For PhD, prestigious fellowship at university with poor infrastructure, or prestigious university? Two PhD positions were offered to me:

EPFL in Lausanne (Switzerland)
In Italy, through a H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowship.

I know that Marie Curie are quite prestigious, but also EPFL is ranked among the top 15 universities in the world.
I like both projects and both offer good scholarships. Although the cost of living in Switzerland is much higher than in Italy, the infrastructure in Italy is really old and scarce.
I'm afraid of choosing the MSC ITN, which is at a university not as prestigious as EPFL.

To what extent does the prestige of a fellowship vs. the prestige of an institution matter to a researcher or professor career ? Is infrastructure a limiting factor for graduate studies in chemical and materials engineering?

"Poor infrastructure" means old equipment, not so nice labs, lecture rooms and PhD students offices. Also may you have to wait long for use an equipment...
The infrastructure (roads, trains...) of Italy is good, not so good as Switzerland but acceptable.

As astronat says, the prestige of the university matters very little when you do a PhD. However, the prestige of the fellowship that funds you matters even less. Divorce yourself from the notion that these are the important metrics to evaluate, and instead look at:

Which advisor will you work with, and what are their students doing now?
If you have a chance to talk to PhD students at both institutions, do so.
Which university/grant will offer you better conditions, such as salary (of course after taxes and costs of living) or teaching load?
Which city would you rather live in for the next 5-ish years?
And, last but not least, which of the options makes you more excited, personally?


How to interpret this rejection email from Journal of American Math Society? Anything to read between the lines? I had submitted a paper manuscript to JAMS (J. of Amer. Math Soc) and recieved the following email 2 months after the submission. Can you help me interpret this email, as to what the situation is and what would be the best way moving forward.
Are there any positives/negatives that can be taken. I have not received any referee reports or any technical points on my work, which is what disappointing me. I would like to understand the circumstances/rationale behind this decision.

I am new to journal publishing. I want to know how i can take this decision moving forward, while choosing another journal for submitting. And also self evaluating my work from this. Is there anything to loose heart?

email : (names and references removed for privacy reasons)

  Dear Professor XXXX,

  This message concerns the manuscript

  XXXXX    by XXXX

  submitted to the Journal of the AMS.

  We regret to inform you that we cannot accept this paper for
  publication in JAMS. The reviewers who evaluated this submission did
  not think that it meets the acceptance standards at JAMS.

  JAMS is the premier journal of the AMS, with extremely selective
  acceptance criteria. A paper must be truly exceptional to obtain the
  unanimous approval from the editors, which is required for
  publication. We publish fewer than 30 papers per year in all of
  mathematics. As a result, less than 10% of submissions are accepted
  for publication, and many excellent papers are rejected.

  One reviewer suggested that the discussion in your paper should
  include a comparison with the following reference:

  XXX, XXXX, XXX. XXXX: XXX.XXXXX XXXXX XXXX, Journal of XXXXX.
  5555;5(XXX):5555-4444.

  Sincerely,

  XXXXXX, Editorial Assistant Journal of the American Mathematical
  Society

  --- Sent via EditFlow by JAMS Editor  <journal.american.math.society@gmail.co

  Dear Professor XXXXX,

  The reviews we received were intended for the editors' eyes only, so
  we are unable to send them to you.

  Apologies, XXXX

There isn't anything between the lines.  It's simply a rejection. The editor and reviewers feel that your paper is clearly not strong enough for this journal, and they're telling you so.

Note that JAMS is an extremely selective journal, generally considered one of the top four out of all the many hundreds of journals in mathematics.  It is very very hard to get a paper published there.  Most of the papers they publish will be major breakthroughs in an area, or solve a famous open problem.  The "10%" is actually misleadingly high, because the vast majority of papers are never submitted there in the first place because the authors know they have no chance.

Such journals often do a quick first round of reviews, where the reviewers are only asked if they think the results are potentially important enough to warrant publication in JAMS.  Only if they say yes does the paper go on to a full technical review.  In this case, it sounds like they said no.  You didn't receive a detailed report because they didn't need to do a detailed review of the paper to make a decision.  Remember that their job is ultimately to make the decision; it's not their job to give you feedback or help you improve your paper.  Sometimes that happens along the way, but when the decision is clear, they won't spend time on a paper that, in their view, can't be made publishable in this journal.

The reviewers can, as in this case, make comments about things they happened to notice as they were doing their quick review.  That's why you got the note about the reference.    You'll have to read the reference to determine exactly what was meant here; it may be that the reviewer thinks that paper may already contain your results, or at least that they are similar enough that you need to carefully explain the difference.  But it sounds like the reason for rejection was the overall significance of your paper, and this was just something they noted in passing.

How to move forward: submit to a different journal.  If you want feedback on your paper first, you'll have to get it from someone else, e.g. a mentor, PhD advisor, collaborator or fellow researcher.  Such a person could also help you get some ideas of journals for which your paper might be better suited - where it would have a better chance of acceptance or at least a full review.


Is it appropriate to put a scientific/technical document about code developed by our group on arXiv? Basically, I have written a tutorial for a code which performs a specific type of electronic-structure calculation. The code has been developed by the group I belong to and writing this tutorial/manual is part of our efforts towards achieving greater visibility and getting people to use the code.

I have put in sections on the underlying theory, some technical details, usage guidelines, and some examples of actual calculations that can be done with the code. As such, there is no original scientific contribution, since we already published the new scientific bits pertaining to the implementation in another paper. However the document is a (rigorous) scientific and technical document.

I have seen manuals uploaded on the arXiv before, but I do not know if this fits the arXiv's purpose. Hence, I was wondering whether it is appropriate/a good idea to upload my tutorial to the arXiv.

(Note: I have been browsing the arXiv help but have not found anything on this. Let me know if I have missed any policies stated somewhere on their website.)

If your manual is specific to your group's environment (software, lab, equipment, protocols, etc.), then I would consider posting such document on arXiv as not appropriate. A better place for such documents IMHO would be figshare or Zenodo. Both services allow artifacts to be not only citable, but also discoverable (via DOI assignment). Version control is supported as well, but the advantage of Zenodo in this regard in comparison with figshare is Git and GitHub integration.

If, on the other hand, the document is not specific to your group's or other particular environment (or, perhaps, you want to share this document as a model of how such documents should be structured, presented and what content should they contain), then I agree with other answers in that it is totally appropriate to post such document on arXiv.


Search for a WYSIWYG, non-latex Online collaborative paper writing Tool Is there a tool that is

WYSIWYG and not latex (in fact any coding) base
online (for ease of collaboration)
Can write math equation
Does line numbering
Does equation numbering

Google Doc is perfect for 1-3, but they don't support 4-5 (unless you work around by using tables, but that's not really a nice solution)

Authorea and Overleaf does 2-5, but is very latex/code based. (Despite Overleaf's rich text editing mode, which is a step closer to what I want, but still quite far from the goal)

(At the moment, I am just using Google Doc and do all the numbering post exporting to .doc)

---------This is not the same question as Collaborative paper-writing with non-LaTeX-using colleagues------------

Reasons:

The author of that question clearly wants to use latex for his part of the collaboration, but wants a non-latex front end for his no-latex using collaborators. Unlike him, apart from writing equations, I have absolutely no intention of using any latex code. In fact, I will be satisfied with MS word type equation editor (as long as it lets me put equation number on it)
The accepted solution to that post includes solution like overleaf and Authorea, which I specifically said is not satisfactory to me because they are too latex based.
Another population solution to that post was Lyx, which clearly fails the 'Online' part of my question.

At risk of repeating myself, let me say this. That post is after a masked latex service. Whereas I am after a Google Doc with line and equation numbering feature. If I insert a table, I want to insert a table, not a \begin{tabulate\table} environment, if I insert of picture, I want to be able to drag and adjust its position. I want a truly WYSIWYG editor.

Considering all of your requirements, I would suggest the following solutions, all of which essentially are either based, or focused on (compatible with) using Microsoft Office 365 software:

Microsoft Office Equation Editor (see this, this and this);
Microsoft Mathematics Add-in (in the context of this question, Microsoft Mathematics software provides an extended collection of symbols and structures for mathematical expressions; see this page for more details);
MathType by Design Science (this is the most comprehensive solution, which is compatible with Office 365 environment, among many others; in fact, Microsoft Office Equation Editor is a simplified version of MathType).


Credit for republished writing I recently had an essay published in a semi-academic journal. It was widely shared and consequently got picked up by a few other online magazines who republished it. How do I list this on a CV? As separate publications with the title, or a note explaining the situation?

People usually add press coverage in a note after the publication eg
C. Xavier “On Human Genetic Mutation”, thesis, 1975
Press Coverage: CNN, BBC

Etc


What are the biggest differences transitioning from undergrad to grad school? I was recently accepted into a graduate biophysics program and have a couple questions about what I should expect going into my first semester. While I'm going into a physics PhD, I'd like general advice from any field. I have two specific questions, but welcome any advice that you are willing to share.

What is the biggest thing to overcome/accomplish during your first semester and a graduate student? Looking back, what is something you wish you would have done differently?

This may be closed as "primarily opinion based" (especially the second part), but I'll take a whack at it.

  What is the biggest thing to overcome/accomplish during your first semester [as] a graduate student?

Your first 1-2 years is likely taking classes. So, the biggest thing is passing those classes. This should be achievable (though a lot of work), so I'll list also two secondary goals: making friends, and finding an advisor (though this may be a bit early to line up an advisor; every university has a different process).

  Looking back, what is something you wish you would have done differently?

Stayed in my office more. I tended to work on my own at home; while I learned a lot, grad school would have been more fun if I had made more friends and done some of the work collaboratively.


What are some ways to address inaccessibility of to-be-learned material for research? Throughout my PhD I learned that there are lots of stumbling blocks that prevented me from getting to my goal of solving some problem. One of them is that some of the things I needed to learn were inaccessible and posed a number of undesirable difficulties. For example, sometimes papers I need to refer to are written in a language I don't understand. Some books lack notation indices, with the result that the book was difficult to follow. Sometimes the papers are hard for non-experts to understand, and I would waste a lot of time wondering what an author might mean. Sometimes nobody at my university knew the answers to my questions, even though they are on "well-known" facts (well-known to the experts but not to the non-experts).  Sometimes I would be given incorrect information from an expert. In many of these cases, I didn't get my questions answered until some expository books on the subject came out. In other words, a great deal of inefficiency can arise that cause unnecessary and unhelpful delays in establishing a publishable result. I think these difficulties are causing delays in my own research. Keeping everything else the same, another researcher who doesn't have to encounter all these blocks would arrive at results faster and would publish more papers, and would be seen as more "exceptional."

How do researchers deal with these issues? For example, how do they learn some material that is hard to learn from reading the literature and books?

Sorry, but there isn't an easy path through the research jungle. You just have to hack away at the obstacles as you find them. It is actually much easier now, with internet resources and electronic publication than it was, say 50 years ago. But inaccessibility of resources and difficult of interpretation has faced every researcher.

Of course, some obstacles don't face every researcher. Doctoral students in the past normally needed a reading knowledge of at least three languages. That requirement made more papers available. My own dissertation advisor (mathematics) wrote, over the years, in five languages himself (Czech, Russian, Polish, French, and English). That language ability made some things easier.

Every student needs the experience of not understanding a paper and working back through the references until the get a feel for what is being said.

Your "blocks" may be different from my blocks, but neither of us is free of the need to just slog it out at times.

But an even bigger need is that a researcher needs to develop insight into the very fundamental nature of a field. The resources aren't enough to guarantee that you will get this, and without it, you won't be able to extend what you find in the existing record. As you hack away at the obstacles in the jungle you also need a vision of your direction and where it might lead you if you keep hacking.


How to bring up to a future postdoc employer, the point of not asking for recommendation for a specific postdoc employer? I'm applying for a postdoc position at a French university, and the employer, who's a professor, requested me, in an informal email exchange, to state the name and email of a specific former employer from whom she could ask for a recommendation. Now when I was working in that former postdoc position, it was not productive for both, things didn't go well, and I'm ready to take part (but not all) of responsibility for it. I've a bitter feeling about that postdoc advisor for reasons that're not relevant to this question.
My question to you is: how do I tell my potential postdoctoral employer that I don't want her to seek a recommendation from that position? Here's what I drafted so far:
"If it can be avoided, I'd rather not have my mentor at position *** write a recommendation for me, as I often felt our professional relationship could be improved as we disagreed on many approaches in the project and there were also personality mismatch - while I do take part of the responsibility for it, I'm unable to take all of it. "
after which I finished the draft of this informal email with:
"If you're okay with the above response, I'll go ahead and send you a formal application." And my CV does mention another postdoctoral employer who could write recommendations for me, which I stated earlier in the same draft email.
What do you think of the above response? And practically speaking , is it okay to tell her that I don't want her to request recommendation from this and that post? For me: I tend to feel it's okay as long as there're some other capable people who can write recommendations - everybody has an unfavorable period in life, and that could happen in a postdoc, but that alone doesn't define me as a researcher.

It would be unprofessional to describe your previous employer in anything but positive terms when you are a job applicant.  If you cannot describe them positively, do not describe them at all.  You are showing the future employer how you will describe them in the future.
You could try suggesting an alternate reference, without saying why.
Ask yourself, why would the potential employer make an unusual request for a specific reference if this was not a critical factor in their hiring decision?  Your efforts might be better directed towards a different employer.


Conference and journal papers in physics I am preparing an interdisciplinary paper for publication in a leading physics journal. A preliminary version of this paper has been submitted to a conference in my field. Can the editors reject my paper based on this fact? In my field it would not be an issue. It is usually required that the journal paper expands on the contributions of the conference paper. In practice there a number of ways to overcome that requirement, so that it does not really matter. You need to submit a full paper to talk in a conference, so people use them as a first step of dissemination. But I do not know what is the relation between journal and conference papers in physics.

I have seen, at various times, deliveries at conferences that discuss papers which:

have been published,
papers that have been submitted and accepted for publication,
papers that have been submitted and are in the review process, and
papers which are still being prepared for submission (including papers which have not yet been written).

Sometimes a conference paper is also prepared and published as conference proceedings, as a summary, lead-in or discussion of preliminary results which are then published in detail in a journal.

It is expected that the paper submitted to the journal will be different enough to the conference paper to be suitable for publishing as a separate article without infringing on the "not submitted elsewhere" condition, and you will probably also need to either cite the conference paper or the journal paper in the other to avoid plagiarism.


Transitioning: PhD to Postdoc and Productivity I just finished a PhD in Math and I am starting my postdoc in September. I am currently just working on a few collaborations--working on projects that are follow-ups from my dissertation that are mainly strengthening my results or applying my results to interests of my collaborators. I hear a lot about the difficulty and stress in transitioning from PhD to postdoc and how the "clock starts."

I have a few questions about these statements:

What are some concrete changes that you experienced when you transitioned from PhD to postdoc? Bonus points for math-related experiences.
How real is this "clock starts" claim and what does it really mean? Math-related answers are more useful.
Are there any adjustments I can actively start to make now to make the transition better?

The main difference I noticed when I began a math postdoc is that postdocs are expected to act much more independently than graduate students. Math postdocs are viewed as (young but) full members of the research community, not as apprentices. You will need to choose your own goals and set your own deadlines.

One important change to make quickly is to develop (additional) professional relations with established researchers from other institutions. Some of these relations may turn into research collaborations, but others may just be discussions at conferences that lead to other discussions or to invitations to speak at other conferences or departmental colloquia. Keep in mind that you will need to ask for letters of recommendation when you apply for jobs again, and that others in your field will be reviewing your grant applications when you submit them.

In terms of research, as a postdoc you should also expect to always have multiple research projects underway, whereas many grad students only work on their thesis.  You should also aim for projects that have a high chance of giving positive results quickly. Don't spend too long on famous open problems or on results that would take a decade to complete. If you apply to research positions, you will be judged on your productivity in the time since you earned a PhD, and you only have a few years in your postdoc.

The "clock": in an important sense, your vita begins when you finish your PhD.  If possible, decide what sort of employment you want to have after your postdoc is over. Find well established colleagues you respect who took the path you are interested in, ask them for advice, and try to emulate them.   You want to leave your postdoc with a vita that will make you as competitive as possible for the type of job you plan to apply for. A generic vita is unlikely to be competitive in the current job market.


Correct answers were visible in a test; should I notify my instructor? In a multiple-choice test at my nursing school, our teacher accidentally left the right answers in bold; not super dark bold, but dark enough for people to figure out. To add insult to injury, the week before, she had given the same exact exam to another class, who had spread the word to some people in my class that the answers were in sight. I, of course, was livid because I got an 88 and 95% of the class got a 100. You would think the instructor would find it a bit odd that so many people got the whole exam correct. Anyway, I am really tempted to notify her, but I know that my friends would hate me, and we may have to retake another and more difficult exam. Should I just take the 88 or speak up about the mass cheating that occurred?

So far, the school really emphasizes on ethics and doing what is right. I am one of those people who covers the answers with my scantron before I make my choice, hence, I do not laser focus on the answers.

My guess is that it would be appropriate and pretty safe to note to your instructor that "some students" noticed that the correct answers were printed in bold. Sort of a "heard it on the grapevine" comment during an office visit. You could add "didn't notice it myself, hence the lower grade."

The instructor will take some action or not, but you will have done your duty.

You might, of course, know more about personalities that would make this unsafe for yourself, in which case, possibly let it go.

But if the instructor doesn't know about it then it will probably happen again.

I think this is a more serious issue in a medical related field, where people need to know things, not just get good grades.

It might also be a judgement call as to whether this is "cheating". The others just noticed an anomaly.


Should I include a DOI/website URL for a publication in dissertation bibliography? Context: I'm writing a dissertation in Computational Social Science using the Kluwer bibliographic style.  My question isn't specific to this style and applies generally to dissertations in computer science, sociology, economics, and management.

Q: Should I include URL (DOI or other) in bibliographic entries for all journal or conference articles, in addition to normal full citation information?

There is no such requirement or guidelines from my University or Department.  I've done numerous web searches, but I've never found any general guidelines on this.

Pro: All of my committee members and most of my readers now read articles on-line rather than through printed journals or proceedings.  All the URLs will have hyperlinks, so when they are reading the PDF of my dissertation, they can click on the hyperlink that will open a browser window to the article.  In addition, my dissertation will have internal hyperlinks from citations to bibliography entries and from key terms to glossary entries.  Finally, I use the Zotero reference manager, and I can usually acquire the URL as part of the "one click" import process.

Con: Adding URLs for every journal/conference article adds visual clutter to the bibliography.  When the URLs are not DOI, they may not be valid for a long time.  It will add some work to test and correct URLs that don't meet the basic criteria of usability, consistency, and stability.

Adding DOIs and URLs to your bib references is really a good idea!

If you are really concerned on the visual clutter, you can "hide" hrefs under the author/title/journal line. In this case, the references are not visible in print version (which is probably not terribly bad, since only a few people will bother to type DOIs from paper back to a browser search line). In the pdf version, however, one can click on the bib reference  line to access the online document (which is really something people appreciate). If you hide hrefs under the titles, make sure your PDF readers do understand this (give them a clue with a footnote or so).

It is really a good idea to use DOIs as much as possible and avoid using potentially unstable URLs. However, if the document is not easy to find (e.g. not among first 3 references in the Google scholar), I would probably go with the URL to help navigate the reader.


Why would a professor write many recommendation letters? A practical question:
I have now read a few times that to get a PhD position in the US you need 3 reference letters.
I assume most people apply for more than one position, so you need those 3 letters for every position.
Also, there are a lot of applicants.

So how does one get a professor to write more than one letter?
If I apply for say, 5 positions, I would need 15 different letters, 5 per person if I am always referring to the same persons, even if not probably more than one letter per person---and I am probably not that person's only student who wants letters.

I cannot possibly imagine professors in Europe going along with this (which is why it is becoming common here to just give the address of the referee, not send in a complete letter), so how is it in the US?

Do US students only apply for one or two positions and simply abandon the thought of grad school if they do not get it, or do they really get their professors to write that many letters?

The answer is simple: you generally only write one letter per person and only customize it insofar as changing the name of the institution to which it is sent (if even that: "Dear Admissions Committee" works pretty well). If there are very different types of programs involved, you might customize a bit more, but not much. That means the incremental work needed for many letters is not much more than is necessary for one.

If you think about it, it should make sense: a recommendation letter is primarily about the candidate, not the institution. If a recommender writes the best letter they can for one institution, how much could it vary and still be the best letter for another?


Electronic journals with 'print on demand' We're thinking of starting a journal for undergraduate research.  I'm vaguely aware that some electronic journals have a 'print on demand' capability, so that someone who wants a printed bound copy can get one.  Can anyone point me to a journal that does this?

It hasn't begun operating yet, but Cambridge University Press's Forum of Mathematics will work that way.  The journal will launch later in 2012.


Springer with Editor I just submitted my paper to a Springer journal. The status changed to with editor and then decision process . I thought the paper will be rejected as it didn't pass the prescreening phase but the status went down to with editor again and didn't change for 10 days now.

Should I contact the editor Or should I wait?

"With editor" means an editor has been assigned, but no reviewers have been invited yet. "Decision in process" means the editor has made a recommendation to the editor-in-chief.

I'm guessing that the editor-in-chief disagreed with the editor, and either assigned a different editor or sent the manuscript back to the editor. I would say wait, although if it goes another ~1 week without the status changing I would write to the journal asking for an update. Two weeks should be sufficient for the editor to either make a decision, or to invite reviewers.


How does one choose the panel to present at a conference? I am looking to present my work at a conference. The goal being to get comments and get a paper publication. I have a choice to go on the last day with the chair being an authority in the field. Or on the first day with upcoming chair. Which would be better to help me both get good comments and still scout for post doc positions.

I think each choice has its pros and cons. But having said that, depending on how long your conference is, it's possible you will get the most attention, energy, and enthusiasm if you present on the first day of the conference. From my experience, often people leave early (esp. for long conferences, like those that last a week). On the other hand, it's also possible that people arrive late and stay for the rest of the conference. But from my experience it's usually the former. So I think you may be better off presenting on the first day.

In terms of scouting for post doc positions, you can approach the professors/researchers you are interested at other times during the conference, esp. if they are also giving presentations. In that case, attend their presentations, raise your hand and ask good questions, and/or approach them after the session.


Efficient method to receive alerts for new publications I am currently using Google Scholar to receive alerts (emails) for new publications in my field. However, to my understanding (I might be wrong) Google Scholar doesn't allow to:

Use regular expression

might very useful for looking at variants (noun, adjective, adverb) of the word of interest

Indicate the field where the matching pattern should be found

author name: if you write the name of an author, you just get all the paper that (s)he publish and all the papers that cite him/her. Also, if the author has a short and common name such as Do then, Google Scholar will basically send tons of articles.
title: If I am looking for a concept that is used in a whole lot of different papers but only few papers really work on it such as the word evolution for example, then it would be useful to be able to ask for publications that contain the word evolution in the title only.
Journal: Well... because we all have our favourite journals.

Use AND and OR statements

Such as for example: Give me all new publications which author is John Smith AND where the word action potential is present in the title OR the article has neurophysiology as a keyword. Something like  author: John Smith AND (title: action potential OR keyword: neurophysiology)

There are probably various algorithms that can be found online that would allow one to receive alerts for new publications. Can you give me recommendations of what (and why) is best to use for receiving alerts?

FYI: My field is evolutionary biology and more precisely theoretical population genetics. I am particularly bothered by the fact that I am working on the concept of robustness in evolutionary developmental biology but the word robustness has meaning in so many different sciences and I just receive tons of alerts that are no relevant to my work.

There are a few things Google Scholar can handle, for example here is a query that can be made into an alert and is similar to what you gave as an example:

author:"John Smith" (intitle:"action potential" OR neurophysiology)

To get all the results from a particular author (with or without articles that cite their work) you can search the author, click on his/her name in one of the results and there will be a "Follow" button on the profile page to get email alerts.

If you click the drop-down in the search box you can fill out the advanced search form to make complicated queries and at the bottom of the search results there is a "create an alert" link, but this option seems to disappear if you specify a journal.

As for using regular expressions, hopefully most of your queries can be solved by using OR, e.g. (color OR colour)


Citing a Hollywood movie in a scientific paper I realise this is a bit of a silly question, but I'm writing up a conference paper on a model that's named after a Hollywood movie. What is the appropriate way to cite the movie in the paper? Should it have its own entry in the references (and if so, in what format?), or should I simply say something like "...after the 1986 movie of the same name"?

I'm coming from a humanities background so there may be some differences in actual citation styles but I think the following would be used by most styles.

Name of movie
Director
Distributor
Year of release
Medium consulted (DVD, VHS etc)
Sometimes the main performers(depending on citation format)

In text styles of course depend on whatever citation style you are using.
I know for example MLA is (Director, Movie Name) and APA is (Director, Year).

For your example of Highlander in the APA style it would be (Mulcahy, 1986) for a inline citation and your reference entry (assumed DVD) would be  - Mulcahy, R. (Director). (1986). Highlander [Motion picture on DVD]. Thorn EMI.

This Link has a pdf showing examples in MLA, APA and Chicago style.


Acceptance in a conference If a paper has 3 weak accepts (in all evaluations, a weak accept in each evaluation),  will it be published in the conference? If this is the case, what is the difference if it has 2 weak accepts and a strong accept or 3 strong accepts?

This largely depends on the conference. The way that conferences usually work (at least in my field for computer science - subdiscipline software engineering or human-computer interaction) is that once the reviews come in, the program committee meets and then discusses which papers will be accepted and which ones are rejected. This often comes down to how many papers there are, how many they can accept (subject to things including a mandatory acceptance rate, how big the conference can be, etc) and what other papers are like (if your conference has very few "strong accepts" that year then weak accept is pretty good).

Usually, a paper with few "strong accepts" could end up around the "middle" of the pack are more likely to be held up for discussion where they have a chance for rejection. Most PCs won't extensively discuss a paper where all of the reviewers say "strong accept".

So, we don't know if it'll be published in the conference. However, in general, the more strong accepts a paper gets, the more likely the paper will be accepted.


Avoiding use of a red pen in providing handwritten comments on student work As is common practice, I usually have used a red pen to grade student work and provide edits and comments on papers I collaborate on. However, I was speaking recently with an elementary school teacher who told me that they are instructed to avoid using red pen when grading student work. This led me to ask if using red pen to provide feedback on student work is a practice I should avoid.

Based on the study discussed in the link below, wherein red pen is found to have a negative effect on student response to feedback, it seems that using red pen may actually cause students to receive feedback less favorably.

https://phys.org/news/2013-01-red-pen-instructors-negative-response.html

I also have been told by a Korean colleague that red pen is only used to write the names of the dead, and writing a living person's name in red is akin to wishing the person dead.

In light of these thoughts, should red pen be avoided in academic settings? It seems that use of red pen can have negative psychological and cultural implications.

In the past I have also received suggestions about marking in red, and had various discussions on the topic. My only reason for continuing to mark using red is that it contrasts strongly with the typical blue or black of the submissions.

It is often cited/claimed that red is an "angry" colour, or students find it demoralising, and so it should be avoided. But that doesn't really follow when the markings are "ticks" or other constructive affirmations.

Using blue pen when the work is blue or black does not provide a good contrast and corrections are more easily overlooked. (I have used blue pen for marking when, after having had students ask if it matters what colour they use to write, I have received work written in shades of pink. In that case, blue gave a better contrast than red.)

Green has been suggested as an alternative, but then there are studies to indicate that information written in green is not easily remembered, and if the reason for writing corrections is to help the student learn, green would then be counterproductive.

Other colours such as purple and black also do not give a good contrast. And you may well find that the students who complain now that they don't like red will later complain that you didn't show them the correct answer/method/result because the new colour used didn't stand out from the rest of the work.

There is also the issue of marking individual items or questions and then totalling the marks across multiple pages. The individual marks need to be easily seen by you so that you don't inadvertently miscount and record a lower mark or grade for the student work.


Approach adviser to help publish a paper/Journal This topic may seem very close to Unable to defend and graduate
  because of advisers fickle mentality.

I am a Masters thesis student, and been doing my research for nearly 3 years now. Which I assume is quite long for Masters. So why such a long time. Well my adviser ( caring and supportive ) doesn't stick to or follow/have a structure for the thesis. Its like wandering about and finally OK yeah lets do this. Sometimes I face problems midway because we dint plan the thesis properly before hand and foresee what issues we could or would have to tackle way down the thesis, in which case it can be called more structured. Adding to this he is never present when needed.

In-spite of all these, I have somehow reached the very final stages of my thesis and trying to get some good results. I would like to open up and talk to him frankly and still maintain a good rapport so that I can ask to help me publish a paper/journal.

Could someone please give me a template of how I should approach him politely and convey my situation and get the best of this.

Two approaches:

You could say, "I think it would be a good idea to convert my thesis work into a journal paper. What do you think?"
Write up a version of the to-be-journal submission, present it to your supervisor, and ask "Do you think we could submit this, after some revision, to a journal?"

In any case, it sounds like you need to start being the master of your own destiny, and rely less on your supervisor. It is your masters' thesis after all, and your research.


Immediate access to previously accessed PDFs integrated into a Google Scholar search? Downloading full-text PDFs is often too slow: My university has a subscription to most journal articles. Thus, most of the time I have full-text access to journal articles. However, for various reasons, accessing an article still takes perhaps 30 seconds. Although sometimes it's quicker, it's often still a 7-step process (1) search and find the article on Google scholar (2) login to the university system (3) get to the list of sources at my university that provides full-text; (4) get to the journal article page; (5) get to a full-text page; (6) save the pdf; (7) open the pdf in my preferred viewer.

Managing a library of PDFs is tedious: That said, I find it tedious to have to manage my own library of PDFs. It often takes longer to work out whether I already have the article or not (Thus, I have to first search my hard drive and then search Google Scholar). I also have to enter the PDF into the library with no guaranty that I'll ever need it again.

In general, there are two kinds of PDFs. There are those that I'm accessing for the first time, and there are those that I come back to again.

Thus, I imagine a good system would be if some online system kept track of what I'd downloaded. If I did a search on Google Scholar and I'd already downloaded the PDF, it would just be a single click away (i.e., in a kind of cache).

Is there a way to meet the following requirements?

Near immediate access to previously accessed PDFs
Almost no time to store a PDF (or ideally something that operates in the background)
Integrated search through Google Scholar that works both for new PDFs and previously accessed PDFs (i.e., for a previous PDF it pulls the article out of the cache; for new PDFs you go through the normal process).

Google has brought a whole new experience how we tend to manage stuff. Searching is so fast and efficient, that in some use cases it has become obsolete to maintain a rigorously structured, personal library. The drawback, however, is that you have to complete the tedious task of retrieving the full text PDF again and again.

I am a scientist myself, and I am also one of the developers of Paperpile, where we exactly tried to make this use cases as simple as possible. Paperpile runs in the background and you do not have to leave Google Scholar or Pubmed to quickly get the full text PDF.

Next to each item in the Google Scholar search result you will find the little Paperpile toolbar. Just click on the Paperpile logo and it will find the full text PDF for you and will add it to the library. That's all done in background, and you do not have to open any user interface or go to another window.

Paperpile automatically screens all the items on the Google Scholar results page, and shows a link to the PDF for those that are in your library. Since Paperpile is totally web based, this will also work if you login on another machine.

I have also attached a screenshot to get an impression how it works. Articles that I already have in my library are marked by the green logo.


Path to a good grad school in math during undergrad? I'm a high school senior about to graduate in 1 month. I have a strong passion in math, and I want to be a mathematician. What is the best path to getting into a top grad school? How many REU's should I try to do? Any publications? How about graduate level courses? Do you need a 4.0 in undergrad? I'm also self studying as much math as I can, from Artin's Algebra, Munkre's topology, and baby Rudin. How much math should I know by the time I apply for grad school? I would greatly appreciate your feedback!

Here are my suggestions, having just finished a year of graduate school in math. It's therefore mostly anecdotal and should be taken lightly!

REUs: Try to do as many as you can! You get to meet other people who like math, learn new stuff, practice struggling with research, travel a bit, and get some cash to boot. They also, of course, look good on applications.

Publications: I don't personally have any publications. I wrote a few papers during my REUs and projects, but they were only published on the REU websites. So they're not necessary to get in. However, I did have a great deal of trouble getting acceptances. Maybe a publication would have helped, but I think it's very rare for an undergraduate to actually publish a paper.

Graduate Courses: I took several of these as an undergraduate. I enjoyed them, but realize now that I should have taken them a little more seriously! I've forgotten a great deal of what I saw in them. However, I have noticed that I'm quite strong in the area I took graduate courses in compared to my peers. So they definitely give you an edge! However, don't become too obsessed with loading up with graduate courses. Three of them is quite a lot of work, if you give them justice. Since most graduate courses are graded very lightly, you can make high marks in them without putting forth as much effort as you would in an undergraduate course! (At least, this was how it worked at my undergraduate institution.)

That said, keep in mind that some of your time in college should be spent having fun, too. Don't become a math robot just yet! You have time for that in grad school. :)

Reading Textbooks: The fact you're already reading the "core" undergraduate books before even entering the university puts you far, far ahead of the curve. Many people won't learn those things until sophomore or junior year. I certainly didn't. Make sure you're doing the bulk of the exercises in those books, especially Rudin. Try to prove statements you come across without looking at their proofs. I feel that this is where most of the learning happens. You can easily read things and not understand them, so just watch out! Other than that, finish those books and then you should be set to take the advanced undergraduate/first year graduate courses at your institution.

The Math Subject GRE: I hate this thing and did very poorly on it. You'll blow the math portion of the general GRE out of the water. It's easy stuff for any math major. However, if you don't spend a little time reviewing, you can really mess up the subject test, since it's timed and covers things you might not have thought about for several years. The topics are almost completely disjoint from what a student taking graduate courses has been doing. Look at a few practice tests, identify what sorts of questions are asked, and train yourself to quickly answer such questions. Speed is key. You don't want the subject GRE to be a weak point on your application, especially since it's an easily prevented weak point.

So, do REUs, take graduate courses, don't sweat not having publications (but if you can get some do), and study for the subject GRE!


Is it possible to get a PhD grant in Europe/US with the research focused on Kazakhstan? I am from Kazakhstan. Currently, I am a 2 year MA student in Eurasian Studies in Kazakhstan. The topic of my research is ethnic Kazakhs' integration in Kazakhstan. I like to investigate problems of ethnic migrants' integration in Kazakhstan. In particular, Kazakhs who have born in neighbouring countries and after decided to migrate to Kazakhstan, their ancestral homeland.
I wish to go further to PhD program in Europe/US, programs linked to migration. Is it possible to get the grant/scholarship abroad with the research concentrated on Kazakhstan? or I should choose another topic of study?
Best regards

I think your chance would be higher with professors focusing on a specific area geographically and also check professors being interested in migration or integration. I think it is not impossible. Just develop a proposal. If it does not work, change your focus.
I am not sure about a scholarship or grant. They are highly competitive. Good luck with it.


Is it ethical for professors to require that students maintain a balanced and disinterested tone in their papers and presentations? I have noticed personally a tendency toward hyperbole and dare I say anti-intellectualism within American society, along with of course a marked polarization along ideological fault lines.

Is it ethical for a professor, seeking to shape a more informed and open-minded citizenry, to dock points from students who argue a point overtly ideologically when it adds nothing to the point being addressed?

Examples I have in mind:

OK: As demonstrated by the retrospective study by Pooler, discourse in American society is beyond an unacceptably and unsustainably dangerous level of polarization along ideological, racial, and religious fault lines.
Not OK: As demonstrated by Pooler, or by turning on grandfather's favorite Fox News program, discourse...
Not OK: The progressives and their Alinksy-style tactics have succeeded in polarizing...

One more question: how do you handle edge cases, such as the following?

A gifted student submits a quality paper written in an obviously sarcastic manner without any single instance of excessive sarcasm, like the copious use of understatement, implied hypocrisy and contradiction, etc. Is that just clever?
A student submits a adequately-researched opinion paper that argues a position you find reprehensible using what appear to be sincerely-held value judgments about, say, war crimes or genocide. For instance: "When it comes to dealing with a barbaric and cruel enemy, one must have the courage and moral strength to do as the Romans did when dealing with the barbaric Carthaginians. If the women are spared, no man or boy should be found alive. In modern times, Henry Kissinger sums it up well: anything that flies on anything that moves. It may be ugly, but it is an ugliness that betrays an inner beauty."

At least based on the examples you gave, the rule you mention is clearly directed at teaching students to argue better and without resorting to various straw men, ad hominem attacks and other such rhetorical fallacies. Sure, there is some room for error or unfairness as with any policy, and depending on the precise way it is applied one can argue about whether this approach is effective in instilling good thinking habits among the students; but unethical it certainly isn't, as long as it is applied by the professor in good faith and out of a sincere belief that this serves the educational goals of the course.


How to transfer or delete a Google Scholar profile from my own account? I accidentally created my advisor's Google scholar profile using my personal Gmail. Now I can't find a way to transfer the profile to him, nor can I delete his profile in my account.

Does anyone have any idea what to do?

This is almost a tech support question, but since it's so unique to academics I figure I should ask here.

I tried to look at the Google product forum, but there is no forum for Google Scholar. They don't have a support line for Google Scholar either. I have not found a way even after posting on the Google product forum. I'm truly stuck.

Google Scholar profiles are not transferable. But you can delete the Google Scholar profile from your own account. Then create a new profile while signed in to your advisor's account.

To delete the Scholar profile from your own account, go to Google Scholar and click on "Settings":

then click on "Account":

then click on "Delete or recover your Scholar account."

There, you'll have to affirm that you are sure you'd like to delete the account, and that you understand you have 30 days to change your mind. Check all the boxes, then click "Delete account":


Non-STEM Letter of Rec for STEM PhD Programs I am applying to PhD programs in math, cs, and statistics this fall at roughly top 15 US schools. I will be having recommendations from two professors who I worked on projects with personally and who I believe can speak strongly to my research abilities; they are the only two PIs I’ve had. For my third letter, I am thinking about asking a history professor I’ve had in <15 person classes for three semesters. I think he can speak well to my work ethic and communications skills. I also can likely get a letter from a professor I had in a microcontroller lab class which I did well in, had a friendly relationship with her, and completed a month-long design project, but this was few years back and the course was introductory. I think my history professor can write the stronger and more personal letter, but would the types of programs I’m applying to prefer the STEM professor’s letter? What about including the history professors’s as a supplement?

It's important that you show potential for research in your application including letters of recommendation.
For me, I had three letters, two from people I did research with as an undergraduate, and one from a history of science professor I had taken a couple courses with (definitely a more "history" slant than "science").
That worked for me. No idea whether it will work for you because ultimately it will depend on who reads your letters, what they say, and what the rest of your application says.
Remember rule #1, and then go from there:
It's important that you show potential for research in your application including letters of recommendation.


What to write in an award nomination letter about your supervisor? An international society is accepting nominations for an yearly award for young principal investigators in our scientific research field, and I would like to nominate my supervisor.

I have to write a nomination letter about him.

The rules about this letter state:

  "Your personal assessment of nominee's contributions to our scientific
  research field deserving of this distinguished award, including major
  scientific contributions, up to ten references to publications, and
  other contributions to the field that demonstrate this nominee is
  deserving of this award"

I never wrote such letters so I don't know how to start...
I think I should start by talking about the deliverables (scientific softwares and papers) he released in his career, and their impact in our field. Is this correct?

Then should I acknowledge about his career achievements as well?

Should I call attention to the quantity and quality of his publications (e.g. "He published many papers on Nature journal, etc")?
Should I mention the other awards and honours he got in his career?

What do the scientific award organizers want to read in my letter?

I want him to win!

I am guessing you are writing this because you want to nominate him and you have had interactions with no one else that is writing for him or nominating him.

Typically such letters for discipline-wide awards are written by senior members of the academic community, unless explicitly stated in the call for applications that very junior researchers are supposed to do the nominations. Very likely what will happen is someone will see that you are his student and consequently write off your application for your advisor as a conflict of interest. If you are nominating your advisor for an award based on their research level and you are a graduate student, chances are it is not going to hold the weight that other letters will have and they will pass over your nomination.

This being said, if your letter is in a bigger file of people writing in support of your advisor, then it will carry some weight. If you are applying with a group of people that are nominating your advisor, it has a shot. If you are doing this, I would focus on the other contributions aspect of the call.


Want to form independent research group outside university, while working? I have just concluded my Master's degree. I am interested in doing independent research  (publish some surveys on topic, create a few basic software prototypes). I am looking forward to form a pseudo-research group/online-space on internet, where I can find serious people for collaboration, to improve my odds for phd.

1) Ideal way of achieving this? Registering the domain name / advertising on job portals in order to scout for people with similar interests?

You need to find people that will share your research interests. To get them interested, you first have to offer something. Let's talk software prototypes.

Publish your (possibly beta version, possibly not-very-product-quality) software prototype so that other people could download it.
Publish documentation so that those people could use it after they download it.
Arrange a mailing list / forum so that people could suggest improvements after they use your software.
Possibly, make it open-source so that people could make the said improvements themselves.

Having some prototype to touch, explore and work on will, based on my experience, bond your newborn community more than just discussions. It is important to have something tangible before you start scouting for people.

Also, it may be easier to find people for your project offline. Talk to people of your age and interests in your local university (even if you are not affiliated), in computer science conferences and enthusiasts meetings (there might be some in your area).

The advice above is based on my personal experience of involving people into collaboration and inspired by this article.


How can I politely tell a professor that I'm too busy to do research with him this term? I'm an undergraduate. I sent two emails to professors regarding potential research work. Both responded positively, which I didn't expect, and I started work with one of the profs last term. As for the other, I think his work is incredibly interesting but I simply don't have the time for two research projects at once. However, I would really like to work with him eventually.

How can I tell the other professor that I'm too busy this quarter but would like to work with him at some point in the future? It seems a bit awkward to mention the other professor so I'm not sure how to explain it.

Just say so directly! He will value your directness and honesty – 'beating around the bush' gets rather tiresome. There's enough of that from management...

  I'm sorry that I don't have time to work with you this term, as I have now started on a research project with Prof A that I am committed to finishing. However, I would still really like to work with you in the future. Since I aim to finish my current project in a few months, around the end of June, would you mind if I contact you again then?


What percentage of UK academic faculty are in UCU? Just wondering what the rough % of academic faculty (e.g. full time and part time teaching fellow/associates, lecturers, senior lecturers, readers, and professors) are in UCU? I've been invited to join, but the hefty fee is putting me off. And other than the negotiation regarding pay scale and pension, there doesn't seem to be other significant benefits (although one can argue that the negotiation on pay and pension is big enough).

I don't know what the numbers are for academic faculty specifically is, but the numbers for education in general is 47% (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/trade-union-statistics-2018), and that is in line with membership within my department (STEM, Russel Group). UCU has a membership of 120,000.

As well as collective bargaining on pay, conditions and pensions, perhaps the most important work of the Union is local. On a collective level the union will represent its members in situation where your employer might be going through a "restructuring" involving a reduction in headcount or a change in contractual terms and conditions for example. This has happened to me twice in my career, once when my employer laid of 30% of staff in my area, a second time when I was transferred from being employed by UKRI to being employed directly by the university.

But perhaps the most important thing is casework. Your membership would entitle you to representation in any HR dealing with your employer. In the case of the worst this can include provision of a lawyer or solicitor paid for by the union. This might be important if you are subject to discrimination at work, or accused of discrimination, or placed on performance review or have been otherwise mistreaded. In the five years I've been faculty, I've seen colleagues require union help with probation, and one (a professor) require union help when they were placed on performance review. I also knew someone who had to involve the union when their head of department took a dislike to them and did everything they could to get rid of them.

One way to think of union membership is like health insurance, but for employment/legal matters.


Beyond scope( Master thesis) I'm master student and I'm working on my thesis that includes lab work. I was written my proposal last semester and I've done lot of research about instruments that I'm going to use according to the instruction that my supervisor gave it to me. Now he comping up with new experiments and instruments every day that he didn't mentioned. He expect me to make chemical solutions that I'm going to use but I didn't prepared myself for that and now I'm confused and stressful.Now I don't know if it is right to complain about this or I have to do that part anyway. I appreciate it if somebody can tell me what to do?!

First off, take a deep breadth and relax.

It's hard for Random Internet People (tm) to really know what's in scope and what's out of scope for your work. You should bring up your concerns with you adviser. He exists to advise, direct, and guide you. He's not the enemy.

If you feel like the work your adviser is suggesting is too much or unrelated to your thesis, you should say so. He might not realize how much effort/time the experiments he's suggesting will take. Or maybe he knows some way to make then take up less effort.

If you're worried about talking to your adviser, you can try to approach a more senior student in his group or another professor. They probably know you, your adviser, and your work better than we do and can help suggest specif strategies to talk to you adviser about the situation and offer advice on how to accomplish your work.


How to deal with bad department chair? As students we have the right to choose our semester subjects (for the new semester beginning in 2019)

So we went send an email to the department chair indicating what subject we would like to take.

We received days later the notification about the courses to be open and my course was not there.

I went to talk to him and his justification in summary was this "He did not read my email and now it is too late to propose the course and he already did his plans".

But that's not true at all and I can prove it.

So he clearly has another reasons on why to not open the course for me.

So I think I have 2 options about how to deal with this:

To go and talk about this with the Academic Vice President.
To do nothing and to take one of the courses that are going to be open the new semester.

If I do 1. ' I'd win ' for sure and the course would be open thought the department chair would not be happy at all.. so I'd possible get into trouble with him because I know he is a vengeful person and I might not be the only one possible affected but my sister as well (she is a freshman) in the same institution.

If if do 2. I'll be an unhappy student the whole semester, studying something that I don't like at all but there won't be problems with
 department chair.

Could someone tell me what should I do?

What would be the best to do in this situation?

This question looks a little bit opinion based, so it may actually be forbidden to ask it here, but I try my best..

I would advise you to really think again about your assumption "'I'd win' for sure". I don't know your situation, but I cannot believe it's so sure due to many reasons:

Often, if it is too late, new courses can not be added even if there was some mistake before. This is due to many reasons: room booking systems, maximal amount of hours professors want/are allowed to teach, administrative reasons, reasons related to budget etc.
Why should a new course be added if only you want to take it? If others want to take it too, why did it not have been added?
The statement "I'll be an unhappy student" comes across a whining even if it's true and is probably not convincing.
This chair seems to have a lot of influence and, if you are correct, acts in bad spirit against you. How do you know she/he will not continue to tell their version of the story to the Vice President? Normally, the voice of a student will not be heard in academia.
The whole issue sounds to irrelevant for a Vice President to take on.

From your story, I do understand that you are in a small college (this chair knows you so well that they even act against you) and the chair would be willing to act against you and your sister. From this viewpoint, I would advise you against doing something.

Sadly, in my experience, professors often get away with bad behaviour and students are often not considered. (This may be different in other places.)

Try to get happy with the other courses and study your subject on your own. Good luck!


Is it a must to collect resources from previous students to be a successful student? Last semester, I was doing well (A+) in three of the five courses I was taking, but had a problems with two others:

For one course, the professor supplied a long list of study materials of several thousand of pages. And, the lecture material was way too extensive for a four-month semester. I downloaded lecture materials from other universities to cut the load and still found it very extensive. Then, from the end of April, 2019, my brain was signalling an SOS. Finally, I failed in the theory part of this course, and as a result failed in the course.
For another course, I obtained A+ in labs, and projects. But, I found the time inadequate to prepare for the theory test.

These two courses increased my stress level, and that stress level caused an anxiety attack in the first week of May, 2019. As result I failed in four courses.

Later I found that successful students were actually massively cheating in those two courses.

For Course 1, they were actually not following materials supplied by the professor at all. they have developed a massive database of all old questions.
For Course 2, they uploaded all the assembly language programs to the server before the lab sessions. Also, they have developed a massive database of all old questions.

I have two questions regarding this:

Is my experience very common or normal?
Is it a must to collect old resources from previous students to be a successful student?

No.  It is not normal for students to use a student-collected database of old questions.  I know this is done at some universities, but personally I have never seen one.

The proper thing is for faculty to supply sufficient quality and quantity of study material that students will not benefit from these databases of old questions.  Faculty also should not reuse test questions which might be in a student-collected database, but not in the study materials.

When faculty reuse tests and keep the content "secret," then student-collected databases create unfair advantages for certain student groups.  These groups often exclude minority students.  This is an unacceptable practice.


Should one stick to the organization of a paper while teaching a subject? When teaching a specific topic in a subject, which is not generally covered by textbooks, should or when the instructor should stick with the structure of the paper?

A not very popular topic in computer science covered in a paper. The structure of the paper is Algorithm 1 - Lemma 1 - Algorithm 2 - Lemma 2 - Theorem 1 - Algorithm 3.

The paper is published in one of top journals. I am aware that the editors and reviewers are quite decent people and they really know how to suggest organization of the paper for the sake of readability and understandability.

In what cases should an instructor change the structure while teaching, for instance to Lemma 1 - Lemma 2 - Theorem 1 - Algorithm 1,2,3?

Answers with experiences will be appreciated.

Even if the authors are excellent writers, there's no reason to assume that the organization the authors chose as best for an audience of specialists is also the best one for your class.  (At least in math, it's very rare for the editors or reviewers to call for organizational changes.)

I'd feel quite free to present the material differently if I thought a different order emphasized the points most relevant to my students, would be easier for them to follow, or I just preferred it. Indeed, I think there's some benefit to intentionally giving a different structure, since I think students benefit more from having access to multiple explanations than from repeating one slightly better one.


Is it right to have students bring cake and cold drinks for classes? Where I study, it is normal even for advanced courses that the instructor for a class makes a "cake list" consisting of student names who each bring a cake (it could be other stuff, like cold drinks, but usually it's cake) to share with the rest of the class.

Is this acceptable behavior? I can think of many drawbacks of such an initiative (not all of them apply to me personally, but some do)

While not obligatory, it requires students to pronounce, in front of all other students, that they do not wish to participate. This is an awkward position to put somebody else in, especially during the first day of class, and it gets worse when somebody actually brings a cake: does the person who refused to be on the list get to eat the cake? Even if they do, I am sure they'll feel a bit uncomfortable doing so.
Classes should be focused on study, not on eating stuff.
Some students will find it annoying that while they're trying to do a hard problem or read a difficult section in a book, everybody else is eating and enjoying a cake which is also being passed back and forward, adding to the distruption.
Some students will be on diets or other health plans. They could refuse the cake, but why force them to make that choice in the first place? For many, this is a known problem.
Cakes and cold drinks can dirty the place up, with crumbs, wet marks, and so on. Somebody else will use the classroom after us, and at the end of the day, the cleaning people will have to do some work in there too. It should be left as clean as possible for them.

Many hundreds of years ago I had a class on "theory of computation"* that met at a wretchedly inconvenient time: 8:00 AM on Sunday mornings, for four hours.**  Someone always brought coffee and someone else always brought donuts.  However, there was no list, only volunteers.  Arrangements were informal and made at the end of each class meeting.

Conclusion: List, bad; volunteers, good.

*With the polished and appropriately hideous book by Derick Wood.

**This was in the United States.  The class meeting time was an experiment, never again repeated.


Changing phd university (and country): issues with adviser, no funds, and so on I joined a phD program in my home country (third world) earlier this year, after finishing a Ms in a top-5 university in the US. My country's government required me to come back to my country after the Master's, so I didn't even consider applying for a phD outside.

The situation now is as follows: my research received zero funding so far, mostly due to my research field being non-existent in my current university, even though it's the field I listed in my phD application. I spent the last 7 months on a personal project and managed to publish a paper, however my relationship with my adviser deteriorated once he "found out" that I didn't list him as co-author (it didn't even cross my mind since I've met him less than a dozen times during the whole year and he didn't know what the project was about). I also had to use my own money to do such project.

I'm now decided to quit the phD and apply for a top-5 university in US. I've read that a strong recommendation letter from my original adviser is almost a requirement to change phD programs - not having that would make the department I'm applying to to see me as a quitter. Obviously I don't think I can get such letter.

Is there any way for me to save my academic career? I got straight A's (GPA 4.0) during my Master's, the last thing I want is to bury my academic career now.

Normally, yes, moving between PhD programs normally requires a strong letter from your advisor, but your situation looks like an exception.  From what you describe, it sounds like a letter from your advisor would be useless even if your relationship hadn't soured, because they can't say anything substantive about your research.

Yes, you're quitting, but you're quitting because your current department is a bad fit for your research agenda.  I think you can reasonably describe the constraints imposed by your MS fellowship, the lack of funding and other support in your country, and the mismatch between your research interests and the interests/expertise of your advisor and others in your department, without in any way incriminating your current advisor or department.

That said, if you want to be admitted to a top-5 PhD program, you really do need letters that discuss your potential as a researcher, and in particular the quality/importance/novelty of your recent published research, in specific and credible detail.  Not having a letter from either your former MS advisor or your current PhD advisor is likely to be a red flag, but strong well-informed letters about your amazing research can counteract that.

Also, you do need to be careful to follow the terms of your MS fellowship or visa.  In particular, if your fellowship or visa requires you to return to your home country for a certain number of years, then you either have stay in your home country for that many years, or you have to find a way to have that requirement waived.  For example, J-1 student visas in the US require the student to spend two years in their home country before returning to the US, and some graduate fellowships from the Thai government require a multi-year civil-service commitment.


A scam publisher offers me to publish, but it seems that I lose nothing if agree I've received an email from Lambert Academic Publishing (LAP Publishing), offering to publish my manuscript.

I heard that they are a scam, but is there any reason to refrain from publishing with them?

Note that my math book is published online as open source (with a free license) LaTeX (and PDF). I have almost no hope to publish it conventionally with a serious publisher (some publishers said my book didn't have enough readership, some declined because it is already available online.)

I won't lose the copyright because they do not require copyright transfer.

So my question: Enumerate all reason (or is there none?) not to publish with them.

Note that I am not a professional scientist and have no degree.

(These comments are not intended to be specific to the named company, but to any that are generally considered to be suspect.)

By publishing with a company, you are partnering with them. Associating yourself with something you know to be dodgy is not a helpful contribution to your 'personal brand', in any respectable career.
It's unlikely they are being honest with you about the associated costs. They may not actually mean it when they say it's free for you, despite their advertising. Or, as suggested in comments, they may intend to use your work as bait to convince someone else to give them money.
Depending on the exact terms of the free licence you used, not giving them some copyright permission might mean they don't actually have the permission they need. If they don't need any permission from you, why did they bother to ask you rather than just going ahead? Alternatively, if you haven't used copyleft, perhaps they think they can try and limit what others can do with your work.


Is it possible that I can get a Duke University user account to access math videos? I am an independent student of math and want to use many interesting video courses. Unfortunately the math video courses of Duke university are unavailable for others. So I want to know

  Is there any way to access these courses or is it possible that to get a temporary (and free) user account from Duke University?

As a commentor wrote, "ask Duke". In practice, that means the following.

Note from the URL that the page is maintained by the math department. If you can, try to figure out who specifically is maintaining the webpage (i.e., a person's name), and contact them. Otherwise, I'd recommend writing to anyone in a position of responsilibity in their math department -- say, the graduate director. Tell them that you are interested in watching their videos, and ask if there's any way you could be permitted to do so.

The most likely outcome is either that they say no, or that you get no response at all -- but in my estimation it's okay to ask, and they might say yes.


Interview not reimbursed if offer is made but not accepted (UK) I'm applying for Lecturer positions in the UK (entry-level faculty, other academic systems might call the position "Assistant Professor").

I just got short-listed for one of the positions I have applied to, and am currently arranging the interview details (time, date, and expenses reimbursement). Going through their forms, I have noticed the following statement:

  Candidates who are offered a contract of employment by University of XY but reject the offer lose their entitlement to claim reimbursement of interview expenses.

There is a similar question already. However, the candidate noticed such a clause only after buying the tickets, while I am trying to react to it beforehand.

This strikes me a bit odd. My questions are:

Is this a typical procedure for interviews for such positions? Is it a red flag? (Or at least, a yellow one?)
Is there a polite way to respond to this, indicating that I do not agree to this policy, but without sounding like I just want them to pay for a tourist visit?
These positions have a fixed salary range in the UK, however the call is made across two ranges (simultaneous call for Lecturers and Senior Lecturers), and after all it is still a range. What prevents the University from extending an insultingly low offer to a candidate they do not want to hire, hoping that the candidate would reject it and therefore forfeit their right to expenses reimbursement?
I was planning to evaluate this University further as a potential good match for me at the interview (see context below). Since I expect the expenses to be relatively small, should I just risk paying them on my own and go check the University out, even if I decide it is not a good fit?

Some context: This particular University was at the low end of the openings I am applying to. The research profiles of the staff did not look overly attractive, but the facilities were well equipped and I could find a couple of interesting people.

I had almost decided not to apply, when a colleague told me about a Research Centre associated to their University. I haven't originally noticed the Centre as it was not affiliated to the Department I am interested in, but a very different one. However, this Centre is very interesting for my current application domain, and could provide me with invaluable data to continue research in that direction (and bring that domain over to that University).

This Research Centre was the number one reason I decided to apply in the end. I've mentioned my definite interest in it in the application, figuring they would not call me if they were not interested in a collaboration with that Centre.

However, even after deciding to apply, the truth is, this particular University is at the low end of my list. I am serious in considering it as a potential place of employment, due to the presence of the Research Centre. However, with all the negative points still in place, I was going to form my final opinion about that University at the interview, which I think is a reasonable approach - both the candidate and the interviewers should look for a good fit.

When I was in a similar situation before, I rejected to go to the interview and have requested to not be considered further, specifically as I did not think the position was a good enough fit to risk the expenses. This was, however, for an industry interview, the travel expenses would have been much steeper, and they were not covering interview costs under any circumstance.

This is common in the UK. In general interview expenses are relatively low. Many people take a train in the morning to the university and return home that night, so there might not be any food or lodging costs and only a relatively inexpensive train ticket. For an international candidate arranging flights and trains may require a 3 day stay, as it did for me.

I simply told the department that I was very interested in the position, but was not in a financial position to be able to cover my own interview costs if I found the departmental culture to not be supportive. They gave me a guarantee to cover the costs in writing. If your expenses are more than a train ticket, there is no reason not to ask.

Be aware, the offer may be made the day of the interview and they may want a decision the next day. The UK system doesn't really let you get competing offers.


Expressing Interest for Waitlists on more than 1 program (Ph.D Admissions in STEM) This is for Ph.D admissions in STEM area.
I was put on the waitlist for >5 schools where I have applied to, some of which have emailed me asking if I am still interested for consideration of their "second round of offers."
The dilemma is, what if I expressed interest to (say) >3 schools that I am still interested, but at the end I ended up with >1 offer from them? Doesn't that make me a liar since I have to (due to pigeonhole's) decline at least 1 offer?
Don't get me wrong. I'm more than willing to attend any of the schools where I'm currently on the waitlist, I'm just worried it will put me in an awkward position.
Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.
(posting anonymously, since some of the contributors here are graduate directors of programs I applied to)

They are using this question to find out if you have already accepted another offer.
If you say you are interested, what you would be implying is that if this is the only additional offer you get, you would seriously consider attending. There is nothing wrong with being interested in more than one program.


What should I do if my advisor is forcing me to vote on a specific candidate in IEEE elections? The IEEE holds yearly elections for senior positions in its societies. Every member of the IEEE has the right to vote in these elections, including me. My advisor, however, has candidates who, for one reason or the other, he supports and wants to get elected.

The issue is that he is forcing all of his students to vote for his candidates. Voting is done online. He even asks his Assistant Professor to personally stand next to the students and watch them vote on the specified candidates.

This makes me extremely uncomfortable, as I find it morally incorrect. However, my professor is in a position of power over the students and I am afraid of standing against him and losing my graduate course and scholarship.

Has anyone gone through something similar? What should I do?

Allow me to hypothesize a different tack from most of the other answers: Simply don't engage in this issue at all. As my mentor said once, "You constantly get institutional demands for some action, in some cases it's best to ignore them, and you'll find that many just go away."

This request is so incredibly unethical, and also so completely orthogonal to your responsibilities as a graduate student, that it's hard for me to imagine your advisor spending time on tracking you down and taking revenge over it. If you think you might receive more pressure later on (e.g., I've sadly cracked under such circumstances), go ahead and cast the online vote in the privacy of your own home, and then later on say, "Oh sorry, I got a notification and cast the vote immediately."

The request is so inflammatory that I don't see any use to "politely having an open discussion with your advisor". I think that only opens the door for defensiveness and retaliation. As wildly unacceptable as it is, I don't see it as being a good use of your time tracking down where to lodge a complaint over this matter (which your advisor seems canny enough to avoid documenting except verbally, so it would be just your word against his, according to comments above).

At least consider the null action as a possibility.


How to leave graduate school without pain I am an international student in one of the top universities in Canada.
The graduate admission in Canadian university is a little bit different from other countries; if you want to pursue Phd, you have to have a Master first, and Msc program here is usually admitted with funding (everything paid by supervisor). Currently I am second year of a Computer Science program and going to get my Msc degree within the next six months.

The problem is that before I came here, I told my supervisor I will do a PhD with him. After I came here and dig more into the area, I found out that I am not very interested in his current research. Additionally, my supervisor is not really giving me much support, the funding for the project is actually paid by another PI not in CS. My supervisor is a full professor and does not care much about what research his students are doing, he really enjoy his life a lot (often leaving the office very early). I think what he wants is just to produce some phd students to show he is still active (I can see this because every meeting he seems to talk about phd stuff, and he is kind of really pushing me into phd because he only has one phd student right now, two student in total including me).

Because of this, I want to leave with only a Master degree. The process is that before you finish your Master, you have to fill a form to indicate whether you want to continue Phd with current supervisor or not. This form has to be signed by the supervisor before you graduate with Masters. I think if I directly tell my supervisor I am not doing phd, he will be mad at me and prevent my getting Master degree.

So, should I get admitted in the phd program first and then quit later, or just leave now? If I do the former, I can search for a job first and then tell him I am not interested in academia career anymore. How can I leave with Master degree peacefully?

Some thoughts:

Don't decide what you want to do with your life on the basis of not annoying your current supervisor. If you really want to stop at an MSc then do that, but if you really want to do a PhD with a different supervisor then see if you can do that. Or you might decide you prefer the freedom of a supervisor that doesn't much mind what you do.
Your supervisor is a professional. There's a chance they'll be really nasty, but it's more likely they will behave properly and sign the form, even if that isn't what they personally want.
Lying is not a good path in Canada (well, not for most people at least).


Fair use and copyrighted materials explicitly stating not to use I am currently sourcing some ideas from a few books (through Google Books) and I sometimes stumble upon introductory messages from the authors/editors of these books saying something like:

"All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by an electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers" (https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1317622006)

and similar messages... so, does that mean that I cannot paraphrase or quote from it under fair use? (Sometimes I do read other messages explicitly allowing fair use)

This is fairly standard boilerplate in UK-published books. You'll probably find that all books from this publisher have identical text, with gentle shifts in phrasing over the years as they refine it.

This statement is effectively saying "to be clear, we don't give you permission to do any of the things that the law requires you to have permission to do, and you can't pretend you didn't know this". However, it will not prevent you doing anything you would otherwise have been allowed to do as reasonable fair use/fair dealing/etc by local copyright law - generally speaking, the publisher cannot prevent such use.

Incidentally, "other means, now known or hereafter invented..." is a relatively new addition - it's a reaction to ebooks! I have a collection of essays where the editors were feeling playful and added "or magical" in here...


I found out that I have plagiarism in my published journal papers, what should I do now? I published some research papers in an ISI Journal during the past years. But due to the lack of precise knowledge of the correct referencing, and particularly due to attending an “unintentional plagiarism class” in my university, perhaps in some places of my papers, referencing rules unintentionally do not meet correctly and exactly. It seems that I have to modify some parts of my papers if possible.
Also in some parts of my papers I commit an intentional plagiarism.
Now what should I do? Should I contact the editor of the journal? Do they reject or retract my papers? I am a PhD student and if my papers are rejected or retracted I could not defend my PhD thesis.

Please guide me. I'm afraid of expulsion from the university and loss of honor.

The journals need to be contacted, but I would not do it directly. Hopefully your university has someone, ideally a committee, who deals with academic misconduct. I would approach this panel with a detailed list of the occurrences in the papers where you now believe you have plagiarised. Explain to the committee how you were unaware of the norms of good academic research practice until your recent class on the topic. Have in place a plan that will help you continue your training and demonstrate to them that it will not happen again. While they may expel you, I think most academic misconduct panels would look favourably on a student who comes forth on there own with a plan in place. The committee should then be obliged to bring he matter forward with the presses and will negotiate a settlement.

As for loss of honor, it sounds like you plagiarised because you did not understand the norms. While some people will hold this against you, more will look favourably on your ability to admit a mistake.


Possessive case when there are post nominal letters If a person's name comes with post nominal letters, e.g., John Smith PhD or Mary Green MD, which of the following is the correct/better way of forming the possessive?

(A): John Smith PhD's student; Mary Green MD's clcinc

(B): student of John Smith PhD; clinic of Mary Green MD

To me, style (A) sounds unnatural. So which is recommended?

You could go with:

Dr. Smith's student

and

Dr. Green's clinic


Emphasizing previous sales skill in finance PhD application? It seems a rather odd thing to emphasize, but I thought my past experience as a broker could be turned into a positive rather than a moot point.

Do PhD admissions committees take into account soft skill development as a factor, and how heavily do you think they wieght this? Should I note my sales experience in the application, or ignore it?

My field is finance, or potentially economics depending on which program I can get in; I'll have degrees in both at the time of application.

TL;DR: Don't over emphasize work experience, It doesn't "speak for itself" in academia like it does in business. Think instead of using it as examples of how you will make a good PhD student

This is a very interesting question because the answer depends pretty heavily on the field you area looking at, the university you are applying to, and the program that is looking at your application. I and a current Computer Science PhD student, and my path here involved a Masters Degree, then working in my field for 3 years, and applying to PhD programs twice, the first time after 2 years of work ( failing to get accepted anywhere) and the second time after 3 years of work. After I didn't get in, I reached out to one of the professors (at MIT) that I had shown interest in working under in my application. He read my resume and said, "Well theres the problem right there: you haven't done research in 3 years!" I worked at an R&D company all those years, and was surprised that what I thought would be an advantage was actually a disadvantage. The next year, the only time I mentioned my work (which was still pretty often, after all it was most of what I had done since I finished my Masters) was to exemplify how it made me a good researcher...and the rest, as they say, is history.

Really what it comes down to is, just like in business, how are you going to present yourself? You can highlight your business or not, but from my experience detailed above, it seemed to matter much more how you use your work history as an example, and less how much. The people reading our application are likely contextualizing it with their own experience as a person who once-upon-a-time was trying to get into a PhD program and is now a researcher, and the successful cases from their past students. They are going to look at your application and think, "Does this seem like a person who could really contribute to this field?" For me, when I focused on work experience as a part of what made me an applicant, set apart from other applicants coming straight out of school, it actually hurt me in the top schools. This is because all of the people reading my application were researchers and they wanted to cultivate more researcher from their students. As such, my emphasis on work experience hurt me. The following year, when I emphasized what research I had done at my job, as opposed to the general experience I gained at it, I got in to a bunch of top schools.

From what I understand, PhDs in Econ and Finance have very different goals internally (e.g. People who do a PhD in Econ want to do research on markets, trends, and math, and influencing policy vs. People who do a PhD in Finance want to work in finance, maybe do research in Finance, and get job in Finance). Knowing this, what the goals of your PhD are, and the goals of the application readers will help a lot in deciding what is the best way to use your work experience in your application.

Last piece of advice: don't be afraid to reach out. The worst you'll get is a silence or a "I don't talk to prospective students;" no one will hold it against you. You think that some school or someone's research is interesting? If you can get them on the phone or email they will tell you exactly what they expect of their incoming applicants. Was the best decision I made in this long journey of mine...

Good Luck!


How to deal with this rejection email from the journal Mathematics of Computation? I am an undergraduate student, and i had submitted a paper manuscript to Mathematics of Computation, I choose this journal because of my supervisor, who advised me to submit my paper to this journal, but 2 weaks after the submission I received the following email.

Dear Professor XXX,
This message concerns the manuscript
XXXX by XXX
submitted to Mathematics of Computation.
We regret that we cannot consider it, in part because at present we have a large backlog of excellent articles awaiting publication. We are thus forced to return articles that might otherwise be considered. Thank you for considering Mathematics of Computation.
Sincerely,
XXXX Managing Editor, Mathematics of Computation
--- Sent via EditFlow by XXXX mathcomp@math.lsu.edu }}

So, how to deal with this situation ?
Are there any positives/negatives that can be taken ?
Should I submit the paper to another journal?   Or just submit it to the same journal at a later time?
Note that I informed the editors and the referees that I am an undergraduate student.

It is just a nice way to say no. Submit elsewhere.
This is called a desk reject; you will find more in this question What does the typical workflow of a journal look like? .
Note that Math Comp is one of the top journals in its field, so unless the paper was extremely good this was the expected outcome.


How to answer a professor asking "what your masters work is about?" when my thesis is not in English? I have contacted a professor, looking for a PhD position. He replied that my field is so near to his research field, and to consider my application; he needs to know more about my masters thesis.

  I need to see your masters work.

My thesis and most of my publications are in a non-English language. I have one English paper published in a nation-wide conference's proceedings, and this only presents no more than a quarter of my master's thesis.

How should I reply to this professor to better describe my master's work?

PS: I have a detailed CV in which I have brought all my transcripts of my BSc and MSc, translated titles of my publications and projects and all my job experience.

UPDATE: I sent a copy of my English paper, my CV, my thesis abstract and some parts of my thesis besides to a research statement in which I wrote some research topics I am interested to work on.

I think that you should send the professor your thesis, pointing out the obvious that it is not in English.  Perhaps they actually know the language or have a trusted student or postdoc who does?

You should also offer to send an English summary and/or any papers that you have written related to the subject in English.