When is it appropriate for a PhD student to discuss personal problems affecting his productivity with his advisor? I had a very difficult personal problem. My head was not in the right place, and outside of getting through my administrative duties, my brain just couldn't function the right way to run wet lab experiments and come up with good research ideas. As a result, I did not work as much as I should have, and when I did I was all over the place. I concealed my emotional pain pretty well, and put up a good face while in the office/lab, so no one suspected personal problems, but my work definitely suffered. My parent's illness looks to be getting better now and after some counseling I feel like my life is back on track.

However, I feel like it is possible that my advisor's opinion of me has greatly declined due to my lack of productivity in the past. Would telling your advisor about personal problems, after they are over, with the intent of the advisor understanding a lack of productivity be appropriate? Would doing so just sound like excuses and make things worse?  I assume it would have probably been better if I had mentioned it back when I was going through the problems, but is it a good idea to mention it now, or just cut my losses, work hard and hope he forgets about those unproductive years.

So my question is. When is it appropriate to bring up personal problems with an advisor? In this case and in general?

As soon as possible. Problems are made to be transcended, not pushed over time. You already said your adviser is a cool guy, right? Go ahead and talk with him, say the truth.

It's a long said term, even cliche sometimes, but the first step to change is recognizing that you have a problem. You already recognized you have it, so now it's time to fix it. Don't be afraid of what he'll think about you, what really matters is that it's true. If he can't understand your situation, then he doesn't really know how to be a adviser.

Also, you're a student, you're there to learn. Better learn now where you can be mistaken with no serious consequences, then out there, where your problem can really damage you financially and/or much more emotionally, since people don't know how to handle with other people's problems, or know and just don't care.


Do the fixed-term contracts in academia lead to a brain drain? A significant, perhaps growing proportion of research at universities is carried out by postdocs¹.  Postdocs are typically employed on fixed-term contracts.  Personally, I know several people who have been employed on chains of temporary research contracts for well over ten years, including some all the way to retirement: their work is good enough to satisfy their PI, but not good enough (or perhaps not interested) for promotion.  Some may seek to move to industry, not because the work is more interesting but because a permanent contract is easier to get, such as suggested in this Dutch-language article), but a response in the same article denies that there is a brain drain.

Is there any evidence for a brain drain from academia to industry, lured by permanent² contracts?

NB: although personal stories/anecdotes are interesting (I could offer my own) it would be even more interesting to see if there is actual research into this question.

Edit: I welcome answers that challenge the assumption that job security as a researcher is more easily achievable outside academia than inside.  Some PhDs do of course become professors, but I've rarely seen professors that have much time to do research, as opposed to supervise research.  My question supposes the perspective of people who wish to do research themselves rather than in a supervisory role.

¹I use postdoc here in the meaning of any time-limited contract which is mainly or entirely focussed on research.

²Of course, no job is certain until retirement, but getting a mortgage without a permanent contract is likely hard/impossible.

I can only provide anecdotal data, I was going to  do this as a comment, but it got too big.

I'm a postdoc (finished my phd in 2012), and I'm tired of it. In some cases (fapesp, brazil) postdocs don't have any rights or benefits (no vacations, for instance).

Worrying about how I'll provide for my family from next August, when my contract ends, compromises my performance... More than that, I don't have continuity, I can't think of anything medium term, because I have no idea where I'll be in one year.

I really like the projects I'm working on. But this whole thing has taken its toll on my and on my family. I'm seriously considering changing careers to get some kind of stability. I'd like to stay on research, but maybe research doesn't want to stay with me :)

update: I do not have kids, it is just me and my wife. We are postponing that exactly because I don't want to subject a kid to this. And its easier to move around when its only the two of us. If I'm honest, I don't know of any other non-religious profession that requires this kind of commitment. Maybe the military, but at least you got benefits, sometimes housing. And financial stability, if not geographical.


What should I do if I uploaded my manuscript in arxiv and plan to pass it on a peer reviewed journal? I have a question related to this post,

Is it legal to upload a paper to arXiv when it is under double blind review for one of the IEEE journals?

What should I do if I uploaded my manuscript on arxiv and plan to pass it on a peer reviewed journal? I am worried after reading the answers in the link.

Based on your profile, I will assume this is a mathematics paper.  In that case, the answer is almost certainly: This is totally fine.  You don't need to do anything.  Just submit your paper to a journal whenever you are ready.

There are two main ways in which posting a preprint could interfere with publication, but neither of them is usually applicable in mathematics.

Double-blind review. In some fields, it is common for the journal to send the referee a copy of the paper with the author's name removed.  The theory is that this makes the review more impartial.  In this case, if you had a preprint on arXiv, the referee might find it by searching for the paper's title; then she would know your name and the review would no longer be double-blind.  This is the issue discussed by the question you linked.  However, I've never heard of any math journals that do double-blind review.
Prior publication. A nearly universal rule in academic publishing is that you cannot publish the same paper in two different journals.  This is a mechanism to keep the scientific record orderly (so that there is one unique place to find and cite the article); also, for subscription-based publishers, it helps ensure that people have to subscribe to their journal to read their content, and can't get it elsewhere.  So you might worry that if you had a paper on arXiv, a journal would reject it on the grounds that it was already published.  Fortunately, though, I've never heard of any mathematics journal that considers an arXiv preprint to constitute "prior publication".  arXiv is so widely used in math that publishers generally don't object to the paper being available there.  (But I have heard that in chemistry the opposite is true: posting a paper to arXiv can torpedo your chances of publishing in a journal.)

Of course, to be safe, you should check the policies of the journal where you are submitting.  Questions regarding preprint archival are usually addressed explicitly in these policies.

One thing to note: some publishers do not want you to update your preprint with any changes suggested by their editor or referee.  That way, only the journal can print the "final version", so there is still something that they have that the reader can't get any other way.  Other journals say it is fine to update the preprint, making the arXiv and journal versions identical.  Again, check the journal's policies.


What to do if you forgot some proofs while writing your thesis? I am currently writing my master’s thesis. It is like a survey and contains lots of theorems with or without proofs. Everything that I am writing, I studied and proved before. However, I see that I forgot some proofs or even definitions and cannot do it without looking at the books. So, I am studying those again, try to prove them my own, and then write them after I understand them – but I feel lost.

What should I do and what have you done when you face a problem like this?

This is not a genuine problem. Everyone forgets things. A true scholar may nor may not be blessed with an exceptional memory, but the operational issue is about having personal resources that accommodate one's limitations, and sufficiently point to the relevant resources. So: self-management.

It is true that having a good memory, or an exceptionally-good memory, is generally an advantage in knowledge-based enterprises, obviously, but things are more complicated than memory-per-se.

And, in any case, being able to reproduce fluently all the basic things on a moment's notice is irrelevant. True, a certain fraction of more-senior people happen to have the sort of memory that allows them to reproduce certain things on-the-spot, but this is really not relevant to professional practice.

Yes, the most conflict-laden point is that faculty teaching graduate-level courses, and who've had the misfortune to have either a deterioration of memory, or have always had some memory problems, have difficulties with teaching. Not that they don't "know math", but that the details are not easily present in their minds. The other point is that this does not mean that their critical/critique-ing faculties have deteriorated. An awkward state...

But/and, after all that "too much information", the point is that no one (no professional mathematician) is required to be able to reproduce everything upon command at every possible moment.

(The whole "final exam" or "contest" concept of mathematics greatly and sadly corrupts our collective concept of that the thing is.)


What is the difference between a "I" or "II" after a job title? There are several job titles such as "Research Associate II" or "Research Scientist I" or "Research Scientist II" in the research institute located near my school.

Is there a difference between the job titles and is "I" higher than "II" or vice versa?

In a job title, "I" or "II" usually denotes the level of experience.  You will also see "assistant", "senior" and similar adjectives used.  The idea is that employees can be hired at one of several levels of experience and that employees can advance through these levels as they gain experience.

Someone hired as a "Analyst I" may be promoted to a "Analyst II" after some number of years.  Sometimes these kinds of job titles also have additional educational requirements (such as an advanced degree or certification) for the higher levels.  Typically there are different pay ranges that apply to employees as they advance through the classifications.

The definitions of the different levels will vary from one employer to another so there's really nothing more specific that we can say in answer to this question- you'll have to check the definitions used by your employer to see what the requirements are for each level.


In physics, does the order of authors on a paper matter? I'm writing to inquire whether or not the order in which the names of the authors is mentioned has any bearing? Here's my case:

I started working on a project with a professor in the physics department last summer. The project is almost finalized and we're in the stage of finalizing the final draft for submission. Since I'm an undergraduate, I'm not the one who came up with the problem. The instructor suggested the problem to me (and now that I think of it, the problem seems like a very natural question to ask based on a work the said professor published last summer). He has been available for feedback all throughout the duration of the project. For instance, he helped me derive the first closed form result of the paper; he also guided me through every stage of the project -- from guiding how to approach to the problem to helping debug the code when I couldn't make it work in the initial stages.

Having said that, the professor didn't contribute directly to the project, in addition to helping and guiding me throughout the project. I'm the one who worked through most of the results and went through all the computational tasks. In addition, I'm the one has written the final draft that we have uptil now; he simply helped me edit the template once.

When I met the professor the last time around, he was editing the template and he listed his name as the first name, and my name as the second name on the paper. Naturally, I didn't say anything.

My question is: does the order in which the names are mentioned matter? Does the answer to this question vary from discipline to discipline, even from one area of research to another area of research within the same discipline.

Here's some information that may help answer the question:

The nature of the physics-related paper can be classified using the keywords: "Quantum Dynamics," "Quantum Mechnaics," "Quantum Information" and "Open Quantum Systems." We're trying to get the paper published in Scientific Reports.

Side note: I'm an undergraduate student. Since I'm not technically affiliated with a university (I pay to attend the university, the professor is paid to be there), does this have any bearing on the answer to the question.

Physics has two broad conventions: the closer you are to high energy physics/particle physics/string theory/mathematical physics, the more likely you are to see alphabetical ordering. However, within condensed matter and biophysics, you generally see "First author = trainee primarily responsible for work." (I think astrophysics is more mixed).

There is actually some empirical data on alphabetical authorship by field here: Waltman arxiv:1206.4863 which confirms this general impression.

In quantum information, you might be at the edge of the condensed matter and "mathematical physics" conventions. Take a look at your advisor's other papers - are they alphabetical? Or are grad students and postdocs within the group usually listed as first?

Also, within fields where author order matters, the implication of "second of two authors" can be very different than, say, "second of five authors." With two authors, there is often the presumption of nearly-equal contributions. However, someone who is second of many may have, e.g., provided a figure's worth of data.

Your description would be broadly consistent with being a first author in most fields. (This assumes that there are not other people who contributed, who you have not mentioned - sometimes undergraduates are not given the best picture of what contributions are there.)

If this does not clear things up, I think it is fine to ask your advisor why he set the author order the way he did.


Classifying talk at fellowship research conferece During my doctoral program, I won a national fellowship. A requirement of receiving the fellowship was to attend a research conference where all fellows presented their research. I'm now filling out a questionnaire for  federal research position that asks about invited talks. I don't really consider the graduate conference to be as prestigious as a true invited talk, but I'm debating whether it could technically and ethically be regarded as an invited talk.

Put it under invited talks, as the conference was invitation only. (the fellowship itself will count for more honor, I think). Include some information in the talk listing that concisely describes the context of the conference. ("Title", conference name if it had some fancy name [Invitation to XXX fellowship winners to present results], location, date.)

As you already noted, and this is actually more important point for this situation, you are 'senior' enough in your field to understand that some point-counting occurs and that some invited talks carry more cachet than others.

It will be clear to a research/academic setting reading between the lines of your application that this wasn't an invitation to a  major conference in your field. And there may be other young applicants who do have such an invitation.

But being fairly transparent in description but not apologetic basically shows that you understand what information your reader is looking for. (And that you are confident and scrupulous enough to give it to them)

You may have fewer high-profile invited talks than another applicant, but you will keep yourself from getting classed with the applicants who raise the red flags either because they appear to not know any better, (e.g., list an invited talk of their PhD advisor or colleague as being one of their 'invited' talks) or who appear to think that no one will check if they leave out some important details (e.g., list an invited talk of their advisor or colleague as if it was their own and leave out any author list that shows who actually  gave the talk). (true stories)


How to improve chances of admission to Ph.D. program for international student? Question synopsis:

  I have a postgrad degree, a couple failed classes on transcript but
  did well in others; tried applying to PhD programs in different
  countries, but did not get accepted and had poor luck hearing back
  from professors, nobody seems to care. What to do?

Note: There was a question similar to the one below that was deleted as I was finishing writing the answer. So the answer did not get posted but I was able to save it. I figured it might be helpful to keep it in the system in case it might help someone in a similar situation. Below is my take.

Here are some basics that can play a role and improve one's chances, from a U.S.-centric point of view:

Some assumptions:

Your postgraduate degree is reasonably recent (preferably immediate prior year or close, with relevant experience in between). If there was a lengthy break with seemingly unrelated work in between based on what you want to study now, this complicates things.
You are applying in the same general discipline as your postgrad degree (e.g. Marketing, Mechanical Engineering, Psychology).
You had good letters of recommendation. If they had any flags that might give cause for concern for admitting department, that is a problem that you need to iron out prior to sending out any more applications. If you have reason to think this may be the case, it may be best to approach your recommending faculty honestly about this and see if they can either share a copy of the letters they wrote for you, or tell you if they mentioned anything that might explain slow uptake.

Communication with faculty:
- evidence of "passable" English proficiency (if non-native), or (if native) ability to write in pretty much perfect English with no grammer or, punctuation errors.

Admission materials:
- Have all your applications been "cold," i.e. with no personal connection to / past interfacing with the faculty whom you contacted? In other words, have the letters of recommendation (which I am assuming

If so, this might explain reticence to respond. The Academe is a fairly tight community of several thousands or hundreds of individuals in any given narrow field. The "first order" professional networks tend to be on the order of a couple dozen past/present collaborators. Faculty tend to be more comfortable receiving a recommendation from someone they know rather than a complete stranger. So ask your professors who write your recommendation letters for contacts they would recommend, and tackle those programs as priority #1, gradually widening to "outer rings" of your recommenders' professional networks.

Maximally polished, edited, proof-read, 100% perfect letter of interest (cover letter/whatever they call it). The letter must show evidence that you have done your homework and are aware of the latest research projects of the faculty whose work most closely fits your experience and interests and who you would like to advise you.
High score on GRE or other applicable standardized graduate entrance exam.

Funding source:
 - As has been suggested elsewhere on this forum, I would avoid stating anything about the fact that you are not seeking funding. This self-qualification might come across as, "I am hoping the fact that I am a cheap date will sweeten the deal." This might work in some odd cases, but most reputable, large research universities tend to be more concerned with attracting high-quality applicants rather than affordable applicants.

If the department considers the applicant to have potential and leans toward admission, but there is no funding, they will communicate this though an admission decision without corresponding offer of Research or Teaching Assistantship. This leaves the ball in the applicant's court, and things work out through natural attrition. (For instance, I had no offer of support first year, so found a Research Assistantship with another research center on campus that was closely related to my field, and it ended up a good fit.)

Networking:
- Have you met, or at least read / cited in your thesis or research papers the professors you are contacting? Professors like applicants who do not only talk the talk (in a cover letter) but walk the walk, having used their theories and cited them accordingly in written work. Naturally these pieces also make for good writing samples, if the department and/or the Graduate School requests those as part of the application.

Finally, basic psychology suggests that applicants who behave like pests which, if not kept at an arm's length, would swallow all of a professor's free time and clutter his/her inbox, are less attractive, than applicants who communicate no more than necessary as part of the application process, and follow-up only with good cause and after first trying to get answers with the Graduate School and/or department's admissions office. Professors value their time immensely, and aggressively prioritize what emails they respond and do not respond to. They are not trying to be rude, it's just a professional adaptation to an environment with multiple competing priorities and limited time. So you want to come across as someone who recognizes this and helps them spend less, not more time addressing your inquiries.

UNLIKE THIS EMAIL, if you do email faculty, keep your email inquiries SHORT: 3-4 sentences, and get to the point in the first or second sentence. Begin with a question and request, and end with context. Professors often do not read to the bottom of every message.

Communicating through the appropriate administrative channels and only when necessary beyond the formal application process makes you appear confident, and confidence may be perceived as evidence of having other options. In a sense, you want to balance being courteous, excited, and a little reserved at the same time.

Finally, I would encourage to consider looking closer to home. Why apply to all continents if there might be a great program a few hours away in a neighboring town in the same country...but I recognize there may be other factors at play there.

I am sure I am missing some other important details, so extensions/comments welcome as always.


Graduate Admission Application What does this question mean in an application for MS:
"Do you have partial funding for your graduate education? "
or
"Do you have full funding for your graduate education? "

It means are the fees going to be paid fully or partially.

They want to know they are going to get the money.

It may also be partially-funded is covering tuition only for example.


What to do if I only want to study master not PHD with a professor I decided to study math after graduating from business department. I entered a 2-year taught program in the same university in Asia and used the time to take all the necessary courses. In the first year, I have studied elementary real analysis, complex analysis, abstract algebra and topology. This is the first term of my second year, I took differential geometry, Fourier analysis, graduate real analysis and functional analysis. My grade is OK and currently I am applying for a research program. My final goal is to go to a top program in US to study my PHD. Since I know it is very competitive, this year I decided to apply a research master only and apply PHD after I gained two-year research experience.

There is a tenured professor in my university whose research interest is nonlinear PDE focusing on fluid dynamics. I am very interested on his research topic and I have made an appointment with him to explore the possibility to do research under his supervision.  However, after chatting with one of his student today, I was told the professor usually only accepting student who is willing to continue studying PHD with him. I understand the reason. Since it's a pure math subject, in the first two year, student can only take the basic course, read the basic materials. It's almost impossible for a student to produce any good results after the master. He is very famous in the area so he has a lot of students to select. He don't want to waste the money and time to train a student for others.

On the other hand, I don't think my university is good enough and it's my dream to work and study with the best students in a top program. Since I will meet the professor in a few days, I want to make some preparation so that I can convince his to support me. I will finish all the necessary graduate courses after this year, which means it may safe me some time so that I can focus on research instead of coursework in the research program. But I still think it's impossible for me to produce the same result as a PHD student in 2 years. But since I am really interested in the area, I still want to have a try and talk with him. Currently I am planning to tell him the truth about my plan. Is there anything I can do to improve the chance of being admitted?

I would focus most of the meeting on the professor's research, and use that time to show that you would be able to jump into research right away.  Probably the best way to do that is to

Read the professor's papers beforehand and display a sincere interest in his work.
Have an elevator pitch prepared for each of your previous projects so you can talk about them intelligently and with enthusiasm.

If the meeting goes well he should start discussing potential projects with you, and you should be actively engaged in this discussion, and ask intelligent questions.

Near the end of the meeting, inform him of your plan to do a PhD elsewhere.  It's better to be rejected by this guy upfront than to be accepted under false pretenses.  In order to go to a strong university you will need his letter of reference, and he might write you a weak letter if you deceive him.  (If he's really a jerk he might write you a weak letter specifically so you have to stay with him.)

But it's important to discuss this issue after he already wants you, and is on the verge of making you an offer.  Otherwise he has no reason to even consider you.

(If he specifically asks about your future plans, you should be honest and unapologetic.  To many professors, being ambitious is a good thing, and shows you are higher quality than the students who come in wanting to stay.)


Improving my PhD application for math programs This past year I was accepted into two mid range phd programs in mathematics without funding. Here's what my profile looked like:

Domestic White Male
Unknown state school in the midwest
Majors: Mathematics and Philosophy
GPA: 3.93
GRE:
Q: 168 (97)
V: 167 (97)
W: 5.0 (92)
M: not taken

Interests: Analysis, Medical Imaging/Modeling, Mathematical Physics

Major Coursework:
Complex Analysis, Discrete Structures, Applied Math (survey course mostly in Fourier methods and PDEs), Mathematical Statistics.

Recommendations:
One from a top applied mathematician who was very late in sending them out, one from a professor from the previous year who is well regarded but has not had much contact with me and one from a young professor who was fresh out of post doc.

Other:
I'm 30 years old. Some former work experience as a co-op student in engineering at a national lab, dean's list, normal stuff like that. I had only completed two semesters at my current school, though. About 6 years ago I was an engineering student at a different institution with poor grades and I did not finish my degree. Also mid to high level (lots of national, some international competition) as an athletic coach working with kids, teens and adults. Some international experience as an athlete as well. I also speak basic German.

Here's how my profile has changed:

Current GPA: 3.94 (.01 difference! However, this does mean 6 more As and 1 more A- to counterbalance my poor record from the early-mid 2000s.)

GRE Subject Score: 660 (52)

Additional Coursework: Formal Logic, Real Analysis, Advanced Linear Algebra, Intro to Abstract Algebra. This summer I am doing a course in number theory and an independent study in Galois theory.

Recommendations: I am going to give the late professor a much longer lead time this time around. He has said that he wants to help me but is always extremely busy. I will also be asking (and almost certainly receiving) a rec from the professor I am doing my independent study with.

Interests in pure math have shifted away from analysis, more into algebra. In applied, medical applications (organ/system modeling and imaging more than bioinformatics) have taken the lead over mathematical physics.

Other changes: Medalist in school's math competition, math tutor in our honors college and privately. Taking a Spanish immersion course so I can list basic spanish on there as well.

I'll be taking the GRE subject again in October and am using saylor.org and MIT's opencourseware to review older subjects. I graduate in August and will be working for a year. I'm thinking about applying to teach at a high school or community college for that time. I also plan on taking one or two graduate courses per semester.

I plan on applying all over the place (>15 apps) compared to the 8 from last time. I would prefer to go to the west coast. Can anyone let me know if the mid level UCs (Irvine, Santa Barbara, Davis) are reasonable with what I've got now, especially since when I worked at that national lab I was technically a UC employee? Any other recommendations on schools or anything I can do over the next year to boost this?

One other thing: I have no REUs, but is a good independent study with a strong recommendation from it a decent substitute?

Thanks for taking the time to read my post.

In reading through your comments, I couldn't help but get the feeling that you are "all over the map" when it comes to what you're looking to do in graduate school. If this is similar to the way that your personal statement read to the committee, it could help to explain some of the challenges you faced in applying to graduate schools.

For instance, after reading what you have written, I can't tell if you're looking to do algebra or bioinformatics—or if you're in an "I'm happy with either" situation. If it's the latter, this can make it harder for a committee to accept you: algebra readers might think they'll admit you, only to have you wander off into applied math, and vice versa. You may find it better to concentrate on one area—or, better yet, show how the different topics you're interested in are actually related to one another.

Another potential issue is the quality of your letters of recommendation. Is there anyone who can help you to evaluate your letters for you? Some colleges have career offices or academic counselors who can comment on the suitability of your letters for different kinds of programs (academic, industrial, etc.), although they probably won't "rank" them for you. If you had a very late letter, it's a good question as to how helpful it would have been, even if  it was from a big name (or perhaps that should be "in spite of" it being from a big name).  By this, I mean that the letter would only have value if it actually discusses your talents and skills in a meaningful way. A pro forma letter isn't all that helpful, particularly if you are from an "unknown" program. (This latter can also make your job tougher, since your school might not have  a track record at many graduate schools).

Finally, it also sounds like you have a rather untraditional academic history. This needs to be explained clearly somewhere on your application, in a way that shows thattaking you into a graduate program now would not be a risk. (Not doing this could again feed into the notion that you're flittering around from one thing to the next—which is not a good impression for an admissions committee to have of you.)


What is too obvious to explain in a scientific paper? Recently I had my paper reviewed for potential publishing. With no big surprise I need to make some adjustments to my paper. One of the criticisms was that my work lacks "textbook explanations" (e.g. what is BETA, alpha).

To further clarify, this is the first ever work I ever plan to get published  (academic context is finance). But I am surprised I should be required to explain basic concepts.

Would you have any recommendations as to what is the best way to incorporate these explanations in a work (e.g. footnotes) and what should be explained (of this really basic stuff/how to identify it) and what not?

Symbolic notation must always be defined in a paper.  The reason is that there are not that many symbols and lots of things they can be used to represent.  Thus, even if every class you ever took used v to represent voltage, other people are using it to represent velocity, vertices, values, etc.  See, for example, this far-from-complete Wikipedia list of how Greek letters are used.

At a minimum, each symbol should be defined the first time that it is used.  It is also helpful to your readers to provide a table of important symbols and to refresh their memory on definitions of critical symbols from time to time.  This can often be done quite simply and efficiently within the sentence where the symbol is used, e.g.:

  we consider a particle traveling at velocity v through a magnetic field of strength B(x), where x is the position of the particle in space.


Affiliation and connected responsibilities My question is about German academic system, but I would also like to know the situation world-wide.

Any research/educational institution strives (at least in theory) to produce scientific output of high standards. This is the motivation to introduce some kind of internal review for all the papers produced there prior to the submission.

One example would be papers produced during the PhD study. Typically they would involve at least one senior author, typically a professor who has a function of a PhD adviser and who also shares an affiliation with the PhD student. This assures that the manuscript adheres to some minimal quality standards.

In some cases more stringent procedures are implemented, e.g., internal reviews in Max Planck Institutes.

It is quite clear that Professors at the Universities are independent researches and therefore do not need to undergo any internal reviews prior to submission (this post makes me wonder if it is really so). It is, of course, beneficial if they seek for the opinion of colleagues, but not required.

But what is the situation with scientific personal on the intermediate stages of their carrier? Can a Postdoc/Privat Dozent/Junior Prof. affiliate themselves with the university without being refereed internally by some Prof.? My guess would be that this is an individual policy of each university. However, it needs to follow some general rules which I would like to know. I anticipate following scenarios, partly discussed (in more general terms and not specific to a country) in other posts here:

1) One is free to publish without an affiliation. For many reasons it might be not a wise decision. Typically it would signal the editors that the author has some problem with his institution or has no job. This reduces chances of being accepted.

2) The author seeks for an informal internal review, gets the blessing from a professor and does not forget to acknowledge him/her. This seems to be an idealistic and not realistic situation: the prof. will most likely be pissed off having to do some job and not being on the authors list.

3) The author offers the “courtesy authorship" to the prof. However, this might be problematic if the work in not even remotely within research interests of the boss.

4) Being a coworker of the university is sufficient to use this affiliation on the papers. No internal review is required. This answer suggests that this might be the case even for undergraduate students, however, I greatly doubt it in the case of german universities.

The answer seems to be clear if some university equipment was used in order to produce the work. It is natural in this case that the head of the department is listed as an author. My question is mostly about the theoretical work that requires maximum a laptop.

In your answers, please, try to address

each of the aforementioned nonpermanent positions (Master/PhD students, Postdocs, Privat Dozents, Junior Prof., retired),
discuss cases of inter-institutional work (PhD student is not working in the same university as PhD advisor),  and
consider other kinds of intellectual output (such a writing books).
If you think that (3) is the right answer, please, elaborate if it implies restrictions to write papers, books, etc. as a sole author for anyone who is not holding a permanent position.
If you are inclined towards (4), please, provide some substantiation.

Here is a little cartoon and a historical remark in order to encourage your response.

To put my question in a historical perspective: famous Prussian philosopher Immanuel Kant wrote all his works while being associated with the University of Königsberg (MA, 1755; PhD, 1755; Dr. habil., 1770). For instance, in 1749, he published his first philosophical work, "Thoughts on the True Estimation of Living Forces" (written in 1745–47) not even holding a PhD title and possibly unpaid. Does it mean that this and all subsequent works were internally refereed by some professors. What has changed since that time?

4) Being a coworker of the university is sufficient to use this affiliation on the papers. No internal review is required. This answer suggests that this might be the case even for undergraduate students, however, I greatly doubt it in the case of german universities.

Assuming sufficient experience to get something published in a quality venue, from what I have seen, this is the case at German universities.


Research Scientist vs Staff Scientist in US academia I am wondering what is the difference between a Research Scientist and a Staff Scientist in the US academia. Are these positions like a senior postdoc?

They could be anything and it will vary widely between institution. They may or may not be "academic" positions. They may or may not be "senior" positions. They may or may not involve advising/mentoring students, especially graduate students. They may or may not be open to tenure. A given institution might use either of the terms for something essentially the same as the other at a different institution.
If an institution uses both terms, you will have to ask them about the difference.
Of all the above only "tenurable" is unlikely, though a long term contract or an open ended contract is probably available. That would make it unlike a postdoc position.


How to satisfy PhD requirement that publications be available online when papers have been only just been accepted? It is a requirement of my PhD to publish a certain number of papers. And for the papers to count, they need to be available online. I have deadline in my PhD study.

I have three papers accepted in one journal. It will take time to be online.

I can access my papers through ResearchGate but couldn't find them in Google search.

How I can find the articles in Google search from ResearchGate, without waiting for the journal publishing procedure in order to meet the requirements for my PhD?

While every university is different, the following answer assumes common sense:

Whether an article is on ResearchGate or indexed by Google does not provide meaningful evidence that you have published an article.

When is a publication available online? An article is considered to be available online when it is available from the publisher's website. The delay between acceptance and online publication varies between journals. Some journal will put an accepted unproofed version of the manuscript up almost immediately. Other journals wait until proofs have been completed. This is often a few weeks after acceptance. Other journals have no "online first" version and you have to wait until the manuscript has been allocated to an issue, which can take anywhere from months to even a year or more.

For this reason, when evaluating a researcher or a PhD student, it often makes more sense to count publications once they have been accepted. This is especially true for PhD students. Now, for journals that make articles available online rapidly (e.g., less than a month after acceptance) then the difference between acceptance and online is minimal. However, where there is a major time lag, then it would be a stupid policy for a university to require a PhD student to have the publication actually published, as opposed to being accepted.

So in summary:

If you've published your articles in a journal with a short lag between acceptance and online access, then you might just want to wait a few weeks.
If you've published your articles in a journal with a long lag, then you should talk to your university about providing other evidence of proof of manuscript acceptance (e.g., editor acceptance letters).


Will an undergraduate math or economics degree better position me for a top economics PhD program? I'm currently a rising sophomore (just wrapped up my first year) at a top US university, and time has come for me to start taking decisions about major classes, now that I'm done with required introductory classes. I don't really know what I want to do after college yet, but one possibility is definitely getting a PhD in economics, which is something that combines all my interests really well. At the same time, I'm very very interested in pure math as well. I've heard people say that your math education is more important than your economics education at the undergrad level if you're interested in going to grad school for econ. Is this true? Should I focus on taking the hardest math classes I can, or should I balance the hard math ones with the hard econ ones (though I'll admit that the math ones are generally considered to be way "harder"). Do I need an economics major at all, or is it sufficient to become as good at math as I can?

I've heard people say that your math education is more important than your economics education at the undergrad level if you're interested in going to grad school for econ.  Is this true?

Yes, it is definitely true.  Almost everything in graduate level economics involves real analysis and optimisation conducted at quite a high level of proficiency.  Now, obviously there is a trade-off here, but generally students who come in with a solid mathematics education are at an advantage, even if this additional mathematical knowledge comes at the expense of an absence of previous exposure to economics.

One of the difficulties that most students encounter in graduate level economics courses is that they have to learn two things at once.  Most students struggle with the mathematics, and so they are trying to learn real analysis and various optimisation methods.  At the same time they are trying to learn the economic reasoning and intuition for the material they are studying.  Often the difficulty of the mathematics obscures economic understanding of the material, which creates learning problems.  If you are one of the lucky students who finds the mathematics easy, you will be able to turn all your brain-power to the task of understanding the economic principles and intuition of what you are being taught, and that is a major advantage.


Does starting a question with 'what is the impact of' make a good qualitative research question? I am studying the impact of the internet on a cultural practice in my country. I have been working on this project for months. I have already started data collection and analysis. However, lately I've become unsure of my principal research question.
So, I'm studying an online community through online ethnography.

I am sure it is only a problem with the wording of the question.

What is the impact of the internet on ...?

I wonder if this is a qualitative question because I've read that qualitative questions should not start with 'what'.
Is studying the impact of the internet on a phenomenon consistent with my methodology?

Thank you

For any decent research question, I try to test it with all these criteria. Some of these sound very simple, but as I try to answer them, there isn't one of them that I find consistently simple. That might just be an indicator of my own limitations, though.

Does it look like the sort of question that gets answered in the journals (/ conferences / predominant outlet in my specialism) I want to publish in? In your case: are there impact studies in the literature that use qualitative ethnography?
Does it tell me who, what, when, where, why, and how? e.g. What sort of impacts? How will the impact be studied? Over what time period? Impact by whom, on whom? and so on.
How will I know when it has been answered well?
Is this a definite gap the literature?
Will answering it make the world a better place (in however small a way, but at least in a net positive way)?
Is this answerable with the resources (time, human, material) that I have available?

It's worth putting a lot of effort into getting the research question right. John Dewey is credited with saying something to the effect of "A question well put is half solved". Richard Feynman described research as being along the lines of: "write down the question;  think hard about it; write down the answer"; and it's too easy to assume that the middle part deserves all the effort, but the first part and the last part repay effort too.


How comes over 25% of retractions fail to explain the reason of the retraction? Steen, R. Grant. "Retractions in the scientific literature: is the incidence of research fraud increasing?." Journal of medical ethics (2010): jme-2010. claims:

  Many retractions are cryptic as to the actual reason(s) for
  retraction; 8% of retractions were for unstated reasons and
  up to 18% of retractions were for ambiguous reasons.

How comes over 25% of retractions fail to explain the reason of the retraction?

One reason is that it can be a face saving technique.  Sometimes there are suspicions of fraud or other misconduct that are difficult to prove, or the authors strenuously disagree with each other about who had responsibility for something or exactly what happened.  Instead of fighting about the explanation, the editors and authors may agree to retract the paper while giving only a vague reason that everyone can agree to.  This is not ideal as far as scientific clarity goes, but sometimes finding the truth is genuinely difficult, and even when it's possible it may not be worth the effort.

As a general heuristic, if a paper is retracted with no clear reason, then the reason is probably not good (or at best it's complicated or debatable).  After all, if there were an explanation that sounded good and was clearly true, then why wouldn't they include it?


How to ask someone to be cited in their paper? I have published a paper last year (with other colleagues) where, among other things, we demonstrated a certain formula.

Recently another paper, independently, demonstrated basically the same formula but in a more abstract language and which applied to a much more general case. We are not cited in their paper.

I don't think their intentions were wrong at all, probably they were just unaware of our work. They certainly did not ''plagiarize'' us, but I feel that we should appear at least in a footnote or something.

My question is: what is the most polite way to write to them asking to be cited? If it's acceptable to do this in the fist place.

Citations are mostly to establish and credit where ideas came from rather than to establish priority. Simultaneous or independent discoveries are fairly common.

It's appropriate to contact the other authors and let them know about your work. Be polite and friendly, you don't need to accuse and shouldn't request anything.

The script would be something like:

  Dr. PurpleElephant,
  I saw your recent publication in the Journal of Pachyderm Studies and thought you would be interested in our similar work last year published in Colorful Mammals (citation/DOI link). It looks like you found a more general case of ours...

And add whatever pleasantries or commentary is appropriate (for example, if you liked some aspects of their approach, or you want to point out something unique in yours). Hopefully you'll get a friendly letter back, maybe they'll be sorry they missed your work.

Note that this will almost certainly not get you cited in their current work which is already published (possibly it would be different for a preprint), but if they refer to their paper in the future they may also refer to yours. In case of some truly substantial simultaneous discovery, some other venue might be appropriate to draw attention to it, but that doesn't seem to be the case here: sometimes we end up on similar perches from standing on the shoulders of the same giants.


Is it advisable/sufficient to enroll and finish my MSc degree in an accredited private university in the same country with no ranking in Times or QS? I have dropped out of 2 MSc in CSE programs because of my health issues and lack of proper math background.
You can check the full story from my previous question.

What should I do now to go ahead and restart my aspirations to become an appropriate candidate for a Ph.D. program?

Some answerers suggested that I should go back to my incomplete M.Sc. degree. Another answerer in the comment suggested that even though my dropped master’s degrees were 2y in length, completing 1y or 1.5y programs will also be sufficient.
My new question is, does the reputation matter in this case if the program is accredited?
My previous universities were state-run mainstream universities with the times Subject-rank of 601-800.
Is it advisable/sufficient to enroll and finish my MSc degree in an accredited private university in the same country with no ranking in Times or QS?

In the short term, what you are asking is that the "new" university accepts some of the exams/courses/credits you gained previously.
That's entirely up to each single university how they will manage that. You need to get in touch with the universities you are aiming at.
Your goal is to complete a MSc, they usually are 2 years in length (read: they require you to pay 2 years of tuition fees) but how you complete this journey (if you pass the exams or if you can have the past exams recognized) it is entirely to the single University internal regulations.
However, in the long term the lack of proper math background is what should worry you, more than the rating/ranking of a specific university, especially if you aim at pursuing a PhD.
Good luck, from what I understand you feel a bit of time pressure. Don't. Many PhDs in Europe start their PhDs when they are well over 25 years old, even around 30 years old, so do not rush and take your time.
Especially in having good math fundamentals, if your goal is to pursue a PhD.


Becoming department chair while being good friends with some but not all members I am considering becoming department chair of a small department (10 people, not including adjuncts), and not because I really want to, but because no one else wants to and I like to be a good member of the department in terms of service.

Here’s my concern.  I am close (platonic) friends with a couple of adjuncts in our department - I hang out with them socially outside of work, and just chat about personal things like my mental health.  In my current position, I have no supervisory role over their positions. But I am worried that once I become chair - and so I will become their supervisor - the power differential will affect the friendship - I would no longer be so comfortable being so emotionally open (and perhaps I never should have been so open with coworkers in the first place, but I never envisioned becoming chair, also I have had trouble making friends outside of work). Also, it would be very hard for me to not give a favorable preference to my friends in e.g choice teaching assignments, raises, etc. And that if some other faculty members see that we hang out outside of work (e.g. through Facebook posts), etc they may feel I favor my friends for teaching assignments and so on. And they would be right.

Any advice? Am I over thinking this and being too cautious or careful?
Should I tell the current chair that I have changed my mind and no longer wish to be chair?

You should expect some professional distance between yourself and anyone you supervise. You can be "friendly" of course, and you can interact at departmental social functions in a friendly way, but you have to recognize that whenever a dispute arises you are the boss, not the pal.

Some departments, however, with a long history of very collegial relationships, mutually supporting in every way, these sorts of things are unlikely to arise. This is especially true if lots of things are decided by committee or by consensus, rather than by fiat. In such a place your fears would likely be misplaced, until something unexpected happens.

There are places, very collegial, in which the department head position rotates among the tenured faculty, with the job lasting a couple of years or so and then passing on to someone else. If a place has such a history, then it seems to change the dynamics a bit. The 'head' is an administrator but is seldom called on to be an 'ogre'. Note that such things as tenure are normally handled by committee, rather than by the head, but annual salary adjustments might fall under your control.

The more the position calls on you to be a personnel manager, the more likely it is that conflicts can arise and the less likely it is that you can be "just a friend" to other faculty.

If you already have graduate students under you and are responsible for their future, you can get a small sense of what the relationship might be like. You can be friendly, but you need to keep a certain professional distance so that your authority is recognized when it is necessary for it to be recognized. Hopefully not often, but it happens.


Is it possible to run two postdocs simultaneously if one of them is "independent"? I currently have a postdoc at a university in the US whose contract stipulates only that I "produce research" relevant to my field. I have no supervisor and have not been hired as part of a particular grant requiring regular updates to a funding institution. I have been offered a second year of this postdoc should I choose it (I have not yet).
In the meanwhile, I have accepted an offer for next year in another country funded by a private foundation in which I will be working closely with a supervisor. For a fleeting moment, I have wondered whether or not it would be possible to run both jobs simultaneously, since one (my current appointment) has no tangible requirements beyond the "production of research". I can't find anything relevant in either of my contracts or in the conflict of interest statements for the respective universities. However, I haven't pursued this option since:

It seems tasteless, and I wouldn't want to jeopardize my relationship with anyone at either institution.

I assume there must be some injunction against accepting two positions, particularly with regard to the intellectual property produced by the researcher.

Point 1 also prevents me from asking anyone at my institutions about this option (for the moment). Are my suspicions correct?
Thanks in advance.
Edit:  Two more relevant points: first, my current position allows me to work remotely at the moment and I strongly suspect this will continue; second, I do have some extremely light obligations in the form of aiding in the organization of departmental events, but, again, this can be done remotely and I would certainly continue this in the event of a dual postdoc.

It is hard to predict what is "possible". Your contract(s) and policies may stipulate expectations.
But to be safe, I would suggest, only do this with everyone's knowledge and permission. I doubt that it would be given, I guess, but you could suffer if you do it "on the sly". If you do a good job in both and no one learns of the deception then you might be ok, but that certainly isn't assured. And, working it out in advance will help make expectations clear and avoid any legal issues.
Also, it is good to sleep, occasionally and to have an actual life.


Should I write that a student is a feminist in my recommendation letter? I'm in the process of writing a recommendation letter for a female student to be admitted to some honors program within the university.

She is fantastic and I assume that she will get admitted with or without my help, so my question isn't necessarily specific to this particular letter, but I do remember feeling curious about this, so now's a good time to ask, I guess!

It's this one line in my letter that made me scratch my head a little bit. The line in question would like to say something like, "she is very interested in advancing women and other minorities in the STEM field," which is a quality that I approve of heartily.

The problem is, I am not sure if everyone in academia feels the same way about this as I do. Perhaps there is that one grumpy old professor from the Old Boys' Club who absolutely hates "feminists" and maybe I am inadvertently hurting her chances.

Sure, I could word it carefully so that it doesn't set off the feminist trigger in most people, but I still have that nagging feeling of "what if" in my head.

Just to make sure that I am not misunderstood, I also support gender equality, and I do not want to discourage anyone from saying so, but recommendation letters are a delicate thing that need to appeal to everyone, and I do not want to hurt anyone's chances, most of all not of these fantastic women that I want to brag about to everyone.

First of all, your title doesn't quite match the rest of your question.  In your suggested quote you write "she is very interested in advancing women and other minorities in the STEM field," whereas according to the title you are asking whether you should write "She is a feminist."  Sadly, these things will not evoke equivalent responses in all parties -- the word "feminist" has unpleasant connotations in certain circles nowadays, more so than a generation ago.  (By the way, I am a feminist, and it makes me sick that the word is now taken in this way.  But it is by many, and so I think it is too loaded a word to use about someone else in such a context.)

The purpose of a recommendation letter is to successfully convey your impression of the recommended party.  In particular, if you feel strongly that the recommended party should get the position being applied for, then you want to write the letter that maximizes the chance of that happening (while staying appropriate, professional and truthful, of course).  With that in mind: how relevant "she is very interested in advancing women and other minorities in the STEM field" to the honors program the student is applying to?  Is this advancement one of the activities that students in the program will be participating in?  Or, beyond interest, does the candidate have a record of activities and/or accomplishments in advancing women and other minorities in the STEM field?  If the answer to either question is yes, I would suggest that you fill in further details accordingly: this is part of your argument that she is great fit for the program.  If not, then: are students selected for the honors program because of their progressive views -- or, much more cynically put, because of the alignment of their political and social views with those of the administrators of the program?  Probably not, right?  In particular, because "She is fantastic and I assume that she will get admitted," then I don't think you need to help her out in this particular way.  There is some risk that even a feminist could read "she is very interested in advancing women and other minorities in the STEM field" as a bit of a consolation prize.  Again, write the strongest letter you can.


what is the best starting point to prepare for graduate school if you are not well equipped? I suffered seriously from both bipolar disorder and major depression during my undergraduate*. It took me 7.5 years to graduate (including 1.5 year suspended from school due to bipolar disorder), with GPA near 2.0. (Furthermore, I do not fully understand the material in the core courses - approximately 15% of them, mostly last chapters.)

From the day I left school with a bachelor in physics, I have given it carefully thought for literally half year, and determined to pursue a career in physics science. I understand it well what it takes, and what I will face.

Right now, I am studying statistical physics on my own from John Perskill's open courses on Youtube, I work the problem set and do the reading (and ask questions on Stackexchange), as well as teaching myself a few minor things (such as Mathematica)

So far, my recent priority is building a solid understanding of physics (at least the cores courses in undergrad; ideally even includes quantum field theory.), as well as equipping myself with programming skills, before being fluent in a specific field, then I will be looking for a position of research assistant, and publish research result in 2 or 3 years, such that I have a shot when I apply to American graduate schools (along with maintaining my health).

My question is: what is the best point to start, given my current situation?

*Information: I studied in Asia. and would like to do graduate studies in Physics in the States, Japan or Europe.

You might want to take a few courses (at first)
as a special student, a non-degree seeking student.

However, the standards for admission are not less than regular admission invariably.

This is especially true at Ivy League universities

See my comments regarding being admitted as a
graduate special student at Harvard University I posted on this forum:

https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/61120/123306


What should I do if a professor agrees to write me a letter but cannot guarantee it being the strongest one? Recently while applying for a dissertation grant, I ask a professor I believed I worked closely with for a recommendation letter. He responds quickly and agrees to submit a letter for me (as he did once in the past). However, he is also being very honest that he has received requests from FOUR other grad students (presumably including his own students) applying for that grant, and he says he cannot guarantee mine being the strongest among the five letters. He offers me two paths: one is to find someone else to write a letter and he totally understands; the other is that if I insist, he will also write one for me.

Any suggestions what I should do? I ask for his letter because 1) His field of research is close to mine and I believe he is most familiar with my research (next to my principal adviser) 2) I get good grades in his seminars 3) he helps me a lot in making connections with some oversea faculties and some other aspects with my PhD work.

Questions:
How should I reply politely to him if I end up finding someone else to write me letter?
Should I ask him for letters in the future (like for job application)?

I think he is honoring you with his honesty, in fact. First, take his advice and look for another letter from elsewhere. If he is well known then his letter probably won't help you with this grant. He probably feels an obligation to support his own students to the maximum.

But you could also ask him for his advice on what to do. He would probably say the same (get another person to write).

If you do find another writer, just let him know that you took his advice and thank him for it. It will keep future doors open.

But in future, I would definitely ask him for his help with letters and advice. He has been honest enough that you can trust him and be pretty sure that he respects you in return.


Any recourse for testing on material not mentioned in the class syllabus? In one particular university class, many people stopped attending after about half the semester was over as the professor was "confusing" as many people phrased it and opted to instead study from the textbook. The course syllabus outlines the chapters in the textbook that would be subject to testing.
The class does not have an attendance policy. It is not recorded, though powerpoints are posted, and you would not get a rundown of what occurred in class in case of absence since the textbook and powerpoints are available.

Near the end of the course, a new topic not found in the lecture slides or textbook was brought up for approximately 10 minutes(each lecture is 1.5hours). I was not in attendance that day. The topic was not mentioned in the syllabus, no online announcement was made that an extra topic was added.

This topic was then put on the final exam as a question of its own. Later, on group pages, students who attended class mentioned that the topic was not explained well at the time, but the professor did say "at least you'll have an advantage on the final over the absent students". Many people sent e-mails to the prof and none have heard back yet.

Is there any recourse now in terms of marks or having the question removed in your opinion? Furthermore, could you provide on brief response as to whether you think the prof was justified in doing this?

In one particular university class, many people stopped attending after about half the semester was over as the professor was "confusing" as many people phrased it and opted to instead study from the textbook.

In retrospect, I hope you see the flaw in this approach. If your instructor is confusing about something, you go speak to them, in person, to get to the bottom of the things that are confusing to you. Your instructors are there to teach you this stuff because a majority of students are not adept enough to do it on their own.

  The course syllabus outlines the chapters in the textbook that would be subject to testing.

Well, in my syllabi I say something like "this outline is tentative, and subject to change." Assuming your instructor did not have this disclaimer in the syllabus: too bad. A syllabus isn't a legal contract. You'll know better next time.

It would be "nice" if instructors could always think of every little thing to put in a syllabus so that whiny students who don't bother showing up, etc. wouldn't come and complain about how a lack of effort on their part was somehow someone else's fault but their own.

  Is there any recourse now in terms of marks or having the question removed in your opinion? Furthermore, could you provide on brief response as to whether you think the prof was justified in doing this?

I do think your instructor was justified. However, I'd also like to point out that you have options, if you really do think you were not given a fair exam. For example, you could go and talk to the course instructor about it (you know, like you should have when the course got to be "confusing").

I hope more than anything that you learn a valuable lesson here: when things don't go your way, don't look around to find someone else to blame — take ownership of your actions.


Would it be weird to cold email former students of a prospective advisor? I was accepted to a PhD program, and the two professors I mentioned in my application have reached out to me to discuss research. Now I am wondering what is the best way to gather information on them. Is it considered odd to cold email a recently graduated student from the program? Or current students? I'll likely be in the same community as these people for awhile so don't want to be considered strange ...
Basically, almost all the PhD advice I've come across stresses the importance of talking to an advisor's students. But how do I contact these people? I will be visiting the school but am not sure I will have time to both meet with all of the faculty I'm interested in and their students.

This is an opinion and you may get opposite opinions, of course. If it is weird, it is only a little weird. I think it is something worth doing, actually. "How is Prof X to work with? Does s/he provide a lot of help or only a little. Any thing I should be aware of?"

There is very little worse in doctoral education than having a poor or abusive advisor. All you really need to know is that they treat students appropriately, even if they are (very) demanding.

You can find a lot of horror stories about advisors by searching/browsing around this site.

But just keep it informal.

I don't recommend cold calling professors, but would treat calling students differently.


From thesis text to slides. How to ease the process? I spent a considerable amount of time to write my thesis. Now I have to create the slides for the defense. I thought it was going to be easier, but found important difficulties creating them. I would like to have a method to make it easier, at least the first draft. Starting with a section, I will try to create a slide from one paragraph, although they can be further divided in more than one slide. I thought about:

convert to bullets each sentence of the paragraph, or set of sentences of related topic. This slide may be further removed.
in a different slide, replace text from previous slide with images from cited references, and try to memorise the necessary part of the replaced text. This will be specially useful for the introduction. On the other hand, thesis results sections already have their own pictures, so they will be directly taken from thesis.

Do you think this method is OK, or maybe someone has a better one?

You have to cut down brutally. You will have a half hour or so to show the work of a year or more, that is hard.

Explain what this is all about. A short introduction/reminder (depending on your audience!) is probably needed.
State your objectives clearly. One slide for this should be enough.
Summarize your main results. You won't be able to cover everything, but make sure you show enough to cover the stated objectives. Perhaps highlight some tricky point, or a neat technique.
Summarize your objectives again, explaining how they were met.
If pertinent, point out possible future fruitful work building on your thesis
It might be useful to have a slide with publications resulting from the thesis, both already published or in the works (submitted and waiting for approval).

You might consider having some "spare" slides with more details, on which you can fall back when asked to elaborate.


Is it possible for a PhD applicant to be rejected against the potential supervisor's will? I have been in contact with a potential supervisor in one of tier two US universities before applying and all the way to receiving my rejection letter a few days ago.

The individual department I applied for has seven faculty members including my potential supervisor and as I know he is not on admission committee.

I try to quote his responses to me in our email exchanges.

When I first contacted him in October to show my interest in applying for Fall 2017 semester he replied: "I am interested to have you as my PhD student. But, you should apply fast to be here by Spring Semester. I can get you on a research funding that I have for next semester on ***** Project."

I couldn't prepare my application materials on time and I was told: "It is too hard to get the I-20 in a timely manner that you can be here for Spring semester. So, I am changing my plan of the project to be able to support you for the next fall."

I updated my application for Fall 2017 semester.

Last time before receiving my decision he replied, "Your application has come to college and is under consideration, I supported your application strongly. We should see the result soon." to my email regarding application status.

After receiving my rejection letter I emailed him to let him know I was rejected and thanked him for his support during this period.

But I think he was as shocked as I was on hearing that I was rejected.
He replied: "Why, your application was rejected!!
Please let me know, I should be able to help you."
and "Everything were positive on your application from my last communication. I am thinking that  your application may not have gone from **** Department to college of Engineering and to Graduate school, I will check on that tomorrow morning and I will let you know."

Do you think is it possible a rejected applicant being accepted when their potential supervisor really wants them?

Yes, it's possible.

Practices vary, but in most US universities, graduate admissions are not decided by individual professors, but rather by a committee of faculty.  Their decisions often must also be approved by a graduate dean or another higher-level committee.

There are many possible reasons why an applicant could be rejected, even if they have the support of a potential supervisor:

The committee might disagree with the supervisor's assessment of your qualifications.
The professor might have a record of questionable judgment in recommending PhD students.
Many PhD programs include coursework and exam components before beginning to work on dissertation research with an advisor.  It could be that the committee isn't confident that you would pass those components.
The program, or the university, might have strict minimum GPA or GRE score requirements, that you might not have met.
The committee might not feel that the professor would be a good supervisor.  This could happen if he does not have a successful record with previous students, or if they feel he already has too many students to advise well.
The program might have a limited capacity for students, or a limited amount of funding.  Even if the committee agrees with the professor that you are well qualified, there might still be more qualified candidates than they can accept.  Maybe there are even too many candidates who have the support of particular professors. If so, some good candidates have to be rejected.  This is probably the most likely reason.
It could be, as the professor seems to think, that a mistake has been made, and his recommendation has been unintentionally overlooked.  If that is so, it is possible, though not certain, that the decision could be changed.


How should one cite the entirety of a journal? I want to cite a journal itself, not an article in it, the publication. I think the same would hold for a magazine, not an issue of that magazine. The specific citation information will be enough.

Bonus points for showing how to set this citation information with biber and biblatex, so it displays properly formatted.

There are certainly interesting kinds of research where you would do this, such as bibliometrics, meta-analyses, history of science, intellectual history, or a subject bibliography.

The APA style blog opines that you would not need to make the actual citation for a meta-analysis: rather, you would simply mention the names of the journals (and the time periods you survey) in the text.

However, let's say you're looking at periodicals that are hard to locate today. Then a citation should help the readers find them. If they all came from the same database or archive, then perhaps it would make sense to cite that database or archive itself in the bibliography, with a mention or footnote about which journals were in which database or archive. Here's a page showing how to cite a collection of institutional records.

Or, if you're doing more of an intellectual history, you may be able to mark the beginning of each journal by citing the opening editor's note.

Then again, JSTOR allows people to download some journal information for research purposes. JSTOR's metadata fields for journals are journal-id (along with an identifier of who assigned this unique id), ISSN (possibly more than one if it changed over time), journal title (as of the time period you are discussing), and the publisher (as of the time period you are discussing).

Again, if you're doing a meta-analysis, the journals are part of the methodology but you probably don't need to fully cite them if they are current, modern journals.  If you're doing more of a history or a source bibliography, then you might just have a long "bibliographic note" appendix describing the journals, including where to access each and a history of changes to the names and publishers.

If all else fails, this is quite an ad-hoc citation, but you might try to find (or build) a reference type that uses the following:

Title: journal title

Publisher: publisher (might use organization field for this if there is no publisher field)

Organization: organization creating the journal (if available)

Address: city of publisher

Identifier number: ISSN (if available)

Year: Span of years

Archive: (database or archive info)

Location in archive: URL, shelf number, etc.

Note: How often is/was the periodical published; anything about disruptions to the run.

Update: If the otherwise best format requires an author/editor, you could use the name of the organization that created the journal, which is often promoted to "author" in the absence of a single author or editor. If that is not applicable, you might be able to use the name of chief journal editor(s).  You would want to make a note somewhere that you chose to record the information (editor, publisher, journal title, association, etc.) as of X date (journal founding, first issue in your time period, last issue in your time period, as of a given date across all the journals you're looking at).

Mendeley's Ultimate Citation Cheat Sheet might help you figure out desired formatting for your substituted-in components in the style you're using. It covers MLA8, APA, and Harvard, and if you're using a different style that might help you abstract the principles to that other style, if there is not sufficient documentation on that style's principles.


Do ACS and RSC journals have identical credit in a tenure-track application? I am a postdoc in chemistry and have published 15 papers in RSC journals. I hope to publish about 8 papers during the next year and then apply for a tenure-track position in the US.

My group leader strongly prefers RSC journals. Both ACS and RSC have similar titles. As I compared, they publish similar numbers of papers with similar impact factors.

Since I want to apply for a position in the US, is it beneficial for me to publish some papers in the ACS journals or it is OK to have all my publications in the RSC journals?

ACS: American Chemical Society
RSC: Royal Society of Chemistry (UK)

Given reputable venues like these, you should expect a good department that you'd want to be a part of to pay attention to the substance of your work, rather than splitting hairs on whether they like one society better than the other.

Not all departments will do this, of course.  For example, I know of at least one department that discounts all journals except ones published by its favorite society.  Do you really want to be part of such a narrow institution, however?


Does the school or the student cover health insurance for PhD students in the US? I was just wondering what people's experiences were regarding health insurance at US institutions for PhD candidates.  Does the school, itself, cover the cost, the individual, or something else?  I am particularly curious how this may be changing in response to the Affordable Care Act.

This varies tremendously from one university to another.  At some institutions you're on your own to buy insurance through the exchange. At other institutions the university pays for insurance for students and their families as part of the compensation for teaching/research assistants, similar to the way in which staff are insured.  It's important for students to understand exactly what is being offered as part of the TA/RA package.

Some institutions that used to offer low cost/low benefit insurance plans to students have had to stop offering those plans because they weren't compatible with the ACA.


How should I start Undergraduate Research in Mathematics? Dear Academic SE advisers,

I am a college sophomore in US with double majors in mathematics and microbiology. My algorithmic biology research got me passionate about the number theory and analysis, and I have been pursuing a mathematics major starting on this Spring semester. I have been independently self-studying the number theory textbooks written by Niven/Zuckerman/Montgomery, Apostol, and Ireland/Rosen on this semester. As this semester progressed, I discovered that I am more interested in the pure mathematics than applied aspects (computational biology, cryptography, etc.). I want to pursue a career as analytic number theorist and prove the Collatz conjecture and Erdos-Straus conjecture.

I have been thinking about doing the number-theory research on my university (research university; huge mathematics department). I have been self-studying the NT by myself and also regularly attending the professional and graduate seminars on number theory but I did not do any pure mathematics research as an undergraduate. Should I visit NT professors in my university and ask them about if I can do undergraduate research under them? If research is not possible (perhaps due to my lacking maturity), should I request of doing independent reading under them and later proceed with the research? How should I ask them? What should I address? If even independent reading is not desirable to them, what should I ask to them or do in my own?

As for my mathematical background, I have been taking Calculus II (computational) and discrete mathematics. I will be taking calculus III (vector calc.) on Summer, followed by Analysis I, Probability, Theoretical Linear Algebra on Fall 2015. As for my self-studying on this semester, I have been studying NT textbooks (mentioned above), proof methodologies, and basic linear algebra.

Thank you very much for your time, and I look forward to your advice!

Sincerely,

PK

While it is possible for a highly competent mathematician to dole out a doable problem for an undergraduate to solve over the summer, empirical data has proven otherwise - i.e., it's rather hard for an undergrad to prove anything original in number theory if only given a few weeks during the summer.

For an REU in NT, it might be more realistic to expect to read some interesting topics in number theory or perform some numerical analysis. Take it as a bonus if you obtain any original result.

Number theory is known to be a very difficult topic to get into. Before you decide to commit, take courses in complex analysis and abstract algebra. They are crucial if you want to read more advanced texts in number theory.

Good luck!


Consequences of taking 5 years to graduate with a double major? What effect might it have on my chances of getting into a graduate school and my employment prospects if it took 5 years (or 4.5 years) to graduate?

My plan currently is to take a double major in mechanical engineering and electrical engineering, while going through all the Japanese and Russian language courses.

If I were to do it in four years, I would have to take 4 semesters with 6 classes and 4 semesters with 7 classes, as well as all 19 available classes from the summer and winter sessions available to me. My university does not allow 7 classes in a semester without permission and everyone I know who's been to college has told me that it would be too much.

If I were to do it in 5 years, I could do 9 semesters with 5 classes and 1 semester with 6 as well as 3 summer sessions and 5 winter sessions. The 4th summer session could serve as a cushion in case of limited availability or study abroad programs/interships/co-ops.

I will be attending my first semester at Hofstra University this fall, and am hoping to work for NASA or SpaceX as an engineer while pursuing a masters part time, if that information helps.

Your circumstances are very different than when someone does a single-major program in five years. Two majors—in this case, both in engineering!—and effectively two minors (if you do years of Japanese and Russian) are non-trivial, and as you mentioned, trying to do it in four years would require extensive "credit overloading." If you can afford to do so, it would be better to do things well in five years rather than rush in four years and do a mediocre job, if your goal is to go to graduate school in the long term.


How should I direct readers to a reference work that is riddled with errors? I am using a somewhat obscure mathematical technique in one of my papers, and there is only one reference text (so far as I am aware) that collects all the important examples of the technique that I need.  However, I am leery of pointing my readers to this book without a warning, because the reference book has numerous problems.

The book was clearly compiled from a number of earlier sources, including the original research literature.  These were put together without much care.  Notation for the various functions involved changes from one table to the next.  (The same object may be referred to an upper case U, lower case u, or a cursive letter.)  Even more seriously, there are many misprints, some of which are more obvious than others.

I feel like when I reference this text, I should put some caveat lector—something like, "Details about the transformation and all the important examples that will be needed in this paper may be found in [1]; however, the reader should be advised that [1] contains multiple typographical errors."  But that sounds somehow unprofessional to me.

Is that kind of statement unprofessional sounding?  If so, how can I convey the information that this is a poor quality source—it just unfortunately happens to be the only comprehensive source in existence.

Citing the original sources (as suggested in Comments by @MorganRodgers and @SolarMike) would generally be preferable even if the flawed book were perfect. By doing so, you credit the discoverers directly and give a sense of the timeline of various advances in the field.

However, I think it would be a mistake for you to ignore the flawed book entirely. It may be of some use to your readers in spite of its errors. Also, you wouldn't want to appear to be ignorant of the existence of that book.

As the occasion arises to point to the work of others, credit the original sources. However, if the original sources may be difficult to obtain, you could also mention the later book (along with a brief comment in
passing about any mistakes on the specific topic under discussion).
You might also mention the later book if it has any value added:
translations from other languages, explanatory figures, discussions
of connections with other results, historical perspectives, and so on).

If the later book is in your bibliography and you mention it a few
times, you have at least given it due credit and shown you are aware of its existence. If you gently point out
a couple of specific relevant errors, your alert readers will get the idea that
the book has some flaws.

It is always best to point out errors in gentle, non-judgmental, matter-or-fact language. In spite of your best efforts and those of referees and editors, your own paper will likely have some mistakes. You will see some of them immediately upon publication, even though they stealthily avoided earlier detection.


What citation / reference styles explicitly tell the reference's type? Is there a - or more properly are there (considering the excessive amount of syles existing) - reference/citation styles which have the following feature?

In the reference the type of the reference is explicitly mentioned, i.e. it is stated explicitly as a word in the reference.

To make this clear find some examples below:

a book

Authorlast, Authorfirst. (2015) The meaning and importance of citations in science. Publisher: Publishlocation. [BOOK]

or journal

Authorlast, Authorfirst; Coauthorlast, Coauthorfirst. (2015) Suggestions for more traceable reference lists. In Journal of Ergonomic Academia, 34(2), 23-34. [JOURNAL ARTICLE]

or book chapter

Authorlast, Authorfirst. (2015) Title of book chapter. In Editorlast, Editorfirst. Title of the book Publisher: Publishlocation. [BOOK CHAPTER]

or webpage

Stack Exchange (2015) Academia Stack Exchange:. Retrieved February 19, 2015, FROM https://academia.stackexchange.com [WEBPAGE]

It would be great to not reinvent the wheel here and invent yet another citation style, which motivates my question. I am sure that it is only in this current phase of multi-media (types) in which new varieties of digital sources of knowledge can found (video, blog entry, manuals, government documents etc.)

Since my hope is that the idea of having citations an reference is the ability to reuse and make traceable knowledge and concepts developed elsewhere the type of the reference would be amply helpful in finding the sources.

Well, as you see, such style exists, at least in your question. Remember that while references have to satisfy some minimal criteria, there is not much more rules and the styles vary a lot. So certainly, if you take any widely used style and you add (book), (journal article), (webpage) or whatever at the end of each citation, you create a new bibliography style that complies with the rules. If you really need to distinguish it like this, then what you shown looks usable, just please for Gutenberg's sake, don't make it all-caps.


Not Included in Publication Author List Approximately a year ago, I finished a graduate degree under an abusive and bullying advisor.  I successfully defended my thesis, and agreed to stay around for a while longer to finish a publication based on that same work, which would have consisted of rewriting a section of the thesis into a form more suited for a journal.

Due to my degrading mental health, and the continuing abusive behavior of my advisor, I strongly informed him that I was no longer willing to work with him, and provided him with my writing so far and all the data needed to finish the paper.  My advisor continued to harass me after leaving, and I eventually reported him to the relevant people for his behavior, but I was met with blatant disbelieve and nothing seems to have been done about my complaint.

The paper I started was never published.  Now, I discover that my advisor and another graduate student have published a paper which depends heavily on my work, but I am not included in the author list, nor is my thesis cited.  Rather, I'm given mention in the acknowledgments section for "helpful discussions and collection of preliminary data."

This was the primary subject of my thesis!  It was not "collection of preliminary data."  They did gather additional data and do additional modeling, but my thesis laid the basis for this new paper, and they use my experimental designs.

As for my question, is it ethical that I was not included in the list of authors, nor was my thesis cited?  If unethical, is there anything I can do about this?  I didn't expect to be listed as first author on the paper, but I would like more acknowledgment for my work than a brief mention at the end of the publication.

EDIT:

To clarify some matters in response to answers/comments given below, my thesis was published and has been available online for a bit over a year, whereas this new paper was published about two weeks ago.

I understand that I don't have a monopoly on my academic work; anyone can build on the results of anyone else.  I'm also aware that both my advisor and the university have rights to my thesis and any other work performed with university resources.  I've been involved in the process of academic publications, ranging from being listed as first author, to being included further down the list as a collaborator, so I have some understanding of how this works.

My complaint is that I'm not given what I think is appropriate credit, e.g., my thesis is not listed in the references despite the fact that they used large amounts of content from it.

If your advisor is a well-known researcher in the academic community, it is very unlikely that anyone will believe you. Even if they do, they would prefer their own advantage and prefer not to ruin their relationship with this advisor.

You have two choices: you can move on and forget about it. Or, you can do what you think is the right thing. If you are confident about the story, send an email to the department head, look at the research ethics and IP department in your university and also include them. Ideally, there are written procedures in such department on how to make a complain about such issues. He/she will know about your complain from this department.


Overleaf template for IEEE journals The Overleaf website has a LaTeX template IEEE Transactions. Does it fully support the format as desired by IEEE?

According to Overleaf, yes. The top of their gallery page states:

  Here we provide a selection of academic journal templates for articles and papers which automatically format your manuscripts in the style required for submission to that journal.

For what it is worth, the IEEEtran template looks identical to the one that one would download from the IEEE for the Computer Society. Given how easy it is for Overleaf to keep the template file up to date and the loss of users they may suffer from providing invalid templates, there isn't really a strong reason to suspect that they do not have the correct version for use there.


How important is it for all recommendation letters to arrive on time? I am applying for faculty positions this year and have asked four senior academics to write me reference letters.

Most of the applications had a deadline around December 1st, which I assume should be for the letter writers as well.

Three of my writers have submitted their letters, but the fourth said that there is a grant deadline soon and the letter will be ready towards the end of the month.

Given that

Most ads ask for three or more papers (and three are already in).
The missing letter is from my postdoc host.

  How likely is the delay in the last letter to affect my chances?

I am wondering if asking a fifth recommender (that is less familiar with my works, although we published a paper together) for a letter would help, and how much I should pressure my host to finish the letter?.

It will take the search committee a while to complete the first round of review, and often they don't start immediately after the deadline.  So a delay of a few days is normally not a problem.

However, a month is really excessive.  If that's how long it takes, I think there's a very good chance that they will finish their first round of review before receiving the letter, which effectively means the letter won't be considered with your application.

And it's a serious concern that this letter is from your postdoc supervisor (if I correctly understand what you mean by "host").  It's generally very important to have a letter from your supervisor in your current position if at all possible, and the absence of such a letter may be interpreted as meaning that your work is so poor that your supervisor refuses to recommend you.  Typically, if there is some good reason why you don't have a letter (e.g. your supervisor is incapacitated, or has taken a dislike to you through no fault of your own) then the committee would expect it to be explained in your application and by your other writers.  So unfortunately, I think that such a long delay could in fact affect your job prospects.

Unless the professor has some really extraordinary circumstances, this delay on their part seems quite inexcusable.  Yes, grant applications are important, but writing letters is part of their job too.  It's hard to believe they really can't spare an hour or two, over the course of a month, for something with such a significant impact on another person's career.

So I do think it is worth pressing this person to submit the letter promptly.  You could, as Buffy suggests, offer to help them with the application or other work, to help free up their time.  I generally dislike the notion that you should have to "bribe" someone to write you a letter, but in this case it might be justified.  If you have another trusted mentor in this department, you could also talk to that person, who might have some ideas based on their knowledge of your host, or be willing to approach them on your behalf.

In the meantime, I would also suggest contacting the departments where you have applied (at least those in which you are the most interested), to let them know that a letter from your supervisor will be coming.  And if you really can't get your host to hurry up, you might ask one or more of your other writers to draft a supplemental letter to the committees, saying that your host is being slow for no good reason and that your work is fine as far as they know.

I don't think getting a letter from Recommender #5 will accomplish much.  This is not so much about the total number of letters, but about specifically having one from your supervisor.