Value of my prior publications when changing fields I am finishing my PhD and strongly considering changing my field (Artificial intelligence in computer games) to a very weakly related field (Bioinformatics). The nice part is that I got a very interesting job offer at a Bioinformatics lab, starting next spring, and I will very likely take it. So my question is a bit different than those "How difficult/common it is to change fields". Since I have no publications in the new field, I will - for quite a while - have to fill my CV with publications from the old field. I would like to know how much do those older publications count in the new field, specifically:

How valuable are publications in a different field when asking for grants (especially EU H2020 and similar)?
Should I be forced to look for a different job after spending a while in the new field, how valuable are the older publications in my job application?

The thing is that I need to optimize the effort I give to my thesis and related publications in the forthcoming months versus preparing (reading literature...) for the new field.

I am speaking about 2-3 very good conference articles, 1-2 reasonably good journal articles and a book chapter (work in progress research included). So far very few citations, but all of the good stuff has been published in the last year or still in progress, so I hope to get some non-negligible citation counts.

I am in Europe (and do not expect to move).

I've had a somewhat similar experience, having done my Ph.D. in artificial intelligence / cognitive modeling and then later abandoning that area as I have moved into synthetic biology (my other line of research remained consistent, but that's a different story).

The good news is that you're at a perfect time in your career to make a field transition, and that a postdoc or two is the recommended way of doing so.  The bad news is that your prior publications count for pretty much nothing in the new field, and that this is further compounded by the fact that conference publications generally do not count in biomedical fields, only journals.

The reason that your prior publications don't count is simply that they are mostly not relevant evidence of what you can accomplish in the new field.  They are evidence of your fundamental technical skills, and since many of those are transferrable, that has no doubt helped with your current job applications.  A funding agency, however, will generally want a PI with a clear track record of accomplishment, particularly for highly competitive programs like Horizon 2020 (there's likely no problem including you as key personnel for your skills, though).  Likewise, after you've been in the field for a 2-3 years, people will expect you to start having some good journal publications in the new field, and it is these that you will be evaluated on in applying for future jobs, much more than your prior AI work.

Right now, then, the thing to do is buckle down and do good work, which can then fill up the future publication queue.  Making a transition is hard, but can be very rewarding, and all you likely need is a few solid mid-tier journal publications or one really high impact publication and you can bootstrap yourself nicely into your new chosen direction.


How does one organize their publication pipeline? In the field of computer science, there are numerous conferences and journals to seek publication in. It's almost overwhelming! How does one go about organizing, prioritizing, and planning a workflow or "pipeline" for meeting the variety of submission deadlines?

For example, is there a "definitive" resource like wikicfp that most researchers use? Do you simply track your deadline dates on a calendar, even years in advance?

Or do folks tend to just write the papers first, and see what CFP dates are in the near future, and submit to what's in the near future? (Submitting "now" to what's available, as opposed to waiting/planning/timing in advance for particular avenues of publication.)

Or do folks tend to target just a handful of top-tier conferences and journals, and then investigate, ad-hoc, for other opportunities after being rejected from the top-tier publications?

I too am in CS but I found the schedule of conferences to be fairly simple and I strive to submit to the same conferences each year.

First, identify the handful of conferences in your field that are both reputable and aligned with your research topics. Then you can form a mental model that is made up of (A) the deadlines and (B) the prestige.

For example, all of the conferences that I would submit to all  have deadlines that cluster around two times, Fall (August/September) and Spring (March/April). I can also group them into top-tier or second-tier. At that point, it is pretty easy to know where I am going to submit each piece of work based on whether it is Fall or Spring and whether it is suitable for the top-tier venues.

One side note. I have been given the advice to find 1-2 conferences that I can call "home." That way I can get close to the community, network, and they will become familiar with my work. I have been told to avoid shooting papers off to a dozen different conferences because they will be forgotten in those communities.


How do I write a formal resignation letter to my toxic PI advisor After years of a toxic work environment, I finally decided to move forward in a different lab. However, I have to present an official resignation letter to my advisor (current PI), even when currently paid by a  TA position. Any advice on how to do this? I have no idea to make it sound professional and avoid further conflict. I plan to take a leave of absence until I can find another lab.

It can be extremely short and to the point. You don't need to give your reasons:

  For personal and professional reasons I've decided to resign my position in your lab.

Nothing more is required as long as your contract, if any, permits it at all. In particular don't say things that might be disputed by others.


How do junior professors build up a team of lab personnel? In the field of computer science how does a junior professor recruit graduate and undergraduate research assistants to initially build up a lab at a university? How long would this normally take? In the mean time, does the professor have to engage in the time-consuming 'grunge work' of research (ie. programming and running experiments), to generate papers?

Where would be a junior professor initially get the money to pay lab staff?

As usual, things vary a bit between institutions, countries and even specific posts. One particularly important point here is what exactly a "junior professor" is and how independent (s)he is supposed to work. In the following, I am assuming that you mean an entry-level "real" professorship, where the junior professor is supposed to execute pretty much the same responsibilities as other faculty, just maybe on a different scale.

  how does a junior professor recruit graduate and undergraduate research assistants to initially build up a lab at a university? How long would this normally take?

Generally speaking, the hardest part about getting started as a professor is not finding people. Of course it is sometimes hard to find good students, and recruiting them takes a bit of time, but generally (depending on system) we are talking about weeks or a few months here. The real issue is indeed finding ways to pay for them.

Junior professors may have a so-called startup grant / package, which is basically a defined amount of staff money or positions given to her/him as part of the contractual negotiations. This money is available right away, but will not be sufficient to cover the entire intended research group. Hence, the junior professor will typically spend a substantial fraction of her/his time writing grant proposals to fund new staff. The two troubles with that are that, (1) grant proposals are rather uncertain money (most funding agencies have very competitive acceptance rates), and (2) the entire process takes a while (in Switzerland, the review window of proposals to the national funding agency is 6 months). Hence, if you are a new faculty and you really need some project money, it is often unwise to just write one or two proposals. Rather, you will need to write a bunch of proposals concurrently to hedge. This is typically very time-consuming.

  In the mean time, does the professor have to engage in the time-consuming 'grunge work' of research

Yes, typically a starting faculty with a small team will to more her/himself than the head of a larger lab. However, most faculty don't perceive this as "having to do the grunge work", but rather as "still having time to do actual research". That is, most professors like being researchers (that's what they signed up for, after all), so if they still have the chance to get down and do some work themselves, that's typically a positive rather than a negative.


Do US Graduate Admission Committee review and assess International Applicants country-wise? To be specific, my application field is physics. And I am from a country where students are aggressive on standardized tests like gre's since we put much emphasis on training for these tests. I was talking with peers about whether to send my Physics GRE score to my target physics schools which is 800/990(67%) as a computer science undergrad student, and they told me don't do it because, given my nationality, admission committees will set a higher bar for me and a percentile below 85% is a minus. That arose the question in my mind that I know it's normal that in US graduate admission process, admission standards for international students are set higher than those for domestic students, but do graduate admission committee View International Applicants country-wise? I asked my peers about this, and they say that's a widely accepted speculation among them, so I am asking here to verify.

I doubt that there is any widespread effect of this. In fact, most grad schools would want, and many would require, a "level playing field" for admissions. But the GRE is not the main determinant of anyone's admission. It is at most an indicator, among many others, that might indicate success in a program, or not. Letters of Recommendation are relatively important in US.
Your application needs to give strong indicators of your likely success. But you don't need to be "perfect in every way" to gain admission.


What to do after being denied tenure? What do you do if after 6 years of being an assistant professor, you come up for, and are denied tenure?

How hard is it to get a job in industry, when you are middle aged and have no relevant work experience? How hard is it to get another job in academia? Who wants to hire someone who was denied tenure at their home institution?

First, I hope this has not already happened, but is only a potential concern.

Thus, I'd first address "how to avoid having this happen". As with failing oral prelims and such things, this results primarily from failed communication between the junior person and one or more relatively senior people. Ignoring for a moment department-politics-motivated tenure-vendettas, which do occur, departments are not collectively happy to deny tenure, since it reflects a kind of failure on their part, as well. Although the details of the expectations are different at "research universities" versus "small colleges", departments have expectations. Usually these expectations are communicated fairly clearly, although sometime not too forcefully or formally.

A pre-tenure person should have senior people to talk to about their situation in the department, about expectations, and about progress-so-far. Unfortunately, often there is no systematic implementation of this sort of mentor relationship, and the default is that the dept chair has a yearly talk with pre-tenure faculty. If this defaults further into an absolutely pro-forma, content-free interaction, there is potential danger, especially with a pre-tenure person who is oblivious to exactly these issues.

The worst cases I've witnessed, apart from those involving some political motivations, involved pre-tenure people who were surprisingly disconnected from the department in which they worked. Plausibly doing worthwhile work, but not interacting with local people.

Another kind of disconnection is that the pre-tenure person does receive fairly blunt advice from the dept chair, but decides to ignore it, as though some abstract notion of "virtue" would supercede the dept chair's recommendation!

Nevertheless, even if one has paid attention, it might be that one's research program just didn't quite measure up to hopes... Or there might be political/scientific shifts in the dept which (rightly or wrongly) marginalized your field/work "out from under you". In such cases, the external perception usually is fairly well informed, and the stigma is not too great, and there is hope for other academic opportunities.

If one hasn't paid attention, and, in some sense "rightly" was denied tenure, then this situation is externally understood, too, and it is in this case that one's academic prospects are dim.

Although I've had the good fortune to not need to look for non-academic employment, my several students who have deliberately (or due to vagaries of the job market, grudgingly) found non-academic positions emphasize that it's possibly not your specialized knowledge that you can "sell", but the point that you can learn very complicated things, and do things with them.


Mentioning other people's error in talk I am a PhD student of physical chemistry, and my work involves developing packages for numerical simulation. Recently I tried to reproduce some work done with a rather well known package made by a (friendly) competing group, and failed. After some time, I found out that the discrepancy was due to an error on their part.

I asked my supervisor, and she suggested that I should write the authors. The corresponding author said the result was due to Author 2, a rather well known and respected senior of my field, and that he would get in touch. It has now been over a month, and I have heard nothing. I am still convinced that their result is wrong. I am hesitant to write back, as I don't want to appear nagging.

Here comes the tricky part. I have been invited to give a talk at a conference in June. The conference is a rather high profile thing in the US, and lots a possible future employers will be there to hear the talk. And, as I have seen from the participant list, also Author 2.
It will be strange if I don't mention that his software package is capable of doing the same calculation as I do, as part of my invitation involves giving a small review of the sub-field.
But if I do, I will have to say that they do it wrong.
I don't want my talk to become argumentative about a mis-calculation, as I want to make a good impression on a lot of people.

How do I gracefully talk about our work, without this turning into something ugly?

First, make double sure that the error is on their part, not your part, or there is not another reason for the discrepancy (e.g., they're computing something slightly different, they're using different assumptions, there's a simple way to transform their answer into yours, etc).
It seems reasonable sometime between now and then, to contact the authors (1 and 2), to check in and say you want to mention their work in your talk but you're concerned about this possible error.
Try to talk to Author 2 at the conference before your talk about this issue.
What to actually say depends on the situation and exactly how related their work is to yours, but if you are not getting any responses from them, you might just mention their work in passing.  You could avoid saying anything definitive about their work.  You can also just say that there seem to be discrepancies in some cases and you're looking into it.  I would avoid directly saying their work has errors unless they specifically admit that it does (in which case you still should not harp on it).


Must I credit others' published research when using it in a proprietary product, if doing so would be bad for business? If a company was building a product that uses methods designed and outlined in a published research paper, should credit be given? If crediting them would be a bad business decision, is it OK not to?

I am building a product that builds on research published by a university research group. The research outlines a quicker, cheaper and more efficient method of doing something that usually can cost much more. So it is basically just a small part of my overall project, although it allows me to cut costs drastically. The method is not patented, and the group most likely does not plan on getting a patent as they make it clear that their research is in no way related to any company or products.

I do believe in giving credit where due, but publicly disclosing the research method that is allowing me to cut costs and release an existing product a lot cheaper than competitors would be shooting myself in the foot.

My original idea was to make the hardware opensource, and then just sell prebuilt versions for a good price, although after seeing what is going on in the 3D printing industry - like MakerBot filing patents on their 3D printer and scanning - I am not sure if it is a good idea.

So without opensourcing the hardware, it puts me in a difficult situation. I would like to credit the researchers, but doing so would be a bad business decision. Would it be considered acceptable practice to use their method without crediting them?

Since business is on your mind, before ethics, you should first check whether there are any legal restrictions on the use of the published research, or obligations arising from such use, issues that may depend on the applicable laws of some specific country. For example, it may be the case that you may not need consent to use the research results, since they have been openly published, but you may have some financial obligations if you are to use it for profit (and not necessarily towards only the research team), patent or no patent. So make certain where you stand.

As for ethics: it is rare for businesses to credit researchers. Instead they usually contract them either for royalties or to secure further development, if there is such potential, and not leave it to fall into the hands of competitors. "Credit due" may be one of the currencies in academia, but "money" is the currency that businesses understand.

By contacting and maybe contracting the research team (after doing your legal due diligence first), you may even be able to secure such exclusive use of their results, or some even more efficient version of them. Again, this will depend on the legal framework applicable.


Which review recommendation should I give to maximize the likelihood that a manuscript is rejected? DISCLAIMER: As some readers have found the following question and prior title (How to best kill a manuscript as peer reviewer) outrageously unethical, I want to clarify that, by asking this question, I was simply and constructively trying to be provocative, not suggesting any means to hijack the peer review process.

I often peer review manuscripts for scholarly journals. In the most typical scenario, the editor asks me a quality appraisal and a priority appraisal.

For quality, the typical recommendations can be (mutually exclusive): accept as is, minor revision, major revision, and reject.

For priority, the typical alternatives can be (mutually exclusive): top priority, mid priority, low priority.

My experience and perspective is that most manuscripts do not deserve a rejection, as they most often have some merits, at least in the field of pragmatic cardiovascular research, where most works are only incrementally original.

If my will is to try to "kill the manuscript", i.e. maximize the likelihood it is eventually rejected because I find it unsuitable for that specific journal, but still finding it has some incremental value, I simply recommend minor or major revisions, but give low or very low priority.

Is this sound and appropriate? Am I wrong in this approach?

Is this sound and appropriate?

No. Your job as a reviewer is not to choose which manuscripts are accepted or rejected. Your job is to advise the editor as to the merits and the flaws of the manuscript, and then let the editor decide the fate of the manuscript.

Thus, you should give the manuscript the ratings that most accurately reflect your perception of it, not the ratings that you think will get it "killed".

  I think that there is an underlying misunderstanding

I don't think I misunderstood the first version of your question, and my answer still applies. It is not up to the reviewer to maximize the likelihood of any particular outcome; just tell the editor what you think of the manuscript, and leave the rest to the editor.

This means that if you are asked by the editor to recommend an overall decision, you should recommend an overall decision. If asked by the editor to recommend a decision based on quality and specifically excluding the priority, novelty, and usefulness of contribution, then you should do exactly that. (If you aren't clear on what factors should be included your quality recommendation, ask the editor.) If you believe that a manuscript should be rejected from a given journal because its contribution is incremental, you can indicate as much in the part of the review where you're asked to assess the manuscript's originality and/or in a separate comment to the editor.


Should undergraduates add a "course-based research experience" section in their CVs? I am an undergraduate student in the US getting ready to apply for some research internships as well as cold emailing some professors for some opportunities (all in the US). This will be the first time I will be applying for a research internship; that is, I do not have any previous internship-based research experience. I've noticed that undergraduates who have completed research internships tend to have a "Research Experience" section on their CVs. I have, on the other hand, completed a few courses with significant research components.
Is it acceptable if I include a "Course-based Research Experience" in my CV wherein I briefly explain (using a couple of bullets) the kind of research I did in these courses or am I better off having that information in a cover letter? The issue is that some internships don't allow me to submit cover letters and for the ones that do, if I try to describe the kind of research I did in detail, the cover letter ends up being longer than ideal.

Just call it "Research Experience."  The fact that you happened to earn course credit at the same time you did the research is irrelevant to the needs of employers.


In the Dutch salary system, how do the "steps" ("trede") work? The salary system in Dutch academia is based on a number of "scales" (schaal), which are related to the different academic ranks. The salary in the same scale can vary considerably, depending on the "step" (trede) on which the employee is positioned  (see the current salary table). In job offerings, the scale is usually specified in the job advertisement, whereas the step depends on the candidate and can be subject to negotiation.

How does one rise in "steps"? Is it bound to certain achievements, or does it happen automatically after a certain time (what are the time intervals in this case)?
How is the starting step for a new employee usually determined?

You automatically go up one step per year, until you reach the top of the scale. Starting points are determined by HR, based on an estimate of how many 'years' into the scale you already should be. For example, a postdoc would typically begin on (I think) 10-4, to account for the time spent doing the PhD (note that the Promovendus - PhD student - scale P matches the start of scale 10).

I imagine that it is theoretically possible to refuse someone an increment, or advance them by several steps at once - but I've never heard of it actually happening.

Once you hit the top of a scale, you're stuck there until you can get promoted to the next scale (which requires an explicit process to be followed).

(The other quirk of the Dutch system is that your annual salary is typically 14x the number in this table: 12 monthly payments, plus a vacation payment and an annual bonus.)


How helpful is it for PhD admissions to be second author of a paper in a recognised journal? I recently submitted a paper to a fairly well-known journal and it got accepted. I'm listed as the second author. I'm a master's student. How much prestige is associated with this if I apply for a PhD?

This is a normal and expected thing for graduate students to do.  You should definitely list it on your CV and make it visible in your application to PhD programs and it will be a positive factor.


How can I fix or do after I made many big mistakes with my professor? I am a new student in a college, the other company in my class is so quiet! (very rare questions and answers), and I am not very good at English (my professor is English).

I said negative comments about things that I disagree with such as "I don't think that because..", "I think it changed, this is old statistics..". I corrected his speech: "Sir, is it weather or climate?". I laughed and spoke in my language in the class so he thought that we are talking about him,

I actually feel shy when I speak in my language to my friends but it's difficult sometimes to change to English. I really feel like he is saying to himself "rude girl!"

In addition, I ask some ridiculous questions and talked too much, I just noticed how stupid I was. But the worst thing I did is when I suggested (by email) to come the class earlier because we are late, He thought that I am not interested  and I want to finish earlier. He spoke to me in front of class but I did not understand what he was talking about ( his voice was low and angry), At home I understood so I sent an email of explanation but I Still feel bad. I am really nervous and confused, what should I do? I feel like I want to leave the class.

Don't make the language as an excuse to your behaviour. Being respectful to your professor has nothing to do with the language proficiency. If you can't learn in English then quit your English-speaking school. Most of us are not English native speakers and yet we study at English schools.

  What should I do to fix the problem?

1) Change your behaviour. There is no need to give your opinion about everything the professor says. At the same time, I bet you are very welcome to ask questions related to the material and the professor will be happy to answer them.

2) Tell the professor that you have changed and you regret what you did. I believe you got a very nice professor ( I know some professors who will make your day miserable if you act like this in their class). Take the class seriously or at least do not be the class trouble maker.


Job Application - Non-Tenure Track and Tenure Track in One Ad I am working on an application for a job ad that lists available tenure-track and non-tenure track jobs in the same ad. I would want (and am qualified for) either position, but there are, of course, more non-tt positions. Is there an industry standard for how I should approach the cover letter. For example, should I:

Just choose one job to apply for.
Mention in my letter that I would like to be considered for
both/either.
Send in separate applications for both?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Schools sometimes double up their job ads in ways confusing to applicants. For instance, a school may identify a single position as "Instructor, Assistant, Associate, or Full Professor," or as "Instructor/Assistant Professor/Associate Professor," signalling that they would offer a title based on the chosen applicant's experience and credentials. Alternatively, they may have multiple positions open but file one job ad. (It could be a deliberate cluster hire, or just a matter of how the department filed the positions.)
What you're describing is a blend of both approaches - hiring for positions of multiple ranks in one institution in one ad. There is no industry standard for how applicants should handle this exact situation. Instead, I'd advise treating each position like a separate search. File applications for each position you would like that you are qualified for.
This is the recommendation of Karen Kelsky (The Professor Is In), for instance, if a department advertises two positions:

But anyway, my answer is yes. If you are a plausible candidate for both searches, apply for both. In most cases the search committees will be made up of different faculty members, and while files may be shared across searches, you can’t assume that they will be. So to make sure your file is read by all concerned parties, send it to both searches.

So you should tailor cover letters and other materials to each position and its requirements.  If that means applying for an NTT position that emphasizes teaching and a TT position that emphasizes research, address teaching more in the NTT application and foreground research in the TT position. Let the respective committees behind the ad decide whether they want you.


Applying for PhD vs Masters (CS USA) Background: CS Undergraduate applying for Fall 2022 session. (MS/PhD CS USA)
Knowing (and for obvious reasons) that it is "easier (higher chances)" to get into a masters program than a PhD Program:
Question: Should I apply for a PhD program at a lower ranked school than apply to a higher ranked masters program?
Please Note:
I love research and will go for a PhD even after the masters. My main motive is research. I ask because I can apply only to only a handful of programs and want to know which path is better.

Actually, in the US, applying for a doctoral degree is almost always preferable to applying for a masters. The reason is that doctoral admission almost always comes with some sort of funding and masters admission seldom does.
The advice is to apply to several institutions that cover a fairly wide range of "rankings". If you apply to only one or two programs you are unlikely to be successful because of the competition. If you want a PhD "eventually", do that now.


What does "This question is left for future research" imply? In computer science, and probably other disciplines as well, it is common to end every paper with a "future research" section. I always wondered what is the utility of this section. In particular:

A. How common is it, that a question from a "future research" section is actually researched by the same research group?

B. How common is it, that a question from a "future research" section inspires future research by other research groups?

Both these questions can be studied quantitatively, even semi-automatically, by comparing the contents of "future research" sections to the titles and abstracts of papers published in a later date. Has such a research been done?

The existing answers are good.  Let me just add one more phenomenom I've seen in my area: it is not uncommon for the "future research" section to contain ideas that the authors don't plan to follow up on, but they think might be interesting.  Maybe they hope to inspire other researchers.  Maybe they're just curious, but don't have time to continue to pursue those questions.

Occasionally, the future work section is used by authors to respond to criticism that "you should have done experiment X" from reviewers.  Adding a sentence to the future work section is an easy way to respond to the reviewer and be able to claim you've acted on their comment in some way: it lets the authors respond to the reviewer comment with something like: "our future work section makes clear that we didn't do experiment X and we consider it out of scope for this paper, but we agree it would be interesting, and we've added it to the future work section".  You can form your own opinion about whether you think this is a good phenomenom or not; I'm just reporting on what I've seen.  Sometimes I've even seen authors include this kind of statement in the future work section of a submitted paper, as a preemptive innoculation against comments the authors anticipate getting from reviewers.  I don't know whether it is really effective, but you can keep this in mind when you read future work sections.  Occasionally this additional perspective may help you understand better why sometimes stuff gets written in the future work section.


Do STEM professors generally hold training in teaching from faculty of education or not? I have studied at 4 universities, and in 3 different programs.
I always observed that STEM professors are not good at teaching. I suspect this is because they do not have degrees in pedagogy like MEd and so on.
Do STEM professors generally hold training in teaching from faculty of education or not?
If YES, what am I missing?
If NO, why?

Do STEM professors generally hold training in teaching from faculty of education or not?
No. Even at institutions that privilege teaching over research, it is unlikely that professors would receive formal training from colleagues in the Faculty of Education. Many universities have some sort of support unit (i.e. a "Centre for Teaching Excellence") that provide training to professors as professional development. While there is probably more attention these days towards pedagogical issues, few places make this mandatory (apart from perhaps a few introductory seminars). In fact, there is unfortunately a bit of a bias towards seeing teaching training as remedial.
Why is this? For better or for worse, at many research-intensive universities, research takes priority over teaching. Faculty members wanting to get tenured and promoted need to be well received by their community of peers, often external letter writers, who will focus on research as it's the main way to evaluate a faculty member (i.e. if I am writing a letter from another university, it's hard for me to know if a professor is an effective teacher or not; but I can situate them in the profession much easier based on our community norms).
As comments have noted, most professors learn how to teach "on the job" in an apprentice model, similar to how they learn many parts of their job. Starting out as a TA and then increasingly gaining autonomy in the classroom (until they are thrown in the deep end as a professor, of course).


Does every single table in a thesis need to be numbered? In my thesis I'm analyzing the results of a linguistic survey in which a large number of words are discussed. I provide a small table with details of the statistical analysis for each word. All the tables look the same and there are as many as four of them on each page in one of the chapters. Should I also number each table and put all of them in the index of tables at the end of my thesis?

If the tables are not referenced in the thesis text, why are they in the body of the thesis?

I'd put them all into an appendix, number them, and provide an appropriate, terse label.  If there are specific ones that are referenced many times in the body of the thesis, you should include these in the body. Duplicate the in-body tables in the appendix.

If all the tables are in an appendix, there is no need for an index of tables, but it would depend on the norms for your subject area.


How to display your own name in publications list when you are a middle-author on a publication with a large number of authors? My Name is among tens of authors of a paper on global health.

For the purpose of my CV update, I need to show my name without showing the names of all authors of the paper.

My preferred style is JAMA, which shows the names of the first 3 authors followed by 'et al'.

Would the following format be appropriate, at least for my CV, when My Name is published in the middle of a long authors' list ?

First Author, Co-Author, My Name, et al

If so, will this (customized) format ever cause any confusion for any group of audience?

The bolding trick suggested by others is fine up to a point, but eventually it will get to be silly.

I'm coming from a nuclear and particle physics background and have papers with hundreds of coauthors. So I didn't take care that my name showed up. I just built my publication list using bibtex in the standard format for my discipline and assumed that readers who wanted to check that I was on those papers know how to use InSpire (the go-to publication database for these disciplines).

That means that my name appears on my publication list only a few times, but it is also there in big letters at the top of the page.


It it appropriate to request a letter of recommendation via LinkedIn? I had a professor who told me during the year that he'd be happy to write me a letter of recommendation for a research degree I was contemplating applying to. I've since decided to apply.
My university (in Europe) is on break until 1 October. I emailed the professor asking for the letter three weeks ago on his university email address. He hasn't answered me. However, I sent him a connection request on LinkedIn, and he accepted it within 45 seconds. I am thus wondering if he is not checking his university email during our vacation. However, I would like to know if he is willing to write it before October, as waiting until then would give me insufficient time to request one from someone else.
Would it be inappropriate for me to send him a follow-up letter request via LinkedIn, since I know he's checking that? Would it be more appropriate to make reference to the email I sent him, or send my entire request via the messenger? Or should I limit myself to communication via the university email address and just hope he reads it?

If someone is on LinkedIn, especially if they are active on LinkedIn, I see no reason why they would be offended if you sent them a message on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a professional networking site. That would be exactly what you are doing. I would write something straight forward:

[Salutation]
I am applying to graduate programs at a few schools. I enjoyed your class in Underwater Heavy Metal Guitar and felt I did well in the class. Would you be willing to write me a letter of recommendation for my graduate program applications?
Sincerely,
-bron10

Three weeks is a long enough time that this professor has likely not seen (or has forgotten about) your email. There is no reason to cower in fear about asking for a letter of recommendation from a professor who said he would write you one. If he is at all reasonable, a simple message on LinkedIn will be just fine.


When applying to PhD programs in Computer Science, how much does subfield/specialty selection matter? I recently finished applying to several Ph.D. programs in Computer Science, and as part of the application process I had to select one or two subfields of CS that I was interested in. For many of them I selected specialties like Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, and I've already started receiving emails from professors in those fields who would be interested in advising me.

My statements of purpose mentioned that I was "particularly interested" in AI and Machine Learning, and whenever possible I checked those boxes on the application forms. However, I'm also interested in other specialties (e.g. Theory), and although my statements of purpose do mention that I have varied interests in CS, I never specifically selected Theory as one of my desired specialties.

Have I painted myself into a corner here? If I'm accepted to a Ph.D. program in Computer Science and I selected specialty X on my application, can I still conduct research in specialty Y?

"Can I still conduct research" has some different interpretations which bear on your question. The short answer, at least in my experience, is no, you have not painted yourself into a corner. But let me elaborate:

There can be significant overlap between AI/ML research and Theory, so you may end up finding a thesis project which combines aspects of both to your satisfaction.
It's not at all uncommon for students to bounce around a little bit after they enter a program, and to have side projects in tangential areas. Even if you do your primary research in machine learning, you could participate and publish in other collaborations. I did this for a couple of different projects just to chase my own interests.
As @ben-bitdiddle alluded to in his comment, many programs (even most in my experience) are not so strict in locking down new Ph.D. students to a particular area/advisor. It can obviously present a problem if you're not aligned with one after your first couple of years, but at the beginning I think this can be very beneficial.
One important caveat is that if you're being funded by a faculty member on a research assistantship, you'll be expected to be doing research in that person's area and it likely won't be looked on kindly if you're spending a lot of time on other projects. This is something to discuss with the faculty in question, though, before you accept the RA if you have questions.

Many people end up doing something different for their dissertation than they indicated on their graduate application, so I wouldn't sweat this point too much if I were you.

Lastly, you mention that you've applied to several programs. I'd ask some questions surrounding this issue and consider those answers as I made my decision about which offer of admission to accept.


Can I mention the LinkedIn account of a suggested referee? I'm submitting an article to an Elsevier journal which asks for suggested potential referee list. One of the people whom I want to suggest as the referee is a doctor and instructor in a university. I have found his page in the corresponding university, but unfortunately the page is not written in English. Unfortunately there is no other English written pages for his introduction except his LinkedIn page.

Since it's common to provide an introduction page and the email address of the suggested referees, Is it OK if I mention the LinkedIn page of the referee that I want to suggest? Should I provide his web page in the university that he is working too (The page is not written in English)?

It won't harm if you include the web address of his/her current institution in addition to his LinkedIn profile address.  Depending on the scientific field, a publisher this huge as Elsevier has  boards of editors from many countries where English is not the primary mean of communication, too; so his site may be accessible for them.  (Even if written in an other script than latin like e.g., from Japan, Korea, China, Russia, Israel.)

To strengthen your suggestion he could serve as a referee, maybe earlier and current work is clearly attributed to him by an identifier like ORCID or ResearcherID/Publons.  It is unique in the sense that it won't change if he changes the workplace or (e.g., by marriage) changes the name; especially if his name is one of the more frequently seen ones (e.g., Smith, Li, etc.).  Because there are data bases allowing to search by this criterion both the publications, as well who cited these, the editor could see quickly the potential referee's connection to the relevant community, too; thus, if accessible, include it, too.


What to reply to your former supervisor that wrote that your paper "isn't worth much" before submission to a journal? I am a recent Ph.D. graduate in computer science.
In the last few months, I wrote a paper about an aspect of my thesis, with the collaboration of my former supervisor. We found a call for papers for a "special section" of an important journal, that is a section focused on the data set we are exploiting. The submission deadline was set to the end of November 2014, but surprisingly we just discovered that it has been post-poned to the end of March 2015, a four month delay.
I did not know if it was better to send this paper to this "special section" or to the "normal track" of the journal, so I asked here on Academia.

User Geoff Hutchison suggested to me to contact the editorial board and ask them if I could have all the original time schedules. That means to have all the notification and re-submission dates as they were not post-poned, except the final publication date.
It seemed reasonable to me, so I wrote to my former supervisor (who is also the co-author of the paper, even if his contribution to the project and the paper is only around ~5%).

He replied to me in a very ill-mannered, thwarted and angry way, stating that "writing this request to the editors may cause a lot of problems", that I am "not able to understand how lucky we are for the existence of this special section", "having the paper accepted in this special section may be the best thing that could ever happen to our our paper", that I "should focus on how to improve the paper, instead of inventing new ways to create problems", and I should "understand that the paper isn't worth much".

What to reply back to this "gentleman"?

The paper is mine, comes from the doctoral thesis of mine, from an idea that I had, and was written entirely by me. My former supervisor just reviewed and corrected it.
I am not going tolerate this disrespectful behavior, and cannot stand having a co-author that considers my paper "not worth much".

[EDIT]: Thanks to all for your contributions. I'm asking to you all some suggestions on how to manage this situation: should I trust someone that is the co-author of my paper and thinks that the paper "isn't worth much"? In my opinion, this statement is in contrast with actually being a co-author of the paper.
How to let him know that I did not like his ill-mannered way to reply back to me, without damaging my perspective paper submission?

In the last months, I wrote a paper about an aspect of my thesis, with
  the collaboration of my former supervisor.

That means that the paper is not 100% yours. Do not add or remove co-authors on the basis if you like them or hate their guts.

  Having the paper accepted in this special section may be the best
  thing that could ever happen to our our paper

Sounds like excellent advice. Special issues are more focused, have shorter response rates and usually easier acceptance for more focused papers.

  Writing this request to the editors may cause a lot of problems"

Also excellent advice. You want to contact the editors to do the review of your paper sooner just for you? This is simply stupid.

  should focus on how to improve the paper, instead of inventing new
  ways to create problems

You have four months to improve the paper. Are you sure that it cannot be improved? Are you afraid that your competitors might publish sooner? If yes, submitting to the journal now, will not save you anyway. Could you not upload on arxiv? You should also discuss this with your advisor.

Conclusively, cool down. As a PHD graduate and not a student anymore, you must behave always as a professional. Perhaps your paper is not that great (perhaps it is). That is not an insult - it is the sincere scientific opinion of one of your more senior peers (who contributed to your success). Do not burn bridges with your supervisor, just because he expressed his honest opinion (even if you do not agree with that).


Should I become first author of a paper for which I did the statistical analysis? I am a statistician working at a research institute. We work with data from patients with a certain disease. I am getting paid by the institute, but a part of the money comes from a research grant a doctor brought in. The doctor does not work at the registry, but at a hospital and is working closely together with statisticians of the institute (including me) on research questions.

Together we are doing research on a project. I am doing 100% of the statistics, but all the research questions and ideas come from the doctor. She is also the one writing a manuscript for a paper currently.

Now she wants to put me as first author and herself as last author (as supervisor). The idea comes from other researchers who do something similar, but they usually have medical PhD students and not statisticians as first authors. So basically the reason she wants to put me as first author is to put herself as last author.

I feel uncomfortable being first author and would prefer being second author. I am probably the one putting the most hours into the project by preparing all the data, doing the statistics and explaining the results to the doctor. The statistical analysis will be a big part of the paper.  But the research question is not my idea, I have no medical background, the doctor is writing the paper. I am basically getting paid to do the analysis. While I think it is interesting research, I do not identify with it and I do not agree fully with all the conclusions. So far I worked under the assumption to become co-author and the idea of making me first author came up recently.
My opinion is that I should only be first author of my own research, which would be in statistics, not medicine.

I guess it is very odd to reject being a first author =).

My next step will be to talk to her about it, but I was hoping for some perspective or opinions from the community. Is it harsh/unusual to insist on being co-author only?

Who would you suggest should be first author in this case?

In medicine, as in most biological fields that I know of, the first author is the person who did most of the hands-on work, while the last author is the one who had the idea and planned the project.  From what you've said, then, it would be appropriate for you to be first author and the doctor to be last.

That said, if you don't feel comfortable being first author (and especially in light of your comment that I do not agree fully with all the conclusions) it's also appropriate for you to request to not be first author -- some middle position (second author, or whatever) is also perfectly suitable for your contributions, from the sound of it.


When/how can one be funded by multiple grants? Many researchers are funded by multiple grants. I want to understand how this works, at least in general.

Can one be funded by multiple grants for the same (duplicate) work?

I'm guessing not, but perhaps there are circumstances that allow it?

Can one be funded by multiple grants for the same project in different proportions?

E.g. Grant A pays for half, and Grant B covers the other half, together paying a full salary.

Can one be funded by multiple grants for different aspects of the same project?
Can one be funded by multiple grants for independent projects?

I'm guessing this is fairly common....

Are there grants that specify exclusivity?

E.g. "You must focus on this project and may not receive any external funding for any other projects until this project is completed."

I ask multiple questions here because they have a common answer, such that if I asked them separately, they would almost certainly be marked as duplicates.

What I have seen the most is that the you can have two related projects funded by different grants. They are complementary, but virtually the same techniques are used for both. Officially some people would say that they are different projects and require different funding. Furthermore, you could have different students working on the different projects. In reality, the research aspect of the project (not the results) is the same. For example, you students working in different projects would need the same background and reading material.

A made-up example can be machine learning. One project can be "solving traffic with machine learning", the other could be "predicting traffic with machine learning". The problems/results/solutions can be presented differently, but the core of the research could be the same.


How to get to pace in your first research project? I'm doing my bachelor's thesis at a foreign university in Northern Europe. I come from a equally strong university in Europe and have always been one of the better students at my own university. The group I'm working in right now is very well known for its work.
Since I started my project there two weeks ago I feel very stressed and progressively stupid though. I work with two master's students (doing their one year degree project) and one PhD student on a big project. They are all very nice and I get good supervision, but I just feel completely incompetent.
I tried to get the adjustments for my machine right for almost two days straight now, came extra early in and stayed extra long, but didn't manage to pull it off yet. After lunch time I asked one of the PhD students for help with one specific issue I was having. He wanted to help me right away, and while answering my question he got the entire thing up and running in 30 minutes, before he rushed to his next meeting.
I disassembled everything and tried reproducing the results from scratch with the new know-how, but still didn't get it to work on my own today. This is very embarrassing, now I will stand there tomorrow morning, once again empty handed.
I feel discouraged by the pace my three fellow students are progressing with their project to be honest. They are much more productive than me. I fear to make a bad impression in comparison to them.
Do you have some tips on how to catch up? Would it be acceptable to go to the lab on the weekends? Should I do that?

You started only two weeks ago. Relax. The others with whom you interact have played a role in this group for a much longer time. Nobody expects you to immediately replicate their experience.
You tell us how you asked a PhD student for help, and this student was very willing to help you. In fact, they helped you rightaway, and it led to the desired result. This is how a group is supposed to interact, so that is a nice thing. You then do not manage to replicate their solution independently. But you are a Bachelor student and they are a PhD. Don't worry! Ask the same person for help again! Tell them: "Many thanks for your help last time; it was incredibly inspiring. I tried to learn from it by replicating your steps, but I get stuck in place X or Y. Could you perhaps show me how it works?" This implies that you want to learn (by far the most important attribute of a Bachelor or even Master student in a research group), and that you understand parts of the solution the PhD student provided for you but not necessarily all of it. Again, this is an ideal way to fortify collaborations within the group: you show that the help was appreciated, didn't go unnoticed, and that you want to put in the effort to truly understand the solution.
Everybody in your group is there to learn. This holds for the Bachelor students, the Master students, and the PhD students. Do not expect yourself, as a Bachelor student, to instantly be on the PhD student level. Instead, show that you really want to become a part of the group, and that you really want to learn. Your instincts seem to be right to succeed in academia, but you should reframe them: not instantly understanding everything is not a problem, but a desire to learn is an enormous asset. Productivity is less important than a drive to improve yourself.


Value of published (non-english) books for applying in a PhD program I have published a scientific book (i.e. a text book) alongside with my supervisor (he is an associate professor, by the way). Since the book is not in English and consequently does not target international audiences, can it provide some remarkable value in my CV for a PhD program abroad?

I don't think the language matters. It is a substantial achievement, I think. If it is in your field, which I assume, it will have value. But, depending on where you are applying, you will need other things as well. If your contribution was "only" providing exercises, then it might be a bit less, but for content contributions it would be good.

But no one thing is determinative of your suitability for admissions.


what is the hyphotesis in computer science research(especifically AI research)? I'm a computer science and software engineer that worked in industry for some years with deep applied knowledge in ML and AI, i commonly read research papers and this year started a graduate scientific research program , in this first weeks we are studying basic concepts like what is research, and common descriptions like :"research seeks to generate new knowledge" , "you observe a problem or a phenomenon , create hypothesis about that which then you seek to prove experimentally and collecting data" , my question is in computer science and AI, what are the problem and phenomenon? and what are the hypothesis in AI research? Commonly in papers researchers propose new algorithms or new models but what were the common "observed problem" and the hypothesis? it's not clear to me how CS and AI research fits in this classic research definitions.

If possible can anyone provide examples on specific AI research papers ,how they fit in the classic definitions, what are the problems under study,hypothesis and all scientific method parts in the paper?

AI is a very applied domain, so from a big picture point of view the problem is often defined by a real world application. For example, machine translation fills a need for low cost translation (so this particular need is the problem). In this general setting, an hypothesis is for instance: "the machine can produce good quality translation", and researchers try to prove it.

However it's more common for a paper to motivate the work at a more fine-grained level using the existing body of literature. For example many approaches have been studied for machine translation, with varying levels of performance and flaws. A researcher in this field might want to study a specific question, e.g. "how to improve translation of multiword expressions from language A to language B" and formulate an hypothesis such as: "recent approach X can improve translation of multiword expressions from language A to language B". Here the problem is formulated as the need to improve over the current state of the art, implicitly assuming that the underlying problem (machine translation in general) is sufficiently established.


Is it common to delay the start date of a postdoc? I wanted to apply for a particular postdoc in the UK that has a start date in September. It is a great opportunity but I would need to delay the start date as I am currently in the US and it would not be possible for me to move before then.

How common is it to delay the start of postdocs? Is it worth applying even with the knowledge that I wouldn't be able to start by the advertised date?

It is very common to negotiate the start date. All of the postdoctoral researchers I hired or was involved in recruiting came at different times than advertised. Most funding bodies allow you to defer funding for a few months. For instance, EPSRC allows up to 3 months delay for start of projects. Also, most funders allow a so-called no-cost extension, meaning you can extend the end of the project without losing the money.

Just apply and in your cover letter say that you would be available in October, for instance.

Source: I am faculty (engineering) at a UK university and have been involved in recruiting 5 postdoctoral researchers.


6 months is all I have, what would be your method to finish your dissertation? I will ask this question trying to be simple, but hoping to be understood on the complexities of my problem. I have looked for questions alike and my answer is not in any of them or, combined, the answers cannot make up for what I need to know.

a) I am a PhD Student, no fund is available at my university right now, it is a very good university, but they will not make anything in my favor, as I could see last week from their attitude towards me. They will rather have me working for free and pay another one when they have more money. Two PhD students for the price of one.

b) I took this position because I wanted to study with professor X and he would care about my situation/he does, but the faculty now is cutting professors and professor X is going away to a much better, 1st-tier university.

c) I got this position and cannot just give up because it would be the very bad thing for my career. I come from a country where you need to study 7-8 years prior to PhD, so I am rather old compared to the European or American students, even though I have much more experience, it is not an advantage when it comes to finding a job and etc.

d) To go join the professor X is not possible right away, to stay in this program with no money is not possible. I can, however, sustain myself for more 6 months and it is all I really can do. I know is a ridiculous question, believe me, I know, but if you had 6 months and 3 months prior to research at the PhD program, it sums 9 months, how would you manage to finish your dissertation to get out of this problem? I have the first draft of my dissertation (80p.), more research needs to be done. It is not the result of 3 months research, but prior to accepting the offer I was doing my work anyways.

The question: How would you organize with the rest of the research and really finish it within 6 months? Have in mind that your supervisor would agree to that because he knows what you can do, and if you have a good dissertation, he would go with you to the defense committee.

Thank you all, sorry for the errors, I am writing with my phone on the train, I have not the time to write at home or in my office.

I really appreciate your time.

Edit: I study Philosophy (continental philosophy, but with much of analytic in it).
I started my PhD 3 months ago.
I have worked 1 year on my project before start the PhD.
I need to finish the argumentation on the basic work of others (some of the secondary literature). It is the lesser important, but without it, my work will show up as a weak, incomplete, an amateur attempt of an essay, it will not even be a dissertation.  (It takes time, but if I could find a strategy, I could do it working 10-12 hrs a day).
I have my idea almost complete or as complete as it can be, but it could always be better, simpler, more transparent. It needs to be better displayed.
I need to do it in 6 months or I need to give up on this career I have struggled for my entire life.
I think I can make it, but I would like to know what would be your strategy in your particular case, so I could learn something from you. I, unfortunately, have not the privilege of doing it in the mood of "maybe it will work". I have just one option, make it work.
Above all, there is always a bit of depression and despair that makes the work even more difficult.

Thank you all for your support.

If you already have a first draft, then I think you need to have an honest conversation with Prof. X. The primary question needs to be "given what I have right now, is it actually possible to finish in 6 months? If so what are the crucial things that have to get done in order to pass the defense?"

The best case scenario here is for Prof. X to respond to you with a list of specific, targeted issues that need to be fixed and a rough idea of which are the most important.

If you can get that list of items to fix, then it comes down to prioritizing. If you can fix everything that simply must be fixed in 6 months, then I'd say maybe it's worth going for it. If you can fix all that in 4 months, and then fix medium to minor stuff for a month and revise for a month, all the better.

On the other hand, if Prof X comes back and says, "Well I think you need more experiments," or "the results don't look significant enough yet" or "it isn't clear yet what all the issues might be" or something like that, then you're project probably simply isn't well enough defined yet to be able to be defensible in 6 months.

That said, don't underestimate how much can be accomplished in 6 months, if you're focused, well-prepared and willing to work long hours. You just need an expert opinion from somebody familiar with your work that obviously we're not going to be able to give you here.

Best luck!


Should I notify people I mention in the acknowledgements section? I recently finished a paper in which I received valuable feedback from two professors (neither supervisors nor coauthors) at some specific points, which ultimately leaded to localized significant improvements. I highly appreciated it and of course I added explicit mentions in the acknowledgements section stating their suggestions.

My question now is: I hardly will see again these professors for a long time. I thought about sending an email to them commenting on their inclusion on the acknowledgements... But then I thought that it should be something understood as obvious, without too much interest for them or even spammy. So, shall I communicate their inclusion in the acknowledgements section? If so, what will be the correct etiquette for such an email?

EDIT: As @StephanKolassa comments, another important and highly related issue is what is the best timing for communication, if this is considered adequate:

First submission
Acceptance
Publication (early access or traditional)

shall I communicate their inclusion in the acknowledgements section?

Yes, why not? It helps at building connections and improving relationships. Besides, if the acknowledged people are from a different field than yours, they might never know you've acknowledged them otherwise.

  what will be the correct etiquette for such an email?

I don't think there is any need to be overly formal. Typically I would write something simple, along the lines of (names and facts have been changed to protect the innocent):

  Dear John,

  thank you very much for helping me with the problem of packing holes. I've included an
  acknowledgment in a paper I recently wrote on the topic.

  The paper is titled "Packing the unpackable and stacking the
  unstackable" and has been submitted to the Transactions on Painstaking
  Stacking. You can find a preprint of the paper at the address (link to, e.g.,
  arXiv).

  Kind regards/Sincerely/Cheers,

  Massimo

The above example is meant to be sent just after the first submission. In more critical cases, when I'm not sure whether the acknowledgment would be well-received or not, or if I think I might have written a wrong detail (e.g., the affiliation), I typically send a copy of the paper before the submission, asking for feedback.


What are some practices for getting a name change so that people can find me more easily? For a similar thing, see this thread, where Jay Wacker managed to get people to call him by the name Jay even though he didn't need to get a legal name change. I'm not sure how to go about this though.

The main problem with me is that I have such a frustratingly common name that a lot of people cannot find me when they google me. So many of them simply don't notice the middle initial that I always use in between my first and last names, and this could actually become a major issue in academia, since people have little time and are prone to giving up quickly if they want to look for me (or for my papers) and can't find me at all (I know this having seen how several academics use the Internet and how they look for people's names). This, in turn, could easily ruin my citation count in the future (it's not just that - it's helpful to others when I have a less common name so that they can more easily locate my stuff). I already know at least several people who specifically told me that they tried to find my email but that they couldn't find it (and this isn't limited to just them - there are many, many more - including long-lost friends who have wanted to talk to me for a long time, but who couldn't find me due to said ultra-common name). Of course, people can go through the respective university directories, but how many people really do that? From my observations (when I've seen people look for someone else), very very few do it. Hell, there are even several people at my OWN university who share the same exact first+last name as me.

In Academia, this is even a bigger problem because the vast majority of your connections will be people who only vaguely recognize/know you, so they may know most of the search clues. Even a "full name" + university won't solve all the problems, because I may switch universities and people may only remember the old university that I was in. I'm also very very interdisciplinary, so I want to be searchable to people outside my field as well.

And even if I fix the issue for Google with a massive SEO operation or whatever (that may even be impossible for my ridiculously common name), it's still not going to fix the problem for all of the other ways that people use search.

I'm currently transitioning between undergrad and grad school, so now may be the perfect time for a name change? But I don't know what to do. Is it better for me to change my first name or my last name? The problem is that a citation like "Chen 2011" is going to produce so many entries that no one will ever find them, even though they frequently do google things like that (and I simply cannot prevent people from googling something like that). Chen is so frustratingly common that even a "Chen and Name2 2011" paper could come from some random medical paper rather than from something I wrote.

As an additional complication, the % of Chinese people using the English Internet is exponentially rising, and I can only expect the problem to get worse in the future because of that (and not just for my first name, but even variants of my first name too).

I think people stress too much about the "what if people can't find my papers?" problem. That's what CVs are for. Don't overestimate how often people will actually try to find all of your papers outside of hiring situations. It won't be often. By the time you are established enough to accumulate a significant number of publications, you will be connected to a research university or institute which will make it easy to link you to your publications.

If "the vast majority of your connections will be people who only vaguely recognize/know you" you've got a problem that changing your name will not solve.

I'd especially like to hear from someone who have had this cause a career problem. My (legal) first name is one of 10 most common, and my last name is in the top 20 (within the US). While this is annoying, it has not caused me any career issues.


Will my cancer ruin my chances of going to graduate school in math? I commenced my bachelor of math 8 years ago and at the same time I was diagnosed to have cancer. Because of the treatment process and the emotional state that I was in, I only completed 3 subjects in the first year, 1 subject in the second year, no subjects in the third year and only 1 subject in the fourth year. By this time, I was feeling well, and I enrolled full time in the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th year and I just graduated recently with a 4.0 GPA (out of 4.0 GPA). My academic transcript does not show my withdrawn subjects and it only shows my completed subjects.

So my first question is that should I tell in my application about this history? will it have any negative impact on my application? I am afraid that if I tell the admission committee that I suffered from cancer, they will reject me because they may think that if it comes back during my graduate studies, then the same thing could happen. Will it look really bad that I only completed very few subjects in the first four years?

How important is it for graduate admission committee that how long it took you to complete your undergraduate degree?

First of all, I’m happy you’re doing better! It would take a truly heartless committee to ignore the circumstances. In the US it’s illegal if I’m not mistaken, but from a recruiter’s perspective I would definitely see the fact that you overcame adversity and managed to graduate with a good GPA as a point in your favor.

Mention this in your statement of purpose. Don’t be melodramatic, just state that you had to take a break from your studies to fight cancer, and then got back into it once you were done. I’d see that as a sign of fortitude and perseverance!

Good luck!


What to do when a PhD supervisor is not collaborating on publications after the PhD from it? If someone's (SO) PhD supervisor is not collaborating on publications from SO's PhD. The problem arose as SO raised his mistrust (for the supervisor) on other academic issues. The supervisor treats student's work as his, and SO does not agree with that.

SO has one paper just rejected from a journal but could be submitted in another journal. This is from SO's PhD, so he would like to publish it and more from the PhD. SO is not sure how to go ahead with this, (with the supervisor or without). The paper is intellectually SO's but the supervisor helped in improving the writing (of the rejected paper). As the supervisor is refusing to collaborate, how can SO publish that? Can SO do that without supervisor name? What could be the consequences?

If the advisor made a substantial intellectual contribution (or, in fields where it's relevant, procured the grant supporting the work), there's not much the author can do to publish the paper without the advisor's permission. The advisor would have claim to authorship rights if:

the paper grew out of work proposed by the advisor, or was supported by funds accrued by the advisor;
the student discussed the work with the advisor and gained useful feedback or guidance about the direction or results of the project;
the advisor contributed to the writing of the paper.

The last point is definitely true; it's not clear if the first two points hold, but they very well could, given the situation described.

Basically, if the advisor has authorship rights, the student is more or less screwed if they try to publish. If they publish the paper, with an author who has not given permission for submission or without an author who has authorship rights, then that is sufficient grounds for retraction of a paper.


recommendations for increasing the visibility and ranking of a faculty? I was wondering what it really matters for a university to climb in the university rankings, for example in Science fields such as Mathematics, Physics or Computer Science?
I found that there are the following different services to let people know about lecturer's research in a Faculty:

Google Scholar, I believe that one can put here even articles not peer-reviewed
Scopus, the service indexed by Elsevier
WebofScience, I have not used directly, but I believe is somewhat like Scopus

But I believe that services like Google Scholar are like arXiv, in the way that one can put a link to any research paper that one has made irrelevant if it was a good conference or not.

It is not better to aim to conferences that would be indexed in Scopus, DBLP, or that will use Scimago to raise the score of an institucion?

So what is the recommendation in these cases, to try that the papers are indexed in well known sites or a new faculty should only aim to have web presence?

As ff254 correctly mentions, you are asking two different questions. "Climbing the rankings" is sort of a science of its own, and making your research be more visible to the outside is only a very minor part of it. I am not an expert on ranking optimization (I am happy to say that university rankings are not particularly relevant where I work), but if you really want to noticeably improve the ranking of your faculty, serious money and management commitment will be required (and better consulting than is available in an Internet forum).

Now, assuming that you are really more interested in making your faculty internationally more well-known. I sort of disagree with Simmy that ResearchGate is a good vehicle to achieve this goal. At least in my community, ResearchGate is not considered a "serious" source at all. Nobody goes to ResearchGate to discover new researchers (and the technical Q&A forum there is a joke). People go to conferences to meet up and coming as well as established researchers. That is, if you as a new faculty want to improve your international visibility, you should:

Produce excellent research. This should be obvious, but having a bunch of mediocre papers listed in Scopus or DBLP will not make you stand out. One top paper will.
Go to as many reasonable conferences as you can. Skip on the spam ones (no interesting people will be there and publishing there will not help you in any way), but even smaller conferences usually have a lot of interesting professors in attendance. Definitely go to whatever the big conference in your field is, even if you do not have a paper to present.
Socialise. Don't be the person that just works all day in a silent corner of the conference room. Your task at the conference is not to write the next paper, but to get in touch with other researchers.
Have a nice-looking web page. Publish all your papers as preprints there. Plus points if you do  nice write-ups of your published or ongoing research in a recurring blog.
(In some communities) have a Twitter account, and follow the big wigs and engage in discussions if appropriate.


Sending minor correction to a journal before getting a copy for proofread Recently the European Journal of Physics accepted my paper. Right now I'm waiting for them to send me a final copy for proofreading. Today I was just going through the revised manuscript and spotted a  minor typo in an equation. As in, it should have been \tan ^{-1}(ab) rather than \tan (ab). It might have missed the reviewer and my eyes back to back.
Should I inform the journal about this minor mistake now or wait for them to give me a copy for proofreading?

Include this change when you correct the proofs.  It'll be easier for the copy editor to make all the changes at once.


e-mailing a professor: first lines of an email (US/UK) Not being a native speaker of English, I would like to know how to best introduce myself, what sounds too formal, and what is maybe a bit too colloquial. I have a few questions I want to ask, but I am not sure how to start the email in the first place.

Since many people have pointed out the culture dependency of the question, I would like to make clear that I am concerned with the US / UK, or roughly the English speaking academic world.

Also, for future, subsequent emails, can I just start the email with things like:

Dear John,
How are you? ...

Dear John,
I hope all is well in Brighton. ...

Dear John,
I hope you are doing good! ...

For the first communication, address the person as "Prof. [Lastname]" and keep doing so until the person says something like "Please call me John."
In the US, a common first liner for initial communication is "I hope this e-mail finds you well."
"I hope you are doing good!" should be "I hope you are doing well." Try to suppress the use of exclamation marks and save them for things that are really worth exclaiming about.
As for subsequent e-mails, what you're saying in the main message is a lot more important. A "Dear Prof. [Last name]" followed by a succinct statement about the main points would usually be sufficient as the start.


Intellectual property of computer program of another authors equation? When transfering a rather complex equation from another authors published article, to a computer programming language such as R, does the intellectual property of the script itself belong to the programmer?

Or would it be like translating, say a quote, to a different language?

Does it depend on the complexity of implementing the model in the script?

I am thinking of this on more of a philosophical level, rather than specific IP laws.

There are some disgusting cases of patented algorithms, but in a generic case, everyone can translate a formula from a paper to code.

Even more: it's the essence of computer science in how to translate a formula to code. This can be done in various ways, where some are much more efficient (and hence, better) than others. So it's definitely the intellectual property of the person, who wrote the code.

Probably, some implementations can be dismissed as trivial, but most would not be.

Of course, it's still an implementation of your formula / algorithm, which (normally) would be credited as such. But this retains you no rights to the implementation.

You might retain rights for the formula itself, by patenting it or something. Unless it's something big, I would not really bother.

Disclaimer: I am not a layer.


The Importance of First Impression in PhD Applications I have worked in the industry for the past few years, but am now applying for PhD. I do not have any significant research papers, but can get a few good ones published this year. I have shortlisted a few prospective professors, under whom I would like to work.

Should I apply this year itself? With a mediocre research resume, it is probable that they reject my application. This may leave a bad impression on them for my future application, when I apply again.

Or, should I wait for a year and work hard towards publishing a few papers, and then apply to these professors, next year?

To put the question in a different form: "Will a mediocre resume implant a permanent bad impression?"

Or, to put it even more generically : "How much does the first impression weigh in academia?"

In the US, few entering students have much in the way of research. The usual case is that students enter doctoral programs without an MS or the equivalent. The earlier education is broad, not especially specialized. So, in the US, lacking research credentials should not be an impediment, provided that other things in your background point to success.

The situation in Europe is quite different as the undergraduate program there is more specialized. I'll let someone with more experience there answer for the EU. I suspect, however, that a few papers would be looked upon favorably.

But the path may be longer in the US, with some coursework prior to qualifying exams. Five to seven years past the BS is fairly typical, with the early part, again, not particularly research oriented. There are exceptions to this, of course, and it is possible to enter at a more advanced stage as long as you can pass the exams and find a suitable advisor.

And note that in the US, it is relatively uncommon that you enter knowing who your dissertation advisor will be. That choice is normally made later after you have narrowed your field. So a "first" impression with the advisor depends less on your CV at entry, and more on how you do in the first years.

But the question you actually ask (mediocre, first impression,...) is more subtle. You need an excellent CV and Statement of Purpose along with letters of recommendation. It is just more likely to be light on research in the US.


How to encourage students to attend and participate in class? I have seen a shrinking trend in the number of students coming to my classes and suspect that it's due to the large number of digital tools that are available to students.

What techniques can I employ to encourage students to attend class and stay engaged through a class or lecture?

Learning tools are substitute goods - don't be afraid if students choose their favourite tools: This is an excellent question, since it raises a common issue with teaching, and it is an issue where some academics (not referring to you) take an irrational and overly defensive view.  Here are a few points that I think are worth bearing in mind in these situations:

The goal of any university course is to give students the best possible assistance to learn the skills you are seeking to impart in the course.  The lectures and other materials available to students are generally "substitute goods" in economic parlance, meaning that use of one tool assists in learning the course content and thus diminishes the demand for the other substitute tools.  Thus, if the digital tools you are referring to are of high quality, they may be very helpful for students to learn the course content, and thereby diminish demand for your lectures.
Students appreciate having a range of teaching tools they can choose from.  When I was a student, the best lecturers I had were the ones that gave us lecture notes, practice problems, and other teaching resources of such clarity and high-quality that attendance at their lectures became virtually unnecessary.  It was a pleasure to be able to teach yourself the material directly from lecture notes, etc., without the assistance of the lecturer.  In some cases this meant that you learned some part of the course so easily that you could skip the lectures and still feel that you had good command of the subject.
If lecture attendance is dwindling due to the provision of useful outside tools, this can be seen as a signal that the quality of those outside tools is relatively high.  The fact that you are offering outside learning tools that the students perceive to be sufficient for their own learning should be seen as a good thing.  Of course, you should want all the learning tools you are providing to be the best quality they can be, so if your lectures seem to be lagging behind in demand, you should certainly do what you can to improve them.  Since you already have good outside resources, the use of a flipped classroom would be one obvious thing you could try.  Another thing to try would be increasing student questions and other interactions that cannot be substituted by digital materials (e.g., recorded lectures).
Unfortunately, some academics take it personally when students don't attend their lectures, and so they try to encourage attendance by removing outside learning tools that compete with their lectures.  (I am not suggesting that you are thinking about doing this, but I want to raise it anyway, since this is something I have seen other lecturers do in university courses.)  This creates a kind of "race to the bottom" where a lecturer tries to increase demand for one set of tools by diminishing substitute tools.  In the worst-case scenario, a lecturer who gives bad lectures ends up removing other material that could have substituted for those bad lectures, and the students end up with no good learning tool for the course.  In my view, this is a petulant and irrational strategy, which represents a failure to appreciate that the goal of the course is student learning, not affirmation of the teacher's ego.  So whatever you do, I would encourage you not to remove the digital tools that seem to be working successfully.


Cases when old references are valid? Some guides say to limit the references to up to 5-6 years old.
But I've speculated as to, whether it's possible that research would become "deviated to pursuits for which in the history there existed multiple paths". I.e. since old research may suggest new research, but not all new research is necessarily "all research", then wouldn't it be possible to grasp an old article and then do new work on that?
I'd assume that this could be very feasible in mathematical papers for example. What about computer science papers? Something else?

Taken at face-value, these guides are useless or even harmful, as they would promote an organized loss of memory and lead to multiple reinventions of the wheel.
It is also important, however, to show that your research is moving at the cutting edge of the field. This is probably where the advice you mention is coming from. You should demonstrate the topicality of your project by discussing the most recent literature to the extent that it is adequate for your research problem. Strategically, it may be useful to highlight your project's contribution to the latest research, including new trends, especially in the introductory section. But take care not to exaggerate this tactic, as it cannot compensate for substantive shortcomings and might even come across as superficial.
To explicitly answer the question in your title: References remain valid until superseded by later research with respect to the aspect they are cited for. To make that judgement, you have to know the field; to know the field, you have to read. Looking at the age of the reference cannot replace making that judgement, it can only give you a rough indication as to whether the reference is likely to have been superseded. The fact that different (sub-)fields move at different speeds makes it even less reasonable to put a number on a reference's shelf-life.


Statistically which fields have higher probability of Grad School acceptance? What about tenure track opportunities? Are there any studies regarding the grad school acceptance rate of various disciplines? Moreover, are there any studies regarding grad school to tenure success rate?

I'm trying to understand which fields (or subfields) are more "lucky" (so to say) from undergraduate to tenure. Other interesting metrics I am interested in are grad school graduation rate, number of PostDoc opportunities etc... Are there such comprehensive studies?

Universities commonly publish acceptance rates (or you can call and ask their admissions office) as it is a common measuring stick in academics. You might be able to aggregate this information on a ranking website like US News World Report graduate school rankings.

Generally, fields with more funding are going to have more opportunities for funded students, more opportunity for postdocs, and more opportunity for grant funding later in an academic career. Individual fields often have a single publication that tracks relevant statistics about graduate admissions, graduations, attrition, job placement, salary, etc. For example, in computer science we have the Taulbee Survey, which gives all this data.

Graduation rate is studied more comprehensively under the name "attrition rate" or "completion rate". Generally STEM fields have a higher completion rate than humanities and soft sciences. Slide 7 breaks it down by field in the following link:

http://www.phdcompletion.org/resources/cgsnsf2008_sowell.pdf


Should I mention future works in my SOP? (CS PhD Fall 2022 USA) Background: CS Undergrad applying to CS PhD Programs
I am working on my senior thesis and have thought about 2 major chapters. Assuming I apply to my preferred universities by dec 1st I will only be able to complete 1 chapter by then. Is it reasonable to discuss in short about how I plan to complete it within the SOP?
The topic I'm working on is something I want to continue working on during grad-school and is the professor's area of interest as well.
Question Is this something one should write about in their SOPs?

Yes. In fact, your SOP should be more forward-looking than backward-looking. Spend as much of it as you can discussing your future work, research ideas and how this department/professor in particular will belp you achieve those goals.


Asking for funds to attend a conference from a current advisor for previous work I have an accepted publication in a conference from work I have done in a previous research group, my adviser from the previous research group wants me to present the work in the conference, but he might find difficulty securing funds for me to attend the conference as I am now in a different university.

Assuming I can't secure funding from other sources, would it be okay if I asked my current adviser for funds to attend this conference?

Professionally, you should first explore the possibility of funding from sources other than your current advisor, e.g. the conference organisers or third-party sources. Ideally, your previous supervisor should help you out in this process. If your paper has good reviews, then you can feel more confident with your efforts. Does your previous supervisor know people in the conference organising committee or the professional committee under whose umbrella the conference is being organised (e.g. ACM or IEEE sub-committees)? I don't imply anything unethical, but your professor could use this informal channel to better gauge the waters, which might help drafting the funding appeal more effectively.

If the above course of action is not feasible, try to ask your current supervisor  for ideas, without directly asking for funds. S/he might be able to suggest other sources, and help you with the application process. You might eventually be able to appeal to the benevolence of your current supervisor, but you must first demonstrate your diligence in pursuing other avenues. Remember, faculty members are always pressed for funds. If your current supervisor is unable to help you out, it wouldn't necessarily mean that s/he is unwilling.

If all everything fails, you will have to communicate with the program chair and indicate your inability to attend. Assuming that you can arrange funds to at least register (this should be your minimum ask from any funding source), it might be possible to arrange for another speaker to make the presentation on your behalf. Explore the possibility of presenting via Skype. Try to find out from the conference chair whether any of this would work, and work with this as your fallback.

Remember to use the good reviews to your advantage while making your case. All the best.


Applying for PhD admission with a master's thesis written in Spanish I'm finishing my MS in a Spanish speaking country and my MS thesis is written in Spanish. If I apply for being admitted in a PhD program in a non-Spanish speaking country, should I expect them to accept my MS thesis as it's currently written (i.e. in Spanish)? Also, I could translate it into English in a week or two but, then, that version of the thesis would not be any more the official one(i.e. the approved by the evaluating committee). Would they accept this translated version of the thesis for the application instead of the original one?

(When I said 'accept it' I meant 'consider the possibility of reviewing it and conclude something about my performance or the depth of my MS work'.)

I'm particularly interested in European countries and the US, but I know that there may be cultural or idiosyncratic differences, even between different institutions within the same country. For example, I expect greater chances for my Spanish written thesis to be accepted in Portugal than in Poland. So what I want to know is if there is some general pattern that I should expect from them, like, rejecting it with a high probability... or accepting it with a high probability, given that Spanish is one of the most spoken languages in the world and popular in Occident, unlike Chinese.

Maybe I'm confused by wording, but I think it is incorrect to think in terms of programs 'accepting' a thesis.

There might be cases where a program cares about the gritty details of your thesis, and so the short answer is to specifically ask the department you are applying to.

In the US, I highly doubt any PhD program would ask for your thesis, review it, then make a acceptance decision based on this.  Publishing your thesis is optional, and there is no expectation that you have to in order to be accepted into a PhD (generalization).  Also, a MS is not a requirement for a PhD program in the US, and so there's no rule about accepting an applicant's thesis.

When I applied to PhD programs in the US, Scandinavia, and the Netherlands, no one asked to review my thesis, or discussed accepting my thesis.

What could be useful is to translate the thesis abstract.  Then, if someone asks for more details, you have something on hand to give them.


Sponsored H1B vs. green card self-petition: What's the quickest? I am a postdoctoral scholar at a top ranked US University and I am on a J1 visa. I have received an offer for a position in a company, which should be filled by May 2016. The company told me that they may sponsor me for a H1B visa, but the asked me to check whether it may be faster to apply for a green card with a self-petition as an academic of Extraordinary Ability (EBI-1A). Time is what counts most for them now, and they won't be able to hire me if I don't get this done before May- which I think it will be tough.

I would appreciate to receive your advice on this. I moved recently to the US, and I am still misinformed and very naive on this issue.

US immigration processes are a chancy and fast-moving target, as well as being subject to arbitrary interference from the political system.  I have been peripherally involved with an "extraordinary ability" application before, and my understanding from that process is that it's awesome if you can get it, but highly unpredictable.  I would thus strongly recommend against counting on EBI-1A.

On the other hand, H-1B also has its downsides: the number of available H-1B visas is capped through a highly complex formula.  You also can end up "hostage" to a poor employment situation because you go immediately out of status if you quit or are fired.  You also count as a non-US person, subject to export controls and potential limitations on the types of work that you can do---with some companies this is no constraint, with others it severely limits your career.

Instead, the first thing I would recommend is to get a trustworthy immigration lawyer involved to help you through the process.  See if it's possible to do a "belt and suspenders" approach where you simultaneously aim for the extraordinary ability green-card (since getting a green-card gives you more personal and professional flexibility) and the H-1B route with the company for backup.  Even with the company taking charge of an H-1B, it's good to have a US lawyer advocating for you also, because if a random low-level clerical mistake at the company may be "Oops, too bad!" for them but a wrenching restructuring of your life plans for you.


What should I put in the Introduction as opposed to the Literature Review? My question is rather short one, how much information should I include when writing the introduction, and how much should be left out for the literature review

Note: the reason for this question, is because my advisor told me that my introduction is to light and he raised several question that eventually will be covered in literature review. When I pointed that out, he said that the introduction should inform the reader about the theme being addressed by the thesis/paper so that the reader will have an overview of the paper from reading the introduction.

  note: my introduction contains the following:

1.1 Background
1.2 Problem Formulation
1.3 Purposes of study and hypotheses being tested
1.4 Data Sampling
1.5 Structure of the paper

(In economics at least.)

Introduction (5 pages)

• start with some broader motivation or backgrund

– maybe a sentence or a paragraph at most

• quickly explain your problem/puzzle

– show not tell

– don't say your work is pathbreaking or the problem is interesting (arrogant)

• clearly, concisely explain what is novel

– crystal clear

• report key results

– no hiding the punchline!

• discuss implication

– what does it mean for public policy? for theory? etc

• Layout:

– a clear roadmap

– Section 1 does this. Section 2 does this. Section 3 etc...so they can find what they want. (This is the easiest paragraph to write)