Is there a place in academia for researchers who write only white papers? While being a Ph.D. candidate (software engineering), I've observed a strange tendency in academia: many mediocre researchers are writing lots of white papers with no evaluation at all. I was also initially encouraged by my supervisor and other professors to do the same, but working with other research groups, getting feedback from conference reviewers and from friends, I've learned that without evaluation of my work, without having an experimental section in my papers, I am only building sand castles. It was hard lesson and I needed to refuse my supervisor to submit papers too early, but it was worth it. I've learned that evaluation offers two benefits:

I can confront my ideas with reality and compare with other solutions
It provides feedback on my actual skills as a researcher, programmer, statistician, etc.

I can understand doing experimental evaluation is harder than just sketching ideas in white papers, but I don't understand one thing. How is it possible that so many white papers are accepted for conferences and publications and their authors can still work in academia? Or maybe I am missing something and my judgement is unfair, because there should be a place in academia for researchers who only write white papers?

How is it possible that so many white papers are accepted for conferences and publications and their authors can still work in the academia?

Technical reports (including white papers) are used for early dissemination. Any such document that is subsequently published is as valuable as a published work that wasn't released early.


Strategies to plan research and make the maximum out of it My masters advisor handed me a bunch of papers and an old dissertation. After week 1, I have hardly managed to read one paper. He asked me to focus on a specific part of the project and I have read the relevant paper but I have not been able to read others. Many weeks have gone past and I feel like I am already a disappointment to him.
I seem to either concentrate on reading papers or doing specific tasks related to the project (e.g. try to understand specific details and implement the knowledge to infer something). I feel for the project to be something fruitful I would need to read a lot of papers, keeping record of the ideas that I came across while reading which can be used in the project, and also reference them while writing my dissertation.
How can I manage time better to read papers and other project related work given that I don't have any coursework or other commitments? How can I keep record of reading to fulfill the aforementioned needs?

Since scientific and math writers are writing for experts, and in fact specialists, it can be very difficult to read papers as you are getting started. Specialists share a mindset that implies that they can leave a lot unsaid. The author of a paper is likely very familiar with all of the papers cited, and you are not. This makes it especially difficult.
To understand a given paper it may be necessary to review many of the referenced papers first. At least the abstracts of those papers. It might be necessary to become familiar with some terminology that you aren't used to. Wikipedia can be a big help in many fields, actually.
But if you are starting out as a masters student then your education up to now has been mostly as a generalist, not a specialist. Don't get overly discouraged, but it takes a lot of work to build up your knowledge base to the point that you can understand a paper.
Dissertations are usually a bit easier, since candidates are expected to be a bit more complete than is true for published articles that depend on earlier work.
It is probably easier now than when I needed to spend hours in the math library, searching for referenced papers and then the papers referenced in those, etc, until I got some idea about what was being said. Now you can find a lot of those older papers online. The understanding hasn't gotten easier, of course.
But eventually, you grasp the specialized language and also the way of thinking of experts in your field. Lots of hours.
If you can ask questions of your advisor or others you can shorten the understanding process quite a bit.
As you read, take a lot of notes. Write down key ideas, of course, but also write down questions you still have. Then try to answer those questions either with more reading or by asking of others. If you find an answer in written work, it is good to write down the citation. You may want it later.
An effective researcher will also write down questions that aren't answered in the paper being read. This gives you an opportunity to extend the work.
Think of the knowledge you need as a tree that you need to explore. You need to go both wide and deep to acquire the understanding.


How do admissions committees evaluate coursework? What steps are taken to evaluate an applicant's coursework?

Are graduate-level courses weighted higher?
Is this a significant part of the decision process (outside the major
components of research experience, personal statement, and LORs)?

I'm interested in what adcoms look for as good signs, red flags, etc.

Any information, particularly for CS PhD programs, is appreciated!

This is more of a general answer.

Graduate-level coursework should carry additional weight in a graduate school application, because it normally suggests that you are capable of doing work at a higher level than the standard undergraduate curriculum. However, it should be pointed out that more weight will be given to a full graduate-level course than a "shared" course that regularly offers both undergraduate and graduate enrollment.

The primary red flag would be poor performance in one or more "core" courses in your discipline, while encouraging signs are taking more or harder classes and doing well in those.

As for the relative importance of this in an application, I'd put coursework in general somewhat behind the letters of recommendation and research experience. However, this is something that may vary from school to school, and even department to department.


Is it okay to open up the thesis file during the defense? During the follow-up discussion during the PhD defense, would it be okay if I open up the thesis pdf file to answer some questions, for example to refer to a figure or equations? or should everything be already on the slides and prepared before?

While I agree that it would be OK to open a pdf of the thesis to show a specific part as an answer to a question I would like to add:

Opening up the thesis and show something in addition to the slides in the middle of the talk would show that the talk was not well prepared. So don't do that and prepare your talk such that this will not be necessary.
Having answers and arguments to questions ready without going to the thesis would appear better. Of course, nobody expects you to know every word from your thesis but it is expected that you know all results of your thesis and also all your arguments.
Opening the thesis when a question like "on page X in Theorem Y you state that…" comes is totally OK. Especially, since this gives the rest of the audience the chance to follow the discussion.

But finally: It's a thesis defense. It usually not an event where anybody fails terribly. If you know what you have written about and know what you are talking about nothing bad will happen.


Can I put online an accepted paper before the conference? My paper has been accepted for a conference, I have chosen the ACM "License to Publish" and the publishers are happy with the camera-ready copy. According to the ACM license I may

  "Post the Accepted Version of the Work on (1) the Author’s home page,
  (2) the Owner’s institutional repository, or (3) any repository
  legally mandated by an agency funding the research on which the Work
  is based."

It doesn't say anything about the timing.  My question is: may I put it online on my own website before the conference?  And if yes, is that considered bad style?

It doesn't say anything about the timing. My question is: may I put it online on my own website before the conference? And if yes, is that considered bad style?

As long as it does not say otherwise I would assume timing to not be an issue. That is, you are free to put the paper online before the conference, and indeed (at least in computer science) this is commonly done.


Why are professors' websites so ugly? I can't help but notice that even in CS, professors' websites are almost always difficult to navigate, poorly-organized, and just generally hard to look at (poorly-tiled backgrounds, inconsistent fonts, etc.).

Why is this? Is it expected of academics? I'll be applying to graduate programs in the Fall and took a few hours to update my personal website, and was outright told by a professor that it was "too much". If I have a "fancy-looking" website, will this reflect negatively on me as an applicant?

Not ALL professors' websites are terrible. As referenced in this nature commentary, many academics acknowledge the potential benefits of having a good website. This article also links to a contest where submissions for the 'best lab websites' were solicited. Many of the links there are great examples of lab websites with elegant aesthetics and intuitive navigation.

I think a lot of this boils down to the fact that many faculty are older or too busy; making a good website takes time and skills that most academics simply don't have. Some labs will hire web designers to help with design, but today's funding climate makes that impractical for most PIs.

Having a good website for your own interests and professional development can only help you. I can't see any downside to this...


Citation for quoting a current accepted value in an abstract? In the abstract of a scientific report, when comparing an experimentally measured value to a current accepted value, should you provide a citation for it?

It is typically not necessary to report the currently accepted value of a quantity in the abstract, but, indeed, you should report it in the scientific report (with citation). In the report you should also discuss the compatibility between your result and the currently accepted value.

However, if there is a significant discrepancy between the accepted value and your result, and the main aim of your report is to discuss the cause of this discrepancy, then it can be useful to report the accepted value also in the abstract. In this case, the citation is needed, but take into account that, frequently, citations in abstracts follow different style conventions from those of the main text.

Pay particular attention to the source of the accepted value. For example, for fundamental physical constants, the Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA) publishes around every 4 years a new "adjustment" of the recommended values (here you can find the values of the latest adjustment with references). These recommended values are calculated on the basis of the best available measurements. The CODATA adjustment should be considered the only reliable source for the accepted values of fundamental physical constants (values reported in books are typically outdated). Other official sources exist for values of quantities related to other fields.


Germany how to change PhD visa before defense to a working permit visa? I have at the moment a visa for my PhD valid until 30.06.2018, but my defense will be in the end of July or middle of August. This week I have received a job offer (full-time) and I would like to change my present visa to a working permit Visa in order to start working and also wait for my defense. Is it possible? Does somebody know which documents are necessary for that?

Thanks a lot for the help and attention.

SOLVED:

As I always expect, I like to see final answers to questions I look for in the Internet. At first I would suggest you to look the answers for my question, they helped me a lot. Finally I needed, the bachelor diplom translated to german, the form of the blue card filled, the working contract, a form written by the employer which describes what work will be done and a photo.

I went to the KVR on a Tuesday and in this day I could not solve much because It was necessary a permission from the Bundesagentur für Arbeit (https://www.arbeitsagentur.de/privatpersonen). This permission was requested on Tuesday and I received an answer on Thursday evening. Friday I went back with these documents again and could finally receive the Bluecard.

An important tip: check if your institution is in the Anabin database (https://www.arbeitsagentur.de/privatpersonen). If it is not, it means that Germany does not know this institution and you will need to do some additional bureaucracy. For further questions, ask here and I will answer asap. =)

Under certain circumstances, it is possible to change one visa type for another. However, immigration law is tricky, so the first thing you should do is check with your local Ausländeramt, who will be able to tell you what is allowed and will have a list of the necessary documentation to apply for a visa, but at a minimum you should expect to need everything you had to provide to apply for the student visa, plus a copy of the job offer. You may need to get a "certificate of good conduct" from your Bürgeramt, but I'm not certain about this.

One of the things to keep in mind is that there is sort of a catch-22 involved in the visa process: technically, the visa isn't valid until you get the job, and you can't get the job until you have the visa. So the job offer is the "promise" that the employer will hire you if the visa is granted.


Should I cite a source for a direct quotation separately if it is inside a paragraph with the same source? Assuming that Adam conducted an interview with John Doe and Adam is the only source.

Should I source the direct quotation separately?

  The chocolate rain machine was invented by John Doe in 1980 and was regarded by Doe as "the most significant invention of the 20th century" (Adam, 2017). He constructed it from wooden bars that were...[several sentences] (Adam, 2017)

Or is the source at the end of the paragraph enough?

  The chocolate rain machine was invented by John Doe in 1980 and was regarded by Doe as "the most significant invention of the 20th century". He constructed it from wooden bars that were...[several sentences] (Adam, 2017)

The objective of citation is to provide clarity in attribution.  In the case where something might be unclear, it is generally better to err on the side of over-citation rather than under-citation.

In this case, I would judge the direct quote to definitely need a citation, because the source of a direct quotation should always be crystal clear.

It is the second part of the paragraph that might go without a citation. If it was short and you began it with a connector like "Adam further reports..." then it might be clearly enough linked with the quote citation to not need a separate citations. In this case, however, where it appears there is quite a bit of additional material, a second citation is likely to provide more clarity.


Affiliation for manuscript publication If I am among the co-authors of a manuscript which I worked on while I was in a Laboratory during my Erasmus Experience, should I be affiliated only with the Laboratory or also the University I regularly attend?

The easiest way to handle this is to use the "present address" option that most journals offer authors. You would list the laboratory where you did the work as your affiliation in the header, and list the university you regularly attend as your "present address" to show you're not there anymore.

On the other hand, if you continued to work on the paper at your university (for instance, if the research was carried out at the Erasmus lab, but written up after you returned home), then you'd list both as current affiliations.


How to teach an undergraduate course without having taken that course formally before? I am in the final year of my PhD. My work was on using Finite element method to study tribology. It was completely modeling based. I developed various models and have gained quite expertise in modeling with the commercially available finite element code.

However, I come from materials engineering background and I don't have any formal education on statics, dynamics, continuum mechanics or finite element method. I had taken some advanced courses on mechanics. But, they did not cover the undergrad stuff and straightaway went for the modeling part or some applied stuff.

Whatever theoretical I have learnt during my PhD, I have done that myself. So, it's neither structured or formalized. I read books, online videos, and I only concentrated on portions applicable for my research. As a result, I know how to model my problem statement which involves dynamic and transient behaviors. But know nothing about statics or quasi-static behaviors.

Now, I am asked to teach a short summer finite element analysis course to mechanical engineering undergrads from July to September (8 lectures ~ 12 hours). and I have no idea what and how to teach them. I have to teach theory and introduce modeling. How do I teach students who have more formal education than me on topics like statics, dynamics, continuum mechanics?

The more I think about this, the less I like it.  A summer course is SUPER ACCELERATED.  You blink, and the course is half over.  The opportunity to fix problems that arise is tiny.

I hope this is a low-credit course, as I really encourage you to stick to a workshop-style approach.  Teach by example.  This will essentially be a "getting started" guided tour.  Pick a problem, and walk the students through that problem during the summer session using a number of the tools you're trying to teach.

If you can find somebody that's taught this before, make that person your best friend.


How did modern western post-secondary education become tied up with research and publications? Teaching, research and (academic) publishing are three different pursuits. Our society and its institutions, particularly most universities, enforce links between these in various ways.

People who have great teaching skills can not get teaching positions (at universities) because they aren't good in doing research, and some potentially great researchers experience setbacks in their academic career because they are horrible at teaching, and both can be penalized by failing to or poorly publishing their results.

How did this happen? Who does is benefit? How does intertwining these three requirements benefit the general knowledge and the academic community?

Ca. the 17th century, typically research, teaching, and religion were the functions of a European university. For example, when Isaac Newton wanted to become a professor at Cambridge, he asked the king for a special dispensation to be excused from taking holy orders. He was expected to teach as well as doing research, but was apparently such a bad teacher that he often lectured to an empty room.

During this period publication was not as emphasized as it is today. There were no academic journals in the modern sense. People communicated their results directly to their students, by letters to their peers, and sometimes by writing books. In some fields, such as alchemy, secrecy was the norm.

Presumably the reason that research, teaching, and religion were all linked was that the system evolved from medieval institutions, in which the literate class consisted mostly of monks. Part of their job was to preserve knowledge.

I think the more modern, liberal, and secular model is what's known as the German university model. It dates to the 19th century and was influenced by personalities like Friedrich Schleiermacher and Wilhelm von Humboldt. I think this was also the era when modern academic journals began to appear, and this was an important, positive development.

Some more modern phenomena in the US are research supported by grants from the central government; land-grant colleges; the delegation of a large amount of undergraduate teaching to part-time faculty; and the creation of community colleges, which have only teaching as their mission, not research.


Before entering into a computational research PhD, should one gain strong coding & software engineering skills? Main Question: Should someone gain good computer programming skills/experience through a software engineering job before entering a 5-year PhD program in Computer Science (Tentative specialization: Reinforcement Learning, Machine Learning, Deep Learning)?

IMPORTANT NOTE:-
The reason for asking about gaining programming skills & experience is:-

NOT from the perspective of resume/application strength (i.e., whether one would get accepted to a PhD program or not), but rather from the perspective of whether one would be more productive (hence faster) during computational research in AI (i.e., running computational experiments).
NOT related to being or not being able to complete the research and get the PhD degree.
As mentioned earlier, it's about whether having strong programming and software development skills would enable one to implement and test ideas more quickly. As some PhD students say that a lot of their time goes into implementing the ideas, during the initial months of their PhD.
Slow implementation of ideas → Slow progress.

Many (not everyone!) students interested in pursuing research and planning to get into AI research through a PhD program, have limited to no software development experience. Many of such students have only worked on research projects involving limited programming skills, often having no software development experience.
Clearly, such students would have limited ability to implement and test ideas, by running computational experiments.

So, would doing a software engineering job and gaining strong coding experience significantly help them during their (computational) experimental work in PhD?

Please consider that the potential candidate aspires:-

To disseminate research findings or knowledge (during PhD and beyond) not just by (traditionally) writing papers or blogs, but by deploying models on the web like Andrej Karpathy did through some of his famous projects like ConvnetJS, RecurrentJS, tsneJS, ReinforceJS, or by interactive visualizations like Distill, etc.
To be able to do so, I believe that one would need to be good at software engineering.
Aspires to perform reproducible research and writing re-usable code, which can only be achieved by good software engineering practices, generally acquirable by working in software engineering sector.

To achieve such task, one would need to spend a significant amount of their time, during the initial PhD months, on getting good at programming and software development. Clearly, this amount of time and effort would have been better spent on doing research, and testing more and more new ideas.
So, that's what my question is focused on.

What advice/suggestions do you have on what should one do considering his/her current coding capabilities and above expectations from the PhD?

I think the answer largely depends on what role you are in.

If you are a professor on the graduate admission committee, and/or consider taking Ph.D. students, you are free to set your standards according to your opinions (that I disagree with, but irrelevant here).

If you are a student that is considering applying to a Ph.D. program in that area, or a Ph.D. student that is choosing research area now, I think it is unnecessary to delay the application process/research just to gain software engineer experience. While it is cool to write clean and nice style code, the software engineer skills, while still helpful, are unlikely the main focus in academic research. For the purpose you describe, I believe those skills can be obtained during the time in a Ph.D. program doing related research, and would not be too time consuming.


Are professors at a public university in the U.S. considered to be "employed by the U.S. government"? Also, is a grad student who is being funded by an NSF grant considered to be "employed by the U.S. government"?

I ask because I'm submitting a paper, and I have to state whether or not all authors are "employed by the U.S. government".

The reason this question is asked by journals is that except in some limited cases, the US government may not, by law, hold the US copyright in a work created by its employees, and, therefore, cannot transfer it to the publisher of the journal as is traditionally done in most academic publishing agreements. As such, the journal can't ask those authors who are US government employees to sign the copyright transfer and must use a different agreement. If one or more of the authors is not a US government employee, then those authors will still need to make the transfer.

Employees of US state governments, which includes most public university employees in the US, do not have this limitation, and can make the copyright transfer or other licensing arrangement that the publisher requires.


Can you cite other master's theses when writing your own? I am completing a master's by research (in Humanities), and thus shall be writing a thesis with no class work. I am using both a mixture of primary and secondary source but one item that has me a bit unsure is the use of other master's theses. Is there an expectation at the master's level that you would only consult documents at a higher level (PhD and up)? I know the simple answer would be to ask your advisor, which I intend to do, but I wondering it their any accepted academic practice or principle on the issue?

Should or can I refer to (and cite) other master's thesis as source material or should I be only using material that would be considered above the master's level, such as PhD theses?

In general, there is no such widespread requirement or expectation anywhere in academia. (Perhaps a particularly unusual advisor might have such an expectation, but even then, I doubt it.)

If you note the citations of research papers, a decent number of them will cite master's theses—some of my papers certainly do! And if I can submit a paper to a major journal that cites a master's thesis, why wouldn't another student's master's thesis?


What do these mysterious numbers in the subject line of arXiv mailing list emails mean? Every day I receive the latest arXiv abstracts via email, with subject lines such as

physics daily Subj-class mailing a4 1
physics daily Subj-class mailing 124 1
physics daily Subj-class mailing 490 1

With new email clients that create "conversations" from an email chain based on the subject line, the disorderly nature of the subject lines makes it a pain to sift through the last week's abstracts if I haven't kept myself up to date.

What do a4, 124, and 490 mean? These identifiers are not unique to each day's listings, but I cannot spot a correlation between them and the date of the email. Is there some hidden way to either include the date in the subject header, or remove these seemingly random strings?

Straight from the horse's mouth: there is no fix, but an update is on the list of things that "will be done when they're done".

  You may safely ignore the numbers after the text "class mailing" as
  they are used for internal audit code and essentially meaningless from
  a user perspective.

  We do have plans to update the mailing code at some stage, but the
  time-line is unclear due to limited developer time.


How to anonymize research software in an abstract? I'm writing an abstract for submission to a conference aimed at a rather small research community. The abstract should be submitted anonymously for double-blind review purposes.

The problem is that in the paper I describe a set of interoperable software tools which are fairly well-known within that community (thus, it would be reasonably simple for reviewers to infer authorship when acquainted with the software).

How can I anonymize the tools properly?

I need to go into engineering details, so I have thought about simply referring to tools by function, e.g., data processing tool, data analysis tool, data conversion tool, etc. (references would in reality a little more domain-specific). However, as the set of tools forms a relatively unique combination, reviewers may still be able to infer authorship.

Confidentiality and anonymity are different things.  There is no way at all of guaranteeing anonymity.  When you discuss the extremely enlightening experience of an unnamed one-legged Spanish lesbian lion-tamer in Sheffield, you have pretty much made certain that someone could identify her.

If it is important to your professional community, however, that community should protect that person's rights not to be discussed in public.

For peer-review purposes, I would suggest that it might be best to offer alternative terms for the concepts that you describe if that can be done smoothly, but otherwise to trust the community to be judicious and conscientious.  If we can't respectfully do that, we will never get anywhere with anything.


help becoming a research assistant This is probably me overthinking a lot but I really don't want to screw this up. There was a flyer sent to me by my adviser for a research assistant opening for one of the psych professors on campus. The flyer says basic info such as what the research is about, requirements, and benefits. On the bottom of the flyer it says please contact if interested. I am not sure what to email the professor besides "hello I am interested in your study and I would like to join as one of your research assistants" something like that. What else should I add?? or should it simply be something basic like that. Also she is looking for students that have a 3.0 gpa or higher. I have a 2.7 gpa but I am really working hard to get a high gpa taking many classes. I want to let her know this and let her know not to look at my gpa but my hard work and determination. I have a bad gpa from my mistakes I made in my first year at community college. Well any advice helps I just overthink a lot and I really want to become an assistant and start helping my career little by little.

You’re applying for a job. Treat it like any other job application: write a cover letter, and attach your CV. If you aren’t sure how to do those things, consider doing a google search or asking your university’s career office.


Is consent required to record audio of a conference talk in the US? Do I need a consent to record audio of a presentation at a scientific conference in USA (provided that the conference does not explicitly prohibit such recording)? I'm guessing since it is not a private conversation, it's okay to record it.

This question is out of curiosity. I do not actually have clear intentions of recording talks.

I don't know the relevant laws, which may vary between U.S. states, but I wouldn't focus on the legal question.  Regardless of whether you have the legal right to make a recording, you should not do so without the speaker's permission.  If someone asked me, I would probably give permission, but making a recording without asking feels creepy and inappropriate.  If you go around doing this in academia, it's likely to be viewed as unprofessional, and some speakers will become angry.

Even if you ask, people may wonder why you want a recording.  (Are you stalking the speaker?  Are you going to scrutinize the recording to try to find misstatements?  Are you working on competing research and trying to document exactly what was said in your competitor's talk?)  If you have a compelling reason to make a recording, it's worth explaining why.  For example, perhaps it could help accommodate certain disabilities.  Otherwise, you can certainly ask, but it may come across as a weird request.


Is there a more gender-neutral and specific term for "Underclassman"? Yale has changed their language, but I don't see a clear alternative here.
At this point, I think referring to students by their specific class years ( "First-Years and Sophomores" vs. "Juniors and Seniors") is the best alternative for now, particularly because of the ambiguity around what class years the terms "underclassman" and "upperclassman" really refer to.

Referring to years verbosely makes sense to me.

First-years and sophomores

First and second years

Or if you want a different meaning

First through third years


I feel burned out after finishing my master. Should I take year off before the PhD? I'm in the second year of a master's program and I'm considering taking a year off before doing a PhD. I am excited to do a PhD and have some idea of what I want to research, but I am not sure if jumping right into it would be beneficial. The main reason is, simply, I've been in school my whole life and have felt pretty burnt out at times in the master's. I'm not sure I could start the coursework/proposal/thesis process all over again right after finishing my master's. The second reason is I'm switching to a new discipline (but still in the social sciences) and feel that a year of independent reading to acclimatize myself to the discipline would be beneficial, without the pressure of constant deadlines and assignments.

Are these justifiable reasons for taking the year off, or should I just jump into the PhD? I'd hopefully be working full time, working on applications for universities and scholarships, and reading lots. I'm also a bit concerned with funding - would scholarship committees be more skeptical of applicants who take a year off before the PhD?

I would definitely advise taking a year off if you indeed feel as you've described. Burnouts are common and costly, and you might want to prevent one at all costs. There is nothing wrong with taking a break. Even though in academia it's sort of subliminally assumed that you're going to sacrifice your life, sanity and your unborn children to research, there really is nothing bad to say "hey, I need some time to myself." And no one is going to care, least of all admissions committees. You can even turn this break to your advantage by doing some volunteer work, or part-time research work. Seriously.

Personally, I spent 5 years doing undergrad in psych, then 2 years doing a Master's and by the time I finished my first year of PhD in clinical psychology I was so burned out after 8 years of post-secondary education and 5 years of constant academic research that I crashed & burned and dropped out of the PhD. Periods of rest are conducive to general sanity. Best of luck.


How is US law on equal opportunity enforced in academic recruitment? Almost every US university states on its job advertisements that the university is an equal opportunity employer. Based on federal law, this means that applicants not be judged by their race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

What is the guarantee for this fair strategy in action? If the committee is influenced by negative personal views to underestimate the qualifications of an applicant, how can s/he prove/appeal/claim/complain?

For example, certain criteria are given for an academic position. If an applicant believes that the winner of this competition (the one who is finally appointed) is less qualified than her/him, how can s/he claim that the selection was not equal opportunity in practice?

How can one detect/prove this violation?

How does one proceed in case of a possible violation?

Being an equal opportunity employer means that the institution abides by the US federal law on Equal Opportunity - basically that the employer cannot consider race, color, religion, sex, or national origin when making personnel decisions. Additional protected classes, such as age, have been added to Equal Opportunity over the years. Equal Opportunity does not force an institution to hire someone they would rather not hire on the basis of being a member of a protected class, but it means they cannot artificially exclude that candidate. Equal opportunity means that all applications must be evaluated fairly. It does not mean that the best candidate on paper always gets the job.

This is in contrast to Affirmative Action, which in the US is "positive discrimination". In other words, the institution is forced to artificially maintain diversity in its staffing if it does not happen naturally. Affirmative action can mean that you would have to hire your second (or third) choice over your first choice to maintain diversity.

Edit - to address some comments.

From the perspective of an applicant, EO violations can difficult to prove, and the burden of proof is usually on the applicant. Most of the information collected during a hiring process is not (and never will become) public. It is shredded/deleted once the position is filled. An applicant's on paper qualifications are nearly impossible to know, unless you are a close acquaintance of the person. The CV that person posts on their website might be abbreviated, incomplete, or out-of-date.

Additionally, most hiring committees often consider important intangibles that are assessed during the interview. Academic positions are different from positions elsewhere. Most academic committees are assuming that they are hiring a person who will stay at that institution, get tenure, etc. They need to assess if the candidate is likely to do so, if the candidate is likely to thrive in the current culture of the department, if the candidate will get along with the faculty personalities, if the candidate is likely to start looking for something bigger and better five-ten years later, if the candidate is likely to survive the tenure process, if the candidate's specialty/expertise fill a current void in the department, if the candidate is likely to meet service expectations with enthusiasm, if the candidate is amenable to the crappy teaching load he or she will get the first semester, if the candidate's research plans are feasible given other expectations and institutional resources, etc.

You may have more awards, publications, conference presentations, fellowships, grants, letters after you name, or whatever on-paper metric you are using, but you may not have met the needs of the department or institution as well as the other candidate. You may feel more qualified, but someone else was a better fit overall for the position. This question and the answers to this question suggest that applications that look too good may not be considered seriously because hiring committees are afraid of a bad fit.

Alternatively, as may happen, the department you applied to may have always intended to hire the person they hired, but to meet legal and institutional requirements they conducted a search. They interviewed several other strong candidates from diverse backgrounds to satisfy EEO requirements, and then they hired the person they wanted to hire. I won't pretend that such behavior isn't shady, but it can be common, especially for administrative positions, and it is legal. The best way for a hiring committee to prove they are following EEO guidelines is to interview a diverse array of qualified candidates.

To allege that your application was artificially rejected because of your membership in a protected class, start by getting a lawyer. Don't risk jeopardizing your case by inadvertently proceeding without one. Then, do whatever your legal counsel advises. That is what they are for. The only real proof that the hiring committee discriminated against you is if no members of your protected class were interviewed. If you were interviewed, that means they either 1) considered you a strong candidate or 2) went out of their way not to exclude you. Either way, you have almost no case. It may make you angry if the second thing happened, but there is little you can do except to warn people you know away from applying at that institution. If they discriminate against you because you are not the one person they really want for the job, it is not illegal, it just sucks.


Emailing professor: Is my profile good enough for this position? I am applying for PhD positions nowadays. Recently, few PhDs are announced (in CoQus, Austria) and I am very interested in these positions. But it looks like these positions require very high profile candidates. They have asked about publications (if applicable) in nearly each paragraph of advertisement. It is also written that a candidate can only apply once for PhD in that institute in whole life.

I have written a paper during my M.Sc. but its status is "submitted". So, technically I don't have any publication yet.

I don't want to lose my chance by applying without publication. So, my question is:

Is it a good idea to email professor of my interest asking about if my profile is good enough to have any chance to get this PhD?

The conditions invite potential candidates to self-assess their profiles.  The reason is probably that the University receives a lot of applications per post and HRs want to save a bit of time during the shortlisting stage by ensuring that candidates apply only when they are ready.  In all fairness, it seems that you want your potential supervisor to do a bit of this work for you. I am not sure it is a good idea.


Did scopus choose not to add my paper (from an accepted journal) or did something go wrong? I have practically the same question as in here.

My most read/reference article is published in a Scopus indexed journal. The article is from 2016, and its indexed by Google Scholar.

However, when browsing the papers by that journal in Scopus, my article is just not there. Why would this happen? Is this a mistake, or genuinely someone/something in the system decided that my article does not meet some criteria?

If its a mistake, can I do something to fox it?

If its because my article does not pass some criteria, which criteria?

Something probably went wrong. It shouldn't take this long to index.

I would contact the journal / publisher and ask. It's possible your article "did not pass" some criteria, but those aren't fixable by you - the criteria is probably something like "we need your files in this format and the publisher did not provide it".


Mistook new faculty member to be a student, how big a faux pas is it? Today I was introduced in the cafeteria by a professor who I know to someone new by just their first name.  Because of admissions season, I thought that the new person was a prospective grad student and I asked, "are you here for admissions?" and the reply was that "no, I just joined as an assistant professor here a month ago." I was already embarrassed enough but I think I stuffed my foot further in my mouth, when I said "oh sorry, sorry but you look so young."

The problem is that the person who I was introduced to is female, and I am afraid that I might have offended her. Am I just being paranoid or will some people really feel offended from such a comment?

I'm a female professor in my late 20s and I'm pretty sure I look even younger than I am. I've been mistaken for a student a bunch of times and it's always been an honest and totally understandable mistake. I'm often assumed to be a grad student; heck, I discovered in front of my mirror three days ago that wearing the school logo T-shirt I somehow acquired is inadvisable because it makes me look nearly indistinguishable from an undergrad.

I know doing this is embarrassing for the person who messed up, but looking at me and concluding that I'm very likely a grad student is reasonable and something I know is going to happen unless I'm wearing a fancy-schmancy suit. Heh! I've even done it myself. One time when I was meeting a (male) colleague, each of us mistook the other for a grad student; we've been teasing each other about it since. The only circumstances under which this would bug me would be if the person doing it were trying to be patronizing, or covered it up in a way that introduced some creepiness.

But yeah. I'm accustomed to it and I know my status surprises people. When someone asks if I'm a student, I laugh it off and say, "I am a very young faculty member." Most of the time thereafter I forget it happened. You did everything you needed to in order to make amends; I'd say put the guilt aside and move forward with a professional relationship with your colleague.


What is the equivalent of European "seminar" in US universities? At my Czech university where I study computer science (but I believe math and physics are organized the same way here), most courses have both lectures (professor presenting the topic to a large class) and "seminars" (TA giving exercises and homework to a smaller class).

I believe courses at US universities have different structure and that the term "seminar" has different meaning. But there has to be something like our "seminars", right? What is it called? How does it look like?

This is often called a "recitation section".


Where can I find (preferably UK) statistics about where graduate students did their undergraduate course? I'm currently trying to find out if the (very roughly paraphrased, possibly exaggerated) statistic that '1% of graduate students in mathematics go on to become a professor' varies according to the undergraduate institution those undergraduates came from.

One first part of this investigation is to find out what proportions of graduate students arrive from which universities (as in, how much different universities contribute towards graduate numbers out their undergraduate pool).

Where might I find such statistics? Would I be able to find statistics answering my initial question directly?

The Higher Education Statistics Agency would be your first port of call in the UK.

HESA collects statistics from students across HE institutions and publishes their results.  It is my understanding that all UK HEIs are required to submit data about their students, so coverage should be relatively complete.

Most of the attention is generally paid to what students do 6 months after that have graduated from an undergraduate courses; however, their data appears to be available, so you might be able to do your own analysis looking at graduate destinations>further study>subject studied.  See 'free online tables' on the Graduate Destinations page.

You might need to speak with HESA directly to drill down to institutional level.  They have advice for data analysis as well, so maybe worth getting in touch.


Method of self-assessment of academic potential I am a soon-to-be-CS-grad at a small teaching university I'm sure you haven't heard of.  I have had several internships, most of which were more development than research (teaching programming at local high schools, developing web services at local companies, etc), and would like to "try on" research before I commit myself to a post-grad program.

Is there a way to accurately assess my ability to perform in a research environment?  I do well in classes, but I am realizing that has little bearing on research ability.  I feel that I am  fairly smart, and know I put in more hours than my undergrad peers, but again, that means basically nothing.

How can I tell if I would be a productive researcher, or if I'm just suffering a minor case of DK-itis?  Is committing to it and spending years of my life the only way to discover my own hackery?

The best way to assess your ability to do research is to do research.  It's kind of like figuring out what Tiggers like to eat---there's just no substitute for trying.

Research generally requires intelligence, hard work, and creativity, but whether you have enough of them and whether those talents combine in a way that fits well with research and whether you actually enjoy deploying them in that manner is something you simply will not be able to know until you get involved in some.

One good way to do this would be by enrolling in a Master's program with a research component.  This is only a couple of years commitment, and can give you ample opportunities to try out research in your field of interest.  If you end up deciding that research is a good path for you, it will help you build credentials to get into a good Ph.D. program.  If you ended up deciding otherwise, you'll still have a nice higher degree that may get you a higher paycheck in industry.


Why would one choose a particular advisor, other than having shared interests? I'm applying to a graduate program, and one of the application's requirements is to select at least one advisor, along with a reason for the selection. Specifically, this is the requirement:

  In order to match you with a faculty adviser, tell us which faculty member's work most closely aligns with your interest.

And there is a list from which I should choose the advisor's name, and a text field in which I'm asked to write a reason for the selection.

I already know the advisors whom I'd like to work with, and the reason is simply that I'm interested in what they do (based on their recent papers/projects). But I'm not sure if this is what they're looking for, because they've already said this in the quoted text above, and also I will choose more than one advisor, and writing the same reason doesn't seem right.

My question is: What other reasons that one may have for selecting an advisor, other than having shared interests?

Many don't speak about this too often, but with an advisor you are not only choosing a field of interest, but you are choosing a mentor. By all means, you want to "tick well" with him/her. There is not much good for a PhD student having a star researcher advisor whom they see once in a quarter and who is a sociopath on a personal level (this is a bit too extreme, but think about it as a continuum between extremes). Choose somebody with whom you will be able to work, whose example it is worth to follow, from whom you want to learn, not only the scientific stuff, but also workstyle, level of quality he/she strives for, etc. These soft reasons are often more important than anything else. For highlighting of all the examples of stuff you don't want to fall into (but will anyway :-) ), go and look at the PhD Comics.

P.S.
I am speaking with a European-centric attitude, where you choose your advisor, since he/she will be your boss, rather than being assigned to one as it seems to happen in the US system. Still, the point is worth to consider. Germans have a good term for this, your PhD supervisor is your "Doktorvater", i.e., "doctor father". That very much speaks how the relationship should end up in an ideal case.


Are technical news websites acceptable as references in the introduction or motivation section? So far I only use papers from ieee, nature, or other research publications.

My supervisor suggested me to write more in motivational background part.

I found tech news website like eejournal.com and semiengineering.com provides more general, more business-related, stories for general audiences.

Can I use them as reference in introduction/motivation part of my master thesis?

My personal opinion is we cannot use them.
But I do not know where I can get papers about e.g. cost analysis in CMOS scaling and next gen lithography, or why we need new memory devices like memristor.

As a general rule, a reference should be reliable/authoritative for what it says. So whether or not a reference is acceptable depends on what claim you are using it to support, and whether the source has the authority/evidence to make that claim.

A news website would not be an authoritative reference for technical information. For example, this would not be OK:

"With 5G wireless technology, a web page will load in a millisecond [1]." The writer of the article is not an expert in 5G technology, and there is no evidence in the article to support this claim. Instead, to make this claim, you should cite a reliable technical reference that offers evidence.

However, a news website might be a useful reference for other things where it is an authoritative reference. For example:

"Media portrayals of 5G have not necessarily been realistic - for example, Adweek has claimed that with 5G technology, web pages will load in a millisecond [1], but the IMT 2020 technical requirements for 5G [2] specify at least 1 millisecond of latency for just a small subset of the network path." Note that Adweek is not a good source for the claim that web pages will load in a millisecond - the writer of the article is not an expert on 5G! - but it is an acceptable source for how 5G technology has been portrayed in the media.
"Bob Metcalfe, who is called the 'father of Ethernet', said that the developers of the Ethernet standard believed voice and video over Ethernet would be impossible [3]." Here, Bob Metcalfe is a reliable source as to what the developers of the Ethernet standard thought at the time, and an interview with him is authoritative for this.


I used external help for my masters thesis coding work Hi I wrote my masters thesis and it got A grade. I wrote 20,000 words on my own but I took help for the coding portion. Ideas were mine but he helped me putting them into action - discussing solutiouns,  helped in debugging , helped in finding code from internet etc .Have I plagirised in any form ?

There are two independent issues here:

Did you take credit for someone else's work?  To avoid this, you need to explain the situation clearly and explicitly in your thesis, so that nobody will give you more credit than you deserve.  This has to be prominent enough to be noticed.  (If the code is a major part of your thesis, then it's not enough to mention the assistance just in a footnote on page 85.)
Did you do enough yourself to fulfill the requirements for your degree?  To ensure that this is the case, whoever grades your thesis (advisor, examiner, thesis committee) should be aware of the situation.

If you mentioned the assistance clearly in the thesis and your advisor was well aware of it, then you should be fine.

If you mentioned it clearly but your advisor was unaware, then you're probably OK, since it would be embarrassing for your advisor to admit that he/she didn't notice the clear statement in your thesis.  But you should have made sure your advisor knew.

If your advisor knew but you didn't mention it clearly in the thesis, then you should have written it differently.  You could be accused of academic dishonesty, but I think you are unlikely to get in trouble for it now, given that your advisor knew and hasn't objected.  However, if you publish the thesis results, you should be sure to mention it then.  (In my experience, people are more likely to get upset over credit issues for a publication than a master's thesis, so this is riskier.)

If your advisor didn't know and your thesis didn't mention it, then you are in a bad situation.  You probably won't be caught, because it's not so easy for anyone to find out, but if people do find out then you could easily be accused of academic dishonesty.  How serious this would be depends on the details of your case.


Etiquette of publishing (continued) research after graduation with an MS degree? Situation
I am soon (maybe...) going to graduate with a thesis-based MS in a technical field. The past year and a half has been incredibly frustrating from a research perspective, as my advisor has insisted on telling me exactly what and how to research, essentially prohibiting me from exploring any of my ideas which are not approved by him.
I believe this is because I unfortunately chose a research area for my MS directly related to his PhD work from some time ago.
I have, for purposes of finishing my degree program, simply acquiesced to his requests in the hopes of finishing as this degree has dragged on for far longer than I want and my current goal is to simply be finished with school officially.
I am currently working full-time (after working in research on campus for ~2.5 years) and have no intent to pursue a PhD in the near future and if so, absolutely not with my current advisor.
Question
I do have personal interest in my research and can see myself exploring my own interests post-graduation, which could result in publishable material. I have no interest in giving my current advisor credit for any of this, should it happen. I also understand he likely would be pretty upset should I actually publish related to my MS work without his involvement.
Are there standard etiquette, unspoken rules, or things to be aware of, within either the academic world or research world which address this situation?
I am posting this anonymously but will be able to clarify

The big issue here is the following: will you need to have your master's thesis advisor write you a letter of recommendation in the near future? If so, then it will be potentially a big problem to publish material from your thesis without his involvement. This will provoke a response, which could be damaging to, for instance, job applications or graduate school admissions. So tread carefully before trying to publish the MS work.

However, since your advisor has proscribed work in other directions as part of your thesis, you could certainly explore those on your own. In such a case—since it isn't an outgrowth of your thesis work, but essentially a "parallel" work, you wouldn't need to share co-author credit with him. This is especially true if you write the paper and direct the research yourself; in such cases, he has no real claim to being on the paper.


What does "activated" DOI number mean? I would like to know what the difference is between a DOI number and an activated DOI number. Additionally, I have a DOI number for an article of mine to be published in a TUBITAK journal in Turkey. After the actual publication, how long does it take the DOI number to be activated in the system?

Because DOIs are often fairly predictable, and it's useful to have a single ID, many publishers assign them at an early stage of publication, well before the article is online. At this point, though, they're just a string of digits and don't really "become a DOI" until they're entered into the CrossRef system. I'm guessing this is what your publisher means by "activated".

When the publisher has submitted the metadata to CrossRef, the central system at dx.doi.org now knows that doi:10.1234/5678.910 should resolve to www.example.com/journal/article, and the link can start working. Once the metadata is submitted, the DOI should be active fairly quickly - within a day, if not sooner, is my experience. However, some publishers delay submitting this metadata for a while even after the article is first published online in an 'early view' status or similar - I have no idea why, but I've seen it done.

Right now, there is nothing technically stopping publishers submitting the metadata before making the article live, but it's recommended to do so at or shortly after publication - so your DOI probably won't work until shortly after the article is posted online.

It would be nice for DOIs (especially for high-profile material) to be live at the moment of publication... and it may happen fairly soon. CrossRef recently held a consultation on how best to do 'advance registration' of DOIs for unpublished material, and from comments I saw at the time I suspect the responses were fairly positive. This suggests we'll see a more robust approach to this in the near future, with DOIs that are live and resolve to something in advance of publication.


Decision in process has passed a one month. Should I send a mail asking status of manuscript to editorial staff? I have submitted a manuscript in (nature) Scientific report journal. it was under review for a month. After that it is showing decision started since last 30 days? what can be the reasons for such a long time in making decision? Should I ask for a status of manuscript?

The straight forward answer is NO. This is because of the following reasons:

the journal you are talking about is highly reputed and the editorial office know their responsibility well.
30 days is very less given few situations where two or more Editors taking final decision. So it includes communication times.
although you have adrenaline rush to see the review results. It is better to wait to show that you are not desperate. (I understand it is difficult)
instead of mailing them better start working on what possible comments the work might have got. So that you can finish the revision soon, if Incase

Last, good luck!


If a PhD student is bad in interpersonal communications, would he find trouble doing his PhD? As far as I know, some research involves group-work.

If a PhD student is either introverted, bad at interpersonal communications or both.

What difficulties might they encounter?

Of course interpersonal skills are important in completing a PhD. As you note, a PhD some fields involves working in small to very large teams, where interpersonal skills are essential. Even in the few fields were individuals typically work alone, interpersonal skills are necessary to navigate relationships with peers, graduate advisors, other members of the community, etc.

This is not to say that with poor interpersonal skills one is doomed. Such skills can be learned, and one can improve substantially with effort. It may even be true that in some areas of science, interpersonal skills are less important than in other jobs. But to say that they are not needed would be a gross misrepresentation of what it is like to get a PhD or work in academic science at any level.


How to respond to questions about my own progress in my PhD I'm a PhD student and sometimes it happens that my advisor will ask me how I think my PhD is going. I'm not sure how to come up with a good objective answer to this question. Mostly because I don't know if things are going to slow or fast etc.

How can I provide a good answer to this question? I guess I can point out if things are going as planned, but this doesn't really answer the question.

I used to answer to such questions by describing the current concrete state of my research:

recently accepted/submitted papers
papers being prepared/written
upcoming plans

I then left it up to the asker whether that is enough information or whether they want to make any more specific enquiries.


I want to apply for a Masters degree but have a low average, what can I do? I´m a recently graduated mechanical engineer, I  want to apply for a Masters degree but my average is quite low for a lot of universities requirements, what can I do in order to be more eligible?

This really depends on how "low" your GPA really is. Generally universities require a GPA of 3.0 or higher. However, many universities will also accept students who have an average of 3.0 or higher for their final 60 credits (or final two years). Depending on how important this is to you, you can do the following:

Enroll in related undergraduate classes at an accredited institute and get good grades. Many schools will consider your total undergraduate GPA from all institutions you have attended (despite the fact that you already had an undergrad degree). I've known of people successfully doing this.
Get a short course-based master's degree at a smaller university with lax admission requirements and try to get a high GPA. After graduating you can try to get into a better school with higher admission requirements. I had a cousin who did this and moved on to get a graduate degree from a highly reputable university.

Both of these obviously require you to spend considerable money and time (a year or more) on this.


How should one acknowledge assistance received via sites like SE? I have been working for some time on a paper that I hope to submit to a mathematics journal. Buried deep in the guts of the paper is a technical lemma that I struggled with for some time before finally posting the question to MSE, where it promptly received an answer.  What is the proper way to acknowledge this assistance in the submitted manuscript?

The proper way to acknowledge any source other than your own brain is to formally cite that source in your bibliography; whether that source is a textbook, journal paper, proceedings paper, preprint, StackExchange questions, blog post, newspaper article, movie, cereal box, bathroom wall, or your mom is utterly immaterial.  If your source is a StackExchange site, then you must cite the StackExchange site.

See meta.math.SE, meta.cstheory.SE, and meta.SE for a discussion of when, whether, and how to cite StackExchange questions and answers.

(Full disclosure: I have cited blogs, StackExchange questions, Usenet posts, newspaper articles, movies, and video games in my refereed journal papers, and at least one of my StackExchange questions has more citations than at least one of my research papers.)


Are there meaningful downsides to a "guaranteed" (graduate) admissions program? One  school I know of, University of Pittsburgh, has an early admission program to its graduate schools (law, business, medicine, and others) for qualified juniors. That is, students can apply to the program in the second semester of their junior year, and if admitted, can use the first year of the graduate program as their "senior year," in terms of credits needed for their bachelor's degree.

More to the point, this school has "guaranteed" graduate admissions for outstanding high school students, to which one of my smartest high school classmates was admitted. She had outstanding grades (4.0) and board scores (1500), and was "guaranteed" a place in the medical school upon matriculation. The minimum requirement was that she had to take a "general science" major (biology, chemistry, physics), and earn a 3.75 GPA, but given her high school achievements, this was not in doubt. (She now has a thriving practice.)

For someone that knows what they want, are there any meaningful downsides to "enrolling" in a graduate program (medicine, law, business), right out of high school?

If you are sure that you want to be in a particular profession, say law, then these programs can provide a bit of a short cut. However, if you change your mind along the way you may wind up with an "unusable" education as it may be missing critical elements needed elsewhere.

However, if you can change your mind and still have a good path forward, then there should be no real downside. In particular, if the intervening years include a real undergraduate degree in a meaningful field, then there is no reason to actually finish the professional program. There isn't a contract that you have to fulfill.

In some ways this is just a marketing stunt by a school who wants to increase applications of good students. There are no guarantees on either side, I'm sure, as the student has to fulfill the requirements stated to move on to the professional portion, and the student is free to leave at any time that they feel their needs aren't being met.

But a program that is so specialized that you don't get a good general education along the way would, in my view, be a mistake. A mistake for the individual as well as for society. A program that only makes technocrats can turn out people who are actively dangerous as their world view is too narrow.

Moreover, if you want to later extend your education beyond the professional training you get in such a program, you may find that you don't have the needed background. That would depend on the details, of course.

Actually, I also question the wisdom of encouraging people of that age to 'lock in' to a particular profession. A lot of changes happen in the lives of 17-18 years olds. As a parent I would discourage such things in favor of a more general education in which they could put off such decisions until they have more perspective. I recognize that not everyone feels that way, of course. If a kid wants to be a doctor simply because both mom and dad are doctors he/she should really look around first. (I feel the same way about academia as a profession, in fact.)


Contacting a Professor for a PhD in the US (Engineering) I am new around here so go easy on me :) this question is directed at anyone with experience with graduate studies in the US.

A little background information about myself:
I am wrapping my up my M.Sc. in Aerospace Engineering in Germany and currently applying for a PhD in a well-known US University. I already did my GRE and TOEFL and have gathered all 3 Letters of Recommendation in time for the December deadline for start in Fall 2020. Regardless of my chances of getting in, I want to give it my best shot.

I have been told that in the US, it is very common or even expected for prospective PhD students to introduce themselves to their Professor before applying. I have been told that not doing so may even be interpreted as lack of interest on my part.

So the question is: is this true? Should I write my Professor an e-mail and introduce myself and tell him I am applying?

I would be extremely thankful for any advice or insights you can give me, as I kind of have no idea how such things work in the US!

"Talk to the professor first" is the norm in most of the rest of the world, but in many graduate programs in STEM in the US admissions decisions are made by a graduate admissions committee and students are matched to research supervisors (and funding sources) after they've been admitted to the program.

It's quite common to have some specialized source of funding (e.g. teaching assistantships or fellowships) for first-year students to support them until they have matched with an advisor who can fund them through a research grant.

One reason for this is that many Ph.D. programs in the US have substantial course requirements, while in other systems it's more common for the graduate coursework to be completed in an MS degree and the Ph.D. degree only encompasses the dissertation research.

An important advantage of this approach is that it allows the faculty in the department to compare applicants and pick the best overall group of applicants while maintaining an appropriate balance between subfields in the department.

There's nothing particularly wrong with sending an introductory email to a professor and expressing interest in working with that professor, but don't assume that the professor has the power to admit you to the program.  A response of "Get admitted first, then we'll talk" means exactly that- the professor can't make any promises to you until you've been admitted.   Even then, the professor might want to see how you do in course work before agreeing to be your advisor.


What information should I include in a letter of support for a grant? What are the key information that should be included in a letter of support on a grant application? What information should I avoid?

I'm a theorist and I am planning to list my expertise and experience in similar problems. But I don't know how to convey that I would actually support the project if funded.

A good letter of support, in my mind, should:

Convey a clear understanding of the proposal in question;
Demonstrate that the letter writer is in a position to support the application—in other words, she has the requisite experience to contribute;
Clearly indicate what the writer will do to support the grant in the event it gets funded.

I recently contributed such a letter for an educational grant. I cited my research, which was a fit for the program; and conveyed support for the program as the academic administrator of a summer program as well as a mentor in that same program. I also clearly conveyed my intention to support the program by directly mentoring a program fellow.


What do co-supervisors get out of a PhD? PhD supervisors usually get paid to supervise. They also have the prestige of having lots of students under their belt.

It's common to also have co-supervisor (I think it's mandatory in many fields, in Australia at least). What do these people get in return for their services? Put another way: if I'm asking someone to be my PhD supervisor, expecting them to help me out a whole lot for the next 3-4 years, what do I have to offer them?

Co-supervisors play different roles, which may vary from individual to individual. Sometimes they are there as a backup, either in case things go wrong with the main supervisor, or if the student needs someone else to talk to. They can read the papers (and eventual thesis) of the student and may even participate in the research, adding a different perspective. In some cases, they can be more active than the supervisor (this is often the case if the co-supervisor is a post doc). Often they will be a part of the committee assessing the thesis in the end.

What does the co-supervisor get out of it? Well, a tick on his/her CV. Publications. Experience dealing with students. Contacts. Ideas. And work. In any case, it is part of what an academic is paid to do.

The real question should be: what do I, as a PhD student, get out of having a co-supervisor?


How to select dates and times of office hours for the benefit of students and instructors? Office hours can be selected at any time, but how they can be selected to benefit all? The students to ask the instructors and the instructors to have some time to conduct research? Before a class or after a class? In the same days as the class, days with no classes, or all days?

If I had a two day a week class, I would have it before class on Tuesday, and after class on Thursday.  And also by arrangement, if someone couldn't come because of their class or work schedule.

At my school, the rule was two hours for each class.  There's no recommended amount of time where you are?


Early career advice for Jr. Researcher on selectivity of authorship credit for collaboration in areas outside one's specialization I have a problem...Once folks learn my academic specialty within the medical sciences and of my strong background in statistics, they often want to form a collaborating - mostly they want me to conduct analyses, develop the study methods, write methods, results and discussion sections of their manuscripts. All this in exchange authorship credits and no actual pay. More often than not,  these offers come from clinicians with  little experience in human subject research and statistics, who specialize in research topics vastly different than my area of focus.

These days I am weary of getting involved in these projects because when I did do so a few years ago, I became very worried about the integrity of the data and the scientist with whom I worked with. More importantly, I worried the work would at some point be retracted and consequently tarnish my reputation in the future.  These concerns arose due to the fact that I had many questions about the data the study was based on and had limited access to the raw data.

The above-mentioned predicament worries me as I am at the beginning of my scientific career and I suspect that many of these clinicians are only temporarily vested in research to amp their publication records for the purpose of promotion. For them, these publications are one-offs and would have less devastating consequences on their careers if retracted. For me, its very different as I am strictly a researcher. It worries me that working on projects where I do not have full control/access to the raw data, and by working with clinicians with little scientific training in human subject research will result in catastrophic outcomes for me.

My questions to the forum are:

1) am I being too picky about who I collaborate with at this stage of my career?
2) should I relax my standards?
3) what are the consequences of being included as an author in poorly conducted research early on in one's research career for an aspiring academic?

I don't think that you're too picky or that you should relax your standards.

If you are responsible for creating a statistical model to test the data, then you should know everything there is to know about the process that generated the data that you are modeling. If you do not know everything and if you don't have access to all the data and any material relevant to how the data was generated (e.g. protocols), then you cannot in good conscience model the data. The reason for this is that you don't know where to look for problems that might invalidate your model. You might, therefore, overlook something. And if the wrong statistical model is used, then the sampling distribution of the parameters and your test statistics will be wrong. They will be wrong because the premises of your argument will be false.

Ideally, as the person conducting the statistical analysis, you will be involved in collecting the data. This means that you should be involved in designing the experiment. Fisher once said the following about involving a statistician after the fact:

  "To consult the statistician after an experiment is finished is often merely to ask him to conduct a post mortem examination. He can perhaps say what the experiment died of."

In the case of an observational study this might not be as bad as you could collect other data after you're involved. But it is not ideal.

What I would recommend you to do is to use the argument that you cannot possibly model the data if you don't have access to all the materials and know how the data were generated. You can use this argument to justify yourself to your co-workers. And you can use this argument to justify yourself towards yourself for not working on certain projects. You're the expert here and you need to tell yourself and others what you need to be able to do your work. And if what you need isn't there, then you can't do your work. Period. This way you avoid re-thinking, worrying, and arguing about what you should work on and what not.

In addition, I would recommend you to document everything for each paper to make it clear what your responsibilities were and what the responsibilities of other people were. In particular, in those cases where you did not have access to the raw data.

As for the consequences of being part of a poorly conducted research. It will tarnish your reputation. By how much depends on what the norm is in your field and in your peer group. Your reputation is how you are judged by the standards of other people. As I am not in your field or know you (or what research you were involved in or would be), I cannot say how much of an impact this will have. But it will definitely be bad for your reputation. It might be worth it though. Although this depends on what your goals in life are.


Can section, subsection, or sub-subsection headings be formatted as questions in a master's thesis? (not all of them at the same time) I am wondering if section, subsection, or sub-subsection headings can be formatted as questions. I am working on my masters thesis (Economics) and am following the Chicago Manual of Style Guide (17th ed.).

I have a section (call it Section 3). Section 3 has three subsections (subsections 3.1, 3.2, and 3.3). Now, 3.2 and 3.3 will have four parts each. I only need 3.2.1 - 3.2.4 to have headings phrased as questions.

  Section 3 Heading

    3.1 Subsection Heading

    3.2 Subsection Heading

      3.2.1 Heading Phrased as a Question?  (e.g., Why does the ABC program do X?)
      3.2.2 Heading Phrased as a Question?  (e.g., Is Z the appropriate indicator for the purpose?)
      3.2.3 Heading Phrased as a Question?
      3.2.4 Heading Phrased as a Question?

I want to know if anyone has formatted their section, subsection, or sub-subsection headings as questions in their thesis/dissertation/etc.

Note:

I came across this question in Writing SE but it is more than 5 years old and has only one answer. This post does not work for me because (1) the answer seems to be one dimensional, (2) I have seen many published journal articles with fancy titles (some are formatted as questions), (3) there are no other answers or comments to see what others think or have done, and (4) I just don't feel that the answer is 100% accurate and applicable for all disciplines. I also don't like how the answer says "A great title gives away the ending." To me, interesting titles are what makes me wonder and want to find out the answer.

This likely a matter of personal taste. There is no definitive rule or style guide that applies to every Master's thesis written in the world. Your department or university may have its own guidelines, but I doubt the formatting you suggest would be prohibited.

Write the section titles as questions and send the draft to your supervisor. They might recommend you change it, but if they're not in the same university as you they will probably also tell you to ask someone local who will know if there are any guidelines that you should follow. That person may be your personal tutor, department head, course director, librarian, or academic skills tutor.

Often this type of information is also available on your institution's website or virtual learning environment.


Which is better for PhD application: research-based BS thesis somewhat related to interests, or extra courses + standard thesis in area of interest? I am studying applied math. My bachelor's thesis is coming up next semester and I've got a dilemma.

I was originally planning to do a standard project (most of them seem very soft to be honest) and then take an extra course (I got permission to take a PHD level course in information theory) or two simultaneously.

But then a project involving a fairly novel part of control theory popped up, novel enough that it might be possible to get something interesting published from the project. It seemed like a fairly interesting problem and the possibility of co-authoring a paper at this stage is very appealing as I have an eye on a PHD after my masters degree.

Control theory itself doesn't interest me that much, but the tangential mathematical subjects do (optimization, algorithms, information theory, etc). The problem is that it's probably going to be a lot more time consuming than a normal project and I don't know if I'd benefit more from it than just taking another course in an area I'm actually interested in.

I'm nervous it's going to be a stressful spring without much to show for it if we don't manage to get any interesting results at all. On the other hand, I suppose any research experience is positive even if it's not in my main interest area.

So, the question is: for a PhD application, should I complete a research-based thesis tangentially related to areas of interest, or normal thesis focused on my areas of interest plus additional courses in my areas of interest?

(edit: I'd probably drop a PDE course in favor of this project)

If your plans to pursue a PhD eventually are serious, I would definitely recommend the research-based option. You'll see this advice in many other places, but acquiring a PhD is very much the process of learning how to do research and proving that you can indeed do it. Even if the project is not directly in an area that you're very interested in, you'll have the opportunity to start practicing your research skills. The prospect of a publication is also something to keep in mind; an entering PhD student who has already published is viewed as already having proved to some degree that they're capable of quality research, and I've never met a faculty member anywhere who didn't appreciate that.

You're exactly right in that the research experience will be valuable to you even if you do not end up with a publication. Why? Primarily, if you do good work you've given your faculty collaborators some very good material to put in the reference letters you're going to want them to write when you apply to PhD programs. In fact, in your position I'd probably be thinking more about coming out of the experience with a strong reference than a publication.


Best cloth for a poster I am printing a poster for presenting at a conference. I would like to print on cloth so that I can carry it easily in the suitcase.

In many print shops I have to select which cloth exactly to print on. There are many kinds of clothes: satin, canvas, flag, net, etc...

Which material both allows a high printing resolution (so that the details are clearly visible), and remains good-looking after transporting it in a suitcase?

I always use canvas. My experience says it is great to fold, carry and fix in the board. The printing quality is also excellent, even Arial 10-12 point font size looks very clear in the graphs. Moreover you can fold it in any form. I always make a square/rectangular fold and carry it in my backpack. It never erase any printings. Hope this helps.


Create YouTube videos on exercises of a University level course Is it acceptable to create YouTube videos about exercises of a University level course ?

I struggle to follow a quantum mechanics course I need to take and thought about making YouTube videos where I explain the exercises and their solutions provided to us step by step. I already did that for two math courses last year, and not only did it help me a lot, it also helped other people that watched my videos. But some people told me to be cautious, because after all I did not create those exercises by myself and thus I have no right to talk about them in a YouTube video.

What should one do in those cases ?

As an alternative to basing your videos on someone else's work, I suggest writing your own exercises. Each exercise should bring out the issues you want to cover in the corresponding video.

If you write your own exercises, on your own time, you own the copyright, and can do what you want with them, including creating videos about solving them.

That would be superior from a learning point of view, because your users will be able to watch your video, learn from it, and then check their understanding by completing the coursework.


Failing to deliver promised research Will people look down on me if I say that I plan on doing research that I end up not doing due to various reasons, especially if I'm a PhD student?

I guess it's somewhat expected, and that experienced professors don't always believe that I'll end up doing what I say (because unexpected bugs and events happen all the time). And sometimes you also end up going on detours.

That, and professors always say that they do things on smaller timeframes than what it really takes them to do.

I guess if I always meet my commitments, then people might believe me more. But on the other hand, it always helps to get more feedback on ambitious projects that I don't necessarily believe that I will finish.

There is a huge difference between saying that you will do a given research effort, and saying that you will obtain a particular result. If you have guaranteed the latter, you made a mistake, it's research, there is no guarantee on a result !

So, if you give a work planning to your adviser, you have to stick to it. Of course, you can have (once, not twice) a real problem that ruins your effort (house on fire, a relative at the hospital, etc.).

To summarize, you can promise that you will work, but not that it will work ;) If you always fail on your commitments, you will never be seen as reliable, and people won't work with you, it's that simple.


How far ahead should you search for a faculty job? Suppose you want to obtain a faculty job at a particular time.  When should you start searching for job ads?  When are they advertised?

Answers describing different customs in different countries and disciplines are encouraged.

The field of academia is hypercompetitive due to the excess amount of PhD-students and Postdocs vs a low number of faculty positions (read this). Even people doing postdocs at top places have difficulties finding faculty positions and apart from a network also luck becomes an important factor if there are >100 applications for a faculty position.

Therefore you should start searching for a faculty position at least 2 years ahead (no, this is not a joke).


What to do when a professor is too busy to guide my research? I am currently a Graduate student.

I had the opportunity to do some research as undergraduate for which the professor seemed very busy. I tried my best to "bother" him as much as possible with emails of when to meet up, questions and guidance for my research. The research didn't go far as you can expect from an undergraduate without any guidance (the type of guidance like a weekly meeting or reading material or direction for the research) I ended up asking a recommendation letter from him in which he butchered me and destroyed all my chances of getting in almost any college. This was after he happily agreed to write me a recommendation letter and was so happy to write all positive words. After I shared with him that I got accepted into a college. He later went on to explain that I "wasn't involved enough". I felt at one point that I was starting to harass him by sending emails every 2 days and stopping by his office hours uninvited. If anything I would expect the opposite kind of complain. That made me feel bitter and do some self-criticism, and be more persistent in the future.

Problem is that I am in a new college (as a graduate student) and facing the same issue. The professor I am doing research with doesn't meet with me, doesn't respond to my emails. And the research hasn't even properly started yet. I am highly-motivated and can take self-initiative but without direction I don't know what to do or focus in. I feel again that I might be repeating the same mistake... so I really don't know what I can do better or if there is a misunderstanding from my part. I have send a chain of 5 emails that went without a response over the course of the last 2 weeks.

How do I approach the professor and what do I say?
Is there a limit to the emails or office visits? Do professors take this as genuine interest or am I being exhausting them?
Is this a way for a professor to kindly stop research or any ongoing projects?
What am I doing wrong?!

If this kind of thing happened once, then I might chalk it up to chance (not everyone is friendly or professional).  But if it happens twice, then I think it is more likely that you are either not reading the situation correctly or are behaving in an unprofessional or at least strange way (and probably don't even realize it).  But it is basically impossible for strangers on the internet to figure out what precisely is going on.  After all, we've never met you, seen how you interact with people, etc.

The only real solution is to speak with people you trust (friends, mentors, etc) who actually are eyewitnesses to what is happening and ask them for their take on it.  Even more importantly, trust them if they tell you ways that you need to change.


What is an "innovative statement" for faculty application? I am putting together a faculty application for a university in Russia.
The University has asked for an "Innovation Statement", along with other documents.

This is the first time I have heard of any such statement. I have googled the term and did not found much information, except one interesting article about "innovation mission statement" which does not fit well with a faculty application.

Any idea what an "innovation statement" is?

What makes your research novel, exciting, ground-breaking or significant should be delineated in a innovative statement. How you are advancing your field by eventually accomplishing your aims.


How should a researcher manage the fact that Impact factors change over time? Impact factors of journals are one the most commonly use indicator of their quality. As a consequence when someone is looking for a journal in which publish his results, the highest the impact factor, the better. However, over the years journal's impact factors change depending on the quality of their article.

My question, that is more theoretical then practical, is twofold:

Should I care about the future impact factor of the journals I publish in (similarly as when buying stock market).
Would it be advisable to keep track of the impact factor at the time of publication in a list of paper (a bit like saying "I know to impact factor of the journal I published in five years ago is bad, but it was better then").

This question is somehow related to the fact that I hear once or twice about examining boards considering only the papers published in journals above a certain impact factor when assessing the quality of a candidate. In other words, papers published in low impact factor journal are not even worth noticing.

Related to your last comment:

  boards that considered only the papers published in journal above a certain impact factor when assessing the quality of a candidate

I think that such borders are not doing well. As you said, the IF (Impact Factor) varies in time (regardless if we consider it as a relevant measure).

According to me, there are 2 points of view by which the IF which should be considered in your question:

The point that you tried (and succeeded) to publish a paper in a journal with high IF. What  would that fact say to me (if I would be in a committee)? That you were confident about your results and you trusted your work to be published in a good journal. (BUT(!) it does not meat that the journal or the paper is good, it just reflects you, the candidate). In this case relevant is the IF by the time your article was accepted.
The point that the IF of the journal you published rises in the next 2-3 years after the time your paper was accepted. Why? Lets take a look how the IF is calculated:

A = the number of times articles published in 2006 and 2007 were cited by indexed journals during 2008.

B = the total number of "citable items" published by that journal in 2006 and 2007.

2008 impact factor = A/B.

However, can we say that articles published in 2006 and 2007 will be cited in 2008? Just very small amount of them. Someone reads your article (month 1), then does the part of research related to your article (2-3 months?), approved by co-authors (another month) and goes through the acceptance procedure (12-14 months). It takes about a year and a half to print the citation of your article. So, if the editors decide that they will accept just good articles the resulting rising of IF will be visible in 2-3 years in the future. So if I would be a committee member I would like to know how was the IF 2-3 years after the article of the candidate was printed. That can tell me that by the time the article was printed, also a considerable amount of good articles were printed as well. But keep in mind that IF consider citation just within 2 years back, and that is just too short. I think it should be 3 years at least.

So, to answer your questions:

add 1.: YES, for the next 2-3 years as it is effectiveness time of IF.

add 2.: YES, because it reflect the actual state of the author by the time he decided to publish.

But please, all this can help as a indicator but is should be taking into account with caution. I should also say that IF is very tricky and it can be easily misinterpreted (self-citation, how many review articles the Journal publishes,...). If you want to take a look at other evaluating tools, you can visit:

Eigenfactor or
Journal Ranking

and:
What really matters is how much your article is cited(!)


E-assignment submission system made my effort go to nothing My assignments deadline was due to March 13, 00:00. I uploaded my assignment half a day earlier, but did not confirm it, because instructions said we do not have to (last uploaded version always gets saved). But, stupid me, I confirmed my assignment after the deadline, without uploading new version, and that overwritten my original submission time.

Now it looks like I was late with my assignment. By 15 minutes.

What to do in such situations? I was thinking of writing to a teaching asistent and explaining the situation.

You can explain the situation to your professor, and he/she may understand the situation and confusion. However, if what you say is true and how your last submission overwrote your original submissions - assuming your original submission is now lost, then it looks like you submitted nothing and it looks like you missed your deadline. Your best bet is to contact the professor. Perhaps he/she can see your previous submission details.


Extended paper - should I keep someone who virtually had no contribution? I had a paper accepted at a conference and want to extend it with some new material based on the comments and submit it to a journal.

One of the co-authors was added to the conference paper because he was the head of the group where I was working. His contribution were textual suggestions to the manuscript. We have since split ways and he has no influence whatsoever in the extension. Again, he had little influence in the conference version and I added him mostly to avoid conflict, since these days people expect co-authorship based on their position.

Since he did not contribute neither to the conference version nor to the journal extension (and he has no position of authority over me anymore), I do not want to add him to the list of authors in the extended journal version. How acceptable/unacceptable is this?

In all journals (CS/AI) I’ve worked with you need all authors of the conference paper(s) on which the journal version is based on to agree on the author list in the journal version. Some editors will just not allow a paper to be accepted before explicit consent has been obtained.

It is also unfair to an extent towards this professor. Think about this professor’s perspective: they may believe their contribution was much greater than just some textual edits, and once they realize that you submitted a version without their knowledge or consent, they’ll just email the editor and the paper will not go through to publication before it’s all sorted out.

I suggest you email the professor, tell them your plan, and whether they’d like to still be written as a coauthor. Most people would get the hint. Even if they’d still want to be included then there’s not much you can do about it: you should have established authorship in the conference version.