For a postdoctoral/Ph.D. position in Mathematics in Europe, can I make this somewhat irregular request? I am not sure whether this question is suitable for academia, if not it would be great to know the site where I should ask this. I am a finishing Ph.D. student in Mathematics at a decent school in the US, and my postdoctoral job applications so far have gone in vein, although I do have published paper in recognized journal. Also, I had to switch my advisor and subject in the middle of my Ph.D., so I think I would have been better off with more experience in the field I am working on or a related field. That would mean even if I get a postdoc, I would feel a little bit inferior to other postdocs or might seek a little more help from my mentor.

I noticed the postings by some European Universities for postdocs where they mention that they are looking for postdocs and Ph.D. students both. Although I will be applying for postdocs in these universities, I was thinking of having your opinion on the following, somewhat irregular backup plan:

Say University U in Europe has a postdoc position P for salary x for 2 years, and Ph.D. position D for salary y for 4 years, where x>y. If I can get P, great, but if not, can I also talk to and try to come to an agreement with the university (e-mail them with explanation etc.) for a visiting position where I will be learning some more stuffs and will be researching as well, but may be with less salary than P but the same (or little more) salary as/than D? In other words, I feel like I need to gain more knowledge in my area, so if I don't get P, I will be happy with almost the same salary y as D, but will try to bend the rule from 4 years to just 1 year? So it will be like a visiting position with less salary, of less time period, but I will like to be treated like a Ph.D. student (that means less independent research, more learning compared to a postdoc). Will that be a ridiculous thing to try? So, I will be somewhat like an advanced Ph.D. student but not expert like a postdoc and so I am willing to negotiate with the salary, I won't need another Ph.D. since I will have had one(if they give another, fantastic!) Do you know whether it might work or create complications enough so that the hiring committee will be offended? Should I try to send an e-mail explaining this situation and see whether they will negotiate with me on this?

Thank you very much in advance!

In several European countries, for example Germany, Switzerland, or Austria, it will be possible to fill positions in part-time. Whether you then actually work only part-time or not is a different question. In these countries, there is in most cases not a big difference between PhD students and post-docs regarding organizational details of employment, or even salary on a full-time position.

So the way I see your plan possibly working is as follows: A professor has funding to employ someone full-time for 2 years. You could then try to argue that in addition to working on the particular project, you also need time to educate yourself further and get only a half-time position, but stretch that to 4 years. You may want to communicate that it still means that you are working or studying full-time on project-related topics. If the funding is flexible regarding the year when it is spent (which is sometimes, but not always, the case), then I'd guess you have good chances that people are willing to make that deal.

This plan is probably best discussed with the professor offering the position, informally before you apply for the position, or when you go for an interview.


Syllabus change with no warning nor discussion with students worsened grade In one of my courses, our syllabus outlined the course material and its contribution to our total grade. Daily homework constituted 10% of the grade, with other major group assignments constituting the majority of the rest.

Recently, due to time constraints, one of the major assignments was dropped; this resulted in the homework being worth 20% of our grade, rather than 10%. Unfortunately, this had a negative impact on my grade, given that my homework performance has been worse than on projects and other major assignments.

The change was sudden, and there was no discussion of the change with us (the students). As I understand the concept of the syllabus, it is supposed to be a contract between instructors and students, an agreement made about how the course material is outlined and how students will be assessed. We discussed the syllabus on the first day of class and agreed on the "terms and conditions". Thus this seems a bit unfair, as it is the last week of classes before finals and the change suddenly worsened my grade.

Should I bring this up with the professor? And if so, what should I say?

I would let the professor know that you had been deliberately putting more effort into larger assignments with the understanding that the coursework was worth 10%, and point out the pattern in your marks as evidence of this.  You could ask that the 10% of project marks be distributed over the other project marks rather than the coursework marks.  Your professor may be willing to do that as an exception for students that complain.

But I wouldn't go in angry and suggest that a contract has been violated.  There should be a mutual goal between the students and the professor to do the best they can at both education and marking / ranking.  Probably a lot of students were happy to get more credit for work they'd already done.  Spending a lot of time on something that presumably doesn't affect your GPA that much may not be that good of a strategy, or that professional of behaviour.

(How much better were your assignments than your homework?  And then this difference is only on 10% of your mark for one course?)

Of course, if you are near a borderline and this really will make a big difference to you, go talk to your professor honestly about this problem and how the decision disadvantaged you. Do this during their office hours.


Is there any reason not to go up for promotion? I started my first permanent academic position as a Lecturer at at UK university in Autumn 2019. More than one of my senior colleagues seems very eager to get me promoted to a Reader as soon as possible, looking out that I tick the right administrative boxes to make this happen and encouraging me to apply for promotion this month. This seems premature to me as I don't even feel like I know the my way around the university yet, and with Covid I haven't accomplished much in my research since joining the university.
My question is: Are there any reasons not to pursue a promotion? A promotion is a great thing, right? But are there any downsides? E.g. it might make it harder for me to move to a different university in a few years if I want to, or I might get saddled with more administrative responsibilities? Are there any other downsides I haven't thought of?

Not really.  Promotion is primarily about pay (though sometimes the pay increment is small) and recognition of your achievements to those who are not already aware of them.
You are unlikely to get more duties after promotion because you are expected to take on the duties of the higher rank in order to get the promotion.  It's seeking a promotion, not receiving one, that causes you to get more duties.
As you already have a permanent academic position, a change in rank will not make much difference to your mobility; it is already very low.


How do I include a journal article draft in my dissertation? I am writing up my dissertation, and one of the chapters is a final draft of an as-yet unsubmitted journal article.

I know with published works, I just get the copyright from the journal if needed, and can include the reprint as is in my dissertation, but how do I include a draft?
  The version of the draft as it stands now is essentially what is going to be submitted, verbatim. Which means if I defend first, the work is technically published in my dissertation.
  I defend in 3 weeks. I was going to submit right after. Is this doable? We're not even 100% certain which journal we are submitting to.

Thanks for the help!

This is actually how many "sandwich thesis" dissertations are actually structured, my own included. Generally speaking, I've seen them structured like so:

Background, literature review, sections on data sets, and other material that will matter to each and every chapter under consideration, and is likely more detailed than you would find in a paper.
Each "paper chapter" essentially existing in it's free-standing, ready to be published form.
Final chapters putting those free standing chapters in context with each other and your work as a whole, summarizing key findings, etc.

So basically, the short answer is to put it in as a chapter in its current form. I've never seen any journal object to a paper having previously appeared in a dissertation, and keep in mind it may very well change - there will be editorial comments from your committee, reviewer comments, etc. It's essentially just a pre-print.


Why do non-governmental organizations tend to publish non peer-reviewed "grey" literature? Is there any reason why most non-governmental organizations (NGOs) tend to publish non-peer reviewed literature? I have seen some NGO scientists as co-authors, even in some important papers, but most of their production is reports which are not peer-reviewed. While it is true that most NGOs do not do basic research, some of their reports could easily be converted to reviews, and some of their projects to applied research.

Do they want to avoid peer review for political reasons in order to be able to convey the message they want? In my view their message would be much stronger if it came from a peer-reviewed article. Is it also a matter of time as peer-reviewed articles take a long time to get published?

I can think of a couple of reasons:

Peer review is slow. NGOs want their paper to influence policy now, not in one or two years from now.
Peer review journals have a different audience than grey literature. NGOs typically want to communicate with people like policy makers or journalists, and these are less likely to read peer reviewed journals.
Related to point 2: in order to effectively communicate with their intended audience they need a different style of writing and presenting their arguments than what is common and acceptable in peer reviewed journals.


What are the impacts of closing STEM departments? To encourage new answers, I will award the bounty to any new answer. (e.g. answer and you will get the bounty) I understand this question is difficult to tackle and do appreciate all new insights.
According to this UK report:

There were 48 UK institutions offering physics degrees in 2005. This is 31 fewer than there were in 1994.
Since 1996 26 universities have ceased to offer chemistry degrees.
5 [mathematics departments] have closed since 1999.

While the report may be from 2007, this is still a current issue. The Royal Society for Chemistry has reported on a proposal to close the chemistry department at Bangor University. Apparently, Bangor Needs Chem.
Additionally, Bangor University no longer has a mathematics department (source). Also from Bangor University, the Computer Systems Engineering major states:

This degree has been designed especially for candidates without the usual qualifications in Mathematics and Physics to be able to pursue their interest in electronics and computer science to degree level.

Looking specifically at the words "without the usual qualifications in Mathematics," doesn't this speak negatively to the reputation of the college and its graduates?  Is there a benefit (e.g. and in addition to financial) to closing STEM departments?
In summary, what are the effects (both positive and negative) of closing STEM departments? It is preferable if answers draw upon both theory (research studies, government reports, etc.) and practice (historical studies, your original research on past events and effects).
While the examples are from the UK, the question is about the effects of closing STEM departments in general and not specifically in the UK.

I can't give you a 100% answer (your question is kind of too wide) but I will try to give you some ideas:

The UK evaluates all departments of universities and research institutes on a
regular basis by a so-called Research Excellence Framework (REF). A bad REF evaluation might force a university to shut down a department. This is because universities are only allowed to teach a subject if they also do well received research in this field. Similar evaluation evaluations might be in place in other countries.
It might be a financial issue of why a department shuts down. Too few students and too high costs (in STEM there are often not enough good students applying)
"without the usual qualifications in Mathematics" I would not see this necessarily as a negative point. If you allow people with different backgrounds into a degree you might create a cohort of interdisciplinary graduates that might be in demand in industry. (They might not be competitive with e.g. pure math graduates but how many people really work in pure math later?) But it might also be due to the previous point that not enough people apply with a strong enough math background.
One more possible reason is that the university is not able to hire/hold sufficient professors in STEM fields as the pay in industry is usually much better and people with strong technical background might be aggressively recruited away.

Impacts:

It is difficult so say what the impacts are as they are university specific but some degrees will not be offered anymore and/or they get external lecturers for e.g. math courses in non-STEM-degrees.
On a whole population level: Fewer people with STEM degrees means
fewer qualified workers
On the positive side: The university might have free-up resources in
order to persue other fields more intensively - but that is more a
strategic decision.


Is it feasible to take an unsure PhD topic? I was working towards converting to a PhD but was unsure of what research I would do. Suddenly an idea striked my mind and I discussed it with my advisor. He doesn't have much experience in that exact field but has been in the area for around 6 months.

He said that he thinks that idea is feasible but doesn't know what would be the approach, and not sure whether the results would be positive in terms of PhD because there several parallel domains. Moreover, literature doesn't have much details on that exact topic. And my literature survey (pretty limited though) has only enhanced my confusion. Probably because my idea deals with application of a recent class of techniques to optimize a problem.

Is it worth to convert to a PhD with such an idea ?

This is exactly how most of the really great PhD students I've seen have all started.  Working on a problem with unknowns is a process called "research."

Clearly, you are going to have to find some collaborators with more experience in the field than your advisor, but that's part of the process as well.  Hopefully, your advisor can assist with networking / introductions / etc.  The support of your advisor will be critical (as it is for all PhD students).

The trick is to make sure you have a backup plan and a way to convert to it if necessary.  Don't spend three years mucking around if you're not making progress.  But, spending 6 months investigating if there is something there -- that's well worth it.


If the interviewer says "We have other interviews to conduct and then back to you in few days", is it a bad sign to not get the job? I had an academic interview. During the interview, some panel members showed  positive body language. In the end, they asked me for a reference. After that, the main interviewer said that they had some more applicants to interview and would get back to me after a few days. I wonder if that means that they are not interested in me? Is that a bad sign?

It's not a bad sign at all. If they have more interviews arranged, they wouldn't be doing their job if they didn't interview them. They don't just hire the first person suitable for the job. They hire the best person for the job! This may still be you - or it may be the next person to be interviewed.

Be patient, and they should let you know one way or the other!


Opting out pension scheme when you are a postdoc abroad I am soon going to start a postdoc in UK. I observed that, if you do not intentionally opt out, you will be by default  paying a certain amount from your salary towards pension. Of course, paying towards pension scheme is a good thing for your post-retirement age. But for me, I am not sure even if I will stay in UK forever. Postdoc is obviously a temporary job and you never know whether you will settle for ever in your work country, when you are a foriegn citizen. Under such conditions, it seems irrational to spend towards securing a pension in a foreign country. But still, can someone tell me a reason to not opt out the pension scheme? Can opting out pension scheme cost you more tax and lesser take-home salary than opting in? As much as I know, one cannot claim back the money spent towards pension, if one later decides to leave the country and go to other countries for work .

But still, can someone tell me a reason to not opt out the pension scheme?

Because you are likely to get more out of it (at old age) than you pay into it (now) — and even if you don't, it may be safer for you to put away money in a way you cannot (easily) access until you no longer have direct income from work.

Both you and your employer are opting into the pension scheme.  Despite recent threats, it is still a defined benefit scheme.  If you and your employer have paid into the pension scheme for x years, you will get money out of it after you reach the retirement age, regardless of where you live.

Depending on where your next (long term) job is, your (next) pension scheme may have agreements which might allow you to transfer the money paid into your UK pension scheme to your next pension scheme.  Consult a professional.

I have pension savings from temporary (academic) positions in Sweden, Canada, the UK, and Germany.  Once I'm fairly certain to remain in the same country until retirement, I will consult with a professional for advise on whether it is possible and wise to pool them all together into the fund of the country where I will then live.


Is it cheating on lab report homework if a peer points out calculation error that you then fix before submission? I am in a science class in which we have to write lab reports. Lab reports count for a significant part of our grade. I was working on my lab report but before I got to check over my calculations, a peer of mine mentioned the results he got. I realized that my results were different and saw that I had a very dumb calculation error.

I am not sure if this is considered cheating because I am not sure if I would have noticed the mistake had I not heard from my peer (although I did plan on checking over my work).

I was wondering if anyone had any opinions on this situation. I plan on telling my teacher exactly what happened tomorrow before handing in the report, I just feel really bad and guilty now. Any help/advice would be appreciated. Thank you!

I don't think this is cheating at all, unless you specifically asked peers of their results.

The important thing is the understanding of the material. Your peer may well have been wrong in their answer and led you down the wrong path, but the important thing here is that you've double-checked your own work and recognised a mistake.


When are there reasons to cite more or fewer sources? As a young scholar I was paranoid about accusations that I hadn't read the literature, so I tended to cite lots of papers. More recently, I've noticed an  elegance in relying on fewer of them.

Trimming the fat in general results in fewer citations, but is the number of citations in an article itself of any interest? Are there contexts when loads of sources, or few sources, are preferred?

Assuming you want to be helpful to the readers (without regard for pleasing the authors of the cited articles), this depends on whether you are writing a guide to the literature, or merely explaining facts and results.

A guide to the literature should include many sources, while saying something useful on these sources. An explanation of facts and results should include as few sources as necessary for the reader to understand.

Not all articles need to include complete guides to the literature. It is not very useful to write a half-baked guide with many sources but no precise hints of why these sources should be interesting to the reader.


Impact of slide quality on student learning I'm working on improving the contents of a university level introductionary course.

Has there been done any research on the impact of lecture slide quality on student learning?

My assumption is that slides that are well structured, follow a theme, spread content over slides in a thought through manner, etc. will give the students better learning. I feel like this is a safe assumption but I've learned not to trust assumption, can this be backed up or contradicted by research results?

The question at hand is whether or not refactoring old lectures is worthwile, as they stand they are sort of hap-hazard and glued together of slides from various lecturers.

If you're refactoring the course, consider moving away from a mostly lecture-based approach towards more active learning. There is a lot of evidence out there to support the effectiveness of active learning techniques (if used correctly). To paraphrase What Is the Impact of PowerPoint Lectures on Learning? A Brief Review of Research: "PowerPoint or slightly better PowerPoint?" is a less important question than "How can I
adapt my lecture course for active learning?"

Having said that, there is some evidence that slide design based on principles from multimedia learning research can have a positive effect on student learning, compared to slides that violate those principles.

For example, in engineering:

  [We] compared learning
  outcomes in 110 engineering students who viewed a technical presentation in which the slides either integrated or violated
  six multimedia learning principles. The presentation slides that adhered to the six multimedia principles followed the
  assertion-evidence approach, while the presentation slides that violated the six multimedia principles followed commonly
  practiced defaults of PowerPoint. Essay responses from the 110 engineering students revealed superior comprehension and
  fewer misconceptions for the assertion–evidence group as well as lower perceived cognitive load. In addition, stronger
  recall occurred in this assertion–evidence group at delayed post-test. These findings support the use of the assertion–
  evidence structure for presentations in engineering education

Source: Garner, Joanna, and Michael Alley. "How the Design of Presentation Slides Affects Audience Comprehension: A Case for the Assertion–Evidence Approach." International Journal of Engineering Education 29.6 (2013): 1564-1579. (PDF)

Here's another example, from medicine:

  Methods: A pre-test/post-test control group design was used, in which the traditional-learning group received a lecture on shock using traditionally designed slides and the modified-design group received the same lecture using slides modified in accord with Mayer’s principles of multimedia design. Participants included Year 3 medical students at a private, midwestern medical school progressing through their surgery clerkship during the academic year 2009–2010. The medical school divides students into four groups; each group attends the surgery clerkship during one of the four quarters of the academic year. Students in the second and third quarters served as the modified-design group (n = 91) and students in the fourth-quarter clerkship served as the traditional-design group (n = 39).

  Results: Both student cohorts had similar levels of pre-lecture knowledge. Both groups showed significant improvements in retention (p < 0.0001), transfer (p < 0.05) and total scores (p < 0.0001) between the pre- and post-tests. Repeated-measures anova analysis showed statistically significant greater improvements in retention (F = 10.2, p = 0.0016) and total scores (F = 7.13, p = 0.0081) for those students instructed using principles of multimedia design compared with those instructed using the traditional design.

Source: Issa, Nabil, et al. "Applying multimedia design principles enhances learning in medical education." Medical education 45.8 (2011): 818-826. (PDF)

and there were also long-term effects:

  Results:  Findings showed that the modified condition group significantly outscored the traditional condition group on delayed tests of transfer given 1 week (d = 0.83) and 4 weeks (d = 1.17) after instruction, and on delayed tests of retention given 1 week (d = 0.83) and 4 weeks (d = 0.79) after instruction. The modified condition group also significantly outperformed the traditional condition group on immediate tests of retention (d = 1.49) and transfer (d = 0.76).

Source: Issa, Nabil, et al. "Teaching for understanding in medical classrooms using multimedia design principles." Medical education 47.4 (2013): 388-396.

A third example:

  To measure the effect of a multimedia design principle adherent PowerPoint presentation on test item performance, student satisfaction, student confidence in potential exam performance, and classroom dynamics.Two versions of an identical lecture were presented in different formats over subsequent years (2011, 2012, and 2013). One with traditional PowerPoint slides and the other redesigned to comply with multimedia design principles. Student scores on identical exam items were compared and a voluntary student survey was used to evaluate the activity.Students performed statistically better on identical exam items, were very satisfied (mean = 7.4 of 10) with the redesigned PowerPoint format, confident in their potential exam performance, and a majority (66%) wanted to see pictures and narration more often.Students may retain information better when presented in a multimedia design adherent format. Student reaction was positive and indicates that students may prefer this method to traditional PowerPoint slides.

Source: Pate, Adam, and Savannah Posey. "Effects of applying multimedia design principles in PowerPoint lecture redesign." Currents in Pharmacy Teaching and Learning 2.8 (2016): 235-239.


Should recommenders be from the same discipline as the program one's applying to? If I want to go to graduate school to study physics and am a math major, how bad is it to have recommendation letters from math professors, mostly? The problem is that I just have four physics courses and after being picky about professors, I might not end up with all physics professors. Further, math professors know me better.

So, will it hurt if my recommenders are more mathematicians than physicists?

To point out one pitfall in kmdouglass's answer, there is one situation in which getting letters from out-of-discipline people can affect an applicant's chances: if the letter writers do not directly support the candidate's application to the specific discipline. In other words, if you're a mathematician applying to physics programs, your math professors should be explaining why you will be a great physics graduate student, not a great math graduate student. (Or why you will be a great graduate student in any department.) "Dissonance" between the letters of recommendation and where you're applying could make some reviewers question if you're seriously interested in applying to physics departments, which could hurt your chances (albeit perhaps only slightly).


Colleague blames me for not spotting typos when I only reviewed the structure and content I am a graduate student (PhD) in a STEM program.  A fellow lab mate of mine asked me to review a chapter (basically the background/history of their project) of their graduate thesis a couple months ago.  It was during my finals, I had conference papers due, along with the pandemic shutting everything down; it was a crazy time.  I informed this person I was really busy, but I would try. They sent it to me (in PDF format), and I read through it and made some suggestions on content, ideas, and presentation. It was in rough shape; there was a lot of work to be done, but their main concern was if the content made sense and had good logic flow.  I replied with my opinions. This was a favor from me without compensation. The thesis was in English and the lab mate was a native speaker.
Fast forward to now, this person defended their thesis this week and passed.
Yesterday I received a very passive aggressive text message from this person that stated the following (mostly paraphrasing):

The only real critique I had on my thesis was that the chapter I sent you had typos.  I went through this chapter again and found quite a few.  In the future when someone asks you to review a chapter you need to carefully check and find typos because it’s embarrassing to send a final thesis with a chapter filled with typos.  Its disappointing when you rely on someone and they screw you I hope in the future you do a better job.

The rest of the text chain did not go well.
Let me start off by admitting that I am able to see my fault in this.  I could’ve (should’ve) done a more thorough job in editing.  But my question is: Is it really my responsibility to find typos? It’s always been my view that you polish something as much as you can before sending it off to others. They sent it in a PDF which I can’t edit (also no indication of spelling mistakes, and its so easy to gloss over mistakes), and I informed them I was super busy, both excuses, but still a little relevant.  I also was dumbfounded that they didn’t do a single edit after mine.  I feel ultimately it is their graduate thesis and their responsibility for its contents.  I feel I can’t be blamed for this person literally not pressing the spell-check button.
In hindsight I should’ve been more assertive with this person by saying I didn’t have enough time to fully give myself to editing.  This is a lesson I’ve learned.  They are now removing me from their acknowledgements (I couldn’t care less), but what I do care about are the things they are telling other people about me (I screwed them; I’m lazy; etc.).  I replied to their texts expressing my view that the typos are not my fault, and it quickly turned into a blow out where I just ended up apologizing and asking not to discuss it further.
What could I have done better? What should I do now?  Am I justified in my opinions?
PS:  Thank you all for your responses and encouragements.  I was feeling pretty bad about the situation, but I feel a little vindicated now.  I’ve learned a lesson: I will focus on clear communication and setting expectations.

"The only real critique I had on my thesis was that the chapter I sent you had typos. I went through this chapter again and found quite a few. In the future when someone asks you to review a chapter you need to carefully check and find typos because it's embarrassing to send a final thesis with a chapter filled with typos. Its disappointing when you rely on someone and they screw you I hope in the future you do a better job."

This is unfair. What happened was, at best, a miscommunication on their part. They somehow thought you would check thoroughly for typos, which you did not have time to do. Unless you told them "this chapter is perfect and doesn't need more editing", I have trouble imagining why they would assume the chapter was camera-ready.

Let me start off by admitting that I am able to see my fault in this. I could've (should've) done a more thorough job in editing.

I don't see that as a flaw. If anything, perhaps you could have communicated more clearly about what you were able to do, as well as what you did not do (thoroughly check for typos).

I feel ultimately it is their graduate thesis and their responsibility for its contents.

Exactly right, and this is truly the "bottom line" here. No one else is responsible for the content of your thesis but yourself. Getting help does not absolve you of the responsibility to proofread your own document and when you defend, you are supposed take full ownership over what is written.

what I do care about are the things they are telling other people about me (ie I screwed them, I'm lazy, etc).

The word for this is "bullying". This behavior is not acceptable and should not be tolerated by you or anyone else.


What makes an online course a valuable learning experience for a student? I just taught my first course that finished last week and I was asked to teach the same course for next semester. The only difference is that this time I will be teaching the course online.

I have taken online courses before and haven't been super impressed. In my experience the instructor will assign reading to be done within a week and any assignments that will be completed from that week. The instructor doesn't teach in an online environment but more so moderates that way students learn. The student reads the text, does the work. The instructor responds to emails, grades assignments, and moderates discussion boards posted in the online forum for students to collaborate.

This format has the student teach themselves and from personal experiences students who are not familiar with the course material beforehand generally don't do as well.

What are methods to make the online learning experience less informal and more of a learning experience?

If your course delivery platform has things like forums or collaborative writing spaces, you should make use of them to get students interacting with each other.  I don't know what discipline you're in, but you can ask students to comment on the readings online, write responses to each other, that kind of thing.

I was teaching a regular course but was ill for a week, and not wanting to miss that whole week of class, I scheduled a live chat during the time the class would ordinarily meet.  I think we had the best discussion of the semester that day -- students who wouldn't ordinarily speak up in class "spoke" during the online chat.

Also, set boundaries for yourself; otherwise you'll find yourself answering emails at midnight in your bunny slippers.  Tell students if they email you after a certain time, they will get a response the next day.  And think about how you feel about responding on the weekend.

What is your discipline?  We might have more tips, depending on what it is.


Where do I put the Creative Commons license information in a book? We're about to publish a book (conference proceedings) as a PDF online and want to license it under Creative Commons. Before each article, we're giving out information for citing the following article like so:
author, article-title, book-title, publishing-place year, page x–y.

I think it would be best to put the information about the Creative Commons license (in our case CC BY-ND) after this line – what do you think?
Also, I guess it would be a good idea to provide a link to further information about the CC.

This is a good approach. It's helpful to have the license on each "unit" - so if you're putting it up as separate chapters, have a license statement on each chapter. Putting it with the citation is sensible, but make sure it's on a seperate line so it's not seen as part of the citation.

Something like "This chapter is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives license [version]" is good. It should include a link to the license code if possible - otherwise it's not much help if someone doesn't know what the license is!

If the entire book is in a single PDF, or if you have the "front matter" as a seperate PDF, you could put the license + link on the copyright page (reverse of the title page), and it's often common to have a license logo on the (back?) cover as well.


Should my citation graph be acyclic? In a recent question on how to deal with submitting several papers on similar subjects at the same time, one of the (good) practices suggested by the answers is make sure that they cite each other, and that each result appears as original only in one of them.

One may want to put informative references from one to the other; for example:

paper A "An application of this result is in paper B";
paper B: "We apply this result from paper A".

From the point of view of providing all the relevant context to the reader, this might be the most informative thing to do. However, the other use of citations is for computing metrics, and in this respect this practice could be seen as a dishonest way to improve one's citation count, since you get two (self-)citations instead of the one you'd normally get if the two paper were not written simultaneously.

Hence, the question in the title: Is this practice recommendable and/or acceptable? Or should I decide an implicit temporal order for my simultaneous papers, and only cite older ones from newer ones?

If the two papers are already written and submitted at the same time, I don't see why not. You are right about the upsides: making information easier to find for the reader. This is one of the purposes of citations! The only small addition I would make is that you should submit a copy of B along with A (and the other way around), so the reviewers can evaluate the need for this citation (as they do with “regular” citations).

And to end on a practical note: this will probably no inflate your citation count anyway. You submit your two papers at a time, then let's say A is accepted before B. So A is published with a reference to “B: F. Poloni, submitted for publication”, which won't be counted in citation databases. Then when B comes out, it will feature a proper citation to A (either in full, or through DOI if A does not yet have full citation information), and this citation will be included in databases.


How to export and cite Google Ngram Viewer result? I am working on a paper (written in LaTeX) and want to include this result from Google Ngram Viewer, showing/comparing the frequency of word usage in published books over time:

What is the proper way to cite this result? and is there a better way of saving the image than taking a screenshot?

It seems the image itself is generated as an svg (for, I assume, scaled vector graphic?). This would be a convenient way to save it for use in LaTeX.

I suggest you download this python script https://github.com/econpy/google-ngrams

This allows you to download a .csv file containing the data of your search. Then you can plot with your favourite program in your favourite format to be embedded into latex.

Concerning the .svg, it's perfect for latex, especially if you have Inkscape
https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/151232/exporting-from-inkscape-to-latex-via-tikz


How to pronounce SCImago? My mother language is not English and I am not sure how I should pronounce in fron of my students the word "SCImago" for journal & country rank by Scopus at https://www.scimagojr.com.

Just ask SCImage how to pronounce their name. There's a contact email in their About Us page.

In the mean time, just choose whatever pronunciation you like, and tell your students you're not sure what the right pronunciation is.

Myself, I would say it's "sci" like in science + "imago" with a hard g (like in "egg") - and extend the i as though it's doubled. So kind of like "scyimaggo".


I wrote a new paper. Should I reapply for a postdoc at mathjobs? About a month ago, when the deadlines for applying for postdoc positions at math at the US were approaching, I applied for several research universities via mathjobs.

In the time that passed since, I made a new discovery, and am now in the last stages of writing a paper about it.

Obviously, once the paper will be uploaded to the arXiv, my application will be improved.

However, for that to happen, I must update my c.v and my publication list, to include the new paper.

To do this in mathjobs, I will need to "reapply". Given that deadlines passed, will this be a good idea? Can reapplying now with my new c.v and my new publication list harm my application because of deadline issues?

As I understand it, "reapply" is merely a technical term in mathjobs and this should cause no problems.  See, for example, the statement "Update (re-apply) applications as many times as you like, or whenever you have new info to add" in MathJobs Workflow & Features.  I don't know why mathjobs uses the term "reapply," which certainly has the potential to cause confusion.  I can't guarantee that nobody will hold it against you, but I'd be very surprised if anyone did (and I think it would be a big mistake on their part).

Updating your application may not be enough if it has already been read.  I'd recommend also e-mailing key people you would like to work with to let them know about your new paper once it is on the arXiv.  Of course you shouldn't spam large numbers of people, but sending out an announcement is perfectly appropriate if you restrict it to people who would genuinely like to hear about the paper for mathematical reasons, and not just as an advertisement for hiring you.


What do I do if I feel there are many things which need to be learnt to do my research? I am a second year PhD student in probability from the UK. I enjoy what I do, but here is a problem:

as I dig deep into my study, I realize I have to read a lot of stuff I do not fully understand and they often arise in fields of study which are not probability, but related areas: e.g. PDE theory, functional analysis.

I have a basic understandings about some of these things, sometimes I might even feel I have enough to get by, but I am unsatisfied. This is perhaps due to the fact I never studied some of these topics as an undergraduate, but to be fair, no one told me an understanding of PDE theory is very useful to probability (I even think this only depends on what you do)

I do want to know more and previously I tried to attend multiple courses in a term to make up for some of this - this was not effective. Going to 1 or 2 courses a term is fine, but doing any more is a big drain of time if I want to fully understand the material lecture.

So have others experienced this? What is the best way of getting around this?

so have others experienced this?

Basically every smart person feels like that when starting their studies. The majority of the people for which this is not true are usually not the second coming of Terence Tao or Dr. Sheldon Cooper, but simply affected by the Dunning-Kruger Effect. You are not supposed to know everything, and in fact you never will. You already have a head start on your colleagues, who have simply not yet discovered (or wilfully ignore) that they do not fully comprehend many of the seminal papers in your or related fields. You, at least, can work on this in order to produce better research.

  what is the best way of getting around this?

There is no getting around this. To paraphrase the title of your question, many things are to be learned. That's part of doing a PhD. The trick is to learn what you will really need for your research, and to not get lost in the things that are interesting but ultimately not relevant to you. This requires some experience. Hopefully, your advisor or a postdoc will put you on track of what to focus on for now.

As funny as the advice mentioned by @dgraziotin above sounds - in practice, what you really need to develop is a good mental filter to select the 15 or so papers from a 30k papers field that are really relevant to to you.


resumbitted paper proper citation For a CV/ grad school application, is there any benefit to noting that after a paper my group submitted to a peer-reviewed journal it was returned with comments from reviewers and we addressed them and resubmitted?

For example,

[1] A. Author et al., Brilliant Title That Draws Attention, Submitted to J. Phys. B, [arXiv:1908.12345].

versus

[1] A. Author et al., Brilliant Title That Draws Attention, Re-submitted after peer-review to J. Phys. B, [arXiv:1908.12345].

Or something like that?

I think the few different statuses you would typically indicate are:

Submitted: after submission but before you’ve received any indication that it’s being reviewed
Under review: during the entire back and forth of reviews, revisions, rebuttals, etc.
Forthcoming (also called “In press”): once it’s been accepted but hasn’t yet been published.

As for formatting, it probably doesn't matter much as long as all the relevant info is there, but a few options to consider are:

  [1] A. Author et al., Brilliant Title That Draws Attention, J. Phys. B, submitted August, 2019. Under review. [arXiv:1908.12345]

or

  [1] A. Author et al., Brilliant Title That Draws Attention, under review at J. Phys. B, submitted August, 2019. [arXiv:1908.12345]

I'm sure you can find other examples elsewhere (such as this post).


Choosing my name as an author when publishing a scientific paper, can I use my "unofficial" first name? I have one official first name which appears on my ID card. I have another first name which friends call me by. Is it possible to use my unofficial first name and official family name to publish scientific papers? How can I prove to someone that I am one of the authors?

It depends on the field, and in particular on the venue in which you are publishing. It's possible that some journals and conferences might have policies about this, which would of course override anything you read here. But in general: nobody checks (or cares) whether the name you put on a published paper matches your official name. So if you use an informal variant of your name, e.g. if your name is "Stephen" but you publish as "Steve", nobody will bat an eyelid. If you use a nickname or publish under a pseudonym, it would be a little odd if the nickname is something that sounds very informal, but still, it probably won't cause problems.

What people do care about is building a record of your work, and putting a face to the name if they know your face. So you should (1) be consistent with the name you use to publish, and (2) make sure other people in the field know that it refers to you.


Is it legal to have a collection of interesting articles printed for personal use, in the form of a book? Every once in a while I come across an article whose quality stands out exceptionally in my field of research. While I don't always have the time to read the full paper (usually tens of pages long), I "mark" it so that I may read it later or refer to it in a future article if needed. Unfortunately my attempts at marking articles have always had several shortcomings:

Bookmarking it: after a while I will forget what I bookmarked, what the title of the article was, the author, and so forth,
Saving it on disk: I never recall I had them in the first place,
Printing it out: tedious, and after a while I am left with hundreds of pages of documents lying around in an unordered fashion.

So I was thinking of collecting my "favorite" articles into a single collection, then having them printed in the form of a book, strictly for personal use of course. Then whenever I am writing on a specific subject, I take the book down from the shelf that corresponds most to my research and have everything nicely laid out in a single place.

Now obviously, this raises all sorts of red flags about printing a large number of people's work, collecting them in a single place, having it bound in a book, ... So I am not sure what I am allowed and not allowed to do in such a context. Legally speaking, can I do this without fear of a backlash?

I don't see how printing a paper for one's personal use could be legal, but printing 2 or 10 and binding them together would be illegal. As long as it is actually strictly for your personal use, if printing a paper for your personal use is legal where you live, then certainly binding them together is.

But I would advise against actually binding them. Let's say you do, then the next day you find a new paper on the same topic. You will want to kick yourself, because you will not be able to add it to the collection. I think that most people have bunches of physical folders, with papers consisting of stapled (or otherwise kept together) stacks of papers, but separate papers not being bound to one another.


What's the proper response after receiving an email from an unfamiliar sender accusing an academic of my discipline of misconduct with evidence? I have recently received an email from an unknown source where an academic (who I don't know) is accused (backed by some evidence which I haven't examined in detail) of misconduct, particularly academic plagiarism.
Since the academic is not from my university I am not sure what to make of it.
What's the proper course of action in this case?

There is no action needed or appropriate on your part unless you are part of some official investigation.
You might want to be wary of both parties in the future, however. Especially the email sender. Accusing others with such mail is a form of defamation.


Should I send a thank you note to the reply of a potential PhD adviser? I am considering applying for PhD degree. Regarding this I contact many professors to see if they are accepting new students or if I am a good fit for their research group. The responses will be different.

For some of them, if lucky, they tell you the instruction, e.g. send your CV, contact me for the research you have done etc. However, you may receive a general email which most of the times means he/she is not interested in your CV. They write a general description of the application process or maybe a rejection to your request.

What should I reply back to these kind of responses from professors?

I would say, write a very brief e-mail in response saying something along the lines of "Understood, thank you very much." It's probably unnecessary, but it takes fifteen seconds to write and five to read and delete.

In particular -- a thank you note has essentially no possibility of annoying the professor, at least if it is not also accompanied by some sort of request. I would say -- if you are contemplating writing a brief thank you, then you may as well do so.


Two conflicting reports on a Combinatorics paper (Originally asked on MathOverflow)
I'm a PhD student in Mathematics. Last year I submitted a short paper in enumerative combinatorics (which is far from the subject of my thesis) to one of the top combinatorics journals, which sought two referee reports on my paper.
One of these reports was exhaustive, went into the complete details of the then somewhat poorly written paper, suggested a lot of changes and asked for illustrative examples that were missing then, and said very positive things such as "the paper deserves to be widely read", "the method is very ingenuous and should be influential", "the revisions though tedious are well worth the effort for the many readers the paper deserves".
However the second referee thought the paper was only "somewhat interesting" and said there was a lack of examples and explicit constructions, and the totally new theorems lacked sufficient appeal on their own to get published in this journal, although the purpose was to give new and hopefully interesting proofs to old results as well. It didn't seem like the second referee read beyond the introduction, which would be fine with me if this was the only feedback, and I would have immediately tried a new journal.
The editor requested me to make all the exhaustive changes that the first referee asked for. I took a while to do this, with several explicit examples added that also partly addressed the second referee's concerns, and resubmitted. However now the second referee had more general negative comments and opinions about the purpose of the paper, whereas the first referee suggested acceptance. The editor rejected the paper.
Now I again rewrote the article to address some of the further concerns of the second referee, and in my humble opinion the article remains just as interesting as I thought it was in the beginning.
Would it be pertinent to contact the same journal again, with these few further changes, or would it be proper to submit to a new journal of similar stature and request the editor to contact the old referee who substantially read the paper and eventually recommended acceptance?
Looking at a few other questions, it seems it is usually standard practice for referees in mathematics journals to consent to having the referee reports transferred, but would it be considered improper for an author to suggest contacting the old referee, not knowing if the old referee consented in a form to having his report transferred?

I'm not sure you can get a definitive answer here, but my suggestion would be to let the paper stand on its own and just submit it to a different journal without further comment.
I don't see anything wrong with making a suggestion to an editor, but suspect that it is likely to be rejected. If you give them full context then I think it is even more likely to be rejected.
Of course, a new journal might happen to use the same referees as the pool of experts in a small domain may be limited.
But, in general, let the paper speak for itself. It may be that the negative reviewer is the one with a more complete context in which to judge whether your paper is interesting (enough) or not.
And, yes, this is just an opinion and a personal view.


How to submit an abstract? I wrote a paper that I wish to propose to a certain CS conference. Two of the deadlines mentioned on the Important Dates page on the conference's website are: Abstract submission and Paper submission.

My paper already has an abstract section.

I know what a paper is supposed to look like, but what is an abstract, as a separate entity, supposed to look like? Do I simply copy the abstract from my paper? Is it supposed to be submitted as a pdf document? Do I need to add a title? My name?

Could someone please post a link to an example abstract document that is adequate to be submitted to an abstract submission deadline for a conference?

Answer 1: Go to the paper submission web site and click on "submit abstract"; you will be redirected to a web form where you can enter title, authors, and abstract. It will tell you the preferred format for each of these.

Answer 2:
Conference organizers split the abstract submission and paper submission deadlines so that program committee members can already select the papers they want to review while the authors may still be working on the paper itself. Typically, the PC members see the titles and abstracts in some conference organization system such as EasyChair where they can bid on the submissions. The most convenient format for this purpose is typically plain text. In fact, I don't remember any conference that asked for something else. Some very restricted form of HTML might also be possible, but PDF is extremely unlikely.


Which edition/version should I use for citations with page numbers How do I cite a very old and well-known book which has multiple editions and reprints, various editors, facsimile reprints, and a recent paperback version, plus it's even available free online, again at more than one site. The text I want to cite is common to all of them so that's not an issue but I'd like to be able to give page numbers in the standard way. I don't know which edition to cite. The actual copy I've been using is a hardback 1970s reprint of a 1900s edition from the university library but it's not necessarily easy for others to find.

Things can occasionally get tricky, but most situations are handled by these guidelines:

Cite what you've seen.  If you have one edition, don't assume that another has the same numbering (for pages, chapters, sections, equations, or whatever) without checking.  It's always better to cite an out of date edition correctly than to risk giving an incorrect reference to another edition.
If you've seen several editions, try to cite the one that will be most useful to readers.  Recent editions are generally preferable, both because they are easier to find and because they may be more up to date in other ways.  (But if a book is out of copyright and reprinted by many publishers, then recency may not be salient.)  If you know that a recent edition is not useful (for example, because material was cut), then you should say so.  Translations may be preferable for readers who do not speak the original language.
If you can't tell which edition would be most useful, then the decision probably doesn't really matter.  The most recent edition is generally a safe choice, if you can get your hands on it to check the reference.
More detailed references can help disambiguate.  A quick numerical reference is efficient, but it becomes near useless if the numbering has changed, while adding more context can make it easier to figure out where it might have moved in another edition.


Do you include your thesis on a "publication list"? I am currently on the job market in an academic field (mathematics). Several of the jobs I am applying to ask for a "publication list," distinct from the CV. My CV of course lists publications, and lists my PhD thesis separately, in the "education" section, under my degree. (Per this question: Can dissertation be included in publication part in CV)

Is a separate "publication list" also supposed to include the thesis?

I don't think there's a clear universal definition of what should go on a "publication list".  It's possible they only want peer-reviewed research publications, it's possible they want other works as well.

So the best approach, in my opinion, is to create a publication list with multiple sections.  Have one section for "traditional" peer-reviewed research publications, and one or more additional sections for other works of yours that have been made publicly available (hence "publications" according to some definitions) but not in typical peer-reviewed venues.  You might lump these all together under "other works", or if appropriate for your body of work, you could have sections like "dissertation", "posters", "preprints", "popular articles", "lecture notes", "technical reports", etc.

You can do the same on your CV.


Undergrad overwhelmed by a graduate math class I'm an undergraduate studying math and I'm taking a graduate math class for the first time this semester. I've taken the undergraduate prerequisites, but it's still very challenging, which I was expecting.

I'm starting to get overwhelmed by the content and the pace of the course. The professor is not only very famous in the field but also tends to brush off most things as 'basic' during lectures and doesn't seem to like to answer students' questions in detail. I find it intimidating to approach the professor or go to office hours because I feel like I don't even know the basics. I'm the only undergraduate in the class, but it seems like other graduate students are also finding the content quite intense.

I also don't have anyone to work with, and I find it very difficult to just randomly approach people in the class, not only because I'm introverted but mostly because I feel very embarrassed of my lack of understanding. I'm really interested in the subject and I want to give it my best. It's hard to tackle the problem set even after consulting multiple books, and I feel more discouraged and unsure of myself. I'd appreciate some advice from people with more experience.

Mathematician here: We've all been in a similar situation when transitioning from undergrad to grad classes. You write that you are "embarrassed" due to your lack of understanding; don't worry, others probably are having issues also. But if you do think you aren't getting basics, then it is more, not less important that you talk to your fellow students and the professor.

However, the main thing you should realize is that this is a pretty regular experience. What matters is how you react to it; don't get demoralized but put the effort in. And don't hesitate to ask questions, even in class; your fellow students are likely confused about some of the same things you are.


How can a I check plagiarism free of cost before submitting my research paper? My graduate school doesn't offer TurnIt facility.
All tools available online charge money.
How can a I check plagiarism free of cost before submitting my research paper ?

Ask yourself a simple question: Did you plagiarise?
Assuming the answer is no, there's no need to check whether you plagiarised.


Difference between experiential learning and hands-on learning I have just started doing some research regarding different ways of teaching and learning.

I would like to know whether experiential learning and hands-on learning are same or there are some differences between them.

Experiential learning involves metacognative aspects of learning such as the concept of transfer which is the ability to take skills from one setting and use them in another. Often experiential learning includes hands on learning.

Hands on learning usually lacks the metacognitive characteristics of experiential learning. For example project for the sake of a project without a deeper application. Generally these two terms are used interchangeable when this should be avoided.


Changing current supervisor I am a first year graduate student in Physics at a US university. I am on a TAship as usual. For the summer 2016, I have just working for a professor. But I have not liked the project at all and the group environment as well. So I have decided NOT to continue working for the professor. Should I inform it to the professor as soon as possible or, should I wait until the summer ends? And also I would like to know how I should say that and whether there are any 'side-effects' of that or not.

You should check your department's policy to see if it requires you to find a replacement research supervisor in a certain time frame or following a certain procedure.  Then you should inform the professor.

Your success as a graduate student will depend on starting your doctoral research as quickly as possible (assuming you are not a masters student).  If you are going to change your plans, the sooner you do it, the less harm is done to your own success and that of your department.


How does your institution credit a department's support of, and participation in, interdisciplinary programs? In these lean economic times, traditional majors are in danger of being cut if they cannot keep up their numbers (at least in many small liberal arts colleges). Simultaneously, interdisciplinary programs and majors requiring the substantial support of traditional disciplines may be a way to diversify an institution's student base.

Assuming that departments are generally not healthiest as purely "service departments", it behooves us to find ways to support the traditional majors while encouraging vigorous participation in the development of interdisciplinary programs.

My question is this:

  How does your institution handle the "major count" problem for departments contributing substantially to interdisciplinary programs and yet want to retain their traditional major? A bit more specifically, if major X is interdisciplinary, but requires substantial contribution from several upper-level (content near the level of major) courses from traditional department Y, at your institution how is Y credited its support of X in a way that preserves the major of department Y? I am interested in specific policies regarding everything from faculty load to administrative assessment of the health of a department.

Broadly, I am asking about administrative resource allocation policies that maximize diversity in the sense of preserving the identities of traditional disciplines while encouraging truly interdisciplinary efforts.

Apologies if this question is rough. I am certainly willing to sharpen it, if needed.

Though this is not a full answer I did find one case documented in this paper[1] that may be of interest and that (I think) is worth quoting at length. It discusses the implementation of a 'Medical Biology' major at the University of South Dakota, which seems to essentially be a pre-Med degree. From what I gather, both the biology department as well as the medical school are actively involved in the major.

With regard to funding, the authors write:

  One other concern expressed regarding enrollments was that under the new RCM funding model adopted by the University, budget income from offered courses is distributed mainly to the college or school whose faculty members are teaching the course (100% if the major is in the same college or school), with a lesser amount (20%) being distributed to the college or school in which the major is housed, if that is different than the college or school offering the course. In the case of the Medical Biology major, which is housed in the Department of Biology, an increase in the number of required and elective courses offered by Medical School faculty members relative to a typical Biology major means that the College of Arts and Sciences receives less income from a Medical Biology major than from a typical Biology major. This concern was ameliorated somewhat by projections that the Medical Biology major would increase the overall number of majors in the Department of Biology, which it has, in fact, accomplished (see above), although administrative discussions about the most equitable distribution of funds from these courses is ongoing. (73)

The RCM model referenced is one in "which individual schools and colleges receive income based on student enrollments in their courses and must pay for other services provided by the university (mostly traditional administrative support centers)" (67).

So, in short, it does not seem that USD has found an extraordinarily innovative way to simultaneously support the two majors. However, the already-high demand for biology lessens the severity of this problem.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find any other papers that documented other cases of interdisciplinary major development.

[1] Goodman, Koster, Swanson. "The development and implementation of a new medical biology major including physiology," Advances in Physiology Education 39 (2015).


What do professors really want in a PhD student in Europe? Background:
I have done my masters in computer science/artificial intelligence. I want to do my PhD related to data science, applied machine learning. I do not have degree from world's top ranked universities nor I have top quality research publications. I have had some domestic issues since my completion of degree education so I have not been able to fully focus on my career.
Nevertheless, I am very much willing to learn and upgrade myself is to meet the research labs requirement. With curious mind and life-long learning attitude, I have been doing various online courses (after my work hours)and have worked on different tutorial projects related to data science and machine learning i.e. from text mining, image processing, process mining, genomic data science to blockchain development.

More background
Since, I want to become a really good researcher and for that Phd is the first step. After my masters, (more than 2 years) I had time to reflect and I take notes about what I am going to do during my PhD. I am going to be a dedicated Phd student where I can work hard, learn, collaborate and produce good quality research publications and build a strong research profile. I am very much willing to learn whatever it takes to complete my Phd project.
With my qualifications and the skills, I have been applying for PhD positions whose qualification and skills are very much in match with mine. I apply only after I feel confident that I shall be able to handle such project. However, after applying for more than a year, I have not even got reply from most. I have been interviewed 3 times and I have been told that they have found better candidate for the position. One Prof. wrote that he liked my profile and wants to interview but after interview he told me he got better candidate for the position. After one week, I noticed same phd position being advertised again :(. I was interviewed again lately by the same professor, but rejected again. No clue what they really want from a PhD candidate.

My Question(s)

I am really confused about what professor look in a phd candidate? If its the skills and qualification or is it the certain level of interest and passion to go for research degree. I believe, I have both.

What should I do now? Keep looking for PhD positions? Or improve myself (in I do not know what way).

I have been keeping up with my interest for research career even through the tough times. I have applied to more than 50 positions. The only prof. who found my profile interesting rejected me twice in interview. I do not want to give up but do you think I should give up and rather look for other career.

Thank you for your attention and precious time.
Your feedback is highly appreciated.

Every advisor is different and each wants something different in students they advise. At one extreme is a person with a well established, ongoing, probably funded, large scale project who needs students to do a lot of the research work, leading, one hopes to a lot of papers and doctorates for the students. Their needs are very specific. If you have the skills they need and they judge that you will probably work hard enough (pretty hard) you may find a place in their lab. Unfortunately, the advisor is also likely well known and prominent and so the competition to join the lab can be fierce. If you get in, the work will also be very intense. However, if you can handle it, you will probably wind up at the end with a good, if very intense career for yourself.

At the other extreme is someone like myself who only ever had a few students and only one or two at a time. I didn't need help on the kinds of research I was doing, other than from colleagues elsewhere, so all I really required in a student was interests similar to mine and the drive to complete the degree with only my advice on their plan and progress. I wanted people with similar interests so that I would be able to give them good advice and so that it wouldn't be impossible for me to judge their progress and completion.

Anything in between these two extremes is possible. My own doctoral advisor was more like myself than the hard-driven lab master, but he was full of ideas and ran a weekly seminar attended by a few students and also a few other faculty members. He was admired by students and faculty, though he was a bit aloof and very professional. If a student could get over the fear of meeting him, he probably had a problem or two for you to work on and if it went nowhere was able to help you change direction. This seems to me to be the ideal.

I had an earlier advisor who wasn't nearly as helpful. Part of that was that he was untenured and so spent most of his time on his own research and publications and wasn't able (or skilled enough) to give me much help and direction.

My advice would be to avoid advisors who are too busy to really advise, either because they have that extremely high powered lab or because they are too new to academia to know what and how to properly guide a student.  Of course, if the high powered option appeals to you, then the superstar prof with the giga-lab may be what you want and need.

If you arrive for graduate study without already having an advisor, possible in some places but not others, I suggest that you look and ask around for suggestions about who does a good job with students in your field and who does things that interest you. Choosing a compatible advisor may be the most important thing you do as a beginning grad student.

I should note, I guess, that in some fields you don't really have an option. If you require the Large Hadron Collider for your work, then giga is probably your only option.


Chemical catalogue index I am writing a report for a paper using APA format. which used specific antibodies and other chemicals in the process of obtaining tissue samples and am confused as to where I should include the catalogue number, company, and company location of the chemical.

Should I include this in my references or as a separate appendix?

Is there a rule of standard for including something like this?

Note: I am using LaTeX's APA6 package for the paper.

Depends on the journal and their layouts. Most will have a "Materials and methods" parts, this is where you write down which instruments and chemicals were used. At least in chemistry there are no common rules about how in detail this should be. You will read something like this very commonly:

  All commercially available analytical grade chemical reagents were purchased from Aldrich (St. Louis, MO) and used without further purification.

But you can include more information here, like CAS number, catalogue number and so on.

Sometimes this section isn't present in the paper itself and you might include it in the supplementary information.

In the end it's important to include all the relevant data in a useful way and it doesn't really matter how you do it.


Are engineering PhDs more relevant to industry careers than science PhDs? So I am considering pursuing a PhD in robotics (or a related field) after spending a year in the industry. I want to make an informed decision about my career path and be reasonable about things. The thing is, frequently when presented with a potential reason for why graduate education is a bad idea, I seem to dismiss it thinking: "but engineering is different!.."

In particular, people saying that there is no point in going for a PhD, unless one wants to pursue a career in academia, seem to strike me as not relevant to the engineering disciplines. In the end there is plenty of technical R&D going on around, and even my medium-sized company employs their fair share of wise folk whose only job is to come up with ideas and research into them to see if anything interesting comes out.

Somehow, in my mind, engineering PhD's are applicable, employable, can quit it half-way to return back to industry with no harm to their CV, etc. etc. (not to mention there's always funding for them!).

I do acknowledge that there exist some pretty theoretical or not-applicable technical fields out there, but they don't really come into my calculation as my interests lay elsewhere.

Where is the flaw in my thinking? Where am I most likely to get burned with my expectations?

I have a PhD in Aerospace Engineering and work at a university, but I'm not really on a traditional academic track. So non-academic jobs are possible for PhDs with engineering degree. I work for UT Austin's computing center, and while I publish some, it's not my primary focus nor do I teach often. There are jobs at large centers of knowledge production and problem solving for engineers and technical non-engineers alike!

Also, everyone who quits a PhD program probably takes a small knock to their CV or resume. Physicists and chemists who don't complete a PhD also have lots of options for employment, but there's a risk that they will also have trouble finding a job because they may be seen as unable to complete a hard task by sticking to the work. I think you are being to glib or flip when you assume that you can bail out of an engineering PhD program and land softly immediately after in an industry job. Maybe, maybe not.

Also the idea that PhDs employed by industry are the wise men(!!!) who come up with the ideas is both quite sexist and shows that you have some thinking about the world still to do. Non-PhDs and non-men often come up with good ideas and solve research problems in industry and academia both.

You are likely to get burned because your thinking doesn't really reflect the world. Men and women both, engineers and scientists both, can all solve hard research problems inside and outside academia both.


Number of Funded PhD Positions available to applicants How can one find out how many funded PhD openings there are at a particular university in a particular discipline?

For example, MIT might have openings for 2,000 PhD students in all disciplines.  1,000 of these positions might be in the field of engineering.  But only 5 of positions might involve bioengineering.  And of these 5 positions, 4 might already be filled by PhD candidates in their second year of study; meaning only 1 position is available to applicants.

Any suggestions will be appreciated.

At US universities, it typically doesn't work that way.

The department usually doesn't think of having specific PhD positions that have to be filled.  Rather, admissions is done on a department-wide basis. Each year, the department sets a target for how many new students they want to admit, based on available resources.  Let's say for example that this number is 20.

Now, most applicants are applying to many different programs, so not every accepted applicant will actually come to study in this department.  Thus, if they want about 20 new students, they will offer admission (with or without funding) to some larger number, perhaps 40 or 45 (assuming there are at least that many qualified applicants).  This number would be chosen based on past experience as to what fraction of accepted students choose to attend, and can be varied if they have applicants whose applications suggest that they would be particularly likely or unlikely to attend.  A few additional applicants might be placed on a waiting list.

But it's entirely possible that the number of students who actually choose to attend is larger or smaller than 20.  If it's smaller, they could try to admit some more people from the waiting list, but that still may not bring them up to 20.  That's okay; they will just have a smaller cohort that year, and probably try to use a larger target number next year.  If more than 20 accept the offer of admission, then the department just has to come up with the funds to support them, and use a smaller target next year.

Also, seats aren't necessarily restricted by research area.  In mathematics departments, for instance, departments won't typically break down their targets as "we want 5 students in algebra, and 3 in number theory, ...".  They'll just admit 40 good students and let them sort out their areas of study after they arrive.

So the number you are looking for may not exist.


Dealing with consulting agreements where NDA conflicts with research interests I am a computer science doctoral student working on machine learning (ML) research. Meanwhile, a startup approached me to consult/advise them in areas related  to algorithms in ML. Needless to say a lot of work that I do as part of my research encompasses ML deeply.  They want me to sign a mutual non disclosure  agreement (NDA)/ non compete clause before i engage as an independent  consultant with them, while pursuing my program full-time. In this context, they know well that I will be pursuing my program for at least the next 3 years.

I have a few problems here.

The confidentiality information covers:

  ...techniques, know-how, processes, algorithms... related to current and future proposed products and services... and includes, without limitation, their respective information concerning research, experimental work, development, design details and specifications, engineering..."

I am worried about this part mostly. Most ML research uses some form of classification or clustering in various domains. Every other startup is mining some patterns that they may use to their advantage. The methods used are generally known in the ML community and published in existing literature. Can a startup claim that an "algorithm" (which already exists in the literature) was used by me in some form at a later point of time for work unrelated to that domain? Additionally, I intend to use or publish research methods developed as part of my doctoral research during its course or in future. Does "without limitation ...respective information concerning research, experimental work, development" restrict me from doing this i.e can the organization restrict me from publishing work done in my doctoral program by claiming that I was also working with them during this period, so they have a right to what i publish during this time?
Regarding confidential information:

  "...if orally disclosed, designated as confidential at the time of disclosure and marked in writing as “confidential”."

Does this mean that anything said orally related to ML is considered confidential?
Non-Compete clause:

  "...with a direct competitor of Company while engaged with Company and for thirty-six months following the termination or completion of this engagement..."

As an ML researcher, I will be working on ML in the future years to come. Asking me to stop working in ML for 36 months is equivalent to asking "don't work for 3 years". Additionally, the startup does work which is similar to the kind of work a lot of analytics/data science related firms do. Most of ML research broadly falls into pattern mining in some form which almost all organizations engage in. In this context, does 36 months not seem a bit unreasonable?
What exactly can i get them to write in the NDA which informs that they are aware of my research position and do not expect IP for my academic research?

You are dealing with a legal document, and you are asking questions about legal language. The only way to get answers to your questions is to consult a legal expert. Any advice you receive here will necessarily be inferior to that dispensed by the legal expert.

Having said that, you're asking good questions, and during the negotiation part of the discussion you can and should discuss your concerns with a legal expert and with the company representatives. Negotiations are a normal part of any contract discussion. The document you have was written by their lawyers to provide his client—the company—with maximum legal protection, in their best interests. The job of your lawyer is to provide yourself with the same protection, in your best interests.

If you are concerned about the cost of hiring a lawyer, do the math; the total amount you expect to receive from the consulting should be significantly more than the cost of the lawyer, and the potential cost to you of not hiring a lawyer may be pretty large.

Regarding finding one, speak with the faculty in your department; chances are at least one of them has consulted in the past and can provide you with both advice and hopefully the name of a qualified lawyer.


What author affiliation to put when you work for one university and study at another? I am an author on a poster, but I am unsure of what to put for my affiliation. I am a graduate  student, but the poster and corresponding project is in no way connected with my university. I work for another university and the project relates to materials from that university, however they are not sponsoring the project. Any suggestions?

Traditionally, affiliation address must be where the research has been conducted therein (this is the statement given by some scholarly journals in Guide for Authors).

Professors normally use their official affiliation for any publication/presentation even if their university has not supported that research. Probably, because their secured salaries let them to work on an external project. This is different for graduate students, but still can be applied.

In any case, nothing stops you for using both affiliations in your poster. Normally, a graduate student is gaining credit from his/her affiliation. Then, two affiliations can be indicative of your research potential, as you have not stuck to your academic project.


What is Wise to Study For a Successful Career Outside of Academia? Next year I will be starting an MS program in the Computer Science department (I have come from a grad-prep program). I have "learned" C++, C, Java, assembly, CS math, and OS.

When I enter this program, I need to pick a track. My problem is I do not know what to choose yet.

I am sure this will remedy over time, but I wanted to get others' opinions.

I have heard databases and cyber-security make the most money. As far as job availability, I have heard that there are a lot of jobs in web development (using things such as Javascript, Node JS, etc).

What do you believe is a wise area to focus on during the next 1-3 years?

I think this is an ongoing question for any stage of your career. Trends change a lot so you need to have a diverse set of tools available, while focusing on a few technologies so as not to spread yourself too thin.

First of all, it is probably not the best idea to choose according to what makes the most money. Highly paid jobs are more scarce and so the competition will be tougher. You cannot ensure you will have a high salary just by learning specific technologies.

On the other hand, you are more likely to become an expert in a field you enjoy working in and have an intuition for. So I would say try a few different things and see what you are best at. See what interests you. Obviously you can narrow this down by combining your current interests with the current trends, but try not to be limited by projected salaries; these are both highly changeable and misleading, and are used mainly in sales pitches for programming courses.


Should I follow-up about poorly answered questions in an interview? I had an interview today (my first one) for a teaching stream position at a college, and I'm unhappy with a couple of my answers.

Should I just consider the matter closed and send a follow-up email to the committee thanking them for their time? or is it appropriate to include a few remarks and/or clarifications about the questions that I wish I answered differently?

Appreciating any advice.  Thanks!

My advice is to take a deep breath, what happened in the interview room is now a closed book. While I am sure that we would all like to sometimes be able to change the past. The past is a sealed land.

I suspect that as it was your first interview that you messed up royally in some way, do not be disheartened. Learn from what happened, chalk it up as experience.

I am an associate prof, I went through a lot of attempts to get my first academic post. Each time I failed in an interview room I failed less bad than the last time. I would use your interview failure as a chance to try to identify any training needs you have.

If you act in a sensible way on these then you can make yourself into a better academic.


Reference a web page by author and year: which date to use in citation; publication date or revision date? I came to a web page where it says beneath:

  Updated 3 September 2011 (first published August 2002)

When I cite this should the year be 2002 or 2011?

I searched for your question and found these content which may help you. I found that, in citation of web pages or online resources, it is better (not a must) to cite with the updated date and the date when the reader has accessed the online content.

In this web pages about APA, Chigago and CSE styles, under the update date it is written:

  This date is when the page was last changed. The last update date of a
  web page is usually given at the bottom or top of a page.  A posting
  date may also be given on the page one level higher (such as a page
  that is an index of articles).

Also, as a recommendation I read the following content on this webpage:

  Date of publication or date of last revision

  The date a Web document was created or last updated is frequently listed at the bottom.
  If a document includes both a date of creation and a date it was last updated, use only the latter.

It seems that as there is no general rule about the date included in online resources, the writer preferred the revised date.

However, I also checked the following book

The Chicago Manual of Style, sixteenth edition; essential guide for writers, editors and publishers; ebook, The University of Chicago press,
2010.

and in this section on the 1700th page of the PDF file,

14: DOCUMENTATIONI: NOTES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY Chapter Contents >>
    Source Citations: An Overview >>  Considerations for Electronic Sources

the following guide is presented; as we see in the index of the document, this guide applies to websites and web pages:

  14.8 "LAST MODIFIED" AND OTHER REVISION DATES

  Some electronic documents will include a date on each page or screen indicating the last time the document was modified or revised. There are no accepted standards for this practice, and for formally published material the date of publication is generally more important. A revision date should be included, however, if it is presented as the de facto date of publication or is otherwise the only available date. Such dates may be particularly useful for citing wikis and other continuously updated works.

On the contrary it seems that in the APA style, the preferred date is the update date rather than the publication date in the previous quoted text. In the apastyle website under a blog content about The Generic Reference: When? we read:

  Online Documents

  Online material can be tricky to date properly. If the date is not
  apparent at the beginning of the document you’re citing, look at the
  end (e.g., APA Guidelines for Providers of Psychological Services to Ethnic, Linguistic, and Culturally Diverse Populations was finalized
  in 1990, so that’s the date to use).

  But look out for a footer that says, “This page was last modified on
  [date].” This is not the date to use! It could be the date that the
  document was published, but it’s more likely to be the date it was put
  online or the date when the webmaster added code for a dancing Freud
  to the page.

  Some sites place a copyright date for the website at the bottom of
  every page. Check a few pages on the site; if the identical statement
  appears on every page, it’s a site-wide footer, so that’s not the date
  you’re looking for either. (See "Zip, Zero, Zilch," below, for the
  best solution.)

As a conclusion; I found that if you want to cite an online content, pay attention into two dates; the date when you visited the online content and the date the content is created. If you have the date when the content is edited and updated, use this newer date. However, I recommend you to read the instructions of the style which you are using, they may have specific recommendations and guides on this issue. Also, be aware, it happens sometimes that the online content is written on an older date when the website update date is globally mentioned in the footer of the website's pages, you should use the date the page you are referring to is created or edited, not the date all the website is updated.


What is the rationale for not allowing auditing students to participate in class discussions? I have been considering returning to university to continue my education and further my knowledge. I have a strong interest in finance, but before I dive in to a second degree/diploma at this stage in life, I want to take one or two courses to see if I can get back in to real coursework.

Having been out of university for many years, my initial thought was to take one or more courses through continuing education as a place to start. I remembered that you can audit courses (typically at half the cost of registering in a course directly). I was reading through the Audit Regulations and I was surprised to see that participation in classroom discussion is not allowed.

  The auditing student shall not participate in class discussions, assignments, examinations or in laboratory or like parts of the course.

I understand that that as you are not registered in the course, you would not be able to participate in exams for credit and/or receive graded assignment etc... however the inability to participate in class discussion was a little disappointing.

Based on the Business classes I took while in university, the classroom discussions are the core of most courses. What is the rationale for not allowing auditing students to participate in class discussions?

Note: This answer is mainly for institutions where auditors only pay a nominal fee.

From the institution's perspective, auditors are freeloaders. The nominal payment (if they pay anything at all) is trivial compared to the tuition income from paying students. They would like to make their internal cost of hosting auditors as low as possible.

If auditors were (as part of university policy) required to hand in assignments or participate in discussion, then professors could argue that they need more resources.

  For example, if a professor gets an additional teaching assistant (TA) for each additional 20 students, and there was a class with 155
  paying and 10 auditors, they could put in a request for 9 TAs rather
  than 8. The department class enrollment would also increase by 10
  which might mean more resources to the department, depending on the
  university allocation policy.

So the usual university policy is that auditors are ghosts or non-persons -- they do not count for teaching enrollments or resources. In order to argue this, the administration has to make clear that auditors receive no services.

That being said, many faculty such as ff524 and myself do not like "dead bodies" in the classroom and require our auditors to do the coursework and participate in discussion. This is our own prerogative and because we are going against university policy, we could not then turn around and ask for more TAs or claim hardship. We do this in the spirit of providing the best classroom experience for all.

From the perspective of paying students, auditors who are participating in the class also seem like freeloaders and can create resentment. This is usually ameliorated by the restriction that auditors do not receive transcripts or grades for their participation in courses. That said, the other business students are keenly aware that "discussion" is the core benefit of the classes and may resent your over-active participation. You'll need to work it out with the faculty member (and perhaps your peers in the class) if you want an exception to the policy.


Made some great course slides, now what? I just spent a year preparing a set of course slides for an introductory course in engineering, and they now look really good.  In addition to posting them on my web page, what more can I do to get use out of them?

For example, it would be nice to see if there's a MOOC that would be interested in them, but it doesn't seem like any of the major ones ever solicit such things.

I'm not aware of any examples of "publishing" slides either, so I'd be curious what more experienced users here have done.

Here are some ideas:

Make a video of yourself presenting the slides (either to a class, or just to the camera), and upload it to YouTube (or similar). Others have done this, and as a result there are some great free resources available for people who otherwise would not have the time or money to take the course. For example, N J Wildberger has several maths courses online. If you don't want to be on the video, you can just have the slides, with your voice presenting them. (See the videos of Bill Shillito, for example.)

Put the materials on your website, and spread the news.

Turn the materials into a wikibook, where others can add to them.

Put the materials on OER Commons, Curriki, MyOER, or Share My Lesson. I haven't used any of these myself (yet), so I don't know which would be most appropriate for university-level or postgraduate teaching materials.


During junior year, should I focus on taking advanced courses in my major for admission to grad school, or can I take courses for my minor? I came in as a liberal arts major freshman year, and by around February realized it wasn't what I wanted to do.

I took general chemistry last summer. By the end of the summer, I had begun working in a research lab and was already on track to graduate with the rest of my fellow biochem majors. By that I mean I was in the same courses as everyone else,
 e.g., took organic, physics, required maths, etc.

This summer I'll be working a paid internship working in the lab, and might be able to get something published. Junior year will be this fall; I'm taking biochemistry and physical chemistry. In that regard, I'm on track with the other chem majors.

I'm not sure to what extent this is a "problem" per se, but I've really begun to enjoy physics and decided to minor it after the introductory physics courses I took this year. I was considering taking two higher-level physics courses both in the fall and spring of my junior year.

I want to go graduate school for chemistry. But will it look bad on my transcript if I have all of those physics courses junior year? That is, will it seem like I'm not focused enough in the field of chemistry? Should I be spending those seven credit hours on something like analytical chem or a special topic in biochemistry course instead? Should my junior year have more chemistry courses than biochem and pchem? Should I drop the physics courses to focus on more chemistry courses?

It sounds like you've got a plan to take all of the courses required for your chemistry core. That being the case, having a physics minor won't hurt you since physics and chemistry are closely related sciences. Having a broader background in a related science will likely help you as long as you have the required core courses. You will also have a chance to do some more upper level chemistry work in your senior year.

Doing research will really stand out in your application as well, and this is at least as good as having done an upper division special topics course. Since graduate school is more focused on research, having undergraduate research experience lines up well with your plans, and that will stand out to the selection committee.

My one suggestion would be to start looking ahead to where you want to go to grad school. Look at their graduate college page and see what courses are required for applicants and make sure your remaining course work lines up with that. Also look at the faculty research pages and start thinking about who you want to work with as a graduate adviser (a critical decision!). Contact a couple you're interested in and ask for a phone or skype informational interview. In addition, talk to your current research adviser or the principal investigator you're going to be working with this summer. Most likely, they will be very happy to mentor you in preparing for graduate school, and also helping you establish contacts at your schools of interest. My undergraduate research advisor helped me open doors to both graduate school and a prestigious post-grad internship that really boosted my appeal as a grad school candidate. Good luck!