Are there any academic institutions operating on bodies of water? Are there any (accredited/recognized) academic institutions with a significant part of their activities - administrative and academic - held over a body of water (sea, lake or river), on some floating platform?

The kind of platform could be boat or a barge; or if that doesn't exist,
then at least - buildings built directly on struts in the water without solid foundations (a-la Tolkien's Esgaroth, or Lake-town).

Notes:

Universities which have ships and/or operate ships and/or hold some classes on ships and/or send students out on trips on ships - don't count. The univesity or institute has to operate primarily on the barge/ship/floating platform.
Bonus points if it's a proper university and if what they teach is not just shipping/marine-related.
I don't want a recommendation of such institutions, nor a list of them, I just want to know if any exist.

The Semester At Sea program is an established and respected program run by the The Institute for Shipboard Education, which I think only does this Semester at Sea program, and Colorado State University, which obviously has a lot of land based activities. The program offers a range of classes, but does not offer a degree (as far as I can tell).


What if someone else published an article on the same topic as my accepted unpublished article I submitted my paper to a journal in July 2017 and I received an email of acceptance on May 2018 but it hasn't been published yet. Suddenly, while I am searching on my topic I found that someone else through another journal published an article on the same topic of mine (same basics and main idea with some little differences) and I found that his paper was received in January 2018, accepted in July, and published in August 2018.

Is there any risk that the journal will not proceed with the publication of my article after acceptance?

After a journal has accepted an article, they're ethically bound to publish it unless there's an egregious error or abuse on the author's part. Some examples could be:

They discover that you actually submitted your paper without acknowledging a critical person who contributed so much to the work that she should have been a co-author;
They discover that you plagiarized significant sections of your paper;
They discover that the reviewer they invited for the paper was actually you, using another name.

In your case, the journal will need to show that you must have known about the other paper before you submitted yours. If they can do this, then you are acting unethically, and they can retract your paper. If they cannot, then they'll go ahead and publish, and you can claim to have discovered the result first while the other authors discovered it independently.


What do US universities mean when they mention anything above the "Calculus" course? I am applying for a PhD in pure maths. Now a lot of places that I am applying to are asking for detailed lists of courses and books that I have followed for anything more advanced than calculus.
Now I am not quite sure what they mean here, because in our institute the course that was named calculus was an introduction to differential forms and theorems regarding those. And from there it went on to give us an introduction to manifolds. (This was our third semester undergrad; prior to this we had taken linear algebra, analysis 1, multivariable analysis, topology, and group theory.) I am from India.
Now if this is considered to be a basic calculus course then I am not quite sure how to judge exactly what courses are supposed to be more advanced than this.
Since some folks have asked regarding the syllabus:

Axioms of the real number system without construction, applications of the least-upper-bound- property, Archimedean principle, existence of nth roots of positive real numbers, ax for a > 0 and x > 0.
Convergence of sequences, monotonic sequences, subsequences, Heine-Borel theorem, lim sup and lim inf Cauchy sequences, completeness of R. Infinite series, absolute convergence, comparison test, root test, ratio test, conditional convergence, complex numbers, power series, radius of convergence of power series.
Continuous functions on intervals of R, intermediate value theorem, boundedness of continuous functions on closed and bounded intervals.
Differentiation, mean value theorem, Taylor's theorem, application of Taylor's theorem to maxima and minima, L'Hôpital rules to calculate limits.
Construction of ez using power series, proof of the periodicity of sin and cos.
Riemann Integration: Riemann integrals, Riemann integrablity of continuous functions, fundamental theorem of calculus.

This is the analysis 1 syllabus. I suppose this is going to be equivalent to calculus.

I think your question is:  What does calculus mean?
Calculus would usually include learning to compute derivatives and integrals.
If you are learning to prove the theorems used to compute derivatives and integrals, that would be more advanced than calculus.

linear algebra analysis 1, multivariable analysis, topology, group theory

All of those would usually be considered more advanced than calculus.


Assessing a potential supervisor who had a fallout with a previous PhD student I am a PhD student and I have been thoroughly searching for future supervisors.

I have been speaking with current PhD students about a certain professor to get to know more about them, and they let me know their experiences as well as the experience of a previous student.
Apparently, it seems this previous student had some major problem with the supervisor and left in an ill manner (e.g., as soon as the PhD was finished, they left not teaching the new students after them how to use the equipment they built).
The PhD Student I had this conversation with is a respectable one, and I strongly believe they were having a serious conversation with me.

This professor under question so far is a great person, and I am incredibly happy to be working with them soon, and as far as I know and can see, they are attentive, supportive, encouraging and very willing to take suggestions from their team.

This conversation I had with the PhD student worries me slightly and due to the professor’s kindness, it makes me even more anxious to find out the professor’s side of the story, and what they thought about it.
However, I am too anxious/embarrassed to bring it up.
I have been thinking of having a one-to-one meeting with them and asking them a few questions I could frame as a “mini interview I like to take of future supervisors”:

  Have you had any unpleasant experiences with PhD students in the past?

but I was wondering if the academic community on here would have better/more suggestions?

I have been thinking of having a one to one meeting with them and asking them a few questions I could frame as a “mini interview I like to take of future supervisors”: “Have you had any unpleasant experiences with PhD students in the past?” but I was wondering if the academic community on here would have better/more suggestions? Maybe even a view point of a professor?

Ok, don't. You don't like to be lied to your face, and probably your supervisor also doesn't like it. And maybe your supervisor is not stupid and may realize something’s up.

Let's just consider the possibilities (and to be clear, I have seen all of these):

Your supervisor is a psychopath who behave nice as long as it serves them and shit people in the face to get what they want if they can. These are very good liars. On the other hand, they don't care if you recognize them for what they are, they just will adapt the strategy.
Your supervisor is a person who doesn't plan his PhD supervision very well, and sometimes if results are not coming in puts all the blame on the student.
Your supervisor and the previous student just did not get along due to their personalities or their goals not aligning, and the previous student interprets this very much one way.
Your supervisor decided at some point to pressure the student with good intent e.g. to help them, and the student took it personally.
The student somehow messed up and put the blame to the supervisor.

What to do:

The most dangerous for your scientific career is 2. Here, check if you have the feeling that your supervisor really tries to generate a good context or if you are working alone and uncoordinated.
I would not necessarily care about 1; these are people whom you can bargain with if you have something in your hand, but check how valuable you and your result are and how much depends on you.
Number 3 you can address by discussing expectations and goals (35 h peer week, one conference publication vs. 60 h per week, two nature papers) early in the thesis.
Number 4 depends on the cultural context, but is maybe not that bad at all. (While my professor probably saved my thesis by pressuring me to finish the thesis, he probably messed up his working relationship with another PHD student by doing exactly the same thing so much that the student essentially dropped out.)
Number 5 is irrelevant to you.


Do online courses and certificates actually count toward University credits? I am interested in pursuing a couple of online courses and certifications but I am not sure if they will count towards my university credits or in getting a job. I found some courses from this article but i need to make sure that they will actually be beneficial for me. They also have mentioned a couple of online degrees from University of People. Does it count as an accredited degree worldwide?

If your online sources are accredited, and your certifications are germane to the work you will be asked to do, then absolutely they will help you get the job you desire. But, since degrees are bestowed by Universities, only they can determine what (and whose) credits are transferable. My first year was spent at a community college (for personal reasons), but even so, I had to have my (desired) academic path laid out, to avoid wasting time on unnecessary courses. Of course, some classes are taken for the sheer joy of attaining knowledge, but know your goal, and keep it in mind.
I looked at your link provided, and note with interest that the University of California accepts some credit transfers for 'exceptional' students. I would verify statements like that, tho' I'm not disputing it. These courses seem to be for a 'leg up', which is good if they help you be in the top of your class. But I don't believe that is what you are asking.


Authorship for paper with questionable statistical analysis For my master thesis in clinical medicine I have collected and analyzed data for a retrospective cohort study. Now one year later, a research assistant of the group is about to submit a manuscript based on my master thesis and I have been offered shared first co-authorship with said research assistant. Upon internal review I have noticed the following issues:

Definitions of clinical outcomes of the study have been changed such that they are now not well defined and not even of clinical interest
The statistical analysis I had performed for my thesis was completely ignored and omitted in the manuscript. For the manuscript, the research assistant employed statistical models I deem inappropriate as confirmed by fellow researchers external to the group. In addition, reporting of methods and results is poorly written with critical information missing.

I have provided feedback concerning the statistical methods but it was ignored. My advisor refused my request to see the new statistical analysis (in particular, I asked for the statistical software files edited by the research assistant), telling me that even though I have shared co-first authorship for the paper, I am not entitled to any insight in the statistical analysis, since the research assistant is in charge of it. I’m having a hard time accepting publication of a study of which I’m co-first author but haven’t seen the analysis behind it, especially since I highly suspect it is inappropriate. My advisor threatened to remove me from the paper completely if I don’t agree blindly.
Shall I renounce and let it be published without my name? Shall I agree and accept to have a paper published with my name and the knowledge that the quality might be really bad? Shall I contact the editors of the journal they want to submit it to?
Edit: Thank you all so much for your thoughtful answers and comments! I appreciate your help!

If you are to co-author a paper, you need to agree with its methodology and conclusions. You don't.
My advice, in general, is to offer to work with others to improve the paper to meet everyone's standards. You indicate that this might not be possible, which would be a fault of the PI. If you can't convince them to work with you, then I don't see a real way forward without saying that you won't be part of it in any way.
They can then go forward if they like, citing your past work properly. If they don't do that, it would be time to contact editors.


Reporting meta analysis I’m a grad student working on an assignment that involves stating the effectiveness of an intervention for students with learning disabilities. I used a meta analysis to support the effectiveness and am not sure how to report everything in one page and which sections to include. Specifically, I don’t know where to report how the effect was calculated (under which section). I don’t have much  knowledge in this area so any help would be greatly appreciated.

While the standards of how to report something in a publication vary widely by field and venue, the variation of what is expected in a class assignment is vastly larger - too large for really anyone outside of your class to say.

If this were for publication, I would suggest you find papers in your field and from the publication source you are targeting to help guide you in how to structure reporting your findings. For an assignment, the only standard that will have much of any sway is what your instructor expects or requires - so I would highly recommend you review the assignment guidelines and syllabus, and then contact the instructor to request guidance on how to structure and summarize your findings, including what details they want included.


What to do with someone that cheated their way through university and a PhD program? A person I know cheated through most of their science classes while an undergrad.  They literally had someone else take the exams, write reports, and do most of the homework.  They then took their stellar GPA and not so stellar GRE score and got admitted to a not so great PhD program.

A new significant other at grad school wrote a lot of their papers.  This person ingratiated themselves with the head of the department – they are a schmooze king.  They gained favor by doing physical work that very few of the other grad students would do. Their doctoral thesis was weak and the defense round wasn't difficult.  They were awarded their PhD.  Mind you, they still can't explain to me nearly anything about basic chemistry,  organic chemistry or biochemistry concepts.  I'm talking like sn1, sn2, benzene rings, buffers, etc...

This person now has a job with a pharmaceutical company doing anything but real science.  They're basically a pharmaceutical rep out selling drugs to various physicians in a territory.

Do I tell their employer?  Do I tell the university?  Do I let it go?  I have no way to prove anything.  I'm sure none of those people that took the tests in their place will come forward and tell the truth.  This has gotten away with fraud.

He literally had someone else take the exams for him

If you wanted to speak out, that was really the right time, not so many years later when damage is done and every accusation is virtually unprovable.

  His doctoral thesis was weak and the defense round wasn't difficult.

There are many weak PhD theses around, and it's up to the universities and to the defense committees to decide which level of weakness is acceptable before rejecting a candidate (gosh, if we were to object to any "weak" degree...).

  Do I tell his employer? Do I tell the university? Do I let it go?

You let it go because, as you said, you've nothing to prove your accusations (and the university would have no interest in undertaking an investigation after such a long time without any evidence to start with). And he is now in industry, and it's up to his employer to decide whether to promote or demote him according to his work performance and to decide whether the PhD title is just a vacuous document in his hands.

Different is the case where, for instance, you can prove that a student cheated by plagiarising other works. Here, there is evidence that can be used to revoke a degree, as it happened in some cases.


Zoom Polls: Why do I not see the option? I have a Zoom paid account ("Pro") and from googling it seems that the polling option should be available to me.
However when I start a meeting I do not seem to see the option to start a poll. Any clue what I may be doing wrong? Do other see the polling option in free / paid zoom versions?
And in Settings for my account I do See that the Meeting Polls option is already enabled (screenshot below).
Not sure what I am doing wrong!
The use case is that I wanted to ask live questions during my lecture to gauge whether students have understood a concept.

I had the same problem once. It worked for me once I had a poll prepared in advance (in the Zoom web portal before the meeting starts).


Writing an REU recommendation as an Instructor I'm a new full-time faculty member in the process of finishing my PhD. Because I have not yet graduated, Instructor is the only title I feel comfortable using until I defend.

A student has asked for a letter of reference to an REU program, and I've become concerned that a letter from an Instructor may not be as highly received as a letter from some rank of Professor. In particular the REU is a research position and Instructor doesn't make it clear that I've been involved with research in any capacity. (I did in fact mentor 6 REUs while a grad student and several more independent study undergrads, and think that this particular student is a fine candidate.)

I should note that I was asked for a letter based on having this student in class, and I feel I can write a strong letter for this individual on their qualities as a student. Another faculty member (Assistant Professor) is writing a letter based on an extracurricular project.

Two questions:

1) Will my Instructor rank cause problems for this student? Of course my letter will be less highly regarded in general due to my newness, but does being an Instructor present an additional hindrance on top of that?

2) If so, is there anything that can be done in the letter itself to mitigate this? Or, should I counsel the student to pursue a different recommendation?

Include the following information in your letter:

You're a new full-time faculty member.
You mentored 6 REUs while a grad student and several more independent study undergrads, and think that this particular student is a fine candidate.


Is paper refering on pop science books less value? I have a paper in linguistic which was written when I was in high school. I would like to mention it in my SOP. When I ask if I should mention it, xLeitix has raise this question:

  What is the hypothesis that you proposed?

The hypothesis I proposed is in sociology, which I had when reading the book The Human Zoo. The problem is, it is a pop science book, and the hypothesis only bases on this reference (number of total references is 7). However, since the author is reputable (he is listed as a notable English-language popularizers of science by Wiki), I think I have cited a reliable source. More importantly, if the PhD committees are interested in the ability of research, does this paper satiate them because I made it when I was in high school without any guidance? Does citing on pop science books make my paper less value in the eyes of:

linguists?
biologists?
other scientists?

The main problem with citing a popular science book is that it is a secondary source.  Almost certainly, the author isn't reporting on original research that he conducted himself; he's discussing research previously discussed and published by others (and possibly his own as well), and putting it in context for a general audience.  He is one or more steps removed from the original work itself, and especially in a popular science book, there won't be complete details about how the results were obtained, which would be necessary to satisfy an expert.

So if you want to support your own arguments using some statement claimed in Morris's book (e.g. "baboons can use toothbrushes"), you don't want to cite this book as your only evidence for that statement.  Rather, you need to find the primary sources.  You should look for who Morris cites, and if necessary, trace back a chain of citations until you find the original paper where this result was reported.  This will be a paper written by the people who actually conducted the study that is claimed to show that baboons can use toothbrushes (call them Jones).  Read Jones's paper, and make your own decision about exactly what hypothesis they tested, whether their methods were appropriate, whether their data is good evidence for their hypothesis, and in general whether their work convinces you that baboons can use toothbrushes.  Then search for other papers citing Jones that may offer criticism of their work, reproduce their results, and so on.  Take them into account in your decision as to whether to depend on this fact.  If you decide it's reliable, then cite Jones and any other paper that offers something helpful to evaluating their work.

(And if you decide it's not reliable, don't fall into the trap of "But Morris believes it, and he's reputable, so I'll just cite him."  Reputable people make mistakes too, and propagating mistakes like this is a major cause of bad science.  Instead, look for other evidence to support or refute your argument.)

You can also cite Morris, if you feel that he adds something to the discussion, or that the reader will find it useful to read his book.  But a scholarly paper can't rely solely on secondary sources.  A paper that does so will certainly be taken less seriously, by anyone.

Edit: To address your comment, nobody here can really tell to what extent a PhD committee would view your paper as evidence of research ability; it will depend on how good they think it is, and only they know that.  But citing popular science texts instead of primary sources is probably not a good sign, since it doesn't seem to show a familiarity with proper research practices.  I wouldn't really expect a committee to be extra impressed because it was done in high school.  They don't really care how advanced you were in high school, they want to know whether you are prepared for grad school now, and that decision will be based much more on what you have done in your undergraduate work.  So unless the paper you wrote in high school was incredibly spectacular, I don't think it will affect graduate admissions one way or the other.


What are the advantages and disadvantages of doing research without studying for a degree? I want to do research by myself and with my friends, but I don't want to apply for a degree. What are the advantages and disadvantages of doing research without studying for a degree?

Your question is a bit underspecified, but if I understand it correctly, perhaps the following will help.

Research is about learning what is true about some aspect of the world or the mind. Carrying out research is good mental training and gives you the basis both for future study and for a profession. So, it is worth doing, just for that, without regard to any results. Doing it in a group, as you suggest, is also good as you can help teach each other as you go.

On the other hand, carrying out research without professional guidance, as a beginner, can lead you to waste your time, both in understanding what is important to study and what is already known. One reason for beginning a research career as a student of a degree program is that your advisor can keep you from falling into such traps. The advisor can, most likely, point you to resources that would be difficult for you to find on your own. There are specific techniques used in research in specific fields that you may also not be aware of without access to an experienced guide.

It is also, arguably, easier to publish if you are associated with a known institution. This isn't a requirement, actually, but it has some effect.


Length of Supporting Statement to Faculty Position application I'm currently applying for one "entry-level" faculty position in the UK (CS). Differently from other applications I have seen, in this one they ask the applicant to address each of the items listed in a "Person Specification" section of the job description.

There are 15 points, ranging from simple yes/no questions ("Do you have a PhD?") to more elaborate ones ("Evidence of Teaching excellence"). I've addressed everything I can think of in my document so far. However it is quite long, 3.5 pages.

My question is: how long is a statement of this nature expected to be? There are no page limits that I have seen. Should I try to shorten it?

I would not refer to what you are writing as a statement. I would say it is a response. Responses should be as long as they need to be, but not longer.

If they have given you a person specification with 15 points, and ask you address every point, then, yes, your response is going to be long. There should be no need to guess on this. They have asked you to be thorough so you should be thorough.

While it is common for companies to use person specifications to ensure they find a proper match for a position it is rare for me to see someone use it in the manner you describe. However, it does not sound crazy, just like they want to really be sure that they are getting all the information they need, and they clearly want to be thorough. In the end, the goal of the person specification is to make sure you eliminate, as early as possible, those people who are very likely to be a poor match for the position/organization. If you can respond appropriately to each point, then you are much more likely to be called for an interview. So don't leave anything out that answers their questions.


Has the DeWitt Clause, which prevents publication of named DBMS benchmarks, ever been successfully defended in court? Several commercial database vendors include an end-user license agreement provision, known as the DeWitt Clause, that prohibits researchers and scientists from explicitly using the names of their systems in academic papers.

Has the DeWitt Clause ever been successfully defended in court?

Several users have suggested People of the State of New York vs. Network Associates as an instance of a DeWitt Clause being challenged, and struck down, in court. However, this case is hugely misunderstood by the media, and so these answers have been very misleading.

This case was an instance of a DeWitt Clause being challenged in court. However, the court's ruling did not directly address the issue of whether such a clause is enforceable. The court ruled on the basis of the specific wording of the Network Associates clause, and so did not generally rule on the enforceability of all such clauses.

Arguments of the Attorney General

Source: Attorney General's Argument in People v. Network Associates

Eliot Spitzer, Attorney General of the State of New York, mentions two claims in his preliminary statement for this case. The first relates to the general enforceability of a DeWitt Clause, and the second does not.

Violation of free speech and fair use:

  Under New York law, a restriction that broadly chills or restricts important rights -- here, of free speech and fair use -- without a legitimate purpose, will be struck down. This Censorship Clause restricts consumers and the media alike from reviewing the software or disclosing important design or product flaws. Yet it serves no legitimate purpose, such as protecting trade secrets or confidential material.

Deception:

  Specifically, it misinforms consumers that the company’s prohibition
  against publication of reviews or benchmark tests (itself an illegal restriction) reflects existing “rules and regulations.” Of course, no “rules and regulations” actually exist, under federal or state law -- a fact that most attorneys, including those who drafted the Censorship Clause, surely
  know.

  ...

  Finally, the Censorship Clause is also void and deceptive because it conflicts with the License Agreement contained with the company’s boxed software. The boxed License Agreement, which is by its own terms the “entire Agreement between the parties,” omits the Censorship Clause. Yet the company then places that very Clause on the face of the software diskette -- even though it is by the very terms of the License Agreement void and unenforceable.

I'll elaborate a little bit on the latter point, regarding deception. The specific text that is the subject of the lawsuit is:

  Installing this software constitutes acceptance of the terms and conditions of the license agreement in the box. Please read the license agreement before installation. Other rules and regulations of installing the software are:

  a. The product can not be rented, loaned, or leased—you are the sole owner of this product.

  b. The customer shall not disclose the result of any benchmark test to any third party without Network Associates' prior written approval.

  c. The customer will not publish reviews of this product without prior consent from Network Associates, Inc.

This text was outside of the license agreement. The license agreement itself did not contain clauses (b) and (c). Furthermore, the license agreement contained a clause specifying that it (the license) constitutes the entire agreement between the consumer and Network Associates, and supersedes any prior communications related to the software.

The major claim of the deception argument was as follows: Consumers - having read the license agreement, with its clause that the entire contract between parties is contained in that license agreement, and without the "gag" clauses - will then read this text. They may reasonably conclude that the restrictions on publishing reviews and benchmarks are not part of the contractual agreement between the consumer and Network Associates, and are instead made and enforced by some other entity.

That is, the text deceptively implies that the restrictions on reviews and benchmarking are imposed not by Network Associates, but by someone else - such as the state or federal government.

Furthermore, the clauses restricting publishing reviews and benchmarking are not enforceable at all in this case (regardless of the general enforceability or legality of such clauses), because they conflict with the actual license agreement. Thus, consumers are deceived into believing that they have no right to publish reviews and benchmarks, when in this case, because of the way it is written, these clauses are not a valid contractual agreement.

Opinion of the Court

Source: PEOPLE v. NETWORK ASSOC., INC

The court rules against Network Associates. However, the ruling states that the Attorney General's claims of deception are valid. It does not directly address the first claim, of violation of free speech and fair use.

Furthermore, the ruling explicitly states that Network Associates is

  enjoined from including any language restricting the right to publish the results of testing and review without notifying the Attorney General at least 30 days prior to such inclusion

which suggests that language restricting publishing of benchmarks is not necessarily prohibited. That is, Network Associates is not generally forbidden from writing a license in the future that restricts consumers' rights to publish reviews and benchmarks.


Database of funded US Department of Defense (DoD) component grant proposals with abstracts: Does it exist? I'm looking for a database of funded grant proposals with abstracts for various DoD components (e.g., DARPA, AFRL, etc.), similar to the one for the NSF.

The Federal Business Opportunities (a.k.a. FedBizOpps) website exists, but it doesn't list the abstracts, the information it does give is not really useful, and the search capabilities on that site are kind of clunky.

Does such a database of funded grant proposals with abstracts for
US DoD components exist?

For most DoD contracts, there is no database or similar system that allows you to get any sort of abstract.  I know this because our research librarians, who track this sort of thing and are quite good at their jobs, have told me definitively that this is the case.

If you really want information about specific projects, you could file a FOIA request, using something like the USA Spending site referenced in Aleksandr Blekh's post.  Note, however, that the intricacies of DoD contracting mean that it may be rather difficult to actually tell which contracts are associated with which programs: for example, many DARPA contracts are actually not concluded by DARPA, but by other DoD organizations acting on their behalf.  FFRDCs and other sorts of special cases further complicate matters.


Is it legal to include another person's result in my research paper? Is it legal to include another person's result in my research paper?

For instance:

Theorem (Name of the author): Statement

Proof. The proof of this appeared in [1].

Isaac Newton said, "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Research would grind to a halt if each scientist had to start from "scratch."

So the question becomes, "How should I use the work of others?"

The answer: By citing their published work.  Since the number of times a publication has been cited is often used to measure its impact, this is both fair and ethical.


How professional should my query for a PostDoc position be? I plan to finish my PhD in climate sciences in about one years time. I’m not yet exactly sure what I want to do afterward but I’m considering a position in academia. A professor at my institute recommended to me to start writing some people now, inquiring about possible positions (which is in line with this answer I guess).

I have some groups in mind where I know the group leaders on something I’d call a “we recognize each other at  conferences”-basis (i.e., they’ve probably read my publications and will probably remember who I am when I write them).

To be clear: I don’t want to apply for any specific position but rather want  to find out if there might be a position available in one years time to which I can then apply. Another intention is to make them aware of the fact that I’m looking for a position, so that they might think of me if something comes up.

I recently did a application seminar and the recommendation there was to write a very formal mail (possibly with topic ideas already) and attach a short cv and possibly two main publications. That seems way over the top to me (although that may also be because in geosciences we tend to be more causal about those things than in other disciplines).

When asking about possible PostDoc positions what would be a good grade of professionalism? How long should the mail be and what should be included? (merely asking if somebody knows something would only take a line or two)

When asking about possible PostDoc positions what would be a good grade of professionalism? How long should the mail be and what should be included? (merely asking if somebody knows something would only take a line or two)

Obviously you want this to be professional (e.g., "Hey dude, I need a job" isn't great in any case), but not necessarily very long or formal. Your milage on this will vary based on the discipline, geographical region, and the individuals involved. However, in STEM fields and assuming this is a professor in the US or Europe, I would opt for an extremely short and informal mail to establish first contact.

Dear Prof. Farnsworth / (or: Dear Rupert, if you are on first-name basis)

as you may know, I plan to graduate in summer and am currently evaluating postdocs options. Given our joint interest in FTL travel, I was wondering whether there could be any openings in your lab that would fit my time line. Alternatively, are you aware of any postdoc stipends or grants that we could jointly apply for?

Thanks a lot in advance,

xLeitix

In my experience, such a super-informal mail has the highest chance of actually being read and is entirely sufficient to get the discussion going. Let the prof. decide what documents, if any, he actually wants to see before progressing (letters, CV, just a link to your Scholar page, etc...).

Important disclaimer: this really only works because the OP has stated that he assumes the potential postdoc advisor will recognize him when he receives the mail. If you have never met the person, or suspect that he won't be able to match your name to your face, add at least a link to your website. If you don't have a website, build one before doing anything else related to your job search.


Do academic reviewers have a duty to critique authors who submit questionable research? I recently reviewed a paper that made some very strong claims that were not supported by the data. However, it was much more than that. These claims were so extreme that that were actively misleading: e.g., "The present results represent the most important findings in personality psychology to date." (Not as bad as this example, but not too far off..)

I wrestled with two options in my review.

A.) I could respond in a scientifically disinterested manner: e.g., "These strong claims are not supported by the data. Please revise them."

OR

B.) I could go beyond that and politely "critique" the authors for their questionable practice: e.g., "These strong claims are not supported by the data. In fact, they represent such an "overselling" of the manuscript's findings that they are actively misleading. Please revise them and we urge the authors to avoid such hyperbolic claims in the future."

In the end, I went with something like option B.) because I think that there is inherent value in stating firmly that these kinds of practices are not okay. As a scientific peer, I did not at all appreciate these obvious efforts to oversell the results for the sake of "a top publication." As reviewers, we are the guardians of scientific literatures, and when appropriate, perhaps we should scold our fellow researchers for questionable scientific practices to deter them against such behaviors in the future.

This begs the intriguing question: Do academic reviewers bear a responsibility to critique authors for engaging in questionable practices that undermine the validity of scientific literatures?

Very interested to hear the views of others!

Edit: "Reviewer" is intended to refer to one's role as a reviewer of publication submissions for journals.

My feeling is that rather than explicitly telling the authors what to do in a context other than the present submission, it would be better to explain your objection to their present submission in a way which would make clear to any moderately receptive party that the advice would apply more generally.  E.g. something like

  In my opinion, the authors overestimate the significance of their work to a degree that becomes actively misleading: virtually no work in the field has the level of significance claimed by the authors here.   In general, work which is described in such hyperbolic terms can be hard to take seriously.  Those who do make major breakthroughs tend to describe the advances in more sober, factual ways.

This is plenty heavy-handed.  Anyone who is listening will get the message not only to tone down the language in this submission but that such language is never appropriate.  Still, you aren't telling them what to do, but only giving your (expert) opinion on the consequences of their actions.


How do I refer to my PhD studies in my CV; under education or experience? I am currently updating my CV before applying for postdoc positions (and grants) and got a bit puzzled about a small but possibly important detail.

The chapters I have on my CV are Education, Experience, Extracurricular/Voluntary Work and Publications. While I am not forced to keep this structure, I find it very logical and rather neat, so unless there is a good reason to do so I will probably keep the structure.

Now, to the question, I am not sure if I should include my PhD years under education or under experience. Not sure if it's the same elsewhere but over here in Sweden, the years as PhD student counts as both education and full-time employment. I think there are points to both sides of the coin.

The work I have done as a PhD student is quite relevant for the type of stuff I will be applying to hence an argument for listing under work experience. Besides I am not too happy about the last entry in my "Experience" section to be from 4 years ago, as it stands looks a bit like I am "fresh off the school".

Is there a generally accepted way to tackle that?

I put it in both places. Under Education I list my time as a graduate student, and under Experience (as "Appointments"), I list my time as a Graduate Research Assistant. I've seen this on lots of CVs in the US. Both are true, and both convey the right meaning.


Can I say no when my principal investigator asks me to help cover lectures next semester? I'm a postdoc at a US university, and my principal investigator (PI) asked me to cover some of his lectures next semester. I do not want to do any lecturing as I want to focus solely on my research. I am involved in two funded projects, and I therefore have a lot to do research wise.

Can I say no to covering lectures or would that be considered a mark against me?

I don't think a flat "no" would go over very well.  Covering classes is something that colleagues are expected to do for one another, within reason.  Yes, everyone has their own projects that this takes time away from.  But it's really the only way that faculty are able to travel during the school term, which most find essential to keeping an active research program.  Saying "I don't want to do any lecturing" will come across as unreasonable and possibly selfish.  Keep in mind that "focusing solely on research" is a luxury that basically nobody ever has.

However, you can certainly negotiate, and maybe reduce the amount, while still showing that you're willing to help.  Keep in mind that the PI presumably has an interest in your research success, so if the teaching would impact this in specific negative ways, beyond a generic "this is an hour of my time that I could be spending on research", you can point this out and suggest a compromise.

"I'm happy to help out, but seven classes over the semester is kind of a lot.  I am going to need to [achieve specific research goals] next semester and I think this might start to get in the way.  Maybe you can find another person who can cover some of them, and we'll split them up?"
"I can do January 18, but on March 7 there is a conference that I was really hoping to attend.  Perhaps someone else could cover that date?"
"February 10 would be fine.  April 3 is the week before [important deadline] and it might be kind of a crunch, so maybe someone else could teach on that day."

You can also ask for materials or other help that will lessen the amount of work for you.

"Sure, I can teach on January 30.  Can you point out the specific sections in the book that I should cover?  Will you be preparing notes for me to follow, or do you have notes from a previous semester?  Can you suggest any particular examples that I should present?  [etc...]"

With such assistance, covering a lecture should not end up taking an excessive amount of time away from your research.  You really should only need to prepare and deliver the lecture - you likely won't have to deal with creating assignments, grading exams, supervising TAs, holding office hours, answering emails from students, or the other things that end up taking the majority of time when teaching.


Is it okay to post textbook solutions online? It seems to me, based on two previous stack exchange questions (1, 2) that this is legal, but I'm wondering more if it's "okay," i.e. what do academics/professors think of this?

I'm interested in posting (my own) solutions to textbook problems (that I find interesting) online, as I self-study them. I'd guess some problems may be of interest to others, I get to possibly have discussions about them (maybe I mess up), and I get to practice explaining technical concepts through text (I'm interested in pedagogy). For what it's worth, I'm an undergrad (though soon to be grad) student. Ideally I'd want to do something similar to physicspages.com, though I doubt I'd have the same rigour. I'd be working on a textbook myself and using this as a sort of "learning by teaching" approach.

On the other hand, I know many professors use textbook problems as homework, and a publicly displayed website with textbook solutions might be easy to find on a search engine (so students may just copy). Would instructors think this is inappropriate?

In case it matters, I intend to start with Topological Insulators and Topological Superconductors by Bernevig since this is likely to be related to my PhD topic. (Though this could change on a whim)

While I don't think there is anything formally standing in your way of doing this, as long as you don't post the questions themselves or answers from the publisher's answer key, I don't think that it is a wise thing to do.

But I'll focus on future students rather than professors to explain why it isn't wise. For many things the only real way to learn them is to practice. This is true in math and the sciences as well as in, say swimming or chess. Learning involves changing the brain. See, for example, the book The Art of Changing the Brain by James E Zull.

The implication of this is that, very often, the most important part of a published textbook is the exercises, not the explanatory text. Students need to, perhaps, struggle with those exercises to learn the material. If you give them a shortcut to getting the answer, while it feels good to them, it makes it harder for them to learn the material. Too many students don't understand this (hence the need for a book like Zull's). It isn't a question of being able to turn in "homework" as much as it is having useful practice exercises that you can't short-circuit.

If you want to meet your own goals and also publish something useful, publish a set of additional exercises for a good book instead of answers for the existing exercises. You will find (a) that this is harder and (b) that it increases your own knowledge by changing your own brain.

You could also, as some publishers do, publish solutions to half of your questions. Some textbooks, for example, have solutions to, say, the odd numbered exercises in the backmater.

You might even get an offer from a publisher to do that for other books. Some textbooks, in fact, have the questions provided by other than the author.

But publishing answers is a disservice to other students, not a service.


Honor Listed in undergrad. Should it go on the CV for grad applications ? I was placed on the "Honor list" by the university during my undergrad study several times. Students are placed according to their GPAs.

My question, should this be mentioned in the awards and honors section in the CV especially if this CV is forwarded to graduate study somewhere else ? How would they look at it ? (Good, Bad, We really don't care and you wasted our time).

Unless you're under a tight space constraint, there's no harm in having a bullet point in awards and honors saying "N times on Undergraduate Honors List (top x% of students in a year)" or whatever is the correct information.  It's slightly different than GPA because GPA is sum total and this is per year. Make sure you have something like the parentheses explaining what it means, because nobody outside your institution will know.  Some readers may notice it and have a small positive reaction; some won't care or will find it redundant, but if it's just one bullet point and you don't have a CV full of filler, then they probably won't mind either.


How best to organize a review paper that includes some of my own data? I have written a review article with a target journal in mind. The content focuses on a particular technique in biology, and in the paper I propose a data analysis approach to be used for future studies. To help explain the intuition behind the technique, I have produced some straight-forward simulated data, organized into a a handful of figures. The experimental results are not particularly novel, but they are most valuable to illustrate a point -- how different quantitative methods compare to each other.

How would you suggest I write a review that includes primary (but not novel) results, in the framework of a review? My current organization is an extended introduction > short methods > results > discussion and future perspectives. A trivial matter could be to move the methods to the end, but I wonder if having discrete results and discussion sections is appropriate.

I have seen examples of the type of paper you're writing, but it's not a very common format. Most likely, the journal is going to dictate what you need to do. That said, my decision in this situation would depend on how much your simulated data contribute to the overall manuscript.

For instance, if your example is included solely as a sort of cartoon illustration, then very little or no explanation of how it was generated would be necessary. This does not seem to be the case with your example though.

An alternative approach would be to give a bare minimum description of how the data were generated in the same paragraph where you describe or expound on the theoretical point you're illustrating. Whether or not this makes for a clunky paragraph depends mostly on how much information you think you need to convey.

One final thought: if the simulated data are enough to develop into a separate methods manuscript, you might want to go that route, and leave your review article a standard synthesis of previous work.


Do you contact the search chair before applying for a position? In some job advertisements, the chair of search committee is named for informal inquiries.

I contacted them with a brief resume, asking if they are interested in my line of experiences or not. They simply replied me "send the application, we will review it".

I am curious what is informal inquiries? What should/can I ask?

In general, is it a bad idea to contact the search people before applying, when I am serious about a specific position? (most applications are shot in the dark, but we are extremely interested in some positions)

In general, it is a good idea to contact people you are applying to. They might say that they are looking for someone with your background (or with another).

But if they write

  send the application, we will review it

just do it. There is no shortcut.

Don't expect that they will write how likely are you to get accepted - even forgetting about the legal things, they don't what are the other applicants.


Do any scientific publishers have a stated commitment to authors regarding copyright infringement? Within the debate of whether science should move to an Open Access / CC-license scheme, or remain with a more traditional scheme where the authors transfer copyright to the publisher, one argument that gets made relatively often is that the latter provides a better defence against copyright breaches. I would like to know how much this argument actually works in favour of the author.
One good example of this argument is made in the position paper Publishers seek copyright transfers (or transfers or licenses of exclusive rights) to ensure proper administration & enforcement of author rights, by the STM Association, which states among other points that

In general, publishers in the field of science, technology and medicine (STM) prefer assignments over licences, mainly because:

authors are rarely in a position to defend themselves against infringers, plagiarists, pirates and free-riders, partly due to financial considerations; [...]

Thus, an assignment enables the publisher: [...]

to react more rapidly to copyright infringements, unauthorised derivatives and plagiarism;

This position is endorsed, for example, by the IOP, in their Introduction to Copyright leaflet.
However, this argument only works in as much as the interests of the publisher and the author are aligned, which is not necessarily the case.

For one, it may be in the publisher's interest to stop copyright violations agreed to, or initiated, by the author, as in the Elsevier takedown notices to academia.edu last december. (Note, though, that I am not claiming these are wrong or that it is right for authors to violate agreements they have signed.)

On the other hand, if a copyright violation occurs and the author objects to it, it may or may not be a good business case for the publisher to take legal action against it, and the sort of outcomes that will be acceptable to the publisher may not be in line with what the author needs.

Dealing with bad-faith copyright violations is definitely a problem and Open Access is not ideally equipped to deal with them. (That is: if someone brazenly republishes in violation of a CC license (i.e. lack of attribution, unendorsed+unlabelled modifications, commercial use of a CC-BY-NC article, or such), how can the author sue?) However, it's not clear to me that the alternative does work in the interest of the author.
So, my question is: do any scientific publishers have stated policies about their actions in the case of copyright violations, or stated commitments to authors regarding this? It would seem a fair counterpart of the publishing contract, where the author hands over the rights of the text in return for a commitment to disseminate and defend it, but this is not usually how the scientific publishing business works in my experience.
Failing that, I would be interested in evidence, either public, statistical or anecdotal, about publishers' behaviour in such cases, though I know these are not easy to come by.

Since you also ask for anecdotal evidence, I have a first hand experience with a commercial publisher (Wolters Kluwer) that reacted quickly and professionally to my message reporting prohibited commercial use of my work. This particular journal gives free access to articles after a one year embargo.

An internet magazine based in India copied verbatim large parts of the introduction and abstract of one of my papers with some words in between to try to make it look like an original journalistic report. The 'article' was available for a fee.

Since I formally transferred my rights to the publisher in the author agreement, I really only reported the issue out of interest for the outcome. They took contact with the 'company' that subsequently retracted the content from their website.

I suspect established publishers like Wolters Kluwer have significantly more legal firepower than a one-person operation run from an internet cafe in Hyderabad.


What to write in the section "what will be the impact of proposed research on development of applicants academic profile"? I am applying for a post-doc fellowship and one of the section in the application form is "what will be the impact of proposed research on development of applicants academic profile".

I have a limit of 1500 characters. What exactly should I write in this section? The research proposal and an abstract of it are in different sections (as well as the list of my main publications and my CV). If I understand it properly, it is not the same as statement of purpose.

Should I mention my current or past interests/skills/research? Or write only about my future? I have no idea how will my fellowship and up if I am successful or not with publications etc. So how can I know what will be the impact on my future? I hope for the best of course, but I pressume I cannot base this section on my dreams. Or can I?

You should not base this document on your dreams, but on your plans.

You need to write about the impact of the position on your academic profile in view of its potential effects on your depicted plans for the future. In contrast to the SoP, you better merely focus on the future and denouements, in this case.

As a matter of fact, every post-doc researcher has implicit mental themes, corresponding to his/her plans for joining the academia in a specific manner. For example, just consider a researcher, who does work in the field of biomedical engineering. He/she might be eager to chase a typical faculty position in the realm of the tissue engineering. Furthermore, suppose that he/she has applied for a post-doc position about the design and manipulation of the chemical polymers to invent new kinds of the cardiovascular tissues. Now, if he/she is supposed to declare the impact of this project on development of his/her academic profile, he/she could assert that this project would, considerably, expand his mind not only to dig into the more multidisciplinary projects between different departments, but also even to show the probable tendency to join a variety of departments, such as medical and science, instead of the engineering schools.

That was just a typical reasonable justification for declaration of the potential impact. You need to determine the outcomes of the program upon your specific case and elaborate them, efficiently.


Manuscript status changed from "Under review" to "Required reviews completed" and again to "Under review" I submitted a paper to a journal where the status changes from "Under review" to "Required reviews completed". The status "Required reviews completed" was there for 2 days. Now, again it is showing "Under review". What could this mean?

As @user2768 points out in the question's comment section, we can't know the internals of a reviewing system. However, I tried here to provide a possible explanation for this change from "required reviews completed" to "under review".
"Required reviews completed": This is a status which shows up when a minimal number of reviews for an article is received. For instance, some journals have required the minimum number of reviews being set to 2. So, when the journal office receives 2 reviews from the reviewers, the status is displayed. Elsevier provides this reference.
Note that the reviews sometimes be lousy and not detailed, and sometimes very conflicting reviews (e.g. review comments by two different reviewers are completely opposite to each other). In this case, the (associate) editor has a hard time making a decision. A possible way to resolve this conflict is to get another review, and therefore (s)he could send the article to a third reviewer. Then, the status changes to "under review" again.
Don't worry about all these. These things are pretty normal in peer-review system.


SoP for applying CS PhD program with research experience that is not my interest I am applying for a CS PhD program in the US, next year, as an international student. I will complete my CS undergrad in a few months. I already have research experience  with my project advisor. Also, I did a research internship at another well-known school with a similar topic. This project was presented in an international conference, too. I think this should be beneficial for my application.

However, I am not that interested in my research topic. It is related to computational neuroscience. At first, I just wanted to gain experience working with Machine Learning but I did not have an idea what problem I should be working on. Neuroscience sounded interesting to me, so I picked that sub-field. I did apply ML in my research project as I wanted but the neuroscience stuff was definitely not my thing. It has been an exhausting time for me to work on a project I do not like. I am still OK with ML and I am passionate about it. The thing is that I want to get away from neuroscience when I apply for a PhD. Right now, I have an idea to work with ML on low-power IoT device (such as camera) but I still have time to think about it thoroughly.

The question is that how can I write a strong SoP in this situation? If I write all about ML & neuroscience in my SoP, I am afraid that I will end up in a lab that I do not like. On the other hand, if I mention ML & IoT, I may have a weaker SoP since I have no experience in this sub-field. From my understanding, SoP is not a commitment but I am not sure that this will affect my journey or not.

In my own SoPs I wrote about my past experience and how it informed what I wanted to do in the future. For me in particular, I had done some computational research and some bench work unrelated to neuroscience, but I wanted to do some more wet biology in neuroscience. I wrote about how those relatively unrelated pieces of experience would apply to what I wanted to do next. I think it makes a lot more sense in a statement of purpose to talk about what you want to to study and learn rather than only what you've already done. If I said "I've been growing walnuts my whole life and I want to do this PhD to grow more walnuts" - that might be great in a job application to be a walnut-farmer, but if I read that in someone else's SoP I'd wonder why they were after a PhD and if they had any idea what a PhD actually was.

Presumably in your work with machine learning in computational neuroscience, you've learned about some of the benefits and limits of machine learning in that domain. You now know a bit what it's like to work with those tools, and you'd like to apply them to a new problem. Presumably, in a CS PhD, you'd be expected to do more work developing the tools rather than just applying them. That seems like a pretty straightforward SoP to me.


Puzzled with "Paper not suitable for this journal" decision for applied mathematics paper Recently, I submitted a paper to a journal published by Elsevier. The "Elsevier Journal Finder" feature suggested this particular journal in #3 out of a total of 5 suggestions. A while ago, I had also published a work in the same journal, which was of the same topic (satellite retrievals) that I was trying to submit now. However, for the recent submission, the editor decided that the paper is not topical to the journal and suggested to submit in a mathematical journal. Although there are some mathematical applications in this paper, they are not new, has been known for over 20 years, and was only applied towards satellite retrievals. I am a bit puzzled. Any advice will be appreciated.

First, I am not familiar with the "Elsevier Journal Finder," but any automated tools like this should be regarded as search tools and not wholehearted recommendations.

Second, there are a few obvious reasons why your paper might not be considered on topic.

Your paper has too much mathematical content or is written in too mathematical of a style for the journal, despite having applications to a relevant topic.
Your specific findings or methods are considered too specialized/not of interest for (the target audience of) this journal.
Even if this paper was pretty similar to your previous paper, different editors may have somewhat different views on what papers are relevant.  This also means that the types of papers published by certain journals can change over time, as editors change.

Generally it's a good idea when you're journal shopping to do the following to check if your paper will be a good fit: 1) read the "scope & aims" section of the journal, 2) look at the list of editors to check for overlap in interest with your research (if you haven't heard of any of them, that's usually not a good sign), and 3) look at some papers the journal has recently put out to see if any are similar to yours.


Is a corrigendum required for this error? Our manuscript, for which I am  the first co-author, got accepted in a journal. However, upon careful review of our manuscript, I noticed that there are errors in one table. The percentages were calculated as: % = (total number of positive samples/total number of samples analyzed) x 100. The value for the total number of samples analyzed was wrong, so we reported the wrong percentages.

I tried to calculate the correct percentages, but they are very much in line with the erroneous percentages we initially reported and they will NOT affect the conclusions in our manuscript.

Does this error warrant a corrigendum? Or should I wait for someone to notice our error and send a letter to the editor?

Whether or not a corrigendum is issued is usually decided by the editor(s).  You should talk about this matter with your coauthor(s) to make sure everyone is on the same page.  If they agree an error has been made, you can contact the editor and detail the nature of the error, it's impact on the results or lack thereof, and provide the corrections.  If the error significantly altered the results and conclusions of the paper you'd be more in the territory of a retraction, but if as you say the paper remains essentially intact then this shouldn't be a worry.

If the editor rejects the need for a corrigendum, there's not much you can do about that, but you could include a page on your professional site detailing the corrections you felt necessary, or possibly even upload to the arxiv if appropriate.

Making sure coauthors know what you're doing here is important. They will be understandably upset if they are caught unawares by this.  Things get complicated if your coauthor(s) disagree with your assessment, however, or otherwise don't want you to pursue the matter.  That's a different sort of minefield needing a different question and answer.  The short of the matter usually ends up being "is this a hill you're willing to die on or not?"


Is it ok to contact multiple potential supervisors? I have applied for MASc. (graduate research) programs in Canadian universities and there is a requirement to have a supervisor.

My question is: Should I contact more than one professor from the same department of a University with similar interests? What would happen if more than one professor shows interest in me? How would I deny the acceptance of other professors and just choose one without giving a rude impression? Would it be better to be honest upfront and mention about "contacting more than one professor" in the emails?

I want to contact more than one professor as I am not sure about the situation of the professor i.e. They might be on sabbaticals, leaves or might not be taking any more applicants, which might cause them to reject me and I won't have enough time to contact another professor (also, I personally feel that this method is rude).

Yes, you can contact several. But before you contact anyone, make sure that your interests and background align with their specialties. If your letter states that you are exploring your alternatives and seeking an advisor, rather than specifically asking if they will be your advisor, it will be easier for you to "disappoint" one or more of them by choosing another, assuming you get a lot of interest. "I'm interested in potentially being your student and ..."

If it is possible for you to actually visit the institution, you could try to have face to face visits with some of the faculty. Try to visit them in roughly the same order of your interest in them and if you "hit it off" with one, you are done.


Send a question or thanks letter after receiving a notification of receipt of application? After applying to some faculty positions, some professors send emails (not the automatic ones) that they have received the application and ask if the applicants have any questions. Should the applicant raise any question or maybe send a thank you reply for the notification to show their interest? Or just ignore and wait.

Saying "thanks, I don't have any questions at the moment." Would be appropriate and it would also be appropriate and perhaps show more interest in the position if you did ask a question or two about the department or the position.  For example, you might ask if anyone from the department will be attending an upcoming conference that you are going to.  However, you don't want to be presumptuous, so detailed questions about salary, benefits, etc. are not appropriate at this early stage.


Pseudocode, in a paper -- is it a figure or a table? The question is simple: I have to insert more pseudo codes in my paper. Last year we have labeled them as Table.

Yesterday, my supervisor has said me to use Figure.

What is the standard for IEEE articles and for the dissertations?

Pseudocode, in a paper, is figure or table?

Strictly speaking, both "Figure" and "Table" are wrong, given that code is neither. However, there is sort of a tradition of using "Figure" for program code (see for instance here or here for examples from the programming languages community in computer science, which unsurprisingly needs to deal with code often). Alternatively, especially short one- or two-line listings are often just inserted without label.

Your supervisor is hence "correct" in the sense that it is at least not uncommon to use "Figure", and nobody should fault you for it. Using "Table", on the other hand, would indeed look strange to me. There is no tradition for using "Table" in this context, and, well, it's certainly not a table.

An alternative that most styles at least seem to tolerate is to use "Listing". I see it rarely being used in other papers, but I have been using Listing for years without it ever being commented on.


Differences in quality between a PhD with graduate course work, and one purely on research? The UK PhD programs are based upon just research for three years, whereas in the US there tends to be substantial graduate course work included.

How does this difference affect the quality of the PhD thesis, and the quality of work produced in the long term?

When someone earned successfully and honestly his PhD in a good research group, either in the US system or in UK/Germany (Master degree is often mandatory for starting PhD), there will probably be no strong differences in the overall quality, I wouldn't make here any generalizations based on this fine system nuances. The level and depth of research experience are very similar (also STEM students in Germany don't work on average 80-90 hours a week, 60 will be rare ;))

But, when a student did choose a distinct topic and research field for his master and PhD thesis, you can be a bit more sure he is really motivated for this work and research generally, while a US PhD student with a bachelor (and without master) maybe is just trying to finish what he started over the years, in spite of vanishing interest/motivation in research generally (see link above) or that distinct topic. During the short time of a bachelor thesis you cannot find out, if you are suited for research and a distinct field in my opinion. In Germany it's hard to get invitations to PhD job interviews at all without a master thesis near to a given research project. Motivation and background is here more important than 0,5 better grade or 3 year younger age. In interviews they mostly check, how motivated, interested, knowledgable is a candidate for that distinct field. So there will probably be no big differences in quality, but you can be more sure about long term motivation and therefore originality/quality of his research.

As we currently have a (another) case of plagiarism in Germany (our education minister obviously wasn't trained, e.g. by a bachelor nor master thesis, for writing a long PhD thesis correctly), I have to add that somebody who has written a bigger master and PhD thesis will also have more practice in publishing, citing, researching literature...

Side note: Personally, I think the german system is more selective, while the US system can afford this system because of a abundance of PhD students and applicants (thats also the reason they have to work 80-90 instead of 60 hours, competition being stronger and teaching of undergraduate students in Germany needs very good command of german language, we are limited in hiring foreign students for those jobs). A very good master and PhD thesis is a strong hallmark for the motivation of a student and future researcher for a distinct research field.


What does it mean when an editor needs additional reviews despite a status of "reviews completed"? I have submitted a paper to an Elsevier journal. After two weeks of required reviews completed status I have sent and E-mail to the editor. He replied:
Your paper is still under review. We need 1 or 2 more review comments and make the decision within a month.

So, I have to ask... What does he mean by we need 1 or 2 more review comments?
If the paper is still under review what is with the status of required reviews completed?

An educated guess is that the manuscript handling system by default expects two reviews. The number of reviews required for a decision can usually be changed by the editor. A reason for adding reviews is that you receive, for example and in the worst case, one accept and one reject from the two reviewers. It is therefore reasonable for an editor to search for additional reviewers to provide a better basis for a decision. Another reason can be that one or both of the original reviewers left reviews but they were deemed unconstructive and the need for additional reviews arose from the lack of reasonable feedback. There can be many other reasonable explanations as well, these are just examples.

Anyway, in this case, it is possible that the editors have not bothered to change the number of required reviews to 4 (which I assume the total would be). The system then shows that all reviews are in and that the manuscript should be decided upon. So hopefully, the editor will try to get speedy reviews and get back to you with useful feedback on your manuscript.


Career prospects for a Math PhD student in pure math? I have scoured the internet and everyone seems to be saying different things. These range from

"You will have no problem getting a job in quant/finance etc", to
"You are in a hopeless situation and are completely unemployable"

Consider the following situation:

I am at a PhD student at a mid-20s US institution studying pure math
I have very limited programming skills
I am an Australian national and want to live in Australia long term.

I am not overly optimistic about my future career prospects. Since I am near the beginning I thought I better think about this now rather than 5-6 years down the track.

Question: Is it likely that I'll be able to find a reasonably well-paid, stable job after graduation (even outside of academia)? Are there things I can do now to improve my chances (beyond "trying hard")? Would I be better off doing another masters in computer science or machine learning back in Australia instead of this PhD in pure math?

Given the current market for academic math researchers, I'd encourage everyone in math to make serious plans for an alternative career that you'd be happy with.  Even for most people who end up with tenured positions, it's not clear until well after graduation whether that path is likely to work out, so even the strongest students should be considering other options.  In math the main alternative tracks are data or coding focused industry jobs in finance or tech, or teaching-focused academic positions.  In both cases, these job markets are competitive and they're not looking for people whose main qualification is that they didn't get a research position.  If your alternative option is getting a job in industry, you should already be learning to code and trying to get relevant experience, while if your alternative option is getting a teaching-focused job, you should already be looking for teaching opportunities that will make you stand out as an attractive candidate at teaching-focused institutions.  (In the US those are often small liberal arts colleges, but in Australia I'm not sure how many teaching-focused jobs exist.)

The good news is that there's lots of good jobs for math PhDs out there (much better than many fields), but you won't just stumble into them you need to develop relevant skills and experience.


Dealing with irresponsiveness from far-away scientists When meeting some scientists in person, I've had good conversations with decisions upon interesting plans for research cooperation and personal visits. But then, subsequent contact by e-mail is difficult, where the other party either doesn't reply at all, or very slowly (several weeks +). However, when I then meet them again at a later date, they are still enthusiastic about the project (where the bulk of the work is mine) and a short in-person discussion makes more progress than the past months of (lack of) e-mail have. So it appears that a lack of interest in the project does not explain the lack of response. The project is scientifically interesting, fits with my PhD, and the visit enhances my chances of finding a post-doc after my PhD (it's a very good institute for my field).

I understand that many scientists are very busy and flooded by e-mail, but it feels sad to abandon a potentially interesting project just because communication by e-mail is not working well. I'm quite sure it would work if I were in the same building. What strategies exist to mitigate this problem? I can think of:

Try to ask a common acquaintance to poke him/her (my local colleague has a shared friend with him/her). Pro: Might get indirect feedback as to why the irresponsiveness. Con: involves 3rd party (may or may not be on-site) not necessarily involved.
Send reminder e-mails (did you see my e-mail from 20 February?). Pro: increases chances of being noticed. Con: may be considered annoying
Phone. Pro: hard to run away. Con: I don't like phoning and I don't like being phoned.
E-mail someone sitting in the neighbouring office. Pro: neighbour has small step to irresponsive scientist. Con: a bit strange to involve someone I don't even know
Give up on the project. Con: means no project and no visit.
Try to do the project without their input. Pro: no need for communication. Con: might waste a lot of time by trying known dead-ends that I'm not aware of.

What other options exist? What advantages and disadvantages have I not thought of? What is wise to do?

First: that situation is common. Actually, that situation is very common. You listed a large number of options that come to mind, let's discuss them a bit:

For me, that's the best.

Reminders don't cost you much, but they can only go so far before you risk being annoying.

I would strongly advise phone or Skype. Don't get me wrong: I hate phone too. It has the inconveniences of both verbal communication (you need to reply fast, and have no time to smith your words precisely) and written communication (you don't see the other person's face and non-verbal indicators). However, it helps if people are unresponsive to email. Also, consider that maybe they like phone better than email (some people do!).
As I said, Skype (or any video-chatting tool) might be a useful alternative to phone. Some people hate it, some people love it, so be sure to ask if they would consider it.

No. You can ask a friend or common acquaintance to poke them, but don't use someone you don't know well. Unless it's their job, of course: if you communicate with a big boss or dean or whatever, it is fine to use his personal assistant or secretary to check up on things or remind him of deadlines.

and 6. It's your choice to make, not much we can say here.

To your (already good ideas) I would add an important one:
   7. Set yourselves (or give him) a goal and a deadline. On one occasion where you actually meet him, use his enthusiasm to set an (achievable) goal, possibly with an associated deadline: decide that you want to present this work at this occasion, or submit to a given special issue that has a deadline in 6 months, or want to have the project finished by September to hire a post-doc with funding from the John Doe Foundation, …
Whatever the deadline is, it will spur contributions from his side. The research environment puts people under a lot of pressure with bureaucracy and deadlines. If your project doesn't have any visible deadline, he will never get it done. So, create one, even if it's more of a pretext. Then use that deadline as a hammer!


Learning new topic: read literature from oldest to newest or the other way around? I need to start learning about a new research topic, I've been collecting articles for about a year now. I collected +400 articles, spanning a range of ~40 years.

I haven't had the time to read them since I was working on finishing a few papers, I'm finished now so I want to get on it.

The question is: should I start from oldest to newest, or from newest to oldest?

I can see some pros and cons in both approaches:

Oldest to newest:

Pro: it feels right, since that is the way the research actually happened.
Con: It will take me a lot of time to become acquainted with the latest developments in the field, and I am not able to start working on it until I do.

Newest to oldest:

Pro: I will quickly develop some knowledge (not in depth though) into the actual state of the field. This allows me to start working, at least on minor things.
Pro: It will alert me of wrong paths taken previously in the field, so when I find them in the older literature I'll be already aware.
Con: It will be considerably more difficult to follow, specially at first, since I'll be diving into the analysis of the latest developments of an unknown field.
Con: I'll necessarily be jumping back to older literature anyway, risking going down the rabbit hole of research.

Neither.

First, identify the "important" subset of your 400+ papers and read those. Second, try to identify the "good" subset of the papers and read those. Then, (if at all) read the other papers; perhaps you are doing all this with the intention of writing a review, in which case it makes sense to read oldest-to-newest to get a sense of the history.

The most obvious metrics which you can subsitute for "importance" are number of citations (these will likely include review articles) and the ranking (pick one) of the journal of publication. Note that "important" does not mean "good", "honest", "well-written", "reproducible", etc.

For a second sweep, focus more on what you actually do consider to be "good", based on authors and journals that you have found to be of consistent quality.


Funding of research by commercial companies, what is the sentiment in the USA? I attended graduate school in Switzerland, where for engineering, it is not uncommon to have research projects that are funded, in part, by commercial companies. I'm not talking about consulting, but scientific research projects, more on the translational side, for which there is full academic freedom and that have scientific publications as primary output. I also received a conference travel grant from a company during my PhD (although my paper was critical of the performance of one of that company's products).

I am now a post-doc fellow in a reputable american* university and realized my mentioning of funding from companies stirs unease and awkwardness among my colleagues (I should mention that my field is somewhat related to medicine).

How would private funding look like on my CV when applying to an american academic position? Is it considered more prestigious to have received government/foundation funding? I'm looking for answers that are general or specific to health-related research.

*I use this term to describe the USA.

Speaking from epidemiology as a field, with some dabbling in clinical and translational research:

Commercially funded research should absolutely show up on your CV (it does on mine), and it probably won't hurt you, especially in the early stages of your career. There is however definitely more prestige behind having NIH/NSF etc. funding, or foundation funding - several departments I've talked to have all said they prefer to see that. NIH funding especially is something of the "brass ring". Commercial funding isn't bad per se, but a notably dependence on it might have people wondering what is it about your work that isn't passing muster in the traditionally peer-reviewed federal funding system.

There's also some uncomfortableness around conflict of interest - industry-funded science doesn't have the best track record in terms of creating unbiased medical research, but they're also the only people who fund some research, so it will depend very heavily on what specific area you're in. I've worked in some areas where it gives people an uncomfortableness, and in others where nearly everyone has industry funding of some sort.


Is it okay to cite the abstract(English) of a foreign (non-English) article? If you don't know any languages other than English (e.g. German, Italian, French, etc), is it okay to cite the abstract (which is in English) of a foreign article without reading the full text (which is in the native language)? I appreciate if you provide a reference too (e.g. APA Manual, etc).

Ultimately, you and your co-authors are responsible for the contents of your manuscript. You can cite abstracts of works you haven't read in full, in any language, including your native tongue. However, misuse of such abstracts can always be called out by the reviewers of your paper. You will be responsible for defending your choices in the review process, if need be.

Ultimately, however, citing a foreign-language abstract ultimately is no different than citing one in English. The exact details depend on the citation format for the journal you intend to submit to, so check their guidelines. In general, you do not translate titles of articles or journals into their English language equivalent (unless the journals have done so themselves!).


How to fund a 2nd master's degree (UK), or should I directly go for a PhD? I will receive my master's degree soon. Even though it was a nice program, I found out I'm more interested in something else. Now, I'm thinking should I do another MSc (one-year) in the other field before starting a PhD? The MSc program I'm interested in is given in the UK. I think (hope) I'm so good a student, that they would happily take me in.

Well, then there comes the question how to fund the 2nd master's degree.. In general, are master's degrees (fully) funded in the UK? I'm european if that matters. I would also appreciate if you can point me to grant-providing institutions.

In general there is no funding available for MSc courses in the UK. In some cases there are 1+3 courses (i.e., a 1 year MSc and a 3 year PhD) where the MSc course is funded, but in general this is not the case.

One benefit of this is that the admissions criteria for MSc courses are pretty low. Essentially anyone with a 2i or higher degree classification can find a program willing to accept them.


Is it worth serving on a program committee if you are going into industry? I got invited to be on the poster track program committee for a CS conference.  Is it worth accepting the invitation if I am going to become a software engineer when I graduate?

Also, if I review the posters, should I put it on my resume?  (I reviewed posters last year and didn't put it on my resume, but maybe I should.)

You might address this as a 'return on investment' type of problem.

Your investment: you will need to put in some time in reviewing the articles, writing down your findings, perhaps communicating with the rest of the programming committee, etc. How you value this investment depends largely on how much time you have available, how much you enjoy (or dislike) reading the articles on this particular topic, how experienced you are in reviewing, etc.

Return: you might learn something from reading the articles, you might feel that it is benevolent to contribute to science, and it might be relevant for your CV. Again, the value of these depends on your particular situation. Is the conference topic relevant for your career? Do future employers care about these type of activities? Do you care about contributing to science?

The value of the different elements will vary for everybody (depending on their personality and situation), so it is impossible to provide a generic answer.


How to disclose a major change in scope from orignal F31 submission I am trying to pull together my first progress report on my F31 fellowship. My concern is due to to COVID19 my ability to work with certain collaborators was diminished and my PI thought it was best to go in another direction. Since I really have no say in the matter, my objectives changed. As a result my aims and objectives have changed drastically. My PI does not want to say my objectives have changed; but they most certainly have.
How do I handle this? Ideally I would have one more report before I can make a run for it. I could hand wave this one and come clean on the 2nd report, but by then I would be almost ready to go so if they stopped it the financial pain would be minimized.
Is this a stain on one's career? Does this really matter at the F level?

No, it's not a stain, no it doesn't matter. Not at the "F" level, not at the "R" level. All that's really important is the overall output of the project: whether you able to eventually publish papers using the funding given to you by the end of the project.
You have to complete the progress report (I believe if you do not your funding will be suspended; probably you can get the funds released if you complete it late but I don't know the details of that situation), and I would not suggest reporting that any funds have been used illegally or that you participated in research misconduct. Otherwise...it really doesn't matter for either your reputation or for you continuing to get the funds. There's a statutory requirement to submit these, and I'd suggest being truthful, but they're not going through a peer review process or anything. It's normal for projects to change, and a global pandemic is probably one of the most unassailable reasons for this.


Do I need IRB approval to study myeslf? I am attempting to do my PhD "in the open", to treat the entire project of getting my degree (whose research is unrelatedly Computer Science), as a study. That is, I am going to collect my thought processes and outputs in an Open Notebook Science way. To legitimize this I am creating at Data Management Plan, and it asks if I need IRB approval?

On the one hand, it seems silly that I should need approval to study myself; but I am a human subject. Do people typically need approval to study themselves?

In general, single subject studies often do not require IRB review in the United States because they do not meet the federal definition of research (they are not "generalizable.")

However, there are some exceptions to this rule. For example, a single subject oral history study or a single subject retrospective case study does not generally require IRB approval, but a single subject clinical study that involves collection of data that would not ordinarily be collected in the course of treatment does.

If you'd like to be sure, I suggest an email to your IRB.


How should I behave when my undergraduate research marks reduce without any reason in the evaluation process? I'm an undergraduate IT students currently in 4th year. I am doing my individual research these days. My supervisor guides me well and under her supervision I'm doing my research well. But the research evaluation done by a professor and another senior lecturer where they always asked me to do lot of changes to my research. Once I do the changes and present it again, they said that the changes are inappropriate and out of my research scope. I am fed up with this process now. Apparently  they cutoff my marks or reduce the marks in each submission. I have to give my last  research submissions, but with this situation I feel afraid of presenting it. My supervisor doesn't aware of this issue as she is a best friend of that above mentioned senior lecturer. How should I behave in this kind of situation? Any answer would be highly appreciated.

One of the first things I tell my graduate students is:

  Let me know when there's a problem, not a crisis.

If you talk to your advisor now and let her know about the developing situation, she might be able to intervene and help you before the end of the process.

If you do nothing, and just hope for the best, you may find yourself in a situation where your advisor can't really help. (For example, if you are officially assigned a bad grade, it may be too late for her to do anything.


Is a Research Assistant/Associate in UK equivalent to a Post Doctorate elsewhere? I am at the verge of completing my PhD in South Africa, and I started applying for Post PhD positions around the world. However, I am a little bit disturbed by all the therminology of academic titles which differs a lot from a country to another? So,

Is a Research Assistant/Associate in the United Kingdom equivalent to a Post Doctorate elsewhere?

Yes, postdoctoral positions in the UK are commonly advertised as research associates, research assistants, research fellows, teaching fellows (if the position focuses on teaching rather than research), etc.

You can normally judge the level of a position by the salary. A salary of between £28,000 and £35,000 will usually be a postdoctoral position (with the exact salary paid normally dependent on the candidate's experience). A higher salary would likely indicate a more senior or permanent position.

If you're unsure about the level of a position, it wouldn't hurt to send an email asking for clarification to the person advertising the job, or the department's research administrator.


How to export the reference list for a given paper using Google Scholar? Google Scholar allows you to do forward search via cited by - that is, you can get a list of references that cite a given reference. Is there any way to do backward search, i.e. get a list of references cited BY a given reference?

I realize that you can always click the reference, go to the journal page, and likely get the reference list there, but I am wondering if there is any way to do it within the context of Google Scholar.

Weirdly, I don't think that Google Scholar provides that feature, even though they clearly parse and store this information internally. This does indeed sound like a nice feature to have access to.


What should I do if I attended a conference but forgot to register? Due to some unexpected personal events, I left the conference earlier than intended. The lines to register had been so long and from past experience, I knew the trick was to wait until the last day when there are zero people in line. It's been two weeks and I was filling out my travel reimbursement when it hit me. I never registered...

I presented a paper and chaired a panel. I feel terrible about it, but at the same time, I'm a brand new assistant professor and my student loan payments just started and well, I'm flat freaking broke.

I was just going to say screw it and be sure I pay next year and also sign up to volunteer for some things next year. But now I'm really concerned that my university is going to ask me why my registration isn't on my travel reimbursement form. I don't want to give them the impression that I did I'm the kind of person that would intentionally sneak into an academic conference without paying.

What should I do?

I would suggest to contact the conference organizing committee as soon as possible and ask them what can be done about it. You can explain what happened and why, and also directly offer to pay the registration fee afterwards. If you presented at the conference and also chaired a session, there should be enough evidence that you were actually there. Conference committees are human too, and will understand that mistakes happen. If you are honest, it should be possible to convince them that you did not intentionally try to sneak into the conference or avoid the fees.

Note that many conferences will only publish your contributions if you have a valid registration and also paid the fees, so it might definitely be in your own interest to fix this mistake.

As the comment by @Roland suggests, it could also be helpful to contact your administration responsible for the reimbursement and to ask for their advice on how they want the situation to be handled. Since you are worried what impression you might give them, this should rather help to have them understand that you actively try to correct your mistake.