What to do when an advisor repeatedly changes graduation requirements? My friend is a PhD student in the "Jessica" computer science lab. Before beginning, he and Dr. Jessica came to a verbal understanding that he'd be allowed to graduate in time for a job offer scheduled to begin a few years after starting the PhD, but only if he passes his prelim and completes drafts of research papers covering all aspects of the prelim. No written records of Dr. Jessica's agreement exist, as Dr. Jessica was careful to organize only face-to-face meetings about this.

Dr. Jessica has reneged repeatedly on her promises and keeps upping the ante for graduation -- from having manuscript drafts to submissions and now to acceptances. Meanwhile, my friend has no written record of this and doesn't know what to do despite his job's start date closing in. He is not even allowed by Dr. Jessica to bring up the topic of graduation with his committee without her consent. What, if any, recourse does my friend have?

My advice would be to cultivate one or more allies in the department (perhaps other committee members who already have tenure?). These allies can both put pressure on Dr Jessica to allow the student to graduate and provide accountability to both parties. Another way to pressure the faculty member is to publicize your upcoming job loudly and often. This way the faculty member’s peers start asking her about the student’s job and the defense.

In regards to scheduling the defense specifically, the student can get other committee members to “request” that a date be set. The excuse would be: “I was talking to Dr Adam (choose someone tenured to help with this) and he mentioned that his schedule is packed and he wants me to schedule the defense right now so he knows when it is. He knows that you have final approval, but he just wants a date to hold.”

I basically used these strategies to manage my reluctant chair when I had a job arranged. They only worked because my chair cared about his reputation with his peers more than he wanted to “perfect” my dissertation.

At the same time, the student needs to realize that many faculty have been burned by students who never publish their research results once they take jobs in industry. This represents a waste of good research/resources for the faculty member trying to get tenure and for society at large. The change in demands is likely because the faculty member is just realizing this possibility exists and does not trust the student. The student should do whatever it takes to assure the faculty member that the research will get published after the student starts the position.


How should I introduce myself (a graduate student) at a conference? I am a fifth year pure mathematics graduate student; I'm currently on the academic job market. I'm traveling to a few conferences this semester and I believe that I should take this opportunity to meet and talk to people from different universities. I don't find it particularly easy to strike up conversations with relative strangers (while I have some skill at this in 'real-life', the added pressure of 'Oh my God this is a person who wrote a seminal paper in my field' is somewhat nerve-wracking)

  What is the best way to introduce oneself as a graduate student to senior members of one's academic community?

I've considered the following:

Hello, my name is X, I'm student of Y at University Z
Hello, my name is X, I work on ABC
Hello, my name is X, it's great to meet you, I really enjoyed/am currently reading your paper on DEF [[assuming of course that this is true]]

By starting a discussion on a point of interest to both them and you. This can typically be a question, or introducing yourself and suggesting that you would like to discuss some of your results with them. But before you can get this conversation started, you'll have to give your name, and state your position, so: all of the above.

I think the best time/place to introduce yourself is at a poster session, if your conferences have some. And the purpose of these sessions is for people to discover new research and new names in their field, so that's where it is most easy to do so.

I'd suggest the following:

  Hello, my name is X, I'm a PhD student at Y in the group of Z.
  (now, you've given him enough context… time to start a discussion)

  I've read your recent papers on W, and I had a question about it which I could not really solve myself. I was wondering whether, in the diagonalisation step of your algorithm, you could use a direct-space method based on partial sampling of the matrix, rather than transform it to reciprocal space. Do you know if someone ever tried that?

  or

  I have a poster discussing the economics of greenhouse gases' role in global warming, and how it will enable us to save on the costs of construction of actual greenhouses. I think it may be of interest to you… I'm over there in row 307, and I'd really love to get a chance to discuss this with you…

Scientists are curious, and the best way to approach them is to pique their curiosity…


Do I need "Introduction" and "Conclusions" parts in my PhD thesis? My advisor has asked me to write my thesis in parts. So, basically, my thesis will have three major parts, each of which explains a different piece of work. However, he is asking me to also add a part called "Introduction" and a part called "Conclusions"

I know he is not quite experienced with this type of thesis writing (i.e., writing in parts), so I am not sure if this is the right thing to do. Moreover, he is asking me to add "Introduction" and "Conclusions" chapter to each part (except for the parts with the same names). This is also a little bit strange to me!

So, could someone help on structuring my thesis? This is the overall structure:

Part 1: It consists of three main chapters on topic A.
Part 2: It consists of two main chapters on topic B.
Part 3: It consists of one main chapter on topic C.

I am definitely going to need an introduction somewhere to justify the three parts and how they are relevant to each other and can be placed in the same thesis, however, I do not know where this introduction should be (should it be a chapter somewhere or part?)

EDIT: Here I also mention my advisor's suggested structure for clarity:

Part 1: Introduction (with one chapter called Introduction)
Part 2: topic A (with one chapter called Introduction and another called Conclusions)
Part 3: topic B (with one chapter called Introduction and another called Conclusions)
Part 4: topic C (with one chapter called Introduction and another called Conclusions)
Part 5: Conclusions (with one chapter called Conclusions and another called Future Work)

Run, don't walk, towards the advice of your advisor.

I'm not sure why you are questioning their "experience writing a thesis in parts."

You should add a broad introduction and broad conclusion that service your entire thesis; these will be before and after your Part 1 and Part 3, respectively.

You should add individual introductions and conclusions to each Part. Therefore you will have a total of 4 introductions and 4 conclusions, with 3 of each that have a narrower scope and 1 of each that have a broad scope.

You will probably additionally have introductions and conclusions within each chapter in each part, though you may not label them as such and they could simply be paragraphs. This is simply good writing and is not at all related to thesis writing specifically.


First try vs second try for PhD Qualifying Exam For universities that give two tries for passing the PhD qualifying exams, are the two tries "equal"? In the sense that does the committee consider more carefully on the second and last try of the applicant before failing him/her?

Just an analogy: for driving tests, examiners are known to be more lenient on the second (and subsequent) attempt, and more strict on the first attempt. Not sure if it is true for PhD exams...

Just to ask any professors/students here who are more experienced in this matter.

Thanks!

It depends on how common it is for people to fail. In my department, somewhere between a third and one half of people fail on first attempt (but will utimately pass it). They use the first attempt to get a feel for the level of preparedness, and may choose to take it in a semester when they have covered the basic classes, but maybe not the last one in the sequence yet.

If so many people fail, then there is no stigma attached to failing (and we don't consider it negatively either). I would ask how that looks in your department.


Are self-doubt and desperation a normal part of scientific writing? I am currently writing a research proposal for a PhD in a very interesting field. While working on the proposal I noticed that I run through the following (emotional) stages:

Enthusiasm: I think about the topic and am excited to work on it. I
start thinking about what I want to do and how I am going to do it.
Optimism: I do the necessary initial research on the topic and am
still excited. My interest in the topic grows and I am very
optimistic.
Self-doubt: I start writing and suddenly I am confronted with questions I can’t answer. I start doubting myself and think about all the things I don’t know. I start thinking that I am incapable of finishing this and that I really have no idea about the topic and what is expected of me. I try pushing through but am really hitting a brick-wall.
Desperation: I can’t get any work done because I don’t think I can do
the work. I get depressed and angry and make no progress.
Mild optimism: I somehow get myself to work on the project again. I
start with the easy parts and just push through until it is all
done. I start thinking that it wasn’t all that bad and that the
desperation really wasn’t necessary. While I am mostly satisfied
with the outcome I still doubt that the result is the best I could
do.

Looking back at my time as a student1 I realized that I run through those stages every time I have to do scientific writing. While I am never quite satisfied with the result, I have always received great feedback and excellent grades from my professors.

Now that I am thinking about doing a PhD I am starting to doubt if I am the right candidate for this because of my difficult writing process. While I know a few people who run trough similar stages I also know people that are enthusiastic throughout the entire process and love writing scientific papers. Maybe those people are more suited for PhD programmes than I am.

So my question is:
Are self-doubt and desperation a normal part of scientific writing?

Related questions:
Can I still be a good researcher if I constantly doubt the quality of my work?
Is there something that I can do to mitigate this part of the process?

1Not sure if this is relevant but I have written several smaller papers in class, two bachelor’s theses and two master’s theses (in different academic fields).

I start with you related questions:

  Can I still be a good researcher if I constantly doubt the quality of my work?

You got it the wrong way. The real question is: Can I be a good researcher without constant doubt of the quality of my work? And the answer to this question is no. You should always question your work and and strive to make it better. Doubt is an integral part of research. But beware, that you should come out of this with "yes, my work matters/is of good quality/is relevant…" often enough either by your own conclusion of by feedback of others.

  Is there something that I can do to mitigate this part of the process?

Not sure, but you do not really need to. Please read this thread to see how to deal with insecurity and doubt as a researcher. You'll also find that the answer to

  Are self-doubt and desperation a normal part of scientific writing?

is most likely to be yes for most people regarding doubt and partly regarding desperation (assuming that "scientific writing" and "doing research" are quite similar in this respect). As Nate Eldredge notes, you should critically ask yourself if your self-doubt is close to be "pathological". I am not qualified in any way to give advice on how to diagnose yourself but you may want to read about the impostor syndrome.


Informing my supervisor of discrepancy in the results I am working on my MPhys thesis, on a certain dataset. Part of this dataset has been analyzed by my current supervisor during his PhD, with published results. He asked me to expand on that work by completing the analysis on the whole dataset.

When I repeat the analysis on the part he had already worked on, I get different results. Unfortunately he has not published any detail about how exactly he tackled the problem, and instead relied on his memory. He gave me advice like: put this parameter to 50, use feature A, use feature B, disable feature C and so on.

I was able to reproduce his result to within 10%, but yesterday I was horrified when I discovered that this was done without using one of the features he recommended, let's say feature A. I have played with the data since and am totally unable to reproduce the result (it is off by a factor of 2 when using my supervisor specifications).

Using feature A totally makes sense, so I am not sure on what to do: I am afraid that should I tell him about this problem, he would delay my upcoming viva. This has a lot of unwanted consequences, for example would force me to pay extra money to the University

In my opinion, it is absolutely essential that you are completely open about this.

If you cannot reproduce his results, at least one (possibly both) of the following are true:

You are doing something wrong. You are a student and he is your supervisor. It's his job to help you if you are doing something wrong. There is nothing to be ashamed of. It's better to be delayed with correct results, than on time with wrong results.
He was doing something wrong. Don't be afraid! You are not accusing him of anything unethical (*). If his previous results or his understanding are genuinely in error, he should be very interested in knowing this, and grateful if you discover such an error.

(*) If you do suspect unethical behaviour, the question is entirely different and better asked separately.


Good place to publish funded grant proposals I have two grants and I would like to publish their proposals for which I received funding.

Should I publish them in the first place? I think it would look good being transparent, and it would certainly be informative about what I'm currently working on (I am at least 6-8 months away from publishing my first results from these research). But I also think that it can have drawbacks like others thinking I'm just trying to pad my CV, or giving space to any and all kind of accusations about my research topic or about the quality of my proposal (I'm in the Social Sciences from a CEE country where social research is becoming more and more ideology-driven. I already have bad experiences about ideologically biased attacks and accusations against my academical activities)
Where and in what form should I publish it? Should it be a self-publication on my institutional or personal website, academic social media account, in a repository etc.? Or should I find specific journals that publish grant proposals? (Do such journals exists? I found one https://riojournal.com but it looks like I have to pay them a fee for this).
In my CV there is a section for funding. If I publish my funded grant proposals, should these items go to "Publications" or should I add them to "Awarded Funding"?

Thank you for your advice!

AFAIK, publishing grant proposals (successful or not) is highly uncommon in the sciences (I've not come across that and don't know of a suitable platform). There is an obvious reason for that: proposals contain new ideas which the applicants plan to pursue in the future, so publishing them invites others to do the same and potentially scoop them.

Ideas are the scientist's capital (in particular for theoretical research) and unless they have a substantial overabundance of good ideas, they must be careful to not give them away too cheaply. Of course, in experimental/applied research an idea must be accompanied by the necessary resources and equipment (i.e. an advantage over any competitor) before it can be successfully pursued.

In your CV, you should list the grants with title, period, and value. However, the proposals themselves are not listed in a CV, they are definitely not publications.


How important is AACSB accreditation for further study after an MBA? I have read that many Doctor of Business Administration or PhD in Business Administration programs in the US tend to reject students who did not complete a master's program at an AACSB-accredited school. From checking the list, there are no AACSB programs in the country where I live and it seems that many other foreign students would similarly lack such opportunities.

Is this true only for American students or also of international students?
If I complete a non-AACSB-accredited program, how might this limit my opportunities for further study?
How could I demonstrate that a foreign program has sufficient quality?

The best way to find out how important AACSB accreditation is is to ask some PhD in Business Administration programs. I doubt it is a hard and fast rule since most PhD programs do not need to maintain professional accreditation. I would be more worried about DBA programs since they may need to maintain AACSB accreditation.


Should my PhD thesis be submitted under my legal name? I married during my PhD and changed my legal surname however (for many reasons) I will continue to publish under my maiden name. My (UK) university says that a thesis has to be submitted under the name held in registration records. They seem happy for me to revert my registration to my maiden name so I can submit my thesis as "maiden name" and this means my degree certificate will also have "maiden name".
I think it would make more sense to have the name on the thesis the same as on the published papers that it contains (i.e. maiden name) but would there be any issues with graduating with an old name? I do have birth & marriage certificates that show my maiden name.

Note: As others mentioned in the comments, technically the concept of a "legal name" does not exist in the UK. However, in practice employers, banks, airports etc. ask for evidence of your name and to change a name on a passport, for example, requires a marriage/divorce certificate or deed poll.

You need to pick a name that you'll use in your professional life. Changing that name has a cost. At this early stage, the cost is low. So, if you want to use your married name professionally, then change to it now. Otherwise, use your maiden name for the duration of your career. (This isn't to say you can't switch later, just that the cost increases over time.)

  would there be any issues with graduating with an old name?

It may create a slight administrative burden, in that you may have to prove that your degree certificate is yours (given that it won't match your legal name).


strategies for sharing teaching information with universities I don't personally have contacts with A large part of my job is the creation of new teaching materials and methods.  I enjoy it, but I'm noticing a few things:

Some international students struggle with my material, not because of the content tested, but because of the context.  As an example, if I write a large computer programming problem that requires students to understand, say, the workings of a large North American supermarket first, and then understand how to write a program for one, some international students take considerable extra time to understand what is being asked.  Once they get it they can write the code very easily.

I like to provide authentic examples as often as I can, and I feel that having information from non-North American sources would go a long way to provide a greater breadth of examples.

I'd like to foster relationships with educators around the world teaching similar things (math, programming, electric circuits, mainly).  My hope is to better understand:

How are instructional materials designed elsewhere in the world?

What kinds of examples and methods can help my international students?

How can I expose my North-American students to a more global way of solving problems
I've reached out to a few universities but so far my strategy is to just send an email explaining my goals and wait.  No one gets back to me.

What are some strategies I can use to start building these relationships?  Are there any organizations/whatevers around that help with this sort of thing?
EDIT: I'm noticing some upvotes but not many solid answers (thanks to the one answerer though!).  I feel that there might be some interest on this site for a discussion about exchanging information.  If so, let me know in the comments.  If there is enough interest I have no issue sharing my email address to get the conversation started offline.

I've reached out to a few universities but so far my strategy is to just send an email explaining my goals and wait. No one gets back to me.

Unfortunately, as other questions on this site attest to, this is probably to be expected. Especially if you reach out to "universities"; my guess is that you won't get help from them at an institutional level. But if you find individual people who share your interests, your chances might be better.

I would recommend starting at your own university. Many universities, at least in the US, have teaching and learning centers, or some variant. Their purpose is to support instructors who want to improve their own teaching. They might be able to answer some of your questions directly, or put you in touch with others who can.

If you go to conferences, I've found those to also be great places to discuss teaching.

You might look for instructional materials directly on the internet. Sometimes the instructors who created these will make them publicly available. (In math this is fairly common.) You can learn a lot by reading these directly, and the people who created them might be more likely to respond to cold e-mails. Perhaps not your big-picture questions, but they might be happy to answer questions about their course materials.


How to cite a rebuilt graphic I'm going to have my first presentation in some weeks. Therefore I read some papers and now I'm building the presentation with LaTeX.

In the papers, I found some very useful graphics. But for quality reasons I don't like to take Screenshots of the PDF's. So I rebuild the graphics to have them as vector graphics.

Can I cite them just like I took a screenshot, or is there a difference?

There are two parts to this question: citation and copyright issues.

Regarding citation: cite the source of the data/graphics/charts/schemes.
For the copyright part, if the presentation of the data is really identical, most journals liberally give permission for reüse (you have to ask for it), but require an acknowledgement of the form “Reprinted with permission from …”. That should cover modifications in format (bitmap to vectorial, or bitmap downsampling, etc.), but I have already seen people actually note the difference by using “Redrawn with permission from …”. Now, if the figure is based on the first one, but with substantial modifications, you can be happy with only citing the source, or possibly adding “Figure based on X with permission from …”.


Is there a case for SLOs? SLO stands for student learning outcome. At the community college where I teach, what seems to have happened is that our accrediting body told us we had to have them, and since they effectively wield the death penalty over us, we complied. Administrators may also have bought into the idea at some point.

What is the history of SLOs? Is there any published, intellectually rigorous justification for them?

I'm inclined to be extremely skeptical of them. They seem to be an incompetently executed type of standardized testing, without any of the scientific rigor that has been built up over a century of development of the field of psychometrics. In particular, standardized tests are supposed to be both valid and reliable. A typical SLO is probably not valid (because it tests too small a subset of the subject matter) and not reliable (because it is too short an instrument to produce a result with a reasonable variance). We could fix these problems, and then we would have ... a professionally developed standardized test. E.g., in my field, physics, we would have something like the AP physics test, the physics portion of the MCATs, or the physics GRE.

Administrators and accrediting bodies seem to believe that SLOs could be used, for example, to measure whether a particular educational innovation has been successful. The problem here is that one then has to interpret the difference between one set of test scores and another set of test scores, but the difference between two low-reliability (high-variance) numbers is essentially meaningless. This is also a problem that plagues "value added" measurements (Baker 2010), but it would be far more severe for SLOs because of their far lower reliability.

Arum 2011 (p. 140) discusses this sort of thing in the context of the seepage of NCLB-style testing from K-12 into higher education. They discuss the Spellings Commission report (Spellings 2006) as an influential document, although I think the fad for SLOs began to get underway before 2006, and the report suggested standardized tests such as the CLA, rather than what people now refer to as SLOs. A disgruntled member of the commission (Zemsky 2011) says that in retrospect the main outcome was to transform accreditation from a pro forma exercise into an audit-like procedure designed to give the federal government coercive power over colleges and universities.

Is the whole thing a Dilbertish emperor's-new-clothes exercise, or is there some intellectually rigorous case to be made for SLOs?

References

Arum and Roksa, Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses, 2011; summarized online in http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2011/06/06/110606crat_atlarge_menand

Baker et al., "Problems with the use of student test scores to evaluate teachers," Economic Policy Institute briefing paper, Aug 29, 2010, http://www.epi.org/publication/bp278/

Spellings et al., Commission on the Future of Higher Education, "A Test of Leadership: Charting the Future of U.S. Higher Education," 2006

Zemsky, "The Unwitting Damage Done by the Spellings Commission," Chronicle of Higher Education, 2011, http://chronicle.com/article/The-Unwitting-Damage-Done-by/129051/

While this is not a perfect answer (not a rigorous study of the costs and benefits of learning outcomes) I hope it will give some insights.

Learning outcomes are not all that rare, although I do not remember seeing them much in the US when I was there.

One of the key reasons for learning outcomes is to be able to evaluate how closely Module A in School X matches to Module B in School Y. If you are teaching a subject titled "Contract and Negligence Law in New Zealand" then the learning outcomes kind of write themselves. If you are teaching a subject titled "Modern Business Practices" then it is less clear what it is that students who passed that subject actually learned.

So, leaning outcomes, I believe, are mainly for the benefit of administrators so that can 'map' modules across universities. However, I also believe that they have great value for us as teachers. I believe the more we can formalize, in writing, what students will learn, the more transparent we are being and the fewer (unhappy) surprises people are likely to have. Students will better understand what they are supposed to learn, as will their parents (if they are involved in the process) and other teachers will be able to see how our modules fit together with their own simply by reviewing the learning outcomes.

Typical learning outcomes might include (in my field): Understanding teamwork and team development. In this case, you do not need to look at differences in test scores. The outcome is not an improvement in knowledge (take a module where you have already learned the outcomes and you will likely learn very little) but rather an absolute "The student will understand this." If the student did not understand before, they should understand at the end, or they should fail.

I do not believe the goal of the learning outcome is that it is one-question on a final exam but rather it is what gets assessed by the assessor. How you do that is up to you. For the example of team work I have several tests to see if students understand the key points that they should have learned.


Is it ok to ask a professor if he/she is taking a leave of absence I am currently deciding between graduate schools for PhD programs and I am concerned that a potential advisor might be planning to take a leave of absence to start a new company. Is it socially acceptable to ask the professor if he/she intends to take a leave of absence?

Doing research with a professor that is on leave would be difficult particularly during the early years of graduate student life.

You should ask whether they would be willing to take on PhD students, and, if yes, meet regularly. You suspect correctly that starting a new company does not make it likely for him to have much time the next years, so even if he says (means) yes, it may not mean that he can act on his promise, so handle with care.


What valid reason can I give for my low CGPA to a prospective PhD advisor? I am applying for PhD in US universities and my CGPA is lower than they ask for. But I believe my research experience is good enough to get a position. When I contacted a professor with my CV, he showed interest. Also, he asked why my CGPA was low, and if there was any specific reason for that.
Honestly I don't have any valid reason, I did not pay attention earlier to my academic studies. But I think I can't mention that. What can be some possible reasons that I can tell him?

Honestly I don't have any valid reason, I did not pay attention earlier to my academic studies.  But I think I can't mention that.  What can be some possible reasons that I can tell him?

On the contrary, if you think that was the cause, then that's exactly what you should say.  Prospective supervisors are interested in a lot of aspects of candidates, and one of the important aspects we are interested in is the capacity for students to objectively review their present deficiencies, or deficiencies in their past work.  It is possible to assist a candidate with lower level grades to improve their work, but it is much harder to deal with a student who is not honest about their own work, or unwilling to be honest with their supervisor.  Thus, demonstrating the capacity for self-reflection and self-criticism may be viewed positively, even if it involves admitting you slacked off.  (Academics are humans too --- we know that there are other fun things in life for young people to do besides studying hard.)
Setting aside whether that will assist your application or not, you need to grow some character --- start to make a habit of being candid with people about your actions regardless of whether this will advantage you personally.  Deficiencies in your work can be fixed over time, but getting into the habit of searching for false excuses is a deficiency that will damage a lot more than a PhD application.
Reframing your question, there is no "valid" reason or "invalid" reason for your lower grades --- there is just the truth, and not the truth.


Is it possible to obtain a Master's degree without Bachelor's degree? I have worked as translator for more than seven years in the industry. I have a background in cuisine for more than ten years. Now I would like to add an graduate degree related to Tourism, Hotel and Event Management to my professional experience.

Can I enroll in such a masters program without first acquiring a Bachelors degree?

I know people who have attended and graduated from master programs in Australia and the UK and I've seen people considering such programs in the US (though I don't remember the school in the US and it was about 10 years ago but I thought it was Carnegie Mellon). These schools were all reasonable, fully accredited schools.

The students in question all were missing their bachelor degree. One had no university at all while others had most of their undergraduate credits yet had not finished. They key is that, like you, they all had significant real-world experience which was seen as offsetting their lack of credentials.

So, the short version is, there are schools who will accept master-level students without an undergraduate degree and there are schools who will not accept them. You just need to do the leg work and see which schools will make that exception.

Good luck!


Discouraged from giving A's, but students are doing excellent work, what can a professor do? I know somebody who works in a department that discourages giving students A's. Basically, a few years ago, there was a professor giving everybody A's. The department was labeled as a "vacation spot" at the university. This led to a hardline stand on giving A's that is in effect to this day. If a teacher gives too many A's they have to first explain themselves to the Dean. If this continues next they talk to the VP of Academics

The problem is that there are students doing excellent work. However, my friend is worried that if too many students earn an A he will not be able to convince the department of the students' merit. Yet there is an ethical concern of artificially forcing down the grades and giving some poor chap a B+ due to political pressure.

Any suggestions?

Take special care defining the rules, previously, and stick to them. You should have a specific list of objectives and the associated grades. This is implicit on tests, more explicit on projects. For instance, when elaborating written exams, I usually try to cover the whole syllabus (for that part), with questions of different difficulties, for instance, 4 questions, one easy, two moderate, one harder. That way I can easily see who really knows the content and who is just coasting by...

If a student reaches all predefined objectives, that person earned an A. And you can easily prove it by showing that he indeed reached the objectives. It would be highly unethical not to give a deserving student an A for political concerns of some suit....


How to avoid identifying myself in a review? Occasionally I find myself currently reviewing a paper where I find that many of the criticisms I have are addressed in papers in which I am an author (and often as lead author).

I don't want to make my identity known to the writers of the papers—but how do I make my points clear without breaking the "anonymity" of the review. Even if I cite a bunch of papers each time, it will probably be obvious what's going on.

If you believe that there are papers that the author should cite, list them in your review.  Yes, I mean the specific papers, with complete bibliographic information.  If you include some of your own papers in that list, the author of the refereed paper may suspect that you're the referee, but so what?

On the other hand, if you believe that the only papers that the author should cite were written by you, you're probably wrong.  Look harder.


how to congratulate for professors's grant achievements? I recently got the news that my prof and his colleagues were got many grants/funding.
Is it common to write him a congratulation?

I prepared this simple sentences, how should I wish him more success in the future for his evergrowing research group?

congratulations on your recent achievements.

If you feel like congratulating your professor, go ahead and do it. He might appreciate it, or in the worst case he will ignore because he has too many emails in his inbox. But I cannot imagine a scenario where the professor would take such a congratulation email negatively.

As with most emails to busy people: keep the email short and to the point. Just one sentence like the one you wrote, though maybe using a more specific term than "your recent achievements":

  Congratulations on receiving Grant X[!]

where the use of the exclamation mark [!] depends on where you are and what you have seen your colleagues do in emails (and also on whether you want to use it of course).


Personal information (trivia) in the “about me” section of an academic webpage It has been pointed out to me that several business-oriented websites advise to add a few “interesting facts about yourself" in the “about me” section on your professional webpage.

It seems that the aim of this practice is to avoid being “stiff and boring” and to share some unexpected or humorous details that paint a picture of your personal side (quirks and all).

  I wonder if this practice is widespread in academic setting as well (and thus if I should take the advice).

In principle, I don't object to publicly sharing little (not too weird) bits of personal information about myself (such as the music I like, the books I've read recently, what the name of my pet is);
I do know some (quite successful) colleagues and a few professors that include such personal trivia on their webpages;
I think that this might actually have a positive impact on personal relationships with colleagues, senior researchers, and can surely show younger (undergrad) students that we're humans after all!

However, I'm afraid that this practice may be seen as jokey or unprofessional by senior researchers (especially since I'm young, a graduate student). Hence the question.

So far, none of the other answers have mentioned Security.

Personal information, such as What is the name of your first pet, is used by many online account recovery mechanisms.

Many accounts have been hacked using such personal information:

  The following profile elements can be used to steal or misappropriate
  your identity:

  Full name (particularly your middle name)
  Date of birth (often required)
  Home town
  Relationship status
  School locations and graduation dates
  Pet names
  Other affiliations, interests and hobbies

...

  Best Practices

  Assuming you plan to be active in social media, minimize the use of personal information on your profiles that may be used for password
  verification or phishing attacks.
  Avoid listing the following information publicly: date of birth, hometown, home address, year of high school or college graduation,
  primary e-mail address.

Secrets, Lies, and Account Recovery:
Lessons from the Use of Personal Knowledge Questions at Google:

  Publicly available answers.

  Rabkin found that 16% of questions had answers routinely listed
  publicly in online social-networking profiles.

  Even if users keep data private on social networks, inference attacks
  enable approximating sensitive information from a user’s friends.

So think very carefully before publically exposing personal information.


How to find out if I will really like academia? To start I love learning and I love my field I am working in.  I also have enjoyed the limited number of times I have been able to teach.

I have an MS in Computer Science and I have been working full time now for 10+ years.  I am considering a future career in Academia as a teacher and/or research.  Does anyone have suggestions of things I could do on my own to help decide on whether or not this route really is for me?

Also, I have looked through questions, but I have not seen this particular question answered well.

Is it possible to pursue a PHD while working full time?

I completed my MS online through Drexel University, so I believe I have the personal motivation.

Pursuing a doctorate while working full time is very difficult. It is not impossible, but imagine doubling your work load. Not many will be happy with that, especially if they have a family. But if it is the only way you can manage it, then you just do what you need to do.

But if finances are not a particular issue, it is probably better to reduce your workload to permit both time and mental energy for research and writing.

It is also hard to know if you will like academia until you try it. You indicate an attitude that will probably work for you, but until you try, you won't know. Also, academia varies widely depending on the type of institution you are at. Life is very different at an R1 where you need to always be pursuing grants and working with doctoral students than at an undergraduate college where research, though required is much less the driving force in your career. Drexel, of course, is at the higher end of the scale.

There are a number of places in which a fully employed person can teach part time, probably even with an MS rather than a doctorate. There wouldn't be many perks outside the classroom, however, nor would it pay very well. But that isn't really a path into academia.


What is the difference between a Panel Study and a Cohort Study? I am having a special subject named "Methodologies of Scientific Research" in which there is a reference on Panel Studies and Cohort Studies for conducting a longitudinal survey. I am confused to what is the difference between Panel Study and Cohort Study ? In Wikipedia they look the same, that is Panel Study redirects to Cohort Study.

Edit: My field is related to Computer Science and more specifically Information Technology in an undergraduate level. The subject "Methodologies of Scientific Research" though is not constrained on applications on IT, rather it is more general and we have research examples from other sciences like Sociology, Biology, Economics etc.

The terminology for longitudinal research designs differs somewhat between disciplines. However, to my knowledge most discipline refer to a "cohort" as an entity that can be distinguished by a certain event as for example the year of birth or graduation from high school. The general idea is that there is an observable variable for the cohort membership and that individuals from the same "cohort" have something in common, e.g. the risk to die from lung cancer due to a common time of exposure. Thus, a "cohort study" looks at one cohort or compares different cohorts. In most cases, cohort studies use longitudinal research designs, but there are also cross-sectional cohort studies.
The use of the term "panel study" seems to me more vague but a "panel study" is in most cases a longitudinal study which has at least observations from two points in time. Panel studies do not need to focus on cohorts.
Hence, cohort and panel studies both look specifically at the timing of certain events and variables.

For further information you could for example have a look at the following articles in the International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences:

Mason, W.M. and Wolfinger, N.H. 2001: Cohort Analysis, in:
International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences,
edited by N.J. Smelser and P.B. Baltes, Pergamon, Oxford, pp.
2189-2194.
Duncan, G.J. 2001: Panel Surveys: Uses and Applications,
in: International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences,
edited by N.J. Smelser and P.B. Baltes, Pergamon, Oxford, pp.
11009-11015.


Sample Research Grant White Paper I am working on a research grant proposal and the funding agency requires us to turn in a white paper before the actual proposal. I have no clue how a research grant white paper should look like. I tried googling and searching in the university library, but could not find anything similar. Will somebody be able to give me a link to a research grant white paper, something which I can look at and learn the format? (my field is computer science)

Based on a little Googling, his white paper sounds like a preproposal. It is likely a short overview over your research project: the problem you are working on, your approach to solving it, how much it will cost, and what you and/or the agency will get out of it. Consider this white paper an outline of your full proposal.

Many agencies will ask for these if they expect a particular program or funding opportunity will have a high response or if the purpose of the program is to provide a single large award to one project. The prepreposals are used to narrow the field before they ask for full proposals from a smaller set of submitters.

I have not been successful at finding examples, since proposals and affiliated documents are almost never released unless they are funded. However, I have found some tips for preparing white papers from Rochester Institute of Technology and Purdue.


How much will a terrible freshman undergradate year affect academic future? I wasn't able to attend university during my freshman year due to personal reasons, so I ended up only barely passing 1 class the whole year (didn't even show up for the finals for all the other classes). My 3rd semester went a bit better, passed half the classes and also passed half of the remaining from my 1st semester. 4th semester went pretty good as I passed all classes with As and during the summer I also passed all the remaining ones from the previous 3 semesters. Right now I'm in my final year and have a fairly good GPA but I'm afraid that my terrible performance during my 3 semesters are going to tank my chances of getting into a MSc and later a PhD program. Is it at all reasonable for me to assume that the admissions boards can look past that since I have clearly shown improvement and have a good GPA?
I'm currently studying in Greece but plan to move abroad (somewhere in the EU) for MSc and PhD.
Note: I was enrolled in all of the core courses during my first 3 semesters I just did not attend class and did not take any exams (no show).

Your older work is far less important than what you have done since. If you have turned it around and people are willing to attest to that in letters of recommendation the first year will likely hurt you very little. I can't say not at all, but not as much as you fear.
For future stuff, focus on the future and on what you have learned enables success there. You are far from alone in this and many students have a slow start. It is good actually, that you found a way to do better. People may well recognize that.
You may have to answer questions in an interview about your first year, so expect that.

Note that the past is past and you can't change it. What you can do now is work so that the past is irrelevant to the future. Make sure you haven't missed any essential knowledge from the early years. Work closely enough with current faculty (projects, research, ...) that they will enthusiastically support your next steps.


If you plan on getting a PhD could you strictly take classes in your field to prove yourself and not get your bachelors? Could one potentially get into a PhD program if they don't take college graduation requirements and instead take more classes in their field?

There's no answer single to whether you can do this: every school sets its own policy, although the overwhelming majority will not allow you to apply for a PhD without a Bachelor's degree.

However, even if it is allowed, you should not do this!

A PhD involves a large amount of reading, writing, and self teaching. Taking a breadth of classes helps to hone your skills in these areas.
Real world papers are often interdisciplinary, so having a breadth of knowledge will be helpful in understanding (and writing!) these
If you have a degree and major in your subject, you will likely have enough knowledge to teach yourself things from the classes you didn't take.
Electives give you a good opportunity to take classes in things you enjoy but aren't related to your future career


Reviewer asked for dataset section within the manuscript Recently, a paper of mine received a major revision. Among different comments, one reviewer asked "the authors to include dataset section in MS".
Now, my problem with this request is that the data is too big (monthly precipitation and temperature for 30 years from 11 stations!) to be included within the MS itself.
The data should be requested to upload as supplementary files, rather than inside the paper itself. And I know the reviewer was not accidentally misusing the word "MS", since his other requests were completely precise.
So...
My question is, am I missing something? Did the reviewer mean something else? Beside the raw data itself?
These are his exact words: "The authors should first tell the reader what data you have, and you will use in this manuscript. The authors include Data Set section in MS. It is also requested to inform about the source of data."

They are not asking you to copy-and-paste the data into the paper in a "dataset section." They want you to devote more space to explaining what the dataset is and where you got it. Presumably, you did not collect it, so it should be easy to post to the government source.
That said, 7920 data points is tiny and could easily be included in a CSV file (but I digress). If they want you to share it, you could upload it somewhere else and link to it. But since this sounds like a publicly available government dataset, your time would be better spent making sure your preparation of the data is replicable.


communication after job offer and acceptance I am a US-based researcher and was offered a position as a postdoctoral researcher at a Swedish institute. The offer came in December, and I have negotiated some terms, which the school accepted. All of this happened via email and very quick. As the school accepted the various terms exactly as I wanted, I decided to accept the offer and wrote back saying that I will be joining the team.

Now, this is where the issue comes in. I know I need to file some paper work to proceed, which exact steps I am not yet sure about. I have sent two emails inquiring about the issue to the professor in charge, but I have not gotten any response back.

I find it strange that my emails are being ignored and this is making me worried. Some acquaintances over in Stockholm has suggested that because many people take time off during the holidays, things can slow down considerably in December-January (I haven't been there and I have no idea how things work there), but it is almost end of January and I do need to get the paper work done soon to be able to relocate on time. What should I do?

It's time to get the phone!

If you know some people working in your future institute, try to catch them by Skype. You can also look for some assistant or secretary telephone number in the institute. As long as you don't call by midnight, nobody will be annoyed by your call.

Yes, in Europe, things usually slow down in December / January, and mails accumulate or get trapped in spam filters. So, when in doubt, try and make a phone call.


Will I get in trouble if I miscapitalize on the works cited page? I just realized after submitted my works cited page that I used uppercase letters instead of lower case. For example Federalizing Medical Campaigns against Alcoholism and Drug Abuse. Instead I capitalized it all. Is that something I would get in trouble for?

There is no need to worry.

People have a hard enough time agreeing about what should be capitalized at all.  No people who is concerned with the content of your work will care in the least about capitalization that is consistent and at least vaguely plausible.  Many people will not even notice.

Rather, what you should expect is:

If there are review stages and you will have a chance to revise, it will make no difference to the decision you receive, and you can fix it in the next revision.
If there is no further review/revision stage pending, then:

If the venue you submitted it will send it through a proof-reader before publication (e.g., some journals), then it will get corrected to their preferred standards in the final proofing before publication.
Otherwise, you can expect to see the errors in print, entirely unremarked upon.


Contents of the discussion section In an academic paper, we sometimes have a "Results and Discussion" section.

It is not uncommon to add the explanation and discussion of the results together with the results section.

What are the pros and cons of both practices from an academic point of view? How do I weigh them for each paper?

List the results without explaining their significance, which is then explained in the discussion section.
List the results with their explanation as they are being listed, and eliminate the discussion section.

I find the second approach more appropriate to understand the results, since the reader wouldn't need to be going back and forth the sections, but then again, that is just my feeling.

I must say that I would have a hard time listing the pros of the first approach (separate results and discussion sections), because I don't like it and it doesn't fit my style of writing. My advice would be: if you can, write in the style that you like best, because that's how your writing will be most natural/readable/convincing.

However, the choice is not Manichaean as you make it sound. There exist a continuum between those two, because it mainly depends on what you call “results” and “discussion”. When I write for a journal that requires a strict “results then discussion” format, what I usually do is that I put most of my text in the results part, and leave some general overall discussion for the discussion part. Typically, it would given something like:

  Results

  First result. Discuss its implications.
  Second result. How it confirms result #1. Consistent with previous observations [ref].
  Third result. Again, some discussion of it.

  Discussion

  Altogether, what is the insight given by these results. It changes our view of this phenomenon somewhat. It is in line with work by X et al., but highlights some contradictions of Y’s model.

That's a bit “cheating”, but I've never been asked to reörganize any paper written in that way.


UK Transferable skills programs, where has this scourge originated and how to complain about it? If you are part of academia in the UK, either as a teacher, postdoc or PhD student, you might have had to fulfill some departmental requirement for transferable skills.

For those who have never came into contact with such a scheme, it singles out a set of skills that one does or should gain while in academia and can be ported. Here's a fairly tipical list from Cambridge.

While commendable in theory, for what I have witnessed in my university this programs are mostly useless (I still have to find a single colleague saying otherwise), which in turn means that they represent a huge waste of resources. Non trivial amount of money are spent to pay "teachers" and admin to make these courses run. Indirectly, time that could be devoted to research is instead spent to do something else, up to the  ridiculous extreme  of people being administered Myers Briggs personality test (this being an example of the activities in courses where you learn teamwork ).

Where does the provision for such programs stem from? Is it a law, a document by some ministry suggesting to adopt this programs, is it just some buzzword that made its way into academia and survives thanks to the money it funnels into the pocket of those who take part in it?

Secondly, as there is no feedback to be given on the program as a whole (I have no trouble imagining why) which would be the typical person or office to bring complaints? I know this is a lost battle, as these programs are carefully designed to appear useful that have to implement them (but don't experience them first hand) , but just out of curiosity.

The book How To Get A PhD,  E Phillips and D Pugh (6th edition) refers to the 'Robert's Report' as introducing the idea that students should also have skills that are useful outside of academia. Also material at https://www.vitae.ac.uk might help (search for 'transferable skills').


Should I accept suggestion to move my name to the front in a field where authorship is usually alphabetical? I work in an area where most of the time authorship is ordered alphabetically, but sometimes when some authors contribute more than others, ordering by contribution is possible. I'm writing a paper with a former professor and another student. My name is often last when ordered alphabetically, but the professor suggests that I move my name to the front because I contributed more.

Should I accept this suggestion? Of course, moving my name to the front would emphasize my contribution for this paper. But when people see my CV as a whole, might they think that for other papers where my name is last (because the names are ordered alphabetically), it is last because I contributed least?

I think you should be honored and flattered by your professor's suggestion. He/she thinks you deserve a larger share of the credit for the paper and is trying to help you get that credit.

Your concern about the CV/publication list is somewhat valid, but there is a simple way to address that issue. In your publication list, put a small asterisk next to the paper in question, accompanied by a footnote saying: "For this publication my coauthors agreed to name me first author as credit for my contributions. In all other publications my name appears in alphabetical order, as is the custom in my discipline and indicating roughly equal contributions from all coauthors."

Of course, adding such a footnote is a bit tedious and awkward, and the benefit you will get from being first author may not be very large. Perhaps you may conclude that it's not worth the hassle. Or you may feel it could distract people looking at your CV from other things about you that you feel are more important. Or you may think this is just too trivial an issue to care about. All of those would be completely reasonable reasons not to accept the offer. But there would certainly be nothing wrong with accepting it.


Pagebreak within tables of scientific articles I do not know if this the suitable forum for this question but I would like to give it a try.

In my thesis I have several very long tables that cover almost one page. Because of this I am getting into the problem of pagebreaks within the tables. I would like to know what you would consider to be typical in scientific contributions about how to handle this. As far as I see it, there are 3 options:

Simply break the table and continue with the remainder on the
following page
Do not break the table and display the table as a
    whole --> This leads to huge empty spaces at the previous page
Split a the table into two similar tables with different entries but
        with identical column names and headers. In this case I reckon that
        I should also use two headers for the table something like Table 2.1
        and Table 2.2

Has someone of you encoutered this problem in a thesis or scientific paper?
Of course, if you can think about other options,I'd be quite happy to hear about them.

Thanks in advance for your feedback.

I would avoid breaking a table that does not need to be broken (that is less than a single page).  It is much easier on the reader instead to have some blank space in the text and turn the page.  This is especially true in a thesis, where there is strong emphasis on clarity over space economy.  (Theses tend to have wider margins, spacing, etc. versus printed journals.)  So, yes, a page break is much better than a table break.

You can just expect the reader to go to the next page(s).  Does not need to be a facing page.  That is fine for numbered figures, tables, etc.  And basically required if you have text that discusses several figures or tables such that they can not all be easily embedded because of the number discussed in a small section of text.  But after all, that is what the numbers are for!

I have even seen it acceptable to put all figures, tables, endnote citations, etc. at the end of the chapter.  Similar to how you submit a journal article.  Basically required in the typewriter era.  And still acceptable when I wrote my thesis c. 2000.  (And yes, using Word.)

Note:  If you have tables in Word that cover more than a page, please DO turn on the Word feature that copies the header row to each new page.  (Highlight the top row cells, right click...table properties, "row" tab, click the box that says repeat as header row.)  It is also useful if you have bold or shading or the like to call out the header row of the table, so it is not confused as a data field.

Also if you do have tables breaking across pages, make sure you select the whole table and then DEselect (uncheck)  the same-place row tab box that allows for rows to break on separate pages.  Don't allow that.  No, no, no.  ;-)


Is the "okay" hand gesture now unacceptable to use in class? While teaching a class last week, I made the widely-recognized hand gesture (an open circle with the thumb and index finger, with the other 3 fingers loosely or sharphy extended... I'm not sure exactly how mine looks, as it's like muscle memory and I don't consciously think about the exact shape I'm making) while simultaneously saying "okay...". I can't remember the full sentence but it was something related to the math course I'm teaching.

Now I suddenly learn that it means "white power" to some people (some Americans). To make matters even worse, I'm white, and I make a very similar-looking symbol while indicating 3 things (some use the middle 3 fingers for this; but I've always done it the other way) or counting to a number between 3 and 5 with my fingers.  Good heavens!

Would I possibly get into administrative trouble for doing this, if a student were to report it?

The whole "White-power" hand sign started as a joke from 4chan or something like that. It was kind of a ploy to get the more gullible liberals all worked up for nothing. It was kind of laughable at first. However, it would seem that it's becoming more and more accepted as an actual WP symbol. I believe that some white-supremacist groups have even ended up adopting it. Still, I wouldn't worry about it as long as it doesn't seem as if you are actually pushing the agenda.

You could always swap it for "thumbs up" or, my favorite, good ol' finger guns.


is there a usage called "Full Professor"? I would like to know if the usage of "Full Professor" is valid or not as my language ability does not let me decide on this particular thing.

Yes. The highest level of professorship is "Professor". The title "Full Professor" is often used to distinguish from other lower rank positions (Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, etc).

(Edit after Henry's comment)


Thinking about leaving industry job and taking up a postdoc This is a follow-up to the question I posted about a year ago: How much damage would I be incurring if I turn down an informal postdoc offer?

My situation: I moved to industry about 6 months ago after declining a postdoc offer because I wanted to have some money and geographic flexibility to take care  of a sick family member. However, moving to the industry has given me a huge identity crisis because I was passionate about my research and the scientific community I was part of. Now I am itching to just take the postdoc and I got to know that the professor is still looking. I am wondering how I would approach him or has the damage been done already? The word is out that I have transitioned to the dark side and folks that I knew in grad school (including my grad school advisor) have begun to treat me as an outsider. Not sure how taking up a postdoc position would affect me in terms of recommendations and academic relationships. Anyone ever done this? How did it go?

Edit: My PhD was in geoscience.

I am in a different field (maths), but I know the stories of several people who went to work in unrelated industry jobs after their PhD, only to decide after a few months to return to academia. It never seemed to have hurt them, but there is of course a danger of survivorship bias, as I never got to know those who failed.

Since it does not seem like you actively burned bridges but only declined offers, I would simply approach the professor with a bit of humility. You made a mistake, but you are willing to correct it and six months is a short time in academia anyway. To add to that there is less danger of losing you to industry now than there is for a post-doc who hasn't tried it yet.

Concerning the "dark side" jokes, with most people they are merely that, namely jokes, so I wouldn't worry that much. They didn't really move away from you, you did move away from them. After all, with you in industry, there were simply no more research collaborations to be had and less of common interests.


Is it mandatory to include the registered trademark symbol ® next to the name of a computer program? Suppose you write a paper and you use Wolfram Mathematica to do calculations. In the article, should the program be mentioned with the registered-trademark symbol immediately following the name and in superscript style, i.e., as follows?

  Wolfram Mathematica®

APA, MLA and Chicago style manuals all recommend not to use trademark symbols.
Chicago

In publications that are not advertising or sales materials, all that is necessary is to use the proper spelling and capitalization of the name of the product. A trademark attorney can tell you when the use of the symbol is required.

from The Chicago Manual of Style Online
MLA

Although owners of trademarked names may suggest otherwise, publishers are not obligated to denote the trademark status of a name when that name is mentioned in text. Authors representing trademark owners frequently feel obligated to use the trademark or registered-trademark symbol (™ or ®) after the first mention of their product names but often do not use these symbols consistently to indicate the trademark status of other names not owned by their particular sponsor or employer.
Because the fair and consistent use of these symbols (or of footnotes denoting the trademark owners) requires exhaustive verification and vigilance on the part of the editor and because the use of these symbols (or footnotes) is not required by law, do not add trademark symbols, registered-trademark symbols, or trademark-denoting footnotes to trade names in MLA publications. In the interest of consistency, editors should also delete such references when inserted by authors.
At the same time, MLA recognizes that authors are often supported and encouraged by their institutions or other funders and that this support may be what enables an author to produce any written work at all. MLA editors are therefore advised to consider carefully an author’s express request that trademark status of particular names be denoted (merely including symbols or footnotes in the submitted manuscript does not constitute an “express request”).
If trademark status is denoted in a particular case, these guidelines should be used:

Use the trademark or registered-trademark symbol, not a footnote.
-The author must specify which words should be denoted and with which symbol (™ and ® are not interchangeable). Trade names not specified by the author should not be cited with these symbols.
Use the symbol no more than four times in one article for each trade name: the first mention in the article’s title, the first mention in the running head, the first mention in the abstract, and the first mention in the article’s text.
If the article is part of a JMLA symposium, add symbols to the trade names in question in all other articles in the symposium for consistency.

In all cases, whether trademarks are denoted or not, the proper spelling and capitalization of trade names should always be verified and consistent. See Appendix C for a list of trade names common to MLA publications and their proper spelling.

from the MLA Style Manual
APA

No, it's not necessary to include the trademark symbol for a trademarked term in academic writing. The trademark symbol is generally necessary to include only in commercial writing, meaning writing that pertains to commerce or the buying and selling of goods (e.g., advertisements). The word Twitter (and other names of companies) can be written in regular, nonitalic font as well.

from the APA Style blog (answer by the author to a comment)

In certain jurisdictions the trademark owner may be required to use a trademark symbol or may benefit from the use of such symbols in a law suit (see the International Trademark Association fact sheet on Marking Requirements).


Why do editors sometimes accept a paper even if a reviewer recommends rejection? For the last many days, I have a question in mind related with the editorial decision of accepting or rejecting the manuscript after peer-review:

Few days back I got a review report from a very reputed mathematics journal in which reviewer 1 had given some good points and suggestions to further improve the paper while reviewer 2 had given some points and rejected my manuscript.
Although, its not tough to revise the paper as per the suggestions of reviewer 2.
I would like to know why editor has given me chance to revise the manuscript while reviewer 2 has rejected it. I asked this question because in the past I had bad experience of rejection despite of getting acceptance from one of the reviewers.

It is up to the editor whether to accept or reject. The reviewers only make recommendations.  Even if the reviewers give positive recommendations, the editor can decide to reject a paper.

If both reviewers give negative recommendations, it is much less likely for the editor to accept a paper. If there is a mix of opinions the editor  has to make a judgment, subject to whatever internal procedures the journal has in place. It seems like, this time, the decision was favorable for you.


Are academic book buyers legitimate? I have recently been receiving number of visits from "academic book buyers" that are looking to buy books that I no longer want.  It is never stated outright but they seem to be looking mainly for evaluation copies of textbooks.  At least 2 of the cards that I have been given indicate that they are "recycling" the books, although what this means is not clear.

Are these book buyers benefitting or exploiting academia?

I agree with Yves that they are selling the books back to students.  Then I think the economics works out as follows:

The faculty selling the books and the book buyers benefit a lot.  The publishers stand to lose some money, since reselling the books hurts the market for new ones.  They presumably pass some or all of this cost on to students through price increases, so the students also lose money in aggregate.  Now the question becomes what price the books are being resold at.  If they are resold cheaply (used book prices), then the students who buy the resold books benefit (they get near-new copies at cheap prices), at the expense of the other students.  If the books are resold at new prices, then no students benefit.


Working as a Lecturer / Assistant Professor in UK vs Canada I'm a research fellow based in the UK. All my academic experience (bachelors, masters, PhD, postdocs) have been in UK (English) universities. For the next stage, I'm considering the benefits of continuing in the UK compared with getting a position overseas. My field is biomedicine / epidemiology / public health.
Specifically I would like to consider the pros and cons of working as a lecturer in a British university compared with working as an assistant professor in a Canadian university.
Does anyone have experience of both systems and is able to make comparisons? It would be informative to have insights on:

Salary and benefits (e.g. days of holiday)
Pensions (boring but important!)
Working styles
Teaching responsibilities
Funding provided by universities or research councils
Work life balance

As Canada has a federal system, I'm aware there can be differences between states. Any answers with knowledge of universities in Quebec would be particularly helpful.
As a benchmark, I would characterise the UK system as follows:

Salary for a lecturer in the region of £40,000 per year, which is low relative to the cost of living in London and the South East, but high in North East or North West England. Holidays are fairly generous (30 days per year)
USS pension is generous as it is a final salary scheme, but takes 10% of gross salary (and may be unsustainable in the future)
High administrative burden. Often competitive working environments.
High teaching load for early stage lecturers
Not much support for funding from universities, but (in my field) several external funders (Medical Research Council, Wellcome Trust, Gates Foundation).
Hard to generalise, but work life balance often compromised by long commutes and high cost of living (more so in London/ Southern England)

I do not know exact details of the UK system but I have colleagues there so at least I have some general idea of the UK system.  My impressions of Quebec come from doing grant committee work for the provincial government.
In Quebec the dominant language is French: it may or may not be a requirement to learn it but if you don’t you’d miss out on much the vibrant cultural scene.  Quebec also runs a French-inspired system of education (unlike English Canada, which is much closer to a US-based system): I don’t understand the UK system well enough to compare, but salaries are lower than the rest of Canada (although the prestige is greater).  The provincial tax burden is not light (although it’s not the horror stories you read compared with other provinces, except Alberta), but the quality of live is quite high: you can expect to have the means of buying a house within 5 years of your appointment (something not so clear if you are appointed in Toronto or Vancouver).
Quebec is culturally more creative than the rest of Canada: the joke is that the graduating theatre class in Quebec always puts on a new play at graduation, whereas the graduating class in Ontario always puts on a Shakespeare play.   This creative drive trickles to the research level: there are more funding opportunities in Quebec (the provincial government runs its own funding scheme, on top of all federal scheme).  Tuition is low compared with other provinces: it is a very attractive research environment, and many in other provinces are quite jealous of the additional government funding opportunities.
Of course there is “true” tenure.
My sense is that the UK is much much more complicated.  Quebec universities do not run on full-cost accounting (I know some UK universities do) so the paperwork required in applying for and managing grants is an order of magnitude lower than what I’ve seen in the UK.  Many federal grants are individual grants (there are also some team grants and some industry grants) and these individual grants are very flexible, with minimal oversight and simple rules (v.g. no business class flights).  If you use this $$ poorly (nothing to show for it at the end of the grant period) nobody will care but you’re unlikely to have a strong enough file to get your grant renewed: by and large the system works reasonably well.  Overall, my sense is that the Canadian and Quebec systems are much less business-like and penny-pinching than the UK system.  “Big grants” aren’t so frequent: the Canadian system tends to distribute its resources over individual researchers rather than concentrate resources in a few big centers.
I do not know what you have in mind, but - say - McGill is not called the Harvard of the North for nothing.  It has a history of excellent research: I don’t know about biomedicine but I know that there’s a lot of hospital-based research there (same as UK as far as I know).
Side note: I have a colleague who took a job in the UK and came back to Canada simply because the funding environment in the UK was so much more restrictive compared to the Canadian system.  I suppose this is anecdotal but it does align with my own experience with the UK system (through international team grants).
Nota: you can check funding levels for federal (NSERC) grants here: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/index_eng.asp
Public employees salaries in Quebec are not public but they are in Ontario (if you make over $100k).  Faculty salaries in Quebec are lower than Ontario and I do not know the x factor between the two, although I would guess ~0.8. You can get some of the public sector salaries in Ontario from this link.
You might have to download some stuff to search by university or sector.
Montreal has an excellent public transport system (including subway, with subway stops at all major universities).
My impression is that teaching loads are quite acceptable.


How to get a tutoring position in Melbourne, Australia? I'm starting my PhD in neuroscience next month at the University of Melbourne and I've been told that graduate research students often work part time as tutors. I've been trying to find this information on the website but haven't really found anything. Would anyone be able to help me figure out how to go about getting a tutoring position for some extra cash and teaching experience? I've seen websites like learntmate etc., any recommendations for the best one and the process?

Wait, and you'll be contacted.

Start your PhD first. Once you're officially a student, when they're looking for tutors, they'll send a mass email to all PhD students. That's when you can sign up. These are internal emails - the positions are not advertised online, and you won't be able to find them via Google.

If you're still concerned, you can ask your prospective supervisor or the department receptionist.


Can one or two emoticons be used in a PhD Thesis? I have a very dumb :-) question:

Are emoticons (if rarely placed - one or two times) in a PhD thesis considered unorthodox?

I have an introduction where I give an apt example and appended some small footnote where I make fun of the author (that's me) and I was so laughing when writing this I almost liked to put a smiley at the end of the footnote.

The reader of this question should note, that the thesis is already enough serious such that a smiley might be surely a relieve for the reader maybe :-)?

What is the general thought about this?

Update:
After all these enlightening, entertaining and thoroughly funny thoughts, I decided to go with a humorous footnote but of course without a smiley. :-P

I highly value humor and love to entertain whenever I can. In formal writing, I would encourage you to go ahead and write something that you think would be funny. Then reread it. Then reread it again. Read it aloud. Read it silently. Read it again tomorrow while you edit it. And read it again. And again. And again. Imagine reading it out loud to the people with the least sense of humor you know. Imagine reading it to a person with a furrowed brow, in a bad mood, who is trying to find anything they can to rip apart what you have laid down, to find a reason to cast it aside as useless junk.

Then read it 10 more times, as any good writer must inevitably do. Now imagine reading it again in 10 years (if you are lucky and what you've done turns out to be of use).

Personally, I have found that after the 20+ time I've read something, it isn't even funny to me anymore - and I think I'm hilarious! But even the best jokes I've ever told never landed 100% of time, or to 100% of the audience - and in formal writing I don't even know who the audience is - they might speak my language as a 2nd (or 3rd or 4th) language.

Being stubborn, I like to write humor into anything I make. But after the 20th read through I realize it just isn't funny any more, even to me - and if that's how a reader would feel who doesn't get or appreciate the joke, it just isn't worth it any more to me to include it. I'm basically writing a technical instruction manual, and there's a reason those things aren't really funny - you are supposed to read them and refer back to them repeatedly, and jokes get old fast.

If I really like a joke, I'll save it for when I can make it in person, in a talk or in a presentation, when I can personally hear the laughs (or gauge the room and know to skip it entirely). Or I'll be funny on a website like this so I can wallow in a mass of glorious unicorn points.

But in formal writing like a thesis or important research paper? Well, you decide after you've read it for the 30th time if it is still worth inclusion, or if that emoticon makes you smile - or if you want to poke it in its tiny little semi-colon eye.


How to formulate a reminder regarding letter of financial support? I have received my admission letter for a graduate program from a Canadian university. However, the letter contains no information about funding. I have already talked to my professor about the availability of funding. I contacted him again more than one month ago and he said that he will send me a letter of financial support. So far he has not sent me said letter. What should I write to ask him again for this letter? Could you please tell me how I can contact him or provide a template email? I am an international student and I need to apply for the visa.
Best,
Nikki

I would write something along the lines of:

  Hello Professor,

  I am writing to follow up on the letter of financial support we had
  discussed a while back. I was wondering if you had a chance to write
  it, or if you needed more documentation from me. Please let me know if
  I need to do anything on my end.

  Best,  Nikki


The rationale behind academic and industry salary difference This question is not about PhD students, but about professionals with PhD degrees. To narrow down the scope even further, let my subject be a computer science PhD seeking a job in Europe. (I'd include the USA as well, but I'm afraid the dynamics are not the same. However, feel free to include relevant comparisons and data in the answers when needed.)

The salary of such a professional, if they stayed in academia, will be probably lower than if they chose to get a job in industry.

What is the economic incentive behind the university policy to not have higher, more competitive salaries when compared to industry?

I know that state institutions are (at least partially) on the government budget, so they arguably have little say in the matter. However, private institutions are significantly more independent in their organization. Basically, isn't it in the institutions' best interest to have the "best pick" of PhD graduates, instead of competing against the lure of a higher pay?

I highly doubt university salary policies are based on "economic incentive", especially in European countries where universities are directly funded by the ministry of education. Generally, political, not economic reasons prevail.

That aside, competition for academic positions is already fierce - there is simply no need to offer higher salaries to attract candidates. Currently, candidates are attracted by reputation, the thirst for knowledge, and similar non-monetary considerations. It is by no means clear that higher salaries would attract better candidates: you would have to argue that someone who simply follows the money would make a better researcher than someone who is willing to put in long hours at low pay for the dream of someday being allowed to put "Prof. Dr." in front of their name!


How can I increase my chances of being accepted to a top 20 MS CS program? I just graduated from one of the older IITs (Indian Institute of Technology), majoring in EE and have a GPA of about 7.8 / 10. I want to pursue a masters degree in computer science from a top 20 university in the US. I have a paper published in an international conference on machine learning and have good test scores(GRE / TOEFL) but I'm worried that my grades could affect my chances. I have some experience in competitive programming, my team finished among the top 10 among 300+ teams in the ACM ICPC regionals and I have a decent Topcoder rating. Not sure if this matters though. I have also made contributions to open source projects and have open sourced some of my projects, some of which have been downloaded thousands of times.

I've seen people from  unknown colleges with higher GPAs getting in to places like Stanford, UIUC, Cornell, CMU etc. Realistically, do I have any chance of getting admitted in a top 10 or 20 program. If not, what can I do to improve my chances within a year?

UPDATE: Well, I guess grades do matter, I didn't get into any of the good schools I applied to. I'll have to give up my hopes of grad school now.

Realistically, do I have any chance of getting admitted in a top 10 or 20 program.

With a publication in an international conference?  Definitely!

Of course, I'm assuming that you mean a good publication in an internationally recognized conference (not just a conference with papers from more than one country), ideally indexed in DBLP and available over the web.  I'm also assuming that you will have strong recommendation letters describing your contributions to the paper, in specific, personal, and credible detail, as evidence of your research potential.  Ideally, your letters will make direct comparisons with other IIT graduates who have succeeded in strong graduate programs.

I'm also assuming that you have a compelling statement describing your research experience and interests, written in flawless English, and that those interests are a good fit for the faculty at your target departments.  Be sure to describe your ongoing open-source projects.  (The contest stuff?  Meh.)  As Daniel suggests, focus on the work you want to do, not the ranking of the department.

And of course, I do mean you have a chance, not that you have a sure thing.  Graduate admissions is a random process; you have some influence on the distribution, but someone else rolls the dice.  Machine learning is a particularly competitive area, so if you want to continue in that direction, you should apply broadly.  In particular, you should not limit yourself only to programs that appear at the top of some list in some stupid magazine.  Rather, aim yourself at departments whose faculty and students have similar research interests to your own.

(I regularly serve on the CS grad admissions committee at UIUC.)


How can I cite an company website using IEEE style? I would like to use some information about the MathScript RT Module RT module, found at the link: http://www.ni.com/labview/mathscript/

This might not be standard so I cannot find any example online. Any suggestion will be appreciated.

Software available online should be cited as a website, following the description given in the various IEEE style guides.  The easiest way to do this is typically with a citation management system like BibTeX.


As a TA, what should I do about an error in the professor's lecture that I repeated in the lecture notes? Here is the somewhat awkward situation.

I am a TA for a class that I have never taken before.  The professor (probably) knows this, but I don't think the students have caught on, since it is a lower-division class and as a graduate student I have significantly more mathematical maturity than most of them.

As a TA, I am responsible for preparing the lecture notes for the class.  A different TA is responsible for grading assignments.

A few weeks ago, the professor made a (small) mistake in his lecture, and I transcribed the error onto the lecture notes without realizing it was a mistake.

Recently we had a midterm, and the other TA noticed that a lot of the students were making the same mistake.  The other TA recognized it was wrong and is now docking points for the error, even though I told him there was a mistake in the lecture notes.

What should I do?  I think the students will be mad when they hear about this, and if I tell the professor, he might get mad at me for preparing bad lecture notes.

Edit: It was the kind of error that would be confusing after the lecture, but hard to spot during the lecture.  Basically he used a matrix where he should have used the matrix's transpose.  And in the example problem he solved on the board, the matrix was a diagonal matrix, so it made no difference.  But the matrix on the midterm wasn't.

Just tell the professor: "The transcription of the lecture included an error, and many students made the same error on the midterm." (It really doesn't matter whether the mistake was made first in the lecture or the notes.)

He will decide what to do about the midterm.

He will almost certainly be very happy to hear about his error from you, rather than from a large number of irate students (which is likely to happen if you don't tell him).

Nobody is infallible - not professors, not teaching assistants, not students. If he gets mad at you for preparing "bad lecture notes" for proliferating one mistake that he made, he is completely unreasonable.

As an aside: this evening, I gave my students a quiz, and during the quiz my TA - who was helping me proctor - pointed out an error. I thanked him and told the students to disregard that question.  Then, after the quiz, I had the students get together in groups and work on "fixing" the question (the nature of the error made the fix non-trivial). It was an interesting and helpful educational exercise, for my students and for me. Errors can sometimes be an opportunity for good things.

Of course, I told my students that this is an important lesson on the dangers of taking code snippets off the Internet or from a book without carefully checking them :)


Can I submit a paper to two or more journals at the same time? Assume I am submitting my paper to Journal X, which rejected the paper. After making modifications I am going to submit the paper to Journal X again. At the same time can I also submit the paper to another Journal Y (which has a lower impact factor than Journal X). As the Journal X has rejected it the first time, I think it may be rejected again. So I want to publish my work anyhow in a journal.

No, not the same paper in two journals at the same time.

Either submit to X again or submit to Y.


Do research-only postdocs harm chances for tenure-track opportunities? Suppose a person spends their PhD at an institute with a high ratio of PhD students to other students, resulting in a very low teaching load for PhD students, resulting in no or almost no teaching/tutoring.  Suppose he/she spends years in postdocs, where each postdoc is funded by supervisor grants, and involves no teaching.  She/he does great science but does not acquire other skills or experience.

Consider that tenure-track positions always require stellar experience in research, teaching and getting proposals funded — all of the above.

Is it harmful to an academic career if research is great, but all done on other people's grants and with no teaching experience to speak of?  If yes, how could one prevent or overcome this?

It depends. At my R1 university where the only thing that counts is research, you would be an ideal candidate for our hiring committees.

At other R1s which balance research against a modicum of teaching, you might face a little bit of an uphill struggle. It might be good if you could at least pick up some teaching experience or certification1 to help you in the job market.

You face the most problems at small liberal arts colleges, where you would face two issues:

The concern that you don't know how (or really care) to teach
The concern that you would think yourself ultimately destined for R1s and thus leave the SLAC at the first opportunity possible

You would have to counter these two prejudices in your job letter and interviews.

1. Even at my august institution, we're realizing our graduates are having problems on the job market because they have little to no teaching experience. So we have instituted a teaching and learning center where they can take seminars and workshops on pedagogic methods. They get a little annotation (certification) to this effect on their transcripts. Certainly not comparable to the teaching experience that doctoral students receive at public R1s.


How to deal with student with low self-awareness about health condition? Summary: Student got defensive when I suggested he might have some neurologial issue that should be checked, should I apologize or how to address the issue?
I am a PhD student advising a student midway through his master. This student has always been a very slow learner which has caused me frustration because I advise a few other students in the lab. Therefore, I don't have so much time and I feel that without my help he will fail his master.
Every protocol he makes, I have to teach him 3 times because he forgets the steps, doesn't take notes and is overall disorganized.  Our advisor has taught him how to take notes a few times but this aspect has not improved. When he tries to do the protocol by himself, he messages me asking about the steps and ultimately can not do it.
In the last 2 times we met, he was limping. The first time, he said he fell off his bicycle and on the second time he said he "just fell" and his legs have a lot of bruises from these falls.
The experiments we do require very steady hands, but his hands shake a lot in a way I am not sure it is normal for a young person, so he has a lot of trouble assembling the devices we make and sometimes breaks them.
Last time we met, we were going to do a new protocol. To be sure he understood, I asked him to read it and explain the steps to me. I gave him an hour to read and when I tried to check it, he couldn't explain it and asked for 3 more minutes.
I believe some activities are harder for some people and even if it is extremely difficult for someone, I should not be the person to tell them to give up. I always consider the case the person might have some personall challenges, but I can only accomodate if I know if the person  doesn't want to do a master or if the person has some disability.
Last time he failed a protocol, I asked by message if he would like to see a neurologist for these issues and he got very defensive. This makes me angry because I think he has ADHD or essential tremor or some form of anxiety which are all treatable but prevent him from doing his work and make me loose my time.
I should not diagnose him and that is why I would like him to see a professional, so I resent him not considering this option because if he has no issues, I feel like I should give up on him and let him fail, which is against my principles and the idea of "giving up on someone" makes me feel like a failure too.
I don't know if I should treat him as he has an undiagnosed disability or someone with the opposite of an impostor syndrome (someone who really shouldn't be doing a master but doesn't realize it).
Should I continue helping him? Give up on him?

I should not diagnose him

That's correct.  Even if you knew how to, he is not your patient.

I would like him to see a professional

Also correct.  You should tell this student they may benefit from an appointment with the disability office at your university. You can also ask that office for advice.
You should tell your supervisor about the problems with the student's performance.

Should I continue helping him?

If you have tried to help a student several times and made no progress, it is acceptable to give up.  This is particularly justified if the student refuses to follow your advice.  Depending on circumstances, you may also be able to give the student an easier research project.