How should disallowed collaboration on a freshman homework set be handled by a TA? I'm a TA for a freshman calculus class, and I've just finished grading the first homework set.

It's fairly clear that there has been some collaboration going on, which is disallowed in my institution. For instance, a pair of students both put exactly the same (very) incorrect solution to a trig problem, and a group of four whose work is next to each other in the pile (i.e. they sat near each other in recitation) have all made the same (more common) errors.

The course started last week and this was the students' first ever assignment: it was set on the second day of class and due on the fourth day of class.

I'm aware of what I "should" do, i.e. report it to the instructor and let him follow the necessary disciplinary procedures. But is this necessarily the right course of action? It would probably be just as beneficial to these kids' academic integrity in the long run to tell them I'm onto them and never to do it again, as it would be to have them officially disciplined. It's likely that many of these people (should but) don't know the policy on collaboration.

Advice would be greatly appreciated.

I personally follow the rule "once is nothing, twice is a habit". I think a warning would be a good way to start. I do, however, think that it is still a good idea to run this by the instructor. I assume he/she is responsible for the course and the decision is up to him/her. You can explain your point of view and perhaps get some feedback on the matter. In addition, by taking up the discussion the problem is in th eopen and it makes it easier to catch repeat offenders. If you keep it secret, the culprits, in the worst case, can get by repeated cheating for each new teacher they encounter.

Cheating is an abomination but I think people are allowed to make mistakes. I also think most people learn from mistakes and will not easily do it again. But, it is necessary to make sure they understand their attempt has put them under scrutiny, that is probably "punishment" enough.


Ethics of gathering data from social networks for research I am starting to work on my thesis on analyzing the social network. My question is about using ethical procedures to access data.

Is it ethical to use Facebook messages as the source of my data if I have permission from the other users?
Is it alright to create a chatroom to create a chat/web page to get the data, is it the right way to go?

In the United States, if you are funded by any government agency (NIH, NSF, etc.) and you do research involving human subjects, you are required by law to get approval from an IRB (institutional review board). Research involving messages on social networks can, in some cases, be considered human subject research under this law. Similar laws exist in many other countries.

Furthermore, many conferences and journals require prospective authors to have clearance from an IRB or similar ethics board if they submit a manuscript involving human subjects research. For example, ACM SIGMOBILE policy:

  As part of the submission process, authors of papers that describe experiments on human subjects, or that analyze nonpublic data derived from human subjects (even anonymized data), will be asked to certify that their work was vetted by an ethics review (e.g., IRB approval). We expect authors to follow the rules of their host institutions around data collection and experiments with human subjects.

Note that IRB approval must be obtained before you start working with human subjects, not after the fact.

Legal requirements aside, when working with human subjects or their private information, you have an ethical responsibility to get clearance from an independent third party. There is an obvious conflict of interest associated with having the researcher decide whether the research is ethical. That is the function of the IRB.

For an example of what not to do, see the case of the OKCupid data release and some of the fallout from that.


Harvard referencing: same year, same last name, same initials This is a question about the Harvard referencing system.

I've written a paper and cited two publications, each with a single author, both published in the same year. These authors are unrelated - one is a man and the other is a woman - but they have the same surname and the same two initials. They do have different first and middle names, but neither has a second middle name. So it's as it were Alan Brian Smith, 2012 and Alice Beatrice Smith, 2012.

How do I handle this? I'm guessing my inline citations should be either (Smith, Alice, 2012) or (Smith, 2012a), but can't work out which. Or maybe it's something else. Plus in the bibliography, should they be listed by alphabetical order of author first name? Chronologically?

Many thanks for any help.

The guidelines to the venue you are submitting to must be your guideline. After all, the title of the paper is what distinguishes one author from the other. And this information is present in the bibliography.

For the in text references, neither University of Leeds nor The University of Melbourne has any suggestion for such situation. However, both use the style (Smith, 2012a) and (Smith, 2012b) for same author, different publications. So, that is not correct.

Personally, I would go with adding a footnote at every page that the citation occurs, maybe with a Google Scholar or personal website page.
Writing the full name would not be a generic solution as there might be two different authors with same name and same surname.


Etiquette to take external help Assume that the student (during his PhD) is faced with a problem which he and his advisor are both completely new to. The advisor is trying to help the student but owing to his lack of experience/knowledge/intuition in the field, is unable to help much. What is the etiquette for the student to seek external help (particularly professors who have dealt with such problems and maybe their grad students)?

Is it necessary to inform your advisor before going to other professors for help?
How should one introduce the subject of external help when the advisor is clearly interested in tackling the problem without any help?

The cardinal rule of interacting with advisors is that if you don't generally trust your advisor's advice, then you need a new advisor.  So you should start with the idea that your advisor's approach to any given situation is probably worth trying, and only give up on it if it's clearly not working out or seems contrary to what everyone else is saying.

Beyond that, I'm sure it varies between fields.  I wouldn't presume to offer advice to someone in a biology lab on how to sort this issue out, for example.

The most important thing, which you absolutely must do no matter what, is to inform your advisor in detail of any help you receive.  This is a matter of intellectual honesty, while everything else is a matter of convention or wise strategy.

What you want to avoid is the following scenario: you meet with X, then meet with Y and explain what X said, then meet with X and convey Y's response to X's ideas, then meet with Y again and relay information back from X, etc.  If you try this and are a little vague about the line between your own ideas and what you learned in your last meeting, then you can pull it off for a while, but eventually you'll be in big trouble when X and Y talk.  Even if you never actually lied, but just let people assume you were contributing more than you actually did, they'll be very unhappy if they decide you weren't contributing enough.  [And this can be a particular danger for students: if someone says something cryptic and then you figure it out later, is that because you are adding new ideas and insights, or because you are catching up to where the expert already was?  It can be hard for a beginner to judge, and this potential for confusion is a valid worry for advisors.]

As to how to introduce the idea to an advisor who resists getting outside help, the main thing is to understand why.  Is it because your advisor feels this is an important learning experience for you?  Is the advisor convinced that the problem is not as difficult as you fear?  (And, if so, can you make a compelling case that it is?)  There are also more worrisome scenarios.  For example, maybe the local expert in this area is notorious for competing with or undermining students, or has a bad relationship with your advisor.  Your advisor may be reluctant to say this explicitly, so if he/she seems to be ruling out a natural collaborator for unclear reasons, then you should ask about other people you might talk with instead.


Tuition cost over time I am wondering if anybody knows of a datasource that makes available tuition cost over time (annually) for US institutions.  I am particularly interested in the cost of graduate school expense.

The National Center for Educational Statistics publishes reports mostly yearly regarding tuition fees as part of its Digest of Educational Statistics.

Relevant Table for graduate admissions from the most recent report. Information appears to go back to the 80s even with the 1995 report. Earlier data might be available from the Department of Education itself on request.

Professional degree type 1988 to 2010 Of note is that most fields have ballooned in cost the past three decades.


3 years into my phd program, want to shift to theoretical physics I joined a phd in electrical engg 2 years back. But requiring physics, I did log of physics courses and I have now developed a deep interest in mathematical physics and condensed matter. But that has lead me to undergoing coursework in maths dept as i had already finished lot of basic/masters level courses in physics and which gave me a feeling that doing math courses thoroughly first is the right way to do any physics. But my supervisor now is terribly disappointed with me. Also I am confused about shifting university as I am already 2years + into a graduate program. Also there is a feeling that once am through the coursework , I might find some problem interesting to electrical engineers that I might solve with the new skills. But a few professors and my current supervisor are discouraging me saying it is a vague plan. So what should I do, any suggestions?

You can find many areas in microelectronics which are closely related to the condensed matter physics (i.e: Electronic band structure, semiconductor, Conductors,  Superconductor, Ferroelectric, etc). My recommendation is to find a specific field in condensed matter that is also interesting for your supervisors, and pursue your PhD.

In your case, moving to another department is just burning two years.


PhD Student/Candidate distinction - European/French universities I read an interesting topic entitled "PhD candidate vs. PhD Student". I understood that the distinction between the use of those terms is strongly linked to the structure of PhD programs in the US/Canada. I wonder how should I phrase it for an application to a doctoral workshop that requires me to mention whether I am PhD student or candidate (I completed research master's coursework, passed agrégation examinations and defended my dissertation proposal before getting into doctoral school).
To be sure I well understand how it works in North-American universities: students often get admitted in 5-6 years PhD programs after graduating from a 4 years bachelor's degree. The PhD programs, therefore, include a 1 to 2 years first step (PhD student) in which students pursue intensive training in their field. Students have to work on a dissertation proposal which is defended at the end of that first step so that the second step (PhD candidate) deal with the completing the dissertation (reviewing relevant literature, structuring research questions, designing research protocols, testing, analyzing results ... and finally, writing the dissertation).
Considering that European students often have to complete a research master + research proposal (+ for humanities and social sciences in France, having passed a competitive examination for teaching which is called agrégation is often implicitly required, those demands seem similar to final exams of N-A PhD programs) before applying to 3-4 years PhD programs, should we consider they are "PhD candidates" from their entrance into PhD programs?

In North America, usually PhD candidate is also called ABD (all but dissertation), so, are PhD students who has passed all PhD requirements but defending/submitting their final thesis. The distinction between a candidate and an ABD is not very clear, some say candidate may imply that one is still working on their dissertation while most candidates who quit may call themselves as ABD. I would not concern myself with the distinction between candidate and ABD on my CV as providing dates (e.g., expected finish time) can clarify it.
Now, in answer to your question, I would say if you can call yourself an ABD (nothing left but defending your final thesis) then you can call yourself a PhD candidate, else, you might count as PhD student.


How do I learn to recognise what is worth publishing I am a PhD student starting my second year of PhD. I don't expect any major publications to come out of this within the first year or so, but I often find myself wondering if something smaller - a measurement setup, comparison of simulation techniques, etc - is worth publishing or not.

On the one hand, my Promoter says that we as a research group should publish more. I get the feeling he doesn't say this purely from a publish-or-perish perspective - rather, we spend a year or two working on something to get one big publication from the high-ranking journals, but along the way we learn a lot of little things, or come up with new tricks for measurements - all of which could be worth sending to smaller conferences or journals.

Due to the personal self-image struggles I have, I find it very difficult to feel like my work is good or new or worth talking about most of the time. How can I improve my ability to see if something is worth sending in or not? Will this just come with experience?

Broadly, ask yourself these two questions:

Is it new?
Is it something that people in your field would want to read?

The first question is very important and sometimes disheartening. If it's not new, it doesn't matter how interesting your result is, how difficult it was to obtain, or how well you present it. You say that you have difficulty feeling like your work is new, but (unlike whether or not your work is "good") this is something that you can and should unambiguously determine by reading the existing literature. Note that "new" doesn't have to mean "earthshaking". It can (and usually does) mean more modest novelty.

The second question helps you distinguish between many possible new things to try to publish. If the paper you're working on already existed, would you and your colleagues want to read it?  You can use the degree to which the answer is "yes" to decide whether or not you should spend your time on one publication as opposed to another.

To answer either question, you need to read a lot of the existing literature, and get to know the academic community you work in. So yes, experience is important. Your advisors are there to help you when you are starting out.


BA in the humanities - doing MA in Computer Science? I have a BA degree in sociology, but during my studies I got interested in programming and development. I would like to continue and do my MA thesis in a Computer Science University, and maybe, try to incorporate sociology and CS in my final thesis.

If I do it the other way around, going to sociology MA but try to get some computer science subjects along the way, I don't think will teach me much.

I would like to know if it's possible to continue and do a Masters thesis in CS, having already finished a BA in social sciences / humanities?

Yes, it is. The process of enrolling in grad-school is two-fold. First, the grad-school department (as an academic and administrative unit) verifies whether or not you're eligible to enroll as a graduate student (e.g., sufficient GRE scores, TOEFL scores - in case of international students, etc.). Second, the academic unit (CS in your case) verifies that the candidate grad-student is eligible to enroll in their program. Either you have a sufficiently robust CS background (e.g., you were a double major or at least you have a minor in CS) or you are willing to take fundamental CS undergrad classes (e.g., Data-Structures & Algorithms, Operating Systems, Theory of Computation, etc.). These options minimize the risk of floundering with relatively complex class-contents when you enroll in higher-level CS grad courses independent of your bachelor-degree background.

P.S.: According to my experience, usually you're awarded a M.S. (M.Sc.) degree when you finish a C.S. masters program. Are you planning on taking humanities-based courses as part of graduate courses (this is the only way I know you would be awarded an M.A. instead of an M.S. for C.S.)?


Can lowlighting less important text improve readability? Are there alternatives? I think many experience the following: Sometimes I want to get the main message of a paper within 10 min then I am annoyed by any less important details distracting me. And sometimes I spend days or weeks to understand a certain part of a paper, where I would highly appreciate any further information on that aspect of the paper. Or I am just very curious if the authors got further results on a very specific aspect of their paper.

So I think good papers should be more interactive in a way that the reader can easily choose which parts to read and which parts can be skipped without missing the main message (or the introduction of the notation necessary to understand the main message).

I know about the following methods to achieve this goal:

less important stuff in the Appendix
Using remark environments to indicate that a certain remark provides additional information.
Using good section titels to let the reader choose which aspects they want to read.
Using footnotes to provide optional additional information that is specifically related to the content at the position where the footnote appears
Using lowlighted (i.e. grey / half transparent) text to indicate less important additional optional information.
Using smaller fontsize to indicate less important additional optional sections or paragrahps.
\underbrace, \overbrace to explain certain terms (that might be obvious to some readers)
\overset such as $a\overset{\text{Th. 1}}{=}b+c$ to indicate that a=b+c holds true because of Theorem 1, which might be obvious to some readers, but not to others.
(Writing something unimportant in parenthesis.)
There are probably more options...

I think all of these methods have their advantages and disadvantages and I think for each of them there exist scenarios where they can be very helpful for readability. I don't really understand why some journals and even Arxiv forbid some of them.

Question 1: What are the pros and cons of low lighting text by making it half transparent? Are there situations where it is helpful?

I think for example for papers in the intersection of mathematics and computer science grey symbols inside formulas can be useful to allow readability for both communities. E.g. a real valued random variable X is typically introduced as $X:(\Omega,\Sigma)\to(\R,\mathfrac{B})$ in mathematics literature, but this might unnecessarily confuse some computer scientists, because in this field of computer science the assumptions expressed by this notation are typically made implicitly without explicitly writing it down. So making :(\Omega,\Sigma)\to(\R,\mathfrac{B}) half transparent is understandable for both communities.

Therefore, we wrote our paper using lots of lowlighting and uploaded it to Arxiv a couple of months ago. Now, we wanted to update it fixing some typos and to furhter generalize the theory, but we got a mail, that highlighting and lowlighting is not accepted by Arxiv, because it is too unconventional.

Question 2: What can we do know? Is there an equally good alternative instead of lowlighting?

Related other questions:
Is there a way to improve the readability of equations in research papers?
Is highlighting important references a good idea?

Yes, there is an alternative to de-emphasizing the less important parts (which might possibly impair readability): Emphasize the most important parts. Something you can do is to use clearly outlined boxes with "take-home" messages, like in the example below:


Disseminating math results in an interdisciplinary journal I'm a mathematician with physics background.  We recently obtained some results that, in my opinion, has interesting physics interpretations and thus deserve an interdisciplinary attention.

We already wrote a manuscript meant for a math journal.  It is super technical and not friendly at all to general audience.  I find that a pity, and want to write a kind of "short communication" (actually not sure about the format), in which I would avoid all the mathematical reasonings and only present the interesting interpretations that are relevant for material scientists and soft matter physicists.  The purpose is to disseminate our result to a more general audience, and invite interdisciplinary collaborations.

I have no experience of such manuscript.  My colleagues suggest that I should try top journals Nature or Science.  But I have the concern that such a manuscript has no "original result", which seems to be required by these top journals.  Then my colleagues argue that "interpretations" are original results.  But I fear that most of my "interpretations" are just personal opinions and won't count as solid result.

By the way, I do see people publish "long version" then "accompanied short version", which sometimes raises the concern of dual publication.  My planned "communication" won't be a short version, but a completely different paper with no overlap.

My question:  What should I do in this situation?  What journals welcome such manuscript (Nature and Science seems very unfriendly towards mathematics)?  How do people usually disseminate technical results?

There are journals in physics that encourage interdisciplinary work and also mathematical physics journals.  I have seen (and written) Physical Review Letters that have many pages of mathematics in a supplement.  See, for example:

Colbrook, Matthew J., Bogdan Roman, and Anders C. Hansen. "How to compute spectra with error control." Physical review letters 122.25 (2019): 250201.

You might do well adding an introduction that addresses the physics and then sending to a mathematical physics journal.

Do not be afraid of covering the same material twice, however.  Perhaps you write the paper as a math paper, and then a separate paper that covers in different words the same material from a physics viewpoint.  You can always call it a review or guide if that makes you feel more honest.  I recently employed that strategy and I hope Referee B feels this is alright.


Master of Engineering vs Master of Science? I am a Final Year Mechanical Engineering student.
I want to do my Masters in the Design Engineering field.
Currently I can see 2 options:

Master of Science - offered in many Universities ex: GeorgiaTech.
It deals more with research. It requires a research thesis most of the times.
It gets completed in about 2 years.
Master of Engineering - offered in few Universities ex: Cornell University.
It deals more with developing your skills required for doing a job in that field.
It does not require a research thesis. It gets completed in a year.

So, my question is:
1. What exactly do we learn/develop skills/improve/do, etc in each of these programs.

I am unable to get a clear picture as to what exactly will be the change in me brought by each of these programs?
What distinguishes a M.S. Graduate from a M.Eng. Graduate & vice versa?
And which one of these Graduates get jobs in Companies easily in the related field?

The main practical difference between the two degrees, as you point out, is the requirement of a research thesis for the MS degree.  Generally, if you have aspirations of eventually getting a PhD, you should strongly consider the MS, as research experience or potential is a large factor in being admitted to a PhD program.

To answer your specific question, you should be a better researcher after completing an MS, and you will be better prepared for further graduate work.  With an ME degree (considered a "terminal" degree), you'll simply have a Master's degree and (potentially) may have spent more time on your coursework.  Whether or not this prepares you better for a position in industry is debatable -- as you say, many ME programs are one year, which may actually include fewer classes than an equivalent MS (although I've generally seen ME programs that have one or two more classes as a requirement than the equivalent MS degree).

As to which degree leads to more jobs in industry, I'd say it's probably about the same.  Getting an MS will certainly not limit your competitiveness for industry jobs, while (as I already mentioned), an ME may limit your competitiveness for PhD programs.


Reproducing figures in blog/SE posts Sometimes when I am writing a review blog post (or an answer on SE), it is convenient to include a figure from the original paper. Some journals (say PNAS) have policies that explicitly allow non-commercial reproduction of figures:

  Anyone may, without requesting permission, use original figures or tables published in PNAS for noncommercial and educational use (i.e., in a review article, in a book that is not for sale) provided that the original source and the applicable copyright notice are cited.

Others, however, seem to explicitly disallow this, of note is the Nature Publishing Group. Today, I had to fill in an online form on RightsLink in order to ensure I could use a figure in my post. I didn't have to pay anything, and the rights were granted instantly after completing the form, but it was still a hassle. The biggest hassle is having to go to each journal's website to check their policies. Hence the questions:

Is there a general law like fair-use that allows me to place figures from published papers inside blog posts for non-commercial commentary/review purposes?
What if your blog has ads that generate revenue, is the use of the figures no longer non-commercial? What about SE that generates revenue but not for the poster?
Is there any extra etiquette one should keep in mind for including figures in blog posts?

Some thoughts on this issue:

First, the fair use doctrine is tricky. Assuming you're not ready to hire a lawyer, play it safe. If you're not sure, ask for permission. If you're asked to remove something, do it.
There has been some noise a few years back on the topic of blogging and reuse of scientific figures. See here, there and there for some links to that affair. The conclusion I would draw is, again: play it safe.
In at least some jurisdictions (France is one), having ads on your web will mean your blog is considered a commercial publication. Asserting fair use for commercial works is typically harder, though this distinction tends to diminish (here).
Attribute figures (source + link). Always. It's just good manners.

I'll finish by a general observation related to copyright law in academia, as I see it (at least around me): people tend to just do stuff, and then play dumb if they get caught (which rarely happens). Lots of researchers knowingly put up (without authorization) PDF files of their papers on their website, and say “I'll just remove them if I am asked too”.


What does 'PI' mean? I am a senior in undergrad who is a physics major applying to PhD programs. I keep on hearing people saying get rec letters from PIs or contact and have a good relationship with PIs.

The abbreviation "P.I." stands for "Principal Investigator" and is routinely used in the United States to denote a "head of the laboratory" or "research group leader" (wikipedia), and serves to refer to active researchers with potential funding for PhD students or post-doctoral researchers.
It is used by various organisms more formally, as the two examples below show.
The United States' National Science Foundation
Quoting the section D.1.g. of their Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG) from January 2017 (which is the latest version to this date):

g. PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT DIRECTOR (PI/PD) means the individual(s) designated by the proposer, and approved by NSF, who will be responsible for the scientific or technical direction of the project. NSF does not infer any distinction in scientific stature among multiple PIs, whether referred to as PI or co-PI. If more than one, the first one listed will serve as the contact PI, with whom all communications between NSF program officials and the project relating to the scientific, technical, and budgetary aspects of the project should take place. The PI and any identified co-PIs, however, will be jointly responsible for submission of the requisite project reports. The term "Principal Investigator" generally is used in research projects, while the term "Project Director" generally is used in centers, large facilities, and other projects. For purposes of this Guide, PI/co-PI is interchangeable with PD/co-PD.

The United States' National Institutes of Health
Indeed, the N.I.H. uses the same term for a similar notion.
Quoting their glossary,

Program Director/Principal Investigator (PD/PI)
The individual(s) designated by the applicant organization to have the appropriate level of authority and responsibility to direct the project or program to be supported by the award. The applicant organization may designate multiple individuals as program directors/principal investigators (PD/PIs) who share the authority and responsibility for leading and directing the project, intellectually and logistically. When multiple PD/PIs are named, each is responsible and accountable to the applicant organization, or as appropriate, to a collaborating organization for the proper conduct of the project or program including the submission of all required reports. The presence of more than one PD/PI on an application or award diminishes neither the responsibility nor the accountability of any individual PD/PI.


Can you get a PhD based on work or life experience? Is there any possibility that I could be awarded a Ph.D. degree based on my work or life experience and good educational background?

Can you guide me to any institution offering such Ph.D.s?

Ph.D.s and other academic titles and degrees awarded for "work experience", "life experience" and so on are products of diploma mills. You pay a lot of money (thousands of USD) for a piece of paper that is completely worthless.

Employers know these worthless "titles". Such a "Ph.D." will not help you get a better job, and it will in particular not help you in an academic career. Instead, using such a "degree" in an application will brand you as naive at best or a fraud at worst.

Depending on your jurisdiction, using a "degree" "awarded" by a non-accredited institution, as these diploma mills usually are, may be illegal.

Nobody here will direct you to an institution that engages in such practices.


Can a fellowship be stopped suddenly? If not, why do PhD courses charge a fee? I've been considering a PhD, but the details of how it works confuses me. For example, this course charges 45K per semester as fees, but offers a monthly fellowship of 38.5K. Why do they even need to charge a fee then? Can't they just deduct it from the fellowship amount?
Also, if there's a fellowship, doesn't it mean that somebody is sponsoring the work? So if a full-time scholar is sacrificing a corporate job to solve a technical problem and comes up with a new discovery for someone, isn't this a service being provided? Why is the scholar being charged a fee then? It's like asking a mechanic to pay me when he discovers a solution to a problem with my car.

This institution seems to provide scholarships based on entrance exam scores. So as I understand it, unless a person has good scores, doing a PhD is a financial risk for approximately 5 to 7 years.

If a scholar starts a PhD with a promise that fellowship will be provided for 5 years, can the fellowship still be withdrawn before 5 years? Won't that put the scholar under financial duress? I'm asking these because before I choose to do a PhD somewhere, I need to know the financial risks.

I've seen this explanation, but the concepts are still unclear.

  A PhD scholarship is likely to be full-funding that isn’t attached to    a specific project. Some scholarships are also more specific,
  perhaps    being limited to a payment for fees or living costs, but
  not both.
  A PhD fee waiver removes the need for a student to pay for their    tuition, but doesn’t cover living costs. Essentially this is a way
  for universities to offer partial funding by not charging you to
  study your PhD with them.
  A PhD stipend is a regular payment for living costs. It functions a    bit like an annual salary, but is usually paid tax-free. It’s rare
  for a separate funding package to be referred to in this way, but
  full scholarships and studentships include a stipend.
  A PhD bursary is money paid to a student during a degree. If this is    paid for living costs as part of a full-funding package it may
  be    referred to as a PhD stipend (see above). Otherwise the term
  ‘bursary’ is used for more general funding.
  A PhD grant is a specific payment, usually made on a one-off basis in    order to assist a student in carrying out research. It might be
  a    substantial amount intended to provide all (or almost all) of the
  funding you need; or it might be paid for a specific purpose, such as
  research travel or the purchase of equipment.

This is a complicated question which depends on the country, university, discipline, and in some cases individual agreements.

  Why do they even need to charge a fee then?

Here's a common situation for sciences:

Universities get grant money to conduct research.  Often it comes from a government.  The money can only be used for research purposes.
Universities use the grant money to pay students' tuition when they conduct research.
Tuition money can be used by the university for any purpose.

Universities are incentivized to charge themselves as much as possible for tuition so that they can convert restricted grant funds to unrestricted funds.

  Why is the scholar being charged a fee then?

They usually are not.  The funds are deducted from the research budget and not paid by the PhD student.

  If a scholar starts a PhD with a promise that fellowship will be provided for 5 years, can the fellowship still be withdrawn before 5 years?

If you read the fine print of the contract/offer, it probably has a loophole which allows funding to be cut off.

  Won't that put the scholar under financial duress? I'm asking these
  because before I choose to do a PhD somewhere, I need to know the
  financial risks.

Yes.  Universities want a way to get rid of bad PhD students.  Getting rid of bad PhD students hurts the university's reputation.  If you are not a bad PhD student, your funding will only be cut off if:

You are studying at a bad university or with a bad supervisor, in which case you should leave for somewhere better.
Some external disaster takes away funding.  This is a risk with any employer.  Example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effect_of_Hurricane_Katrina_on_Tulane_University


The assistant professor doesn't answer e-mails I'v already read the similar questions here, but i'm sure those are not applicable in my case.

The assistant reminded us during the last session that we can contact him via email, he is only responsible for a chapter not the whole course. Usually my professor teaches the theory and his assistants handle the exercise sessions.

I tried to contact the person twice via email about fifteen and five days ago respectively, but I have not received any response yet, and I'm not expecting any response at all based on his behaviour before.

I really need an answer before the deadline, so I decided to to contact the professor himself, explaining why and pose my question to him, but after consulting with some academic people this is going to be highly irregular. I don't really know how to handle this in an academically manner.

15 days ago was the weekend before Christmas, 5 days ago was new years day. I am not surprised the assistant hasn't answered: my university is closed till Monday. Since I have children and the school and kindergarten are also closed till Monday, I have very little time for answering emails. Moreover, this is the time of year to focus on other things than work (why am I writing this answer?).


Should someone who wants tenure (or a research position) have hobbies totally unrelated to their work? Or in Sean Carroll's words, is it true that "you are better off if your hobbies are nothing like your work"?

  Carroll, Sean. "How To Get Tenure at a Major Research University:
  Cosmic Variance." Cosmic Variance. N.p., 30 Mar. 2011. Web. 09 Oct. 2014.

This question applies for both cases of tenure and cases of applying for academic positions.

I suspect Sean Carroll is emphasizing this more than most people would, thanks to his tenure denial.  It's not always important - plenty of serious bloggers have received tenure, and I know of one mathematician who published a novel before successfully getting tenure at a serious research university.  However, Carroll's right about the risks: it will hurt your chances if people spend too much time comparing what you did accomplish to what they imagine you might have accomplished if you had focused more.  If your hobbies could be viewed as taking time away from research, then it gives anyone who doesn't want you to get tenure an excellent opportunity to try to derail your case.

So basically, if your tenure case could be viewed as marginal or you might have enemies in the department (or among your letter writers), then you should worry about this.  Otherwise, I wouldn't let it dictate your life, but I guess it depends on your tolerance for risk.  One common-sense approach is not to go around emphasizing to colleagues how much time you are spending on hobbies.


Is it bad to use the same interview instruments? It is often recommended to use instruments that have been previously validated (e.g. satisfaction questionnaires). The rationale behind: that these instruments have been thoroughly validated and you should not try to "re-invent the wheel".

However, I've found myself in this scenario: I'm conducting qualitative research with semi-structured interviews very similar to a recently published study. We seek to explore the same topic but with different populations (i.e. hypothetically, they are studying apples and we are studying beets).

Since we are studying the same topic, is it okay (and is it even encouraged) to utilize their interview instruments? Part of me believes strongly in the original statement, "don't re-invent the wheel", but part of me feels like its close to plagiarism and that I should come up with my own questionnaire/instruments.

Our paper, if published, will likely be read by the other authors.

Note: For those who might ponder "why are you conducting such similar research" or "why don't you let them study the beets too", the research we conduct is possible because of access to "privileged" information. In the same way we might not have access to their tomatoes, they wouldn't have access to our beets.

You need to give credit where credit is due. So if you use their instrument, be open about that and cite them.

Just another reason for reusing existing instruments: You probably want to compare your findings with the findings of the original author. In that case using the same instrument is very beneficial.


How relevant is "moving on" as an argument in peer review? For me, publishing results only when they are final, complete, and positive is more of a tradition than a necessity. I would find it valuable if others were able to publish what they have tried, even if they have not achieved what they (initially) aimed for. Unfortunately, this is very often not possible, at least in peer-reviewed journals.

I always pity the results that are lost because of this; in particular, when reviewers ask for additional research that is feasible in general, but infeasible because the authors are busy with other projects, moving to a different institution, leaving academia, or whatever other reasons. If I were an author in such a situation, I would probably share this reason with the reviewers to explain why additional work is not possible. As a reviewer, I might consider this in my recommendation. My question is: how relevant is this? Does this happen a lot? How likely is it to influence the reviewers' decision? And will the editor care?

These questions are very hard to answer, so good answers might be based on experience rather than hard facts. I would very much welcome those.

The way I see it is as follows: the reviewer's primary job is to judge whether the main claims made in the paper are borne out by the evaluation. The editor's primary job is to fill the conference/ journal with the papers that had the most interesting claims and passed review.

If you send in a paper, and the reviewer complains that additional research is needed, you actually have two options: you can add the research, or you can reduce the strength of your claim. If the editor complains that the claims are not interesting enough, you should look for a less prestigious venue.

So in short, it's perfectly fine to publish unfinished or negative research, but you need to be very honest about it.


How is a PhD project budget set? In experimental fields, such as physics, chemistry, and engineering, every professor has their own lab/workshop, normally with several externally funded projects. A PhD student may work on currently funded projects.

However, it is the responsibility of the university or department  to provide the cost of this PhD project. How and by whom is the budget of a PhD project set?

I mentioned experimental fields, because the costs of these PhD projects are normally much higher than tuition fees (consider that the student has no research fellowship).

In the US and UK, at least, PhD students in he sciences and engineering generally receive funding that covers both tuition and a modest stipend to for living expenses. The exact details of the funding (e.g., taxable or non-taxable, benefits, and whether funding is given for tuition or tuition is waived) vary widely. The funding can come from a number of sources.

The easiest to understand are external grants directly to a student. The grant has a budget and the student is expected to keep the research costs within the budget. Additional costs, potentially including space charges and other overhead type fees, need to either be covered by the student or negotiated directly with the supervisor/department/university.

Grants (both internal and external, and start up funds) to the advisor generally cover a project bigger than a single student. It is the advisor's responsibility to make sure each sub project is appropriately budgeted for and negotiate with the department/university for additional money. While some students will be given an "official" budget by the supervisor, most are required to have the supervisor sign off on all expenses. Budget issues often come up during the design stages of a project.

Departments and universities also fund PhD students. This type of funding is sometimes in the form of Research Assistantships, but more often is for Teaching Assistantships where the student needs to teach in order to get the funding. Research costs can be, but are not always, covered by this type of internal funding. It is left to the student to either cover the research costs themselves or negotiate with supervisor/department/university to make sure the costs are covered.

My experimental research is relatively cheap, but I think in the vast majority of fields, the big cost is staff. Apart from possibly the most expensive types of experimental research, a supervisor with reasonable funding, will likely be able to find the money to cover experimental costs for a PhD student. It might require some limits to be placed on the project (e.g., including some modeling or theoretical work to reduce the costs).


Incorrect reasons for rejection, what next? Recently I received a rejection to my submission of an article to a journal. Despite three positive reviews, an additional reviewer wrote a short response with an example to claim that a proof in my paper was wrong. The editor claimed to "carefully" check the example and for this reason rejected my paper (no resubmission).

Now, this example is not a counterexample, which I can show with a single sentence (it doesn't satisfy the property I assumed in my theorem). So what should I do?

Ok—Your paper was rejected because a reviewer made a mistake. I'll use my powers of Bayesian Induction to guess the editor just defaults to this reviewer, and there's not academic fraud issue. Everyone in academia has a drawer in their desk of decent papers that didn't get published just because.

You already emailed your advisor. You took the first step. That's good. I hope you didn't imply the editor's against you, but if you did, so be it.

Here's what you should you do now:

Go into the bathroom, take a deep breath, look in the mirror, and say: "this is going to be OK." Good papers get initially rejected for stupid reasons all the time.
Show the statement of the theorem, the purported counterexample, and your one-sentence refutation to your advisor or another colleague and get their reaction, to check whether you might have misunderstood the issue.
Did the editor communicate directly with you? How did they communicate with you? If it was by email, write an email back. Write a three-sentence email about why the reviewer's counterexample isn't a counterexample. Show your proposed email to your advisor for feedback before sending it to the editor.
You will wait to get a yes-no answer.
If you still get rejected, submit the paper to another journal.
If all else fails, put the paper up on arxiv and try to present it at a conference.


Etiquette in Dealing with PhD offer I've got an offer from a reputable University in the UK for a PhD in the Humanities. I've previously been in contact with the potential Supervisor. He very kindly invited me to apply but did not reply to the email after confirming I had actually applied. I did send him a follow-up asking for feedback following a notification regarding funding and got an offer a few hours later.
Is it okay for me to send a thank you or contact him before I decide to accept or reject the offer. (I've got a couple of other applications still ongoing at equally good Universities etc.)
Or is it expected that I should make up my mind first?
Thank you.

The best thing to do is send a short email thanking him for the offer and for his support of your application. Explain that you are waiting to hear back from a couple of other universities before making your decision. This is a perfectly reasonable thing to do, and no one would expect you to make a decision immediately.
Congratulations on the offer!


For a master-degree student, how influential a role do publications play in his phd applications? I am a prospective student for phd programs in STEM. In my field F of study I have published a paper (unique author) in a journal included in the international F society, a paper (with a classmate of mine) in an annual conference of the representative local F society, and a paper (unique author) in a centenary conference about F. Besides, I have several manuscripts that are either under review or nearly done.

I am wondering:

1) How would an admission committee weigh these records? More specifically, would them weigh publications higher than other records?

2) How would an admission committee value manuscripts?

Though there are ''similar'' questions here in this SE, I still feel the need to ask this question. For these questions are subtly different in nature.

Disclaimer: I am a current doctoral candidate with 2 years of experience as the graduate student representative on the admissions committee of my department (in STEM) at a major R1 university in the USA and so, write this answer from that context.

Simply put, a strong research record matters. However, this comes with several caveats. For a successful doctoral application in our department, we look at

1. Standardized Test Scores: These (GRE/TOEFL) will not get you in but can keep you out. Mostly, they serve as preliminary filters and to fulfill certain graduate school minimum requirements.

2. GPA/Academic Record: This matters significantly. Relevant grades in relevant courses matter more. A 4.3 GPA from MIT in Mathematics and Computer Science is great for a Mathematics or Computer Science application. We tend to look at overall GPA's and then at relevant courses to catch red flags. For instance, you want to develop novel machine learning algorithms but have a C+ on "Introduction to Discrete Structures" and B- on "Statistical Data Mining". Red flag !

3. Research Experience: Research experience is important but more so in different sub-fields. This is the same as publications but there are important variations. For instance, in the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), having a first author paper in CHI or TOCHI matters more than a first author paper in a conference the admissions committee most probably haven't heard about. If you want your research to speak up, then get published in the best conferences in your field. This is not a requirement but is a very good sign of your nascent research potential. Over the past few years, I have seen increasing numbers of applications to our department come from well qualified undergraduate and masters students with such records. Its a competitive world !

4. Letters of Recommendations: This should be correlated positively with research experience. If your letters talk about your wonderful performance in coursework, admissions committees are generally not very interested (they can already see that from your transcripts). If, on the other hand, you have detailed letters of recommendation from researchers that the admissions committee might know and which attest to your research performance with them, then that is a very good sign indeed !

In other words, its all about signals, signs and red flags. Specifically, in response to your questions:

It varies.
Unpublished manuscripts are not worth much but can serve as a good writing sample in case you do not have any other publications.


Should I publish my software independently or publish it along with a case study in higher journal? I have built a software that handles protein clustering data in specific format. It is able to draw several plots on that basis along with many other analyses. It has more options than its existing competitor. Should I just try to get it published as a software/technical issue, or try some
case study data (research work on a logical data) produced by the software
+
the software,
   in a better journal?

In my discipline (political science), one would typically do both. Write an applied article that uses the software for an actual research project and submit that to a substantive journal. Then, separately, describe the software and write it up for a software journal (e.g., Journal of Statistical Software, R Journal, etc.).


Advantages and Disadvantages of doing PhD from a new university? I have an offer to do a PhD in Computer Science from a fairly new university. The research topic is good but I can't really decide what are positives and negatives of it.

Well, the first thing to think about is what sort of new university this is.  If it's UC Merced, then you might reasonably guess that it will eventually be as well known as the typical UC campus, and of course that's not the only new university intended to be very prestigious and successful (e.g., IIT Indore).  On the other hand, most new universities just don't come with this sort of commitment and backing.  If you don't have a powerful reason to think the university will be unusually successful, then you should assume it's headed for a not particularly distinguished future.  Furthermore, the initial years may involve growing pains that would not be present in a better established university, although these issues are not likely to be a big deal.

Now, this isn't a reason not to study there.  Most universities are by necessity not particularly distinguished, but that won't stop you from getting a decent education.  However, the key thing is to avoid getting caught up in a feeling of "Wow, a new university!  What a great opportunity to start from scratch and do everything right!  I'm sure we'll avoid all the mistakes that have held other schools back."  Helping to start something new really is exciting, and it can be a wonderful experience.  However, all new projects start with high hopes, while history shows that most never fully meet these expectations.

So the real question is how much these high hopes matter to you.  If the new university turned out to be a solid, respectable school but not highly ranked or especially successful, would you regret having gone there?  If not, then there's no problem.  (I'm assuming it's definitely a respectable option, and not for example an online diploma mill.)  If so, then you should think carefully and investigate whether their plans really look feasible.  For example, by looking at what sort of faculty have they managed to recruit so far.


Junior faculty/senior faculty grant sharing I am a junior faculty (research assistant professor) in a full professo's lab. I was a postdoc in this lab and got promoted to Asst. Prof. due to the grants I brought in to the lab. Oct 2017 I wrote an NIH R01 grant (the whole grant - people from USA would know this)  - the full professor just looked at it briefly and suggested very minor changes, basically did not have time to look at it. I was the key senior person and the prof was PI. Though being Assistant professor, I was not allowed to be co-PI as the prof mentioned I might lose early investigator status.
We got the good scores in Feb/March (not fundable) and around same time I got a tenure track faculty position in another university that I will be joining in Jan 2019. Meanwhile, for the resubmission of the R01, I asked  the full professor if I can be co-PI instead of key personnel as I was the lead on the project and wrote the whole grant. However at the point the prof mentioned that I was very junior and it would not look good on an RO1 to have my name as co-PI. Furthermore, the prof said if the grant was funded there could be a subcontract given to me at this new unviersity. So I  wrote the grant (with revisions etc.) and submitted it as key person. Now we got the grant funded.
Two main questions:

The prof has announced that I will be managing the grant even after I move to my new position at a faculty meeting, but "managing" can mean getting free work done. I have been subservient to the professor many times but now how do I ask my share? or should I just give up the project and look after my own tenure etc.

If my professor agrees for a subcontract (I dont know if this will happen) on this grant will I lose early investigator status?

In my experience, PIs are generally not very up on the specifics of policies.  Much of what they know is based on what others have told them (as we see here).  Amazingly, much of it can be remedied by a Google search, as you can see here:

https://grants.nih.gov/policy/early-investigators/index.htm

The definition of an ESI (Early Stage Investigator) is limited to the position of PD/PI (Program Director/Principal Investigator).  If you are included as Co-I, that will not affect your status.  This would have been the appropriate status for you, as you have a significant role in the research, and were possibly going to be given a sub later, where you will need to have co-I/co-PI status.  [This is of course subject to whether your institution grants you PI rights in the first place.]  Had you applied for this R01 as a PD/PI and gotten the award, you would have lost your ESI status.  You got the award, so it's no big deal, and it will help you going forward.

In fact the FAQ on NIH's site has the following info as well:

  If I become a lead PI of an R01 due to a change of investigator action (e.g., the lead PI retired and the institution received
  approval from NIH that I become the lead PI, am I still eligible to
  qualify as an ESI since I did not compete for funding?

  Yes. The definition of ESI states that the individual must not have
  “previously competed successfully as PD/PI for a substantial NIH
  independent research award.” Therefore the individual may still
  qualify if all other aspects of the ESI definition are met.

https://grants.nih.gov/policy/early-investigators/faqs.htm#5339

So because you didn't compete as a PD/PI, you still have ESI status.

The lesson here is understanding what topics your fellow researchers are well-versed in and when to seek advice elsewhere.  Administrative policies of sponsors are not usually their strongest suit, as policies update on a regular basis, often unbeknownst to them.  Your research administrator and sponsored programs folks should be trained to assess if your role is appropriate without knowing your science.  Your PI was not entirely wrong, but wasn't entirely honest either.  You should have been made a co-I, not senior personnel. This blog post at NIA from 2015 has an interesting perspective on the composition of research teams on R01s:

  That started me chasing another thought. How many investigators does
  it take to write an R01? I looked at the 100 top-scoring R01
  applications across NIH in January 2015 and compared them to a similar
  set from January 2005. R01 applications have been bulking up! In 2005,
  more of the top scoring applications had a single principal
  investigator listed as the faculty on that application—just Professor
  X and the students and postdocs—than had two faculty, or three faculty
  or any other number. By 2015, Professor X needed more help. Now, three
  faculty is the most common number of faculty members on an
  application. By 2015, the “average” top-scoring R01 at NIH had more
  than four faculty listed as participating on it.

https://www.nia.nih.gov/research/blog/2015/04/r01-teams-and-grantee-age-trends-grant-funding

Investigator status is a particular question that affects other policies, such as financial conflict of interest (FCOI).  Because the  FCOI policy is driven by PHS, of which NIH is a part, many institutions that accept PHS funds make admins declare if each person named on the grant is an investigator or not, so admins should know how to define an investigator.

Going forward, start by researching the NIH grants policy statement (which is long, but can give you better answers) and talk to your research administrator.  Over the years, many faculty have come to me with a situation in which I need to be the impartial arbiter (discretely of course).  Here's the definition of co-I.  Does this sound like you?

  An individual involved with the PD/PI in the scientific development or
  execution of a project. The Co-Investigator (collaborator) may be
  employed by, or be affiliated with, the applicant/recipient
  organization or another organization participating in the project
  under a consortium agreement. A Co-Investigator typically devotes a
  specified percentage of time to the project and is considered
  senior/key personnel. The designation of a Co-Investigator, if
  applicable, does not affect the PD/PI's roles and responsibilities as
  specified in the NIHGPS, nor is it a role implying multiple PD/PI.

https://grants.nih.gov/grants/policy/nihgps/HTML5/section_1/1.2_definition_of_terms.htm?Highlight=Co-investigator

Here's how you argue getting salary on the subcontract from an administrative point-of-view.  If you have committed effort on this grant, but no salary was appropriated, the institution you submitted under has committed cost share.  While your PI may be able to grease wheels at your current institution to get this approved, that is not going to be possible at another institution without approval.  If you speak to the sponsored research folks at your new institution, ask them about their cost share policy. Odds are very good that they will tell you to ask for the money--use their answer to help ask for the money.  You should google it first, btw-- they probably have much of it publicly posted.


Is it legal in the US for a student to download a copy of a textbook, to study? (this is coming out of a comment thread regarding this question.)

The USA has a Fair Use legal provision restricting its copyright law:

  17 U.S.C. § 107

  Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 17 U.S.C. §
  106 and 17 U.S.C. § 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work,
  including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any
  other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism,
  comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for
  classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of
  copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any
  particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall
  include:

  the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
  the nature of the copyrighted work;
  the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole;
  and the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

  The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.

Obviously there might be other relevant statutes and legal precedents, but  still,

Is it legal, considering the above, for a university/college student to download a copy of a textbook (say, in a course s/he is taking), for studying the course material?
Same question, for a student not enrolled in a class for which the downloaded book is a textbook?
Same question, for self-study outside of Academia?

Notes:

"Legal" in two senses: First, the sense of very small chance of being convicted of a criminal act or obligated to pay money; second, the sense of there being a solid argument for the legality of this act which is likely to hold up if you appeal and appeal and maybe get to the supreme court.
Assume it's been established that the downloader did not publish the copy elsewhere, did not cite from it extensively, etc. etc.
I'm not asking whether it's moral or ethical to download textbooks, only about the legality. I believe it is moral and ethical, but that discussion is not what this question is about; please don't start it.

In general, it is not considered fair use to download the entirety of a textbook, regardless of whether or not you're a student or enrolled in a class using the textbook. Fair use normally is considered to extend to making copies of small excerpts of larger works. For instance, you could copy a particularly relevant figure from a book, or a quote from a textbook or reader for use in a class discussion.


does conference presentation topic need approval from PI I want to present a piece of work done with a former PI in a conference. If I go to this conference, I use my own funding. Do I need this PI's approval to allow me to present this work in that conference? I need answers considering the 2 different scenarios: the work is either published or not published yet.

That would depend on a few things, including your field. What is the custom there? If the PI is, or should be, a co-author then you would need it, ethically, I think. S/he might have other plans. If the work is partly theirs, then you need it in some places legally, if I interpret other answers on this site correctly, and ethically in any case.

I'm depending on your use of the words "with a former PI" here. To me that implies they have some contribution to the work that requires acknowledgement, hence approval.

But, for political purposes and keeping good relations for the future, you should probably seek it in all cases.


Is it good reputation for a researcher to publish an article belonging to different research field? I have a BA in International Relations and  MA in Water Management which is the field I want to do research. However recently one of my former professors in my current workplace asking me for colloboration in research related to international relations. Now I am in a difficult position as I do not know what to do. Do you think it is okay to have this kind of publication?

Since the fields are so far apart, a publication in one might not help you in the other, specifically. However getting some research experience is both worth the effort and will be looked on positively. In addition to being relevant to some field, research involves a process requiring focus and discipline.

I'd only recommend against this if the time involved would take you away from your mainline trajectory.

The publication won't hurt you. The experience will help. But it takes time and effort.


Is it good to publish a research paper with many partially answered questions with sub-optimal results? I work in abstract mathematics and I'm currently in the mid stage of my PhD. I try to get bounds on computational aspects of mathematics. I have been working on one problem for almost half a year and I have got four/five really challenging questions in this way. I am trying to solve these new questions but some of them seem to be very tough. I have been able to solve some of these new questions partially, but did not obtain the optimal results.

Question:  Is it good to publish a research paper with many partially answered questions with sub-optimal results?

This depends on many things. Most important is the significance of the questions themselves and whether the partial solutions add anything beyond standard techniques. The questions can be "challenging" without being significant, of course. Do they lead to other things, for example.

If your solution techniques are standard, then they won't add much either, but if you have developed a new way of looking at such problems, then it could be very important.

"Almost half a year" doesn't sound very long, actually, for the stage you are at.

Your advisor should give you good advice here. He or she is more familiar with your problem and your attack and degree of attainment.

However, I come down a bit on the side of waiting to publish. For one thing, if you publish partial results it may lead others to join the search for solutions in competition with you, perhaps denying you a more significant publication (or even a dissertation) in the future.

If it makes sense to separate them, having four or five papers, each with a complete solution would be much better for you than rushing now. The publishing venue is likely to be more prestigious, and also more likely to accept complete results.

Carry on.


What does renunciation of scholarship mean? I want to know what renunciation of scholarship mean? Is it the same as withdrawing from a scholarship program? Which one is better to quit a scholarship?
Does renunciation of scholarship form enables a person to re apply to a scholarship again?

It will depend upon the specific rules of the funding agency and at what point you are renouncing the scholarship.

For example, I renounced a Ph.D grant from one agency before starting any further commitment because at the time of the results I already had received funding from another agency. In this case there was no drawback.

In Portugal you are able to renounce a Ph.D grant at latest 1 year after the start without penalties. However, after the first year if you renounce the grant and are not intending to finish the Ph.D the funding agency will demand the reimbursement of their investment on you.

For a more specific answer you should look at the rules of the particular scholarship that you have interest.


When to look for a new PhD position? TL; DR: Should I re-apply for another PhD program? What could I do instead?

Since April, I am a PhD student in mathematics after having finished my master's studies last year. Although I spent most of my attention on doing abstract algebra doing my masters, I felt like shifting towards applied topics and found myself a PhD position in topological data analysis.

However, after having started to work, my enthusiasm has dimmed significantly in the last few months. It seems to me that I am dissatisfied with the following particular aspects:

The working group is extremely small. We do not have a research seminar or any lectures that are relevant or of interest for me. There is little exchange between the few people in our group, since everybody does something unrelated to the others' work.
I am somehow disappointed by subject: I have the impression that all the papers out there gather some more or less obvious statements, or sell things as new that are known to other fields since long time. I am uncertain whether I should expect any significant theory to be developed in the future.
My supervisor does not seem to have a particular idea where he wants to lead the research of his group. When I talk to him on what to work on, he usually comes up with some half-baked ideas that barely make some occupation for a day or so. When discussing a possible problem to work on, he quickly makes the conversation get lost in unimportant details, such that eventually I have no plan what to occupy myself with.
At the moment, I am working on some specific problem neither I nor my supervisor have the expertise for. To me, our approach seems rather non-mathematical. It is not what we have agreed upon when I applied what I would be working on; however, it seems that he has no ideas where to employ my knowledge.

These points make me wonder whether I should quit and apply for a new PhD position, or try to somehow cope with what it is like now. In the last months, I have worked on an article on some ideas from my master's thesis. With the temporal distance, these topics do not seem so frightening anymore, and by now, I can manage to identify with what I worked on at the time; hence, I would try to return to abstract algebra if I quit.

Questions: However, I now that I am an uncertain and insecure person, and in particular the third point makes me wonder if I am  qualified for pursuing a PhD:

Can I expect my supervisor to provide me with problems to start working on, especially if I am new to the field?
Should I consider myself unqualified for a PhD if I am not able to identify relevant questions and work on these completely on my own?
Should I expect things to improve when I relocate?
Is newly applying for other PhD positions the right strategy to deal with the above problems?

While this problem is very personal I can offer a bit of guidance rather than an answer to your problem. You have a number of things coming together to bring you to this state. However, it isn't a unique state and others have resolved it in various ways.

I suspect that your advisor is a bit inexperienced at this and is genuinely unable to give you the guidance you need. That isn't uncommon. Some doctoral students in math come up with their own problems and some advisors provide problems to students. I don't know which is more common, actually. I was once refused by a potential advisor who told me he didn't think he had the experience to guide me properly. But he got me connected to a (scary scary) senior professor and it worked out fine. That professor was full of problems he was more than happy to share.

Switching sub-fields isn't that uncommon either. Many students come to doctoral studies relatively "unformed", even with a master's degree behind them. But, working in a field that you like is a big help. For me it was an issue of insight. I had deep insight into classical real analysis and some aspects of topology. But actual insight into algebra was always hard for me. In analysis I knew what I could expect to be true before starting a study. I never had that sense in algebra.

No, you aren't a failure. Whether you stay or go, do it for a reason related to what you really want to do.

You may find a new situation to be similar or not, but you have some control over that. A more experienced advisor in a field you love, could be explored before you make any decisions. You can search for an alternative without making a prior commitment to actually change.


Including "Best in show" type award for a conference paper on CV I work in industry, but come from an academic background. We publish several papers a year in journals and conference proceedings. I'm also preparing a new CV for academic purposes. Earlier this year, a paper that I coauthored was selected for the "best paper in [technical category]" award they give at the end.

If a conference paper that you have coauthored receives this kind of "best in whatever" type award at the conference it was presented at, is it appropriate to include a mention of that on a CV? If so, how? This is geared toward proper academia, not a resume.

It's common to have an "Awards" section on an academic CV; you could put it there.  Give the exact name of the award, identify the group that awarded it, briefly explain what the award was for, and list the date.

See also How much detail to include for an award listed on a CV.


Colleagues present same data analysis for years, each time with different "framing". Ethical? I have seen colleagues present the same data analysis multiple times over several years.

By present, I mean two things. First, present the work to other faculty and PhD students in departmental seminars and informal brown bags. Second, I mean present the research to journals by submitting it for peer review.

Each time I see the work presented, the data analysis is rather similar to the last time I saw it presented. But what the study is "about" changes significantly, sometimes using different theories and claiming to have a new research question.

What does not change is that the paper claims to test hypotheses derived from whatever theory they are using. The hypotheses keep changing, but the analysis doesn't change.

The changes to the theory and research question are explained as having the previous paper rejected at a journal and needing to change the "framing" of the paper or responding to reviewers who "didn't like" the way the analysis was presented.

Is the behavior of my colleagues ethical?

What venue are they “presenting” the work in, and does it carry an expectation of originality?

Publishing multiple minor variations of the same piece of work would indeed generally be considered as unethical, or at best borderline-ethical “salami-slicing”.  That’s because publishing carries an expectation of originality/novelty: you’re not supposed to publish the same work twice.  This is deeply entwined with the ways that publications are used as a metric of productivity.  However, it sounds like this isn’t what’s happening here, if your colleagues haven’t succeeded in publishing the work.

Whether presenting multiple minor variations of the work is ethical depends entirely on what venue they’re presenting in (major conferences? informal workshops? the departmental seminar?) and whether it has an expectation of originality like publications would.

This varies between fields and subfields, and between conferences within subfields.    In pure maths (at least in the subfields I’m familiar with), conference presentations have no expectation of originality.  You can present the same piece of work every year for a decade, and people won’t be very excited or impressed, but it won’t be considered as unethical.  In computer science, on the other hand (again, in the subfields I know), presentations at major conferences are like a smaller version of a journal publication, and as such, are explicitly required to be original: re-using material between them would be unethical.  But in less formal settings (e.g. local workshops), again there’s no such expectation of originality, and re-use of material (with or without variation) is fine.


What should raise red flags to detect fabricated data In academia, there has been recently some cases that came to light of very well known scientists that have fabricated their data out of thin air.

In some instances these papers have been cited many times by other researchers and some of them have even been praised. Thus, when the truth came to light, it also appears to the  public that scientists have bad peer-review processes.

In light of the presented reasons, how can a reviewer make at least some sanity test that the data is (most likely) not fabricated? Suggesting so could come as a great injury to the researcher, but I think there should be some kind of mechanism to control this.

There is only one reliable way to do it, which is to try to replicate their results.

The unreliable, but not completely useless way, is to see if the numbers fit Benford's Law.
Benford's Law describes the distribution of the first digit of many very diverse data sets. This is the distribution:

(public domain chart from Wikipedia)

Andreas Diekmann describes this further, in Not the First Digit! Using Benford's Law to Detect Fraudulent Scientific Data, a paper in the Journal of Applied Statistics from 2007


Citing personal communication from a paper Can (should?) I cite a personal communication from another paper?
In my specific case, I want to express that a certain metric is not available yet, but it is the focus of ongoing research. I know this from the following section of Warton et al. 2012:

  but it is the subject of ongoing research (M. J.Anderson, pers. comm.).

Do I just cite the Warton paper or use the approach suggested in
Citing a Work that Cites a Personal Communication for tabular data?

The particular paper (Warton et al. 2012) the OP is talking about is 6 years old. After such time, the research it referred to may not necessarily be still ongoing - it is likely to be either completed, or abandoned altogether. It would be best to personally communicate with the person in charge of the mentioned research (i.e., M. J. Anderson in this case) in this matter. Either there will be a publication to refer to and cite (citing also the 2012 paper if it's still relevant), or one can just mention the personal communication like it was done by Warton et al.


Should I tell one of my recommenders that his notes are at a level beyond me? I am applying for a PhD in a highly theoretical field. One of my recommenders, a faculty in the field, understands that I have a unique situation when it comes to applying for grad school, so he has given me some advice on how to write my statement of purpose. He suggested that I read a certain series of lecture notes in this field in order to find a very specific topic in this field that interests me, then write my SOP about that topic.

The problem: I have read the notes and they are all far beyond my level. On one hand, I want to tell my recommender this and ask whether he has any advice regarding an alternative approach for writing my SOP. On the other hand, since he is my recommender, I worry that asking him this would reveal that I am not as smart as he thinks I am, which would make his recommendation less strong. What should I do?

Instead of saying

  These notes are far beyond my level, do you have other suggestions?

Consider something like

  What level of detail do you recommend for me when going through these notes? What kind of things should I be looking for and taking note of?

to gain a better understanding of what he intended for you when suggesting that you read these notes.

It's possible that he expected you to understand the notes, and that your inability to do so is a worrying sign.

It's also possible that he didn't expect you to understand them fully, but suggested them for other reasons: to gain an idea of overall trends in a particular field, to get a sense of what advanced coursework in the field looks like, just to find an idea that inspires you, etc. If you read the notes and skip the details (the derivations, the proofs, etc.) and look up unfamiliar terms as you go, can you understand some of them? Most of them?

It's also possible that these notes are at an advanced level, but that your inability to understand them is not necessarily a worrying sign. Perhaps he expected for you to spend a lot of time studying them in detail (probably using external resources to fill in gaps in your background knowledge) before you can begin to understand them.


Will a certificate from my University Professor that I have worked under him can be shown as work experience for my graduate admission abroad? I am planning  on working under a professor after my UG completes. However the professor has said that it would be an informal arrangement between the two of us, as the formal process is a bit complicated and would require intervention from the institute. So, the question is, could I take on this offer and get a certificate from the professor(of course signed by him) and state it as a work experience in my CV?

Your work with the professor is valid work experience and possible research experience, depending on what is involved. But a "certificate" is of less value to you than a LOR. The reason is that the letter comes direct from the professor and so has implied credibility, whereas something that you provide, even if honestly, is open to question. Even if it isn't disbelieved (and it probably won't be) it will be given less weight.

Let the professor know that you will, in the future (soon or later) be needing letters to continue your education. Some time to reflect will probably mean a better letter.

If some publication comes from your work, you may not qualify as a co-author, but try to get an acknowledgement in the paper if possible. Ask for it explicitly, I think. Even better to be a co-author, of course. But, make sure, in any case, that you have a record of the publication and that the prof is willing to say, in a LOR, that you contributed to the project.


Given reviewer comments, shall I resubmit after the rejection? I had submitted a manuscript to a SCI indexed journal and I received a rejection after 4 months
The reviewers comments stated:
The reviewer stated only 1 correction in the whole paper and wrote the following :
The proofs of main theorems of this paper are straight forward, and the proofs of many results are written in a too elaborate way, not compact enough. As a result this paper is not recommended for publication in XXX.
I am currently in a very difficult situation. I don't understand if I should just fix the error which the reviewer pointed out and then submit it to the same journal.
I am able to fix that error. So will it be wise to fix it to the same journal or it will be a complete waste of time.
If anyone can help me out, I will be very grateful.

There's a high chance resubmission will not work. That's because the review says there are two issues with the paper:

The proofs are straightforward, and
The proofs are not written out well, taking many more lines than necessary.

#2 is a purely presentation issue. #1 can be interpreted in a few ways (see the linked question) but I would guess at the second interpretation in the linked question: the results are gotten in straightforward fashion. This is still not a good comment to receive since it implies the proof isn't interesting even if the result can potentially be.
Note neither of these two review comments critique the scientific merit of your results. In other words, they don't imply your work is wrong. That means the most probable reason your paper was rejected is because it's not interesting enough for publication, which cannot be fixed by improving the presentation.
If you do resubmit the paper, you should do more than fix #2, you should also argue why the result is interesting even though the proofs are straightforward.


applying to graduate school during the final year I am applying to a graduate school in the USA, and they accept receiving an application during my final year in bachelor's. If I am given admission based only on the previous years of study, will the transcript of the final year, affect in any way after I finish the bachelors?

Once you are accepted it is very unlikely that it would later be rescinded, except for serious breaches. But you won't do yourself any good if you give up your efforts. Your acceptance is probably contingent on successfully completing the bachelors, however. Don't jeopardize that.
On the other hand, don't start grad school in a state of burn out. You are only part way through the race.


Maximizing opportunities to be admitted in top schools I did a modest undergraduate in Information Systems (3/4) and good master's in CS (3.4/4). I've PhD acceptance from a good school in Canada. However, I still need to go to top school , or at least a well-known school, in US.

I am planning to apply to top schools in CS next year (since deadlines already passed). I have done some research and got some papers accepted at good conferences. Beside getting good scores in GRE, what should I do to be well-prepared for the next year?

I am fully sponsored student by my government, how will this affect the admit decision?

Your approach is wrong and will be a hindrance in maximizing your chances for acceptance. No school wants to accept someone who only wants to go to their school because of its ranking. You need to tailor your application to demonstrate why you want to go to the particular school. Once you have identified some schools/supervisors, ideally one of your recommendation writers can introduce you. You then need to build on that relationship. Talk to them about how your work fits in with their past and current work. As your relationship with the potential supervisors builds, figure out how they fit into the department. They will likely have the inside knowledge needed for writing a really good application.


Can the "and" word be replaced by the ampersand, "&", in citations with IEEE style? Can the "and" word be replaced by the ampersand "&" in citations with IEEE style?
I have searched for an answer to this question online but I did not find anything so far.

IEEE is based on the Chicago Manual of Style.
It seems that the Chicago Style prefers to use the word and rather than ampersands (&) in journal titles. See here for a remark regarding journal titles:

Since there is no easy way to check whether an author’s choices are random or scrupulous, conventionally editors have chosen one style or the other to impose throughout. Chicago prefers and. Even now that it’s possible to check online, we think it’s more expedient to choose one style and be consistent, given the amount of research it would entail to check the style of and in every title

Under the heading "Permissible changes to quoted title" (chapter 8.174), the manual even allows users to replace a given ampersand (&) to an and (rather than vice versa):

When a title is quoted, its original spelling [...], hyphenation, and punctuation should be preserved. [...] As a matter of editorial discretion, an ampersand (&) may be changed to and, or, more rarely, a numeral may be spelled out.


How to mention my class rank in my CV If I graduated from a university (named X for example) in 2014 and my average (or GPA) was the highest among all students who graduated that year from the same major (let's call it Y). So I want to say in my CV that my rank was the first. How to say that in a proffesional way?

What I'm currently using:

  Graduated from X with a B.Sc degree in Y with an average of 90% (class rank: 1)

What you have looks fine to me.  I've seen numerous cv's with notation like that and never thought amiss of them.


Correlation between personality type (MBTI or other) and success in academia? When you meet new people entering the world of academic research, it is often tempting to try and guess what “sort” of researcher they'll be, based on their personality, character, known qualities, and defects, etc. You'll sometimes hear people say things like “he's not cut out to be a researcher”.

But I wonder: are there any studies that have probed the link between personality/character and success in academic life (and academic research in particular)?

The sort of studies I imagine would be possible are things like assessing researchers' personalities (e.g. by the well-known Myers-Briggs classification) and comparing the distribution against that of the general public… But I could not find anything serious through Google, though I imagine researchers in behavioral sciences, psychology, or other related fields must have tried to address this question.

1) Psychologists on Psychologists:
Helmreich, Robert L.; Spence, Janet T.; Beane, William E.; Lucker, G. William; Matthews, Karen A. (1980), "Making it in academic psychology: Demographic and personality correlates of attainment". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 39(5), Nov 1980, 896-908.

ABSTRACT: Examined personality, demographic characteristics, publication rate, and citations to published work in a sample of 141 male and 55 female academic psychologists. Reputational rankings of their graduate schools and current institutions were significantly related to citations, as were components of achievement motivation. Mastery and work needs were positively related to citations, whereas competitiveness was negatively associated with the criterion. Large sex differences were found in citations, with men receiving significantly more recognition and producing at a higher rate. A model of attainment in psychology is proposed, and possible explanations for the differential attainment of the sexes are explored. (26 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

2) A more general review paper that includes a discussion and literature on psychological factors:
Fox, M. F. (1983). "Publication productivity among scientists: A critical review". Social Studies of Science, 13(2), 285-305.
available at
http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/68920/10.1177_030631283013002005.pdf


How to communicate realistic expectations for science faculty research to administration I teach at a small US liberal arts college with no graduate students. There is no support for research, and the teaching load is 4-6 courses per year.

A colleague was recently denied promotion to full professor because he was not "a leader in his field". This requirement is new (and does not appear anywhere in our handbook). I understand that it might be possible for a professor in the arts or humanities to be a leader in their field, and maybe even a social scientist (if the field is sufficiently small).

Are there any references we can point to showing that, in order for a scientist to be a leader in their field, they need graduate students, post-docs, institutional support, lower teaching loads, etc.?

If you disagree with my premise and think we should be able to become leaders in scientific fields given the above constraints, please answer instead how to do that.

UPDATES: Science faculty are expected to provide undergraduate research opportunities, even though those generally take more time than they save. This limits the ability to collaborate with groups at research universities.

The problem is especially severe for faculty in the life sciences.

I'm assuming that, among other things, you want to help the college develop a realistic plan that can be fairly applied in the future.

First, a bit of background. The type of college that you describe, normally has primarily a teaching mission. But expectations of faculty are almost universally threefold: Teaching, Research, and Service. While other colleges provide different weights, small liberal arts colleges mostly reward faculty for teaching, and normally say so explicitly. But the other two can't be ignored. With one exception, everywhere I spent my career had some research component in the expectations, even if it was poorly supported. But "Scholarly Activity" might be closer to the expectation than edge of the known universe research.

Moreover, at different times in a career, an individual might want to put more or less focus on one or the other of these and that should be supported, within reason, by the institution. For example, older faculty might want to focus more on service than the others, taking on administrative duties or duties outside the college proper, such as taking on tasks in professional organizations.

In my view, a "reasonable" faculty evaluation system will leave it to individuals to (a) present a short term (yearly) plan of activities in each area and (b) report on how they fulfilled the previous year's plan. The administration should then have a chance to reflect on this and to make suggestions and adjustments for the coming year's plan, with some consensus required in how it is finalized. Thus, if the institution wants more research, it can insist, each year, that a bit more be done than the individual had suggested in their proposed plan. Thus, the pressure is constant, but not intense on an individual. No one is told in year 15 that they can't be promoted (surprise) because they didn't do any research, though no one previously suggested that they should.

But, another aspect of the above that may not be particularly obvious, is that you can be "a leader in your field" if you get to define (self-define) your field. That means narrowing it, not dumbing it down, though. There are a lot of possibilities.

I think that expecting that a chemistry professor (a lab based science) will suddenly have a major article in Science when working with no inputs from the institution, would be unrealistic. I think lab sciences may be the hardest here as there are hard costs to cover and grants may not be open to small places. But in most other sorts of fields, one can find a niche in which to become well known. Mathematicians, of course, focus on very narrow fields, and there are a lot of these small sub fields. CS, also, has many opportunities, both in theoretical matters, in applications, and in human factors and management aspects. One field that is especially open to people who are primarily teachers is pedagogy. How can we best teach, say, Chemistry in the first year. The existing ways of doing it may be outmoded. But for this to work, the individual has to be able to decide for her/himself what field they will choose to become experts in. It is unlikely to be the overall field: not Chemistry, per se, but Teaching Chemistry in the first year. I've known people who have become, for example, leaders in computing ethics, computing pedagogy, even research opportunities for educators. Small fields, but valuable.

And if your "field" is the teaching of your larger field, then you can become a leader by book publishing or even "pamphlet" publishing if those pamphlets give good teaching support and become well known. Pick some small topic that is difficult to teach and find ways to do it better. Write it up. Publish it, even if on a web-site. Learn to teach in ways that are more effective than the ways that were handed down to you. Find a way to spread the word. You are suddenly "leading" not following.

Some funding is required, of course. Travel to conferences is a prime example. If you want to be known, you need to meet people and have a way to collaborate with them. That collaboration can lead to both research ideas for the professor and for smaller scale research ideas for students. For the sciences, in particular, this need to foster collaboration within the larger field is essential. The web makes a lot possible, but people have to make the contacts first so that they can become part of larger projects. New faculty, in particular, should be encouraged to keep their old contacts active and to develop new ones. If student research is a desirable goal, then you may need ways to let students develop those contacts also, either by funding student travel or by bringing in visitors frequently.

A college can't suddenly expect teaching faculty to acquire grant funding. That normally takes a lot of support from the institution, but it can pay off. Both governmental and private grants can be found, but it may take cultivating. Many small institutions have a few people dedicated to finding grant opportunities, to developing contacts, and to assisting in grant preparation.

The essence, I think is (a) let the faculty member define the niche field, (b) let the individual present a plan, (c) let the administration suggest and even impose small adjustments to the plan and (d) let the faculty member state how they have or haven't fulfilled the plan and why.

If the administration wants to apply pressure, make it incremental but continuous at point (c).

And, of course, faculty are strongly advised to retain all of their plans and reports, including any administration responses.

It is possible to build a system that guarantees failure. This benefits exactly no-one. Secret expectations or suddenly imposed major obligations are often features of such failure inducing systems.


Can I do research at a different college than the one I am attending? I will be general here so as to help others searching for the same question and to conceal my identity.

I am a freshman at a top liberal arts college, and I would like to do chemistry research over the summer. I could pretty easily do research at my own college, but it is very far away from home and I'd like to at least spend my freshman summer closer to my family/friends back home.

Would it be normal to contact professors at local colleges and say that I am interested in doing research over the summer? Is there a normal procedure (if any) in getting research opportunities at a college that I do not attend?
Thanks

There is nothing wrong with asking and nothing wrong with doing what you propose. However, your regular college may not accept any "credit toward graduation" from the other place, and the other college may require some sort of official attendance, even as a part-time student.

Depending on how the professor is funded, this may be easier or harder. If he/she has external funding for the research it is probably easier as they have a bit (at least) more control over how it is carried out. Likewise if the professor is on an "academic year" contract then summer month activities may not be considered part of employment. But you will have to explore locally to know what rules apply.

Your regular college won't have any problems with you doing this unless  you want them to accept credits. Then, rules will apply.