out one weird thing: each patent has four names (his, his friend's, his student's, who did all the work, and his daughter's). I can't say something bad about her because I don't even know her. The reason is: she has never even been at this college, studying many miles away and having nothing in common with all these researches. I know some of his students, and they definitely have never worked with her.

I feel disappointed and kind of cheated: it's pretty hard for me to know that his friend will share with me this invention, and even harder to know that I will have another "co-author" which I don't even know. His friend, at least, read the text of patent; I doubt that she knows about this research, by the way. I can't refuse now, because all work is done and, besides, I can't change supervisor during this year, at least. I feel like if I would try to protect myself in this situation, he would simply tell that she did some amount of work (and definitely he would be mad at me). What can I do now?

This is one of those situations that has an obvious, but unsatisfactory, solution. The supervisor has power over you and can wield it to your disadvantage. I suggest that you just let it ride without complaint. I know it isn't fair, but, as a student you have little recourse or power to change things.

Know that if you let it go you will get a good, if not perfect, outcome, and that you won't always be "under the thumb" of your supervisor. But having your name on a patent is a positive thing, no matter the rest.

But he can make if very unpleasant for you if you object. As other questions here suggest this is unfortunately a moderately common issue.

Treat it as a learning experience and if you make a career in Academia, don't do this sort of thing. And if you wind up with some "power" there, work to assure it doesn't happen in the future, but you have little power now.


How to deal with incommunicable co-author The background: In the grand area of Mathematics in which I do research, there is a famous Professor, let us call him 'A', who started a joint project with another younger colleague, let
us call him 'B'. 'A' gave the main ideas and they produced an initial draft. However, after a while 'A' perhaps lost interest or was busy with other things and stopped communicating with 'B'.
'B' could not manage to move the project forward by himself, and it stayed put. After many years,
on the initiative of a third colleague, let us call him say 'C', and with both the approval
of 'A' and 'B', I joined them on this project and started working with 'B'. After, say, two years, 'B' and I  managed to have a paper, which we think is quite good.
We have sent it to 'A' to hear his opinion. However, he never
returns our email messages. We have also contacted his secretary, and she has been very helpful, but we don't seem to get any reply from 'A'. Because of the pandemic, travelling and meeting 'A'
in person is not an option.
'B' and I would like to distribute and eventually publish this work. We have spent quite some
time and energy on it. Moreover, the results are interesting and could be used by ourselves in other projects, as well as by other researchers. If we wait too much, there is even the risk
of our paper becoming old and superseded by other people's work.
Of course we cannot post this work publically without 'A's name, as he was who gave the key ideas. On the other hand, posting this work with his name could also upset 'A', say, he
could think there are mistakes in the paper and he would not want to have his name associated with it.
What is the ethical way to solve this?
Edit: Thanks for all answers! They really add to the discussion. In view of your comments, I feel like adding some more details to the story and making more clear our position.
It is not that A just gave some vague ideas. He really contributed technical stuff during the first year or so of his collaboration with B.
What I did with B, in the past two years, was cleaning up the Mathematics
and adding some interesting applications. I think we have really turned the draft into a (quasi?) paper. I believe our manuscript is polished.
A is well known for his irresponsiveness in the community of researchers in the field. Indeed this is the reason why there has been the hiatus in the work on the paper, until I joined forces with B.
B and I met A in conferences in the past two years. He was nice and seemed interested in finishing the work. However, on those occasions there was
little time to collaborate with him, as he is a busy person.
B and I are fine with whatever course of action A thinks it is appropriate. We do not require him to check our calculations. We are fine to include him as an author, indeed we would like very much to have him as  a co-author. We are fine to leave his name out, if he prefers so. But I have the impression he wants to be included.
Oh, yes, we certainly want to keep a collegial relation with A!
Anyway, we cannot proceed without his response!

When dealing with extremely busy people, you want to formulate your emails in a way that makes it as easy as possible for them to give you what you need.
Providing one's opinion on a paper is a complex, open-ended process. Even more so if you are a coauthor - you need to not only read and think about what is written, but also consider what else could have been written to make the paper busy. In a situation as you describe, I'd consider it perfectly normal for the professor to take a few months to get back you even they seriously intend to do so. Thus, your request is not a good choice.
Instead provide them with a straight-forward way out that works for you. Thus, complete the draft and makes sure it is completely polished. Make a plan regarding what you want to do with it. Then send it to the professor, pointing out that you and B agree that the paper is finished, and that you want to submit it to the arXiv/Journal X, and that you just ask for their consent to proceed. If the contribution of the professor is very limited, you can consider also stating merely acknowleding them as an option. If C or anyone else respected by A has read the draft and also considers it ready, include this information. Overall, you want to make it very easy for A to just respond "its fine, go ahead".
If this doesn't work, there is one way to escalate further, but I'd consider this borderline from an ethical perspective. That is to let A know that if they don't object within eg 2 weeks, you will consider this as permission to go ahead with the plan. Only ever think about this if your draft is really, really done.


How should I state my affiliation and funding if I am not funded and have no academic affiliation? I started a project during my math/physics PhD but am now continuing with it from outside of academia, using my own time and funds to purchase resources. What are the conventions for stating my affiliation and funding when writing up this work?

In particular, do I need to/should I name my current (non-research) employer as one of my sources of funding? They have had absolutely nothing to do with this project, other than hiring me to do a different job; they have not endorsed it and should not take any responsibility for it. On the other hand, it is a general principle that funding sources should be disclosed.

For this project, your "affiliation" is independent researcher. Your "funding" is just self funded. Both of those are well known and perfectly acceptable.

But be sure that your employer has no claim on your independent work. Some will have a claim, or will claim that they do. For some employers, permission is necessary.


Is it unwise to pick an old field of research in maths to write a PhD thesis about? Some areas that come to mind:

theory of partial differential equations (analysis and pdes, not numerical PDE)
number theory
algebra

Should I pick a trendy topic so that it is "easier" to write a thesis?

I've heard from senior PhD students not to try and write a thesis on analysis of PDEs because so much has already been done in this field and so it's very hard to do something new.

If you pick an overly-trendy area there is a chance that it will be easier to get a Ph.D. in that area but that many mathematicians will be less than impressed by the resulting degree. For example, "fuzzy" is (or has been?) a trendy concept. There is almost a template for getting a Ph.D. in it (albeit one which is getting harder to apply by sheer competition): pick some topic in pure mathematics for which there doesn't yet exist a fuzzy version (for an example the exact phrase "fuzzy symmetry group" has only 4 Google hits). Learn the classical theory. Fuzzify it: whenever you see the word "set" replace it with "fuzzy set". Prove something -- which with lack of competition shouldn't be all that hard. Anticipating the question as to why anyone should care, hand-wave about potential applications to artificial intelligence. Voila! You have a dissertation (I am exaggerating a bit, this is of course easier said than done, and a successful fuzzification will involve more than simply replacing sets by fuzzy sets).

Now I don't deny that the core concepts of fuzzy logic and fuzzy set theory have a great deal of mathematical depth, and that much of the fuzzification of classical pure mathematics has been well-motivated. Still, it seems likely that much of it has been done just because it was low-hanging fruit for somebody who wanted to write a dissertation or paper. I am instinctually skeptical of the value of a paper when it contains the word "fuzzy" in the title. I won't dogmatically reject it, but I will need some convincing as to its value. If your dissertation has a trendy buzz-word but otherwise seems unmotivated, you might meet with similar skepticism.


A reference that is old, has no bibtex entry, and probably not well-known throughout the readership. How to cite this? I am writing an article for an audience that mostly consists of computer scientists. A specific part of the subject is motivated by Kirchhoff's laws. I intend to mention this fact and reference the rules. But that is easier said then done. Apparently, Kirchhoff predates referencing.

How to reference a source that is so old, it has no bibtex entry, but is also probably not well-known  throughout the readership?

edit: I want to clarify, that I can also imagine to not reference it at all, but I find it difficult to draw a line here. Can I assume that every reader is familiar with a term? For instance, can I omit a citation to Damas/Hindley/Milner when introducing ML to modeling engineers? How about Newton's method for computer scientists?

For cases like this, unless you want to give a historical reference, there's usually no need to cite the primary source, you can just cite your favourite circuit theory book.

Anyway, if you really wish, you can certainly cite the original paper too, which can be found, e.g., here.

For what concerns the added question on where to draw the line, you can have a look at the following question, and the answers therein: How generous should I be with citations?


An academic who died over 50 years ago still has Google Scholar profile with verified email. How can this be? I'm surprised to see that an academic who died over 50 years ago has a Google Scholar profile with a verified email (https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=5qvdHjQAAAAJ):

How is that possible? I see the email domain, melipona.org, is some online shop.

Verified email just mean that the user has done the confirmation in his/her inbox. It means in that case that the person that created this profile has an email with the domain "@melipona.org".

Usually, people will do this verification with their institutional email, adding credence that this is the right person, but technically, anyone within an institution can do it for anyone else inside that particular institution.


Do I have to tip the bartenders and hotel staff, when a U.S. University hosts an event for researchers? Prior to the COVID-19 lockdown, I attended a generously-funded research meeting that included a hotel stay, free dinners and bar drinks.  There was a dedicated bar section just for us.

I always wondered: At these funded events, should I tip the bartenders and hotel staff, or can I assume that the University takes care of not only the bill but also the gratuity that is expected by the service staff?

I landed up tipping on most times, but the few times that I did not, it felt a bit awkward -- walking away with a beer without tipping the bartender seemed rude

It is typical for catering contracts to include some sort of 'service fee' that serves like a 'tip', and you can assume that the staff are paid a better base wage than tip-supported employees typically are. Even regular restaurants often have a non-optional 'tip' added on for larger parties (thresholds vary but "8 or more" seems common).

That said, employees in these businesses are not high-income earners, and probably make less total take-home pay per hour than their tipped equivalents (bartending, especially, can be a relatively lucrative position in the service industry at the right venue).

If you appreciate their service, if they do something above and beyond, if you're in a generous mood, or if the cost makes you feel less awkward, feel free to tip; it won't seem like you are throwing money around or anything negative like that.

If you don't have cash and especially if you aren't asking for anything special, you can have a clean conscience that you haven't committed a faux pas by not tipping in this circumstance.


technologies for remote proctoring / invigilating I'm interested in a video solution (think Zoom) that would allow an
invigilator to see a number of candidates on the screen but which does
not allow candidates to see each other. Are there any such
software?solutions available for this? Obviously, the more mature the
better so that setup for the client side for candidate is simple. If it
was self-hosted then that would be ideal.

I'm aware of online proctoring / invigilating companies (Examity,
ProctorU, TestReach, ProctorExam,...) but they usually either use their
own invigilators or are quite costy.

Somewhat related question here.

As a partial answer, WeBWorK is an open source tool developed by the MAA (homepage here). You can either host it yourself or pay MAA to host it for you. WeBWorK allows for more complicated problems that multiple choice and automatically can give different numbers for problems (e.g., you might get add 2 + 3 and I would get add 5 + 1).

This would help with homework and possibly hosting the quizzes and tests (but not the proctoring part). I used WeBWorK when taking an undergraduate-level linear algebra course and found it quite usable as a student (it was actually better than the close-source software that came with my physics book and was used for homework).


How to advertise an academic job in a small Asian country to US/European candidates? I am a mathematician, recently returned home to Malaysia after a decade or so in the United States.

I had experienced for myself the pain of the US academic job search in snagging my postdoc. Now I am on the "other side", so to speak. My institution, Xiamen University Malaysia, is brand new and growing fast, so we need to hire a lot of mathematicians.

From my time in the States, I know there are many brilliant, hard-working people with excellent research records who cannot get permanent academic positions in the west due to the scarcity of jobs. I think my institution would provide an excellent opportunity for them. Obviously we cannot offer the same financial package a western university can, and I'm sure it is difficult for a lot of job candidates to consider a move across the world, but it is reasonable for the cost of living, and we teach in English and offer a teaching load that is conducive to research. I think it would be reasonable for a western-based job candidate to at least consider us.

My question is, how do we get the word out in the west? The obvious solution is Mathjobs.org for the US, but we don't have the budget for advertising there. I have emailed hundreds of department heads in the US and Europe, but I doubt many of those emails got forwarded.  Are there any other avenues to try?

Try conferences. I'm not in math but in my field most of the job news comes via conferences and academic societies.

It helps if the jobs are for specific subfields, so you can advertise them to the smaller conferences/societies for those subfields.

You may also try focusing on conferences/societies outside of the US, like Australia, NZ, Canada (e.g. Canadian Mathematical Society). Jobs in smaller countries like Canada are harder to come by and people on the market might appreciate seeing other non-US options.


Can international students in USA intern in summer in industry? Can international PhD students go do internships during summer in industries?

Does their F1 visa status allow this?

From how I see it, this is neither an OPT or a CPT.

I asked my International Office and they said I could spend a term at another university because then I'm still enrolled Full Time (just at another institution) which I believe is fine with some paperwork. However, they are getting back to me (it's been a while so I am asking here) whether anyone else has done something similar?

Yes you can, and this is exactly what CPT is for. (assuming you get paid for the internship. If you are not being paid - I'm not sure what the rules are, but it might be easier than CPT)

You can do it for up to 12 month (not necessarily consecutive) during your degree. Check again with your international Office for the exact rules (you might still need to be enrolled to 12 units if not summer quarter/semester).


How do I protect my research algorithm and findings from being infringed or stolen by anyone, including a professor of mine? I have been working on an NLP project (Natural Language Processing) regarding a variety of Arabic. I had to observe and look for patterns and rules in this variety as the resources are almost absent or very rare. I then started working on this module that classifies, tokenizes, stems, and returns the part-of-speech of each instance of the input. I'm afraid of the high possibility that one of my supervisors with such a history of stealing others work and labeling it as his. When I present my research, must I present the source code to the supervisor, or must I only live-experiment the model? I do not have a problem with distributing or open-sourcing the whole thing; I am willing to. But I am afraid he takes my work and make it his with no credits or rights.

The best way to protect your research from someone else taking credit is to publish it first. Even then, someone with a stronger reputation or more recognition can attempt to take credit for it. This is a risk you take in research and which is made worse by working with a supervisor "with such a history of stealing others work."

The more public your contributions are, the less likely someone else can steal it from you. If you have multiple supervisors make sure they are all aware of your contributions. Maybe talk with them about finding a chance for you to present at a poster session, conference, or research forum. Their names will likely be on the project (and probably deserve to be) if they are your supervisors, but yours will too.


Ph.D. distinction levels I just passed my Ph.D. defence in a French speaking University. Ph.Ds, here, can be passed with different "distinctions" levels (from "acceptable" to "excellent"). What is the proper term in English for this kind of distinctions? (what we would call "mention excellente" in French...)

Just to echo what's being said in the comments, in the United States, there are no distinctions with degrees... you simply have either earned it or you haven't.

Also, for what it's worth, "PhD ABD" is not a real degree, even if you list it on your resume. Just sayin'.


Is there a way to influence research in multiple areas of a field? So, the title may be a little convoluted, but let me explain. My current interests are regenerative medicine and neuroscience. I'm an undergraduate working in a neuroimaging lab, and while I enjoy the research, I feel like I don't want to limit myself to a narrow research topic as is common in Academia. For example, I'm interested in working with other areas, such as stem cell research and nanomedicine. What kind of career should I be working towards if I want to maintain a broad influence in the field? I was considering something like an administrative position or an being part of some journal's board. Perhaps working in the industry would be good, but I like the whole intellectual/meeting researchers vibe in the academic world. Also, please let me know if I can clarify this post a bit.

I think most researchers want to influence and possibly work in different areas, but we can't all be revolutionaries in several fields.
There are two opposing issues that one needs to balance at any stage of academia (or that pesky thing called life):

Doing anything significant usually takes real time and effort
Each individual has limited resources, such as time and effort

As research has progressed over the past centuries  things have gotten more specialized and there indeed has been a necessary tendency for researchers to focus on more and more narrow aspects of science.  However, the branches of science are highly interconnected, and fundamental work in one area often has ramifications in many areas (which the original research may or may not be involved with).  Recently, there has been more emphasis on interdisciplinary research, which it sounds like the kind of thing you are interested in.  So this opportunity is certainly available for researchers who are interested.

However, interdisciplinary research is easier with certain specialities than others.  (If you run a lab with lots of specialized equipment, you will be limited by the capabilities of the equipment.)  For instance, interdisciplinary work seems to be pretty common with people who do mathematical biology, or more generally applied math/statistics.  They often collaborate with different specialists in different fields/subfields who want to apply mathematical techniques/models to their problems, and in the process learn something about that particular subfield.  My suggestion, if you want to go this direction, is look for an advisor in graduate school who does (and if possible, whose students do) interdisciplinary research that you find exciting.

Another way to influence people in different areas is through teaching, giving lectures and writing textbooks.  Yet another way is by working for a grant agency or as a policy advisor, to help decide what research gets funded.  Working for a scientific publishing company, as you mention, is also a possiblity, but journal editors are professional researchers.  Similarly, university administration is run by professors.  Thus there are many options, but these typically require specialized knowledge, so the preparation is the same as becoming a researcher.


Do Universities make fully-remote contracts? I have been working in the UK for 8+ years, partially in academia and partially in industry, with satisfying results in both cases. I have been working fully-remote (from the UK) for the last year and I find this situation ideal for me. I am now thinking of moving back to my home country, Italy.
I know that working fully-remote from the same country of your employer is one thing, working fully-remote "from everywhere" is another, and they require different types of contract.
I can easily find jobs as a fully-remote employee from my country if I am looking for industry jobs. However, I would really like to keep working in academia, and I have not been able to find any University ad that talks about the possibility of a fully-remote position "from everywhere" (or even just a "fully-remote" position from the same country as the University).
Does it mean that Academia will NOT make these types of fully-remote contracts? Or it's possible that this arrangement will be discussed separately once the first contact is made?
Notice that I am not limiting myself to UK Universities. Anything is fine. My field is Machine Learning research so I need nothing more than my laptop (the heavy work is often done on remote servers).
EDIT: Please consider that when I am talking about "working in academia" I am referring to "pure" research job, with little to none educational obligation. If this seems crazy to you, consider that it's what I have been doing for the past year.

No doubt there is someone, somewhere, who has a fully-remote contract from a university. However, it is not something I have ever encountered, and I think it is inherently unlikely to be something any traditional university wishes to offer in the near future. A university's 'business model' is built around advertising that their campus is a better place to be than the competition's (because libraries, or labs, or equipment, or people, or sports, or...). Advertising 'fully remote' jobs would simply serve to undermine that message. In addition, having remote (and particularly overseas-remote) employees creates administrative and legal concerns that universities are not well-placed to manage.


Sending a thank you letter to a research professor? I had an amazing research professor I conducted research under for my last two semesters of undergrad.  I graduated in December and am currently waiting to hear back from graduate programs.  This professor wrote me a letter of recommendation and I sent him a thank you email.  However, I wanted to send him a hand written thank you letter for the letter of recommendation, all I learned while researching under him, and to see how several projects are going since I've graduated and left his lab.

Is it too late or "awkward" to send him a handwritten thank you note now that it's been about one and a half months since I've last contacted him?

Is it too late or "awkward" to send him a handwritten thank you note now that it's been about two months since I've last contacted him?

Nope.
Two months is not so long in the academic sense at all. Whether or not it's handwritten shouldn't matter as much, either. Typing it up is perfectly acceptable, readable, and much easier to correct if you make an error.


What to do when you are a finalist for a tenure-track position but you want to wait until you complete interviews at other schools? I visited a school for a tenure track position and the chair informed me that I am a finalist for that position. While, I still have interviews at other schools remaining, other candidates seem to have finished their interviews.

The chair asked me whether I would take an offer before visiting other schools but they did not give me an offer yet. Is this common?
Does the fact that other applicants have finished interviews affect the school's decisions?

After serving and chairing search committees, I agree with Brian that gamesmanship is often central to the faculty search process. The other candidates for School A may have finished interviewing (assuming that you are correct - how do you know the other candidates' schedules?) but now School A has to make the offer to the candidate they like best AND will say yes. So, they are putting pressure on you.

Personally, I feel like the response can be simple. Your question implies that the chair is telling you that you're probably going to get an offer, but do not have one in hand. So, you can tell the chair, "I would be willing to cancel other interviews for an offer IF it's the right offer. If you draft an offer, I will look at it and decide if I can accept it without pursuing other opportunities." This is VERY important, because you legally do not have an offer until they send you one in black and white. Once you have an offer, if you are satisfied with it and like the department, then it may be easy to make the decision.

In my first academic position, I was told that an offer would be sent to me and there was an administrative hold up...for two weeks or more (this was several years ago). I called the chair and told him that I was going to go to other interviews before I have their offer in hand. GOOD LUCK!


Where can I find templates for a mathematics research paper? I've recently typed up a mathematics research paper, but I would like to make it appear more formal when I submit it to be peer-reviewed.

Also, how would I be able to incorporate LATEX into my paper?

Are there any templates out there that follow formats similar (maybe even exact) to examples such as this and this one.

You can download the latex sources of the vast majority of (actually almost all) math preprints posted to arXiv. Just go to the abstract page of your favorite math paper and click on "Other formats" under "Download." There you can find the link to the source file in latex as long as the author(s) uploaded it and complied by arXiv's latex engine (which pretty much everyone does).

I think reading the actual sources of nicely typeset papers you like is a very effective way to learn how to latex.

For example, here's the abstract page of my latest preprint:

http://arxiv.org/abs/1409.2559

and its source is here:

http://arxiv.org/format/1409.2559v4

To get the latex file I submitted, click "Download source" near the bottom right.

The file is in compressed format. But as the arXiv page says, your browser may uncompress the file. My Google Chrome for Mac does this, so what I actually get by clicking the download link is a latex file, which is named "1409.2559v4" with no extension. If your browser behaves the same way, you can simply rename the file to attach ".tex" at the end if the extension is important.


Are there any area in arxiv without requiring endorsement? Are there any areas in arxiv to post without endorsement?

Nope, you have to get an endorsement to post on arxiv. After you have an endorsement in a specific area, you can crosslist your paper in other areas, which will give you the ability to post and give your own endorsements in different areas.


How do you judge the potential of a newer journal? I'm in a fairly niche field that is still in the process of organizing itself. As such, there are a number of existing professional societies that are spinning off journals along with newer societies that are getting into journal publication. Since some of the usual metrics for judging a predatory journal may not apply, how do you judge the potential of a newer journal so that the publication does not end up being a wasted effort?

To expand upon part of Dave Everitt's answer,

  look at the founders of the journal - did they start it primarily as a platform for their own publications, and do these authors and their associates make up the bulk of the authors?

I would also look at who is publishing and editing the journal.

Is the publisher affiliated with a scientific society? Sometimes scientific society will launch new journals (e.g., the Ecological Society of America launched Ecoshpere to be their open source journal).

Or another is a new journal from an established publisher? Established commercial publishing companies are launching new journals. Although people argue about the ethics of publishing with them (cf What are some examples of negative effects on a career for boycotting Elsevier journals?), my own experience has been that their products are usually scientifically sound (presumably because they are afraid of hurting their brand image). Additionally, journals such as Nature now have spinoffs (and spinoffs of spinoffs, e.g., Nature to Nature Methods to Scientific Reports) to catch paper that do not fit into their flagship journals.

Also, who is the editor-in-chief and other editors? Do you know them in your sub-field? For example, when the journal Theoretical Ecology launched, the they had Alan Hastings as the EIC, a highly respected Ecologist.


How important is your school? I am looking to pursue an online master's in MIS starting next spring. I'm in the process of deciding on a school and I've narrowed it down to two choices: Florida State or Illinois-Springfield.

Both are accredited, but I'm trying to think about which would benefit me more in the long run. Florida State seems to be the more well-known, popular university, and, I would assume, would "pop" more on a resume. However, each credit hour is $810 and the program itself is upwards of $27,800.

In contrast, UIS is a much smaller school, and probably less well known. However, their program is $403 an hour and would come out closer to the $15,000 range.

I could probably pay for the UIS degree out of pocket, but FSU would require me to get loans.

Is it worth the extra money for a more recognizable name on your resume? Does anyone pay that much attention to the school?

Does anyone pay that much attention to the school? The answer is "yes". There are tens of thousands of universities in the world and even more programs / supervisors. No human can keep track of all of them. At some point, at least for non-academics (think recruiters), people will use your university's reputation as a proxy for how good the program is. The bias can actually get pretty substantial. Examples:

Alice graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles. Bob graduated from the University of San Diego. All things equal, some people will assume Alice is more competent than Bob. This applies regardless of topic and regardless of whether USD has a top-class program in that topic.
Charlie graduated from Nameless University in New Zealand, Denise from Sseleman University in Romania. Some people will assume Charlie is more competent, because NZ is a developed country and Romania is not.

In your case, Florida State will be more recognizable because even if one is unfamiliar with the university, it has "State" in the name, and state universities are generally more recognizable. Whether or not it's worth it to pay for it is up to you to decide. Some points to think about:

See calculations like this one and apply it to your own circumstances. The key takeaway is that there's a massive difference between having to pay interest on loans and earning interest.
If you intend to work in the US, chances are much better the recruiter will recognize both universities, in which case bias applies less (the recruiter might still not know which university has the better program in your field).
If you intend to pursue an academic job, the name of the university is less important, since you'll be judged by people who can understand your academic work.


I got the same referee report from two different journals My coauthor and I submitted our article for publication to one of the best journals in our field. After a long time of review, we got a rejection decision by the editor based on the referee report which we received. After that we wrote to the editor and explained to him/her that the referee arguments to reject our paper are wrong and provided point by point evidence to support our conclusions.

However, the editor did not accept our arguments so we then sent our paper to another journal which is also among the best in our field. After waiting for considerable time, we got a rejection decision from the second journal and the same referee report as the first journal. I repeat the two reports which we received from two journals are completely identical! We have asked the editor of the second journal for explanations why we got the same report and so far we have not heard any reply.

Based on these facts, we believe that our paper is being rejected for some unknown personal reasons not clear to us rather than objective reasons connected with our work.  In between the two submissions, we have revised our paper based on the first journal referee report.

Have your ever experienced such a situation?

How should we behave in this case?

UPDATE:

Based on some comments below about this post, I want to express my opinion in more details about this issue. I am an expert in my working field and have reviewed several papers too. However, if somebody is asked to review the same paper more than once from two different journals, it is ethical that the referee rejects to review the paper and gives the possibility to another referee to do it. The referee can have an option to explain to the second journal editor the reasons why he/she rejected the paper initially and also point out the comments which he/she received back from the authors through the first journal (as in our case) that his/her conclusions might be wrong.

As a reviewer, when I get asked to review a paper the second time I will see whether my comments from the initial review were addressed. If not, then I will submit the same review. Why should I update my review if the paper has not been updated?

Getting the same reviewer is a very common occurrence. Perhaps in your situation the reviewer is misguided. However, when re-submitting a paper you should make every effort to address previous reviews.  And, in any case, legitimate issues raised by the reviewer should be addressed. Even if you think the reviewer is confused, you should seek to clarify the confusing points. They may be confusing to others too.

In your position there is probably not much you can do other than write to the editor explaining the situation. The best argument you can put forth is to explain that all of the points in the review have already been addressed in the submission. That makes it look like the reviewer didn't read it, which means the editor may side with you.


How to cite an answer in StackExchange? I will use this proof in manuscript. It is clearly plagiarism if I just write down the proof and do not cite the original content.

However, how do I cite an answer in StackExchange? It is neither a blog post, nor a text in a personal website. It is an answer to a question. Should I go with traditional style such as

  [1] Gjergji Zaimi (stackexchange username) “Answer to Question
  'Unique ways to keep N balls into K Boxes?' ”
  https://math.stackexchange.com/a/58756/130361. Aug 2011. Last accessed:
  2017-02-12

or is there any formal method to do this?

There is a link at the bottom that provides a citation in bibtex or amsrefs format;

Clicking on this particular link the bibtex citation generated is;

  @MISC {58756,
      TITLE = {Unique ways to keep N balls into K Boxes?},
      AUTHOR = {Gjergji Zaimi (https://math.stackexchange.com/users/14274/gjergji-zaimi)},
      HOWPUBLISHED = {Mathematics Stack Exchange},
      NOTE = {URL:https://math.stackexchange.com/q/58756 (version: 2011-08-21)},
      EPRINT = {https://math.stackexchange.com/q/58756},
      URL = {https://math.stackexchange.com/q/58756}
  }

You could put that in your .bib file. From that point, it really depends how the rest of your citations are being formated. You might get something like;

That seems like a pretty standardised way to do it.


Sabbatical from work as a non-student I have already finished my studies and work in a private  company. I would like to know that I could do my sabbatical as a researcher in a university. Is there any specific procedures or limitation for it?

Generally you would need to contact the university and/or some specific research group to see if they could accommodate you. I think that this is rare enough that you won't find a lot of places with policies designed for it, so you would need to work through individual contacts.

Some research groups may be able to hire outside researchers, but many have funds intended only for supporting students.

If you can go visit some nearby university and make contact with a researcher or department head you would learn more.

You might also need to worry about what your company permits you to do outside the company. Some will want to impose restrictions. Others not.

It would be different if you can bring research funding from your company with you. Universities are usually pretty happy about outside funding.


affiliation if I change departments within university I am wondering what affiliation to put down on a paper that has been accepted (now going through the proofs).

I worked in one department (a centre, or institute, within my university) while I was conducting the research. I am now in another department (not a centre/institute, but a different department), within the same university.

Does it make sense to put both both affiliations, even though they are both linked to the same university? In my mind it makes sense to acknowledge both labs (the one where I did the research and the one where I did the writing), but then again it doesn't make sense to acknowledge the same university twice.

Does anyone have experience with this sort of situation, whether from the author or from the editor perspective? Is there a generally accepted solution?

Of course it’s also possible to have

  Zero the Hero, Department of Nothing and Institute of Heroes, Gong University

or else you can have your “old” address on the byline with a footnote to your new address:

  Zero the Hero*, Department of Nothing, Gong University

(* now at Institute of Heroes, Gong University )

The latter (and variations on this) is the model used for sabbaticals or for people who have moved since the work was completed: the researcher will acknowledge the host institution but will have a footnote to the current or the permanent address.


How should I go about doing meaningful academic outreach as a graduate student? I am a Hispanic student (senior undergraduate) from a socioeconomically disadvantaged background pursuing a graduate degree in Physics in US (I just finished submitting my applications). I do not know anyone from my neighborhood that attended college, much less pursued an advanced degree, and I find myself abhorred by the educational inequality in the US (and the world) on a daily basis. I've undertaken some personal outreach endeavors thus far, I act as a mentor via email for minority students in K-12 (for example, I send them updates about what projects I'm doing and links that I think are suitable for their age group) and I stay in contact with minority undergraduates in STEM whom find themselves faced with (socioeconomic) obstacles similar to those that I have faced.

My parents were hard workers, but they had little time (or money) to stimulate me intellectually as a child, and they also had no idea what it meant to pursue a PhD in anything besides a medical doctor. Thus, I really only became familiar with the notion of pursuing a career in scientific research when I arrived at college; prior to arriving at college, engineering was my idea of what it meant to be a "scientist", or, to "do science" as a career.

I would say that over the course of the past three years I have become a relatively successful researcher, and in some ways I have made up for lost time, but to this day I can only cringe thinking about where I (or someone in my same shoes) might be today if I had been exposed to science at a younger age.

Does anyone have advice as to how I can begin making a significant impact in scientific outreach as a graduate student? I have a knack for programming, and the majority of my research is computational in nature, so I think I might be well suited for helping individuals learn programming remotely, or something of that effect.

Outreach comes in two flavours: creating interest (wow, this science thing is actually cool!), and educating (this is how you program). I think both are necessary, so take your pick (or both).

Also, don't even think of making it a one man effort. I don't advise to do it alone. There will be times where you will be swarmed in work, and then your outreach will just fall out of priority. Instead, team up with undergrads, schools, youth centres... whoever is willing to help you. If your university has something in place, you should probably go for it, as it will probably suit your primary needs the most. If you cannot find anyone, you can always start alone and get people on board along the way, but do make this a priority to ensure continuity.

Story time: when I was an undergrad, I joined the astronomy club at my university and we did a lot of outreach, mostly talks and workshops about different topics. It was a very good starting point, as I met people that have been in the business for some time, and could help me avoid some of the beginners mistakes. To give you an idea of our success, in some years, we (a dozen of undergrads), single handedly organised half of the events for the Science Week at the Physics Department, usually getting fully booked in less than a week since opening the registrations.

My experiences showed that:

Many teachers are overworked, underpaid, and frustrated; and they would take your activities as a way to relax for an hour. A few others are still passionate and will go out of their way to get you in the classroom and make the most of it.
Teenagers are difficult to begin with, but once you break the toughness layer, they have a bunch of interesting ideas. Also, beyond that point there are not many differences between posh and underprivileged schools.
Ideally, all fronts should be covered. This includes schools, family activities, talks for adults, elderly centres, giving teachers ideas... But of course, you don't have to do them all.
Be engaging. Get small groups, if you can. Prefer interaction in person. I wouldn't recommend teaching programming remotely, as it is too easy to ignore it. It would only work with kids that are really interested, but then, there are tons of online resources to learn.
Sometimes, kids behave like mushrooms, and there is nothing you can do about it. Don't let that frustrate you. Don't be impervious to (self) criticism, though.
Talk to professors active in outreach, even if they are out of your expertise. In my university there were a couple of them from the Optics department, that taught me a few nifty low budget experiments.


How can you tell if a faculty or group is on decline? Am I being used? I am currently deciding graduate school between several different groups in my school's engineering department. A few faculty in electronics, signal processing and control system has expressed interest in working with me.

When I talk to some of the current graduate students, I get a wide variety of opinions. What bothers me is that some graduate students tells me that a certain group is on "decline". They rarely clarify what this means, but to me it can mean several things.

the output from the group is inconsistent
funding is lacking
output is not applicable to come up with a product
(follows from 3) work too theoretical and deviates from engineering goal

If a group is on decline, then regardless of the reason, under normal circumstances I will not even consider joining. What surprises me is that this group which has been rumored to be on the decline is very keen on recruiting new graduates. In particular, I have experienced more of a "pull" from that particular group than any other group which has expressed interest. There are early admissions, talk about funding, offer of teaching assistance-ship. I am starting to wonder if they need me so to acquire more funding for their own research or if there are some other ulterior motives.

Can someone who works within academia clarify on what it could mean for a group to be on decline, so much that it is apparent to people who are outside of that group.

Also what interest me personally is what ulterior motive could a graduate unit have in recruiting new graduates aside from the expressed interest in publishing more beautiful papers.

Thanks

In the final year of my PhD, I made a tour of several places in the USA to try to establish contacts in the hope of finding hidden postdoc opportunities.  I knew of those places because I frequently saw their papers.  In some places, I have seen signs of decline:

In one place, the main senior scientist had moved away some years ago.  Since then, one by one, others had left.  It appears nobody was replacing them.  The people who were still there appeared to be the ones who were less successful at getting grants and writing papers, than the ones who had left.
In another place, I didn't see any PhD students in a group, and only a handful of postdocs.  Most people were above 50, with the head of the group being well above 70.  Although certainly a great name to have as a support, I wouldn't recommend anyone starting a PhD project with someone who will turn 80 before the candidate is expected to get their PhD.
I also overheard conversations from which it was clear that people were not very ambitious.  I almost literally heard someone say, that they now had a permanent position so they didn't need to write a lot of papers anymore.

Those are some signs that a place might be in decline: Have more than two senior scientists left the place in the past five years?  Is the median age above 60?  Are some people happier to stay on their desk than to attract great PhD students and postdocs to produce some great science?


Quit PhD and find a job I'm a year and a half into a PhD at a top university in the Uk. Doing some good work but not enjoying academia and I think this is more than second year blues. I have quite a bad advisor which doesn't help, for example I've already had my work stolen by a collaborator and my supervisor is reluctant to rock the boat or say anything.

My PhD is in applied Math and computational physics and I have access to London. My current plan is to leave with an Mphil and find a job in the city - trouble is I don't know what I want to do.

I would like a career that uses my mathematical and programming abilities and is more commercial, i.e. not all technical. A career that I can go places with - but has a good work life balance.  I've always wanted to be a professor, but the reality of academia has really put a pin in that, I can't stand it, I hate the politics, I hate the way I'm treated by my supervisors, the university staff and colleges, I hate the academic culture here where I'm expected to let my research take over life and that just by considering other opportunities, I'm not worthy of academia - I came TOP of my class, I worked incredibly hard, I feel I deserve more respect than what I get as a grad student.

So I've been looking around and a few careers have caught my eye - though I want something with a better work-life balance.

Has anyone themselves quit a PhD? Were you happier?

I have strong urge to respond to user9590's comment: No one who quit a PhD ever felt bad for quitting a PhD. Well, I do. I always feel bad after I quit PhD. Although I had good personal reasons to do so, I always regret my decision. I missed everything in academia: the professors, the classroom, the research, the teaching, even the campus. After I retired from industry, I had to choose a place to live. Do you know the street name of my current address? Academia Road !

The reasons you're thinking about leaving academia:

I hate the politics - Do you believe there is no politics in industry?

I hate the way I'm treated by my supervisors, the university staff and colleges - Do you believe your managers, the human resources and the company in industry will treat you very well?

I hate the academic culture here where I'm expected to let my research take over life, - Would you love the industry culture to let making money take over life?

I feel I deserve more respect than what I get as a grad student.. - Do you feel you deserve more respect than what you'll get as an employee of an industry company?

If your answers to the above questions are all positive, industry is your place. In particular, please run to industry if you love to make money. Otherwise, please reconsider quitting PhD. Good Luck!


Greetings to department's scientists I have enrolled as a PhD student in one of the UK's universities. I have been received an email containing a list of different professors and secretaries in the department. I am a little worried since I don't know how to greet them and I don't know what to say. Could anyone please help me?

I disagree slightly with SolarMike's answer. The academic hierarchy in the UK is very informal. It is fine to use first names for everyone, be they professor, admin staff or cleaner. A simple "Hi Bob" is fine in emails or in person.

I would argue that it would actually be a bit strange to address someone by their title and last name. If you did so, I expect they would quickly tell you it's fine to address them by first name.