I wish to try out a technique which my supervisor does not want me to, because its not his expertise As a part of my PhD work, I wish to try a technique which is upcoming and frequently in use. I am not sure if it will be successful, though I have a good feeling about it. My supervisor is simply against it because he does not understand it. And unfortunately he does not have sufficient Math background to understand it either. He is not interested in exploring such ideas and rather is interested in getting more publications in his chosen techniques - partly because he has friends in those conference committees and mostly because it seems he does not know anything else.

By the way, my PhD is funded by the university. I am not interested in looking for another supervisor. It's a headache! What should I do? The new method will at least need 1.5 months.

This is a question you can only answer yourself, because it's about the balance between working on stuff your group is experienced in and trying out new stuff. But let's list some arguments why you should not go off doing something just because it's interesting:

You probably have a Phd topic yourself, and every month spent on something not directly relevant means you're defending a month later. Will this fit in another publication you're planning to write?
Your supervisor is not an expert in this subject, which will definitely cause you to make some avoidable mistakes that will take time or make the project weaker. If your supervisor cannot help you, do you have someone else that can guide and teach you?
Even if it's a new and fancy technique, new and fancy doesn't do anything for you if you're not an expert already. You'll probably figure out stuff that has been figured out already. Will it bring direct results that you need for your other projects?
You'd not be doing this project in magical extra time, it's something you'll be doing instead of something else. Is it really that much more interesting than something closer to your expertise / project?

Your Phd is about doing research. Bringing projects from start to finish and publishing. Not about learning for the sake of learning. You probably did enough of that, now it's time to push the boundaries of knowledge.


3+ month delay in reviewing the revision of paper, what can we do? I had submitted a paper in an ISI journal, i.e. in Taylor and Francis. The first submission date of the manuscript was 30-may-2014. We received the first revision result on 27-July-2014. Hopefully, the result of reviewing our paper was optimistic as the paper status was accept with change; we had only some minor comments. We submitted the answer of revision on 15 Aug. They didn’t reply our revision yet. How can we write to them to review our paper faster?
Note: Its 2-Dec Today.

Aug 15 to at least Dec 2 seems like a very long period for a decision based on a minor revision. Particularly since the procedure earlier seems to be very timely. Sending an e-mail to the handling editor seems in perfect order. There may of course be some natural reason for the delay but after more than three months you should certainly enquire.

As for the content of your request just make is short, to the point and polite. Do not assume anything or be unfairly judgemental, you do not, yet, know the reasons for the delay. If you have some "excuse" for why you are extra anxious to get a response, please mention it. This could be that you need to show your updated publication list for applications or for some other official reason. This will of course not mean you receive special treatment but will make the editor aware of the delay and the possible effects it may have. But, a short e-mail will suffice.


Is it rude to ask your professor to NOT put you as co-author of a paper? I am working as a research engineer for my professor. He told me to write a conference paper from the master’s thesis of one of his graduate students, since I am working in the same field. After reading the thesis and analyzing the student's results, I found that most of the work is of low quality and does not justify a publication. I told my professor that there are several inconsistencies in the results and several misleading claims, but he told me to continue writing the paper to the best I can given that “I have experience with paper writing and that I can present the work in a light that could get the paper through peer review”.

Now that I am almost done with the draft, I don’t want to be an author of this paper given the facts. How can I talk to my professor asking him to not put me as an author without sounding rude?

To elaborate on the comment by Roland.

If you wrote the paper and analyzed the results, you have a strong claim of ownership on the paper (along with the graduate student who got the initial results). Depending on the depth of your analysis you may well be the lead author so it’s your call by right.

If your professor is pushing for the result to be published then your name has to be on it. If you refuse it can’t happen. If they choose to publish without you it’s ethical misconduct and grounds for retracting the paper from wherever it’s submitted to.

The only diplomatic avenue here is that you push to correct the issues and then submit. Otherwise, politely say that you think the paper is not ready and that it is not publishable in its current state.


How do I properly cite during an exam? So during exams and as of late, I started to informally cite scholars sometimes and as much as possible to backup the written ideas, however and due to the very nature of exams, I am facing the below issues:

Sometimes I memorize ideas almost word-by-word from the textbook or course book, and as a result of answering the exam question, I almost write everything as it is and without paraphrasing or even citing, is that plagiarism? The doctor would definitely identify my answer as being from the book we learned...
Other times, I get some ideas from outside the book and I do cite them in that case, however I do not paraphrase as I am learning by heart the thoughts in order to answer a specific question in the exam, is that plagiarism? (e.g. lack of paraphrasing)
And lastly, since I am memorizing by heart, I sometimes misspell the name of an author or even change a bit of details in his or her idea, is that a bad thing?

I do not think it is necessary to cite or give exact bibliographical information during a written exam. Even in publications, textbook knowledge does not have to be equipped with references.
In more detail:

I almost write everything as it is and without paraphrasing or even citing, is that plagiarism?
I get some ideas from outside the book and I do cite them in that case, however I do not paraphrase as I am learning by heart the thoughts in order to answer a specific question in the exam, is that plagiarism?

What troubles me here is not that you do not cite correctly, but that you just reproduce the exact wording from the textbook. To the examiner, this does only show that you are able to find the relevant section of the textbook to the question, but not that you understood the subject sufficiently to explain it in your own words. With this approach, you are completely lost in essay questions, and later in your thesis.

And lastly, since I am memorizing by heart, I sometimes misspell the name of an author or even change a bit of details in his or her idea, is that a bad thing?

Misspelling the name is certainly not a problem. Changing the ideas depends on what exactly changes, but I think this is a problem that arises from learning by heart instead of learning the theory, facts, and connections therein.


Finding authors who published in a certain journal I was told by faculty in my field that top journals A and B sort of have an arch-rivalry in the sense that people either choose to publish in A and not B, or the other way around, due to some huge schism in the past. (Keeping this slightly vague to not perfectly identify my field)
Naturally, I was interested to figure out who has ever bridged the gap between journals A and B and published papers there both. However, it seems like neither Scopus nor Web of Science offers any functionality that would help in my search - one can search for all documents that an author published, but not authors that have published in a journal (or in my case, multiple journals).
Are there any resources out there that would help me in my search, beyond doing web-crawling on the journal webpages and comparing them manually? I am intrigued to find out this answer, but I don't know if I am willing to commit that much time...

You can do this in Web of Science and Scopus - just search by "Publication name" and  "Source title" respectively.


Missed including undergraduate degree information in graduate application Whilst applying for a part-time graduate degree, I only stated my most recent graduate degree in the application (completed a year ago). I thought (possibly incorrectly) that I need only state the most recent and relevant information.

I did not state my earlier graduate degree (obtained 12 years ago) and undergraduate degree, received over 15 years ago.

I subsequently interviewed with the programme director regarding my application and I'm awaiting a decision on the outcome. During the interview call, there were no questions raised about the education information in my application?

How can I mitigate this situation? Should I call the department and supply the omitted information?

If you know you’ve omitted information, I would correct the situation as soon as possible. If the information is received before a decision is made, then you cannot be accused later of hiding it. It may impact acceptance—materials weren’t sent according to deadline, after all—but you’re reducing your later exposure by coming forth now.


What is importance of author listings when resumé/CV differs from actual publication? In examining published papers of employment applicants, I am noticing that authorship position shown on the resumé/CV (first, second, third authors, etc.) do not match those shown in the published papers. Is this significant? The field is cognitive neuroscience. My applicants are often shown as First Author on their CV, but not on the published papers. Is this significant in any way?

In general, author position must be the same on a CV as it is in the official publication. Changing author position on the CV is generally deceptive. In particular, first authorship often conveys a greater role on a publication. So this may suggest the applicant is trying to indicate that they had a greater role in the publication than they did.

That said, it seems like a rather strange thing for an applicant to do. If someone is going for an academic job, it is common that the employer would have a look at a few publications. Thus, it would quickly become evident that CV and publication differ in author-order. And this would typically be perceived poorly by the employer.

A common and better strategy is to bold or star your own name in the CV (and perhaps the names of students you have supervised). This makes it easier for a reader of a CV to scan author position.


How do you keep track of papers during a brainstorming literature review? I am often in charge of researching new sub-topics in my discipline for short papers. I find my default technique is:

Search Google Scholar for best-guess keywords
Open relevant-looking resulting paper, skim
Find new references in that paper, open new tabs for those papers while reading first paper
Look at new papers, find new references and key words. Open new tab for new Scholar searches
Decide those key words aren't useful after all
Make valiant attempt to figure out which of the 20 open tabs are still worth keeping open, which papers are worth adding to Zotero, which papers are worth downloading.

Clearly, I am not of a methodical mindset. I'm beginning to wonder if I took 5 sec to add each paper author-year-keyword to a small notepad app on the side of the screen before I opened the article, that might help me keep track of the mess. Or something. Does anyone have a simple workflow for this "brainstorming" phase that would work well for the non-methodically minded? I'm a Chrome/Google type rather than an Apple type, if that matters.

My workflow/suggestion would be to keep this all in Zotero. I'm a big believer in keeping the number of tools one uses relatively small and becoming very proficient at using ones favorite tools.
I use a collection  ("Inbox") dedicated to items I may or may not keep and don't have time to read right away. I will then go through those items periodically and either throw them out (remember you need to "Move to trash" or shift+delete - just pressing delete will just delete them from the collection.) or file them in the right collection and delete them from "Inbox".
To quickly remind you of why you saved the items, you could either attach Zotero notes or you could use tags, including colored tags if you can make do with only a couple of short keywords.
Finally, since you will always save items into Zotero right away, you can sort the collection by "date added," which should give you a good idea of the context in which you saved an item.
Since you're using Zotero Standalone, you'll want to use alt+tab to quickly move back and forth between Zotero and your browser.


Should graduate study be done when you are not fully interested in the subject matter? This question is somewhat broad, but this place seems like the best place to ask. I have been accepted for an information assurance program, but I am a computer science major and my main interest lies in software development. Should that deter me from deciding to study information assurance?

Another factor in the decision is that the program is through scholarships for service, so it is a 2 year program with 2 years of work in a government position for information assurance. Ultimately, I recognize it is a subjective decision. The core question I am trying to ask is, should you do graduate study even if you are only partially interested in the subject matter? In other words: how committed do you need to be to the subject matter for graduate study to be worthwhile?

On another note, we continually see news about huge networks with cybersecurity issues. Sony's Playstation network, LinkedIn, and I think I read today that Yahoo! accounts may have been compromised. With the growth of businesses and services online, it seems only natural that an adept skill-set in information assurance would be beneficial.

An unmotivated graduate student will usually be a lackluster student at best. These students will be more likely to be distracted by whatever their true interests are.

Moreover, in a program like the one you are describing, you will be making a very significant career detour. You would be advised not to make such a move unless you are absolutely sure that it's something you'll want to do for the next four years, since you will have a payback requirement. If you're not sure about it, this is the kind of move that can wreak havoc on your career—particularly if you (re-)discover your dissatisfaction after the classwork is complete, and the service period begins.


Applying for scholarship with prospective advisor support, but not taking the scholarship: possible consequences I am planning to apply for a (quite competitive) scholarship offered by a foreign government, which I need the recommendation of a prospective doctoral advisor to apply. However, if I am offered the scholarship but decline it for opportunities in other countries, would I offend anyone? Are there alternatives should I decide later not to pursue a PhD there?

In fact, I'll give it off: I'm going to apply for the Japanese government's MEXT scholarship. Now, while I really enjoy living in Japan (having lived there briefly in the past) and can find good doctoral advisors there, I am not sure if that is in my best interest, as I would prefer to pursue a career in Europe due to personal and family reasons, and doing a PhD in Europe would be better for my goals. Also, if anyone is familiar with the MEXT scholarships, I wonder if there are alternatives: e.g. use my scholarship to study as a research visitor student (kenkyuusei) instead, etc.

If you have a definitive plan in Europe, then there is no problem rejecting the opportunity in Japan, it should be ok as long as everyone gets notified. The advisor may be get annoyed briefly, but they will soon not think about it (especially famous professors) as they have many things on their mind.

I am actually in a similar position right now in which I might decline a potential JSPS fellowship.


What are the downsides of publishing your statement of purpose on the Internet after you've already been admitted to a PhD program? After getting into some top schools, I linked my statement of purpose on my personal website so it could serve as a resource for others.  Are there any reasons this might be a bad idea?

In general, I think this sounds like a great idea.  I would further say that the same essential content is often a good starting point for your personal professional website.

The only potential downside that I see is that in the future you might look back with embarrassment on naive ideas in your statement where your feelings have evolved over time.  If you have enough self-confidence to be OK with with that, it's fine: nobody will expect a mature researcher to believe all of the same things they did when just starting grad school.


Length of Ph. D. Application CV for Mid-Career Professionals I am applying for a Ph. D. program after a 10 year career of secondary classroom teaching - I have held several positions in that time should I cut some of these teaching experiences out to make my CV fit one page (the teaching experiences are not at the college level, and not necessarily directly in the program I am applying for).

Unlike an American industry resume, an academic CV does not have a length limit.  It would be appropriate to list all your teaching experience.


Are separate essays in a single volume (on a single subject) considered "the same source"? This came up in a paper recently submitted and commented on by the tutor.  The paper relied on, and separately referenced, multiple separately authored essays in a single volume ("edited by...") on a single subject.
A comment returned was "... perhaps too much reliance on a single source (though the defining volume) ...".
This was a surprise as I thought that the separately authored (and credited) essays would each be considered a separate source (though published together).
Is this, perhaps, field dependent?
(This question is not in any way going to lead to any complaint about the remark whatsoever.  I just would like to know - as I said, I believed otherwise.)

We could argue whether this is technically this is or isn't "the same source".
More productive is to ask, "could relying strongly on multiple essays in the same edited volume be putting blinders on your thinking?", and the answer is yes.
The use of multiple, genuinely independent sources ensures you have had to engage with different perspectives on a topic: different framings of the issues; differences in terminology, methodology, conclusions/implications. If there are schisms, you are likely to have stumbled across them.
In a single edited volume, the editor is likely to have -- deliberately or accidentally -- chosen authors with the same perspectives, and therefore biases. In fact, the individual essays may well have been edited to uniformize their framing, teminology, etc. Now, in some cases the editor may have carefully reached out to include differing voices. But very often not, and you have no way of knowing unless you've looked elsewhere.
All of these things taken together mean that though it may look (from the number of different names) that you're taking a broad look at the topic, it is fairly likely to have been curated enough that this is not truly the case.


How much research experience to include on a CV? Do I have to include all of my research projects on my CV?  I have worked in ten different labs, mostly projects from undergrad, and most of my projects and publications are completely unrelated to my current field of research. I'm concerned that if include all my research experiences, people will not know what my current field of research is. I'm also worried since I am an early stage PhD student and my CV is three pages long and may be too long.

Should I include or exclude research experiences unrelated to my current field of study on my CV?

What you will soon realise is that there is no one CV to rule them all. More precisely, you will find that you need to tailor your CV for each job application etc, by (de)emphasising various parts of it. Getting a summer internship at McDonalds? Emphasise the hamburger flipping. Applying for a grant, emphasise the research.

Thus how much research experience you include in your CV depends what you are planning to use your CV for. If it were to get a PhD position, I would say "Yes".

Publications stay. They always count.

Gradually, the research projects you did as an undergraduate will become uninteresting for your CV, for example, as you start filling your CV with new and exciting activities.  This always happens. When you are starting your research career, you will be asked to review papers. You can list what journal/conference you reviewed for on your CV. Later you will be on conference PCs or journal editorial boards. Then all of the reviewing experience will become irrelevant for your CV.


Complimenting the author of a textbook In one of my undergraduate courses, I found that one of the required texts was particularly well-written. It is a textbook about computer architecture, and I found that it explained intricate technical concepts in understandable language, and it managed to exemplify and summarize often difficult concepts quite nicely.

Just so it happens, this textbook was written by someone currently in our Computer Science department (not my professor). Would it be well-received, or at least appropriate, if I sent an email to the author to compliment his textbook? I have no ulterior motive; I'm not trying to win his favor or anything like that, I just simply want to express my gratitude for a resource that was useful to my learning.

(A similar question has already been answered, but I am curious if the answer would still be the same for a textbook.)

I would think you don't even need to go into much detail: just the fact that you have found the author's work sufficiently helpful that you want to express thanks... will be enough, I think.

That is, ... perhaps contrary to the fake myth that textbook and course-notes writers have large, expressive fan clubs... mostly one feels that one is speaking to the void, with no response. (Nowadays even to keep track of IP addresses of hits on one's site seems to require an extra load of various things equivalent to "Google Analytics", which slow things down enormously, so are not usabe... I remember the relatively-better-old days when I could see the IP addresses of people who hit my web pages...)

I myself do make a point of communicating to people whose writing is especially good, at all levels, especially if it's not "heroic, prize-winning" glamor stuff, but is simply very, very good.

We, collectively, should do more of this, I think.


Acceptance of academic email endings I am looking for statistics for the acceptance of email endings in the academic community. I was informed that "Best regards" and "regards" are among the best ones. Is this true?

For example, this is a good source for the appropriateness of email salutation:
https://thermaltoy.wordpress.com/2013/01/26/dr-who-or-professor-who-on-academic-email-etiquette/

From this source, about half of US professors prefer "Dr.", while the other half prefer "Prof.". How about "Prof. Dr." so we won't miss anything?

I also notice that a lot of members here recommend the email-writers to mention the connection between the writer and the professor. Is this always very important? Is it cost-efficient to go to conferences to meet with potential PhD advisors (I meant time-cost. $ is out of considerations.)?

Some related good stuffs
How much detail to include in first email to potential PhD supervisor?

I don't have statistical data on this (and I doubt any exist). Personally I find "Best regards" and "regards" to be very formal, but it depends on who you're speaking to.

I prefer to use "Best wishes", "All the best", "Best" (if the email is brief or we're in a hurry) or "Ciao" (my supervisor is Italian).

As for salutations, I don't think Prof. Dr. is used anywhere outside of Germany, because usually only the most recent or senior title is used. In other words, use Dr if they're a PhD and Professor if they're a professor. If you don't know which they are, find out.


For what reasons is a class expunged instead of dropped? Instead of having a class dropped, withdrawn or set as incomplete it is possible to have it expunged from your transcript record. Why does this happen typically?

It depends on the institution. I had a class dropped as an undergraduate (my advisor told me that if I registered as extracurricular, I wouldn't have to take the final exam, I would just get a pass/fail based on my homeworks. I found out he was wrong about that 2 weeks before the final when they sent out the exam schedule and I was registered for the final exam in that class (turns out the changed the rules for extracurricular classes the year before). Fortunately, I had the conversation with my advisor over email, so it was declared clerical error and the class was expunged from my record. Another student in my class was hit by a car a few days after the last day to drop classes and hurt badly enough that he needed a semester off. All of the classes he was registered for were expunged from his record, and his transcript reads that semester as free for health reasons.

Most universities will expunge a class from your records if you have a good reason: typically clerical error or health (including mental health) reasons. Some universities will instead let you "withdraw without penalty" if it is for health reasons. The only way to know how your university does it is to check the regulations or ask your advisor.


tips for Assistant Professors applying for new Assistant Professor positions after being cut The major at my school was cut and I am first to go in the department.
What do I do different when applying for new AP (in US) now compared to when I was coming off a post doc?
Do I address the reasons for being let go in my cover letter?
What other tips are there for coming up with a good application under my unfortunate circumstances.

You are being let go for a reason that apparently has nothing whatsoever to do with your individual performance; your program was cut, and you as the (most?) junior person, are being let go first.  That should not be interpreted as a reflection on you personally, or the quality of your work.  Everyone in academia knows that things can be unusually difficult right now, and people are losing jobs that would have been totally secure under normal conditions.  Of course, you will need to explain why your position has gone away in your application package, and your recommenders can explain it was well.
Actually, the kind of recommenders you have available in this situation could potentially give you a significant advantage, relative to other applicants for the same positions.  You already have experience working as a full-time (possibly tenure-track) faculty member, and you should get a senior person in your department (the department chair being the most natural choice) to write a letter on your behalf that talks not just about the quality of your research, but also addresses your capability as a teacher in a full-time faculty position and your service work.  A chair's detailed recommendation that says that they are extremely unhappy about losing you, due to budgeting changes completely beyond your control, could be very compelling to hiring committees.
All this being said, given the current economic situation, you are probably going to be in for a rough ride.  In fields where whole majors are being cut, there are likely to be few new jobs opening up, so competition is likely to be extremely fierce, even for people who already have faculty experience.


I signed up to present at a conference and didn't tell my advisor about it. How to handle this now? I have a little bit of the dilemma here... A month ago, I signed up for a conference talk and I got accepted to present there... However , I actually found out about that conference and decided on my own to give a talk... I did not tell my advisor about it. At that moment, I did not think much. And part of me forgot about it since I was so busy with everything else.

Now, thinking back, it occurs to me that I might have done something stupid. From what I know , most PhD students go to and give talk at conferences because their advisors tell them to go... So I am not sure if I did the right or the wrong thing not asking my advisor before applying to go...

So I know that I now should tell my advisor about the conference. However, I am not sure how I should explain about that fact that I didn't ask before applying ... Is it common for graduate students to let the advisors know before applying for a conference ? Seems like it is a common thing at my institute.

Or should I just back out from the conference? I don't think it is smart if I back out since it will hurt the reputation.

Please give me some insights about this. Thanks a lot.

Explain it just like you explained in your post.

Tell your advisor that you are very interested in attending a particular conference and that you even applied. You realized it was an oversight that you applied without talking to him first, and then you got sidetracked.

Make it clear that you want to go, that you got accepted, that you made a mistake, and you'd appreciate his feedback on all of it. If your advisor tells you to withdraw, then I would probably listen.

It is not common to do such a thing without discussing it with your advisor, often because they are a co-author and footing the bill.


Why I can't get a PhD offer? I am so tired of contacting potential supervisors and submitting applications only to get rejected! Is the problem in my qualifications?
I graduated university with a GPA of 4.94 out of 5 (A Saudi Arabian University), and then I got my masters from Warwick University with a Merit but a distinction on the dissertation. I scored 7.5 in the IELTS exam as well.

Additional details: I am considered as an overseas student, and I have a sponsorship. My field is in digital marketing but my Bachelors was in Management Information Systems, and my masters was in e-Business Management. The research proposal I wrote discussed the bad and good behaviour of customers in the financial services industry, and its implications on the companies' ecosystems.

Thanks

Getting an offer for a PhD program can be difficult, and if you are receiving repeated rejections it may be worth seeking some feedback on your applications.
 Given that your undergraduate degree is from a non-English speaking country, if you are applying for PhD candidature in England or the US (or some other English-speaking country), you will need to make sure your writing is clear and grammatically polished.  That is a major aspect of what professors are looking for when seeking research candidates.

Without wishing to be unnecessarily critical, I note that in your three-sentence question in this post I can see two obvious spelling errors and at least one major grammatical error.  This might just be because you are writing while upset, or it might be indicative of a low standard of written English.  If the latter, I would suggest you engage in some practice writing essays and other papers in English and getting feedback on your work until you have improved your writing.  This may assist you in future applications.  Good luck.


Can the university cut the notice period short? I am negotiating a position at another university. I’m on a permanent contract and a UK university that states six months notice period on both sides.

This is fine by me since I have many loose ends I need to take care before leaving, work and family wise.

My question is: If I give notice to the university, can they cut the notice short? E.g., can they ask me to leave earlier? Or, are they obliged to respect the six months, even though I was the one giving notice?

I don't believe they will do that, because they need me to stay until they recruit someone else. However, it would be good to know that once I ”pull the trigger”, I have a six months buffer to settle everything. For obvious reasons, I don't want to make this question to HR.

The university policy on notice periods is very concise. It says that unless otherwise agreed in writing, the notice period corresponding to my grade and position is six months from the university and me.

I suspect (but have no legal standing) that they are obligated to pay you through the notice period even if they ask you to leave early.

But it also seems like they still are bound by a six month notice period rather than suddenly getting a shorter one because of your action.

But suspect and seems are pretty dangerous to rely on from someone who is just speculating. And, no one here can give you legal advice even with full information. We can only guess and hope we are correct. But you are the one on the line here.

I worry, also, that you have an adversarial attitude about HR. I suspect (that word again) that they are legally obligated to give you proper advice. They probably don't require all of the details of your situation to do so.


Current adviser trying to switch me to a different adviser I was admitted to the PhD program at the beginning of the Fall semester and I chose this particular school because my current adviser was my first choice. My admission letter states that they will fund me for the duration of my studies.

Now my adviser tells me the funding source he applied for to cover my stipend and tuition did not pan out and he wants me change my adviser to a different professor.

I do not want to change advisers. As I said, I chose my current adviser over several other good choices. Can I refuse his attempts to make me switch advisers?

Thanks

FYI, the school traditionally covers funding where external grants are lacking.

Have a frank discussion with your advisor and stress that you really would prefer to stay with him/her.  Then, explore funding opportunities you can apply for together. Be proactive about the situation. The advisor will be excited about the potential for more external (or internal, if available) funding, and the process of writing the application may bring about new lines of research that you then share in common.  At the very least, this will buy you some time, since it sounds like the school will cover you anyway, at least for a while.  Even if the funding doesn't come through, your determination will be clear, and what you lay out in your application may be sufficient to convince your advisor to keep you on.  If he/she is ready to push you off to a different advisor, it may be that he/she does not have sufficient stake in your work.  If you can fix that, the rest may fall into line.


How do I properly cite the amount of times an article has been cited on Google Scholar? I wish to properly cite the amount of times a paper has been cited according to Google Scholar. However, I couldn't find a proper answer to this question.

The paper in question is:

  Blei, David M., Andrew Y. Ng, and Michael I. Jordan. "Latent dirichlet
  allocation." the Journal of machine Learning research 3 (2003):
  993-1022.

Hansen, S., McMahon, M., & Prat, A. (2014) note that

  LDA is widely used (...) and has been cited over 8,000 times

But they cite no source! What is the proper source to cite here?

My first thought was something like this:

  LDA is widely used (...) and has been cited over 10,000 since its
  publication, a search on Google Scholar reveals (Google Scholar,
  date).

edit: I e-mailed my advisor and ended up citing Hansen et al. (2014) saying that the paper had already been cited 8000 times. Not really a satisfying answer ... alas ..

I don't find such citations to citation counts very helpful in reading an article. Assuming such numbers are reasonably accurate, they only represent a snapshot of the popularity of a technique at the time you wrote your article. I would recommend simply saying that it is a popular technique and leaving it at that.


How to solicit feedback from students about faculty candidates? I am the grad student on the hiring committee, and I have been tasked with gathering feedback from grad students about our faculty candidates. All of the grad students were invited to attend each candidates job talk and an open meeting between the candidate and students.

My first attempt was to simply have the department send out a mass email telling the grad students to email me with their feedback. The next thing I tried was asking a handful of students from various labs to attend the talk and meeting then email me with feedback. So far I have received zero feedback on any of the candidates.

I believe my problem is that these talks are often sparsely attended (e.g., only people in the same field as the candidate) since many students have no motivation to attend and my feedback requests have been too open ended (e.g., feedback on what??).

How can I improve this process?

My ideas:

A rubric of what aspects to give feedback on
An organized committee of students that provide feedback and try to get other students to attend

As someone who was a graduate student until recently, I would have no idea how to respond to a request like this. Even if I were qualified to judge potential faculty hires (which I very much am not, even now, as a postdoc) you've simply asked for "feedback" without giving any specifics. Do you know what kind of feedback you're looking for? You have to answer that question for yourself first.

It sounds like this task was thrust on you. Can you get anything more specific from whoever put you in charge of this?

This whole thing sounds odd to me. In fact, I suspect it's really all for appearances, to make the grad students feel included or to appease some high-level administrator who thinks it's a good idea. If you think that's the case, my advice is to provide free food for grad students after the job talks (without the free food, no one will stay) and hand out evaluation forms with a few questions about the content/style of the talk. The forms are unlikely to be read by anyone, but you'll accomplish the task you were given and the students will get free food. Everyone wins.


What are the default copyrights/IP restrictions for a work I post online? Suppose I've put a PDF with an paper or treatise I've written, but not yet properly published, somewhere online. This place is not some document repository or a site that has some specific copyright assignment/assumption policy; suppose it's just a lowly HTTP server: http://some.where.org/foo.pdf . Suppose also that a link to it gets to some person with whom I've not made any explicit or implicit agreements regarding use of this work.

What are people allows or not allowed to do by US, EU and/or international copyright law?

Are people allowed to make online copies?
Are people allowed to make hard copies? Circulate hard copies? Publish hard copies?
Can people produce derivative work (e.g. applying the same ideas in some other context) and publish it, at all?
Must people credit me as the author, or can they just use the contents and forget about the author?
Are there any special restrictions if I mark my paper as a "Draft"?

Note: It's not that I want to prevent any of those things from happening, necessarily - I'm just asking about the defaults.

In most (possibly all) jurisdictions, the default for a creative artifact with no license information attached is that it assumed to be all rights reserved.  In other words, another person cannot do much of anything with it besides look at it.

See, for example, GitHub's information about "no license" licensing. They are talking about code, but the default they mention is general.

Note that there are certainly categories of work for which this does not apply (for example, recipes are specifically not protected under US copyright law), but it most certainly applies for any substantial paper draft.


How to handle conflicting instructions when applying for a grant? I'm applying for a grant renewal. There are subtle and not-so-subtle differences between the solicitation document and the submission instructions document with regards to which materials (e.g. the proposal narrative, personal statement(s), CV(s), research schedule, budget, transcript(s) for student(s), etc.) are required for new proposals vs. renewal proposals.

Obviously, the best path would be to contact the funding agency to ask for clarification.

How might one proceed if contacting the funding agency to ask for clarification isn't an option?

Should I assume the solicitation as written overrules anything else? Would it be best to just include all materials mentioned in either document, or does it hurt to include "unsolicited" materials?

When relating to granting agencies, I would say that, as a rule, it is not recommendable to submit more documentation than the one they are expecting.

I would first make sure that the guidelines you are reading are up-to-date; you'd be surprised on how many times they are not. Once you've done that, consider whatever is written as the truth. If it is renewal you are after, restrict yourself to whatever instructions for renewal they have.

Of course, it will depend on the agency, but in my experience if something is missing either the automatic upload service (if that's the case) or someone from the agency will contact you to make sure everything is ok.


First day as an independent study student My IDS class has just started today and I am the only student. I have not received any email from the professor and no assignments or due dates. I cannot determine if he is waiting for me to show that I am independent, or if he is just very busy.

We had a 1 week break between semesters, and during that time I have solved some problems from the textbook. Now I am trying to determining whether I should type them up and email the to my professor today.

On one hand, I want to show my professor that I am motivated and can work by myself. On the other hand, it is not my intention to put pressure on him to grade my work right away; maybe he was expecting to deal with me only 1-2 weeks into the semester. What should I do?

I think you're wasting too much time psychoanalyzing your professor. If the semester has already started and he has not reached out, it's fine to e-mail your professor to set up a meeting.

I will advise hold on to the problem set answers for now. In the meeting, you can definitely mention the prep work you have done and you're enthusiastic about this opportunity. Focus on setting up a study plan, including the preferred frequency and forms of meeting, deliverables, and evaluation criteria, etc.


If the poster gets a prize, who gets it, the person presenting it or the first author? Suppose I have done a collaborative work, where I do 80% of the work. Hence, I am the first author. Now my collaborator goes to a conference to present a poster of that work. In the poster too, my name is (for the obvious reason) first. But my collaborator is the presenting author. Now if the poster gets a prize, who gets it, the person presenting it or the first author? Technically, who should get it?

A prize is typically given for both content and presentation of a work, so a typical fair way to handle prize money, whether for poster or paper, is to offer to split it evenly amongst all of the co-authors.  Co-authors who feel they have not offered a full share of work might choose to decline their share, but the basic assumption should be an even split.  To do otherwise just opens the opportunity for much interpersonal conflict over a generally quite small amount of money.

Remember also that the most significant value of a poster or paper prize is not typically any money that happens to be associated with the prize, but rather the increase in your personal credibility and future prospects that comes from the recognition.


How much independency does a postdoctoral researcher have? I am a postdoctoral with governmental grant, means that it is not a grant from a research supervisor for a specific research project. Of course, when I was applying for this grant I was asked to connect with one of the professor in university X and I provided a research proposal. During working on the research related to my proposal, I am working on some other aspects which are not far from my proposed research in cooperation with some other scholars and professors outside of my university. I would like to ask your opinion on whether it is normal for postdoctoral researchers to have collaborations with other people as well?

I would like to ask your opinion on whether it is normal for postdoctoral researchers to have collaborations with other people as well?

Our opinions don’t matter. The professor in charge of your grant is considered your supervisor, and whether it’s okay for you to spend significant time on outside collaborations depends on, and only on, the professor’s opinion. It’s likely okay, and yes it is somewhat normal at least in some disciplines (e.g. math), but you should simply ask them.


How to respond to the trivialisation of one’s work and unjustified demands for a considerable extension of the research? I am a graduate student in engineering whose work includes a lot of programming and implementation of the developed theories. I am not a computer scientist, but I am a fairly skilled programmer, at least when compared to other people in the field.

In the recent months I went to a few conferences and to meetings with partners participating in my research project. In most cases my supervisor attends these events as well. We do not have the same background, and while I get a lot of support from him, there are some gaps where he is not proficient and does not have a good overview, especially about the amount of work required to get something implemented. In such tasks we have a relation that is based on trust that I am doing a correct job, which gets disrupted when other researchers are involved, as described in the continuation.

At such events I have encountered the problem that some people boldly enquire why I did not research or develop a particular (usually irrelevant) feature, and give suggestions for the extension of the work which are far beyond the scope of my project and time. This is especially the case about programming, and it comes from people who have never implemented anything. For some of the suggestions, I would need my own research team and a few years of funding. And sometimes the people asking such questions try to show-off in front of others by trivialising my research. This is annoying. And this situation gets worse when I give a simplified presentation of my work in order to make it more understandable to a wider audience. On conferences I see that other young researchers experience the same problem.
Indeed I am a young researcher and it may look like I am overestimating my work, but I have a good overview of the field and I have no issues with suggestions that require an additional but reasonable amount of work. My papers so far all got good reviews, and at my department I am one of the most productive graduate students, which makes me confident that I am on the right path and do more than enough work.

While I tend to ignore such demands, this puts me in a difficult position when it is about a topic where my supervisor does not have expertise. My supervisor gets a wrong impression that I am not doing a right job, and that my work is basic touching only the tip of the iceberg. Other people in the audience instantly get such opinion as well. This escalated today when I have received a very good review of a paper that I have submitted with my supervisor. From the beginning I was very confident about the work, however, when presenting it around, I run into issues described above. So the comment of my supervisor on the review was “I am happy to see that you have improved your work after the initial hiccups and confusion. You did not research what others told you to do, so we have been lucky here.” This was really annoying because my work was never in question, and from day one I have followed the same path and did not encounter any difficulty. So this gives you an idea how much such comments on conference may influence one’s opinion about a work.

Is there a general way how to deal with such situations at conferences and meetings?  Luckily I have not encountered this behaviour during peer-reviews, but if I had, it'd be easier because it doesn't require an instant reaction.

I have some generic answers such as:

“Thanks for your suggestion. I have been thinking about this, but it requires too much work, and that is outside the scope of my project. Further, it would not significantly contribute to the value of the work.”
“I have considered it, but I don’t find it of interest, so I have decided not to do it. If you are interested in this topic, I invite you to collaborate.”
“That seems to be an interesting point. We can discuss this at the break in further details.”

but sometimes they do not give the desired outcome because people can be persistent.

It is important to recognize that this is not happening to you because you are a junior researcher. At every point in your career, somebody will feel (and, distressingly often, openly state) that your work is not good enough, goes into the wrong direction, is not "real" science, tackles the wrong problems, uses the wrong tools, or is in some other way flawed. Learning how to react to criticism regarding your work, even and especially if said criticism is coming from more senior researchers, is a crucial skill that every PhD student needs to learn. I feel it is best to stop relying on your advisor to justify your contribution as soon as possible.

In that vein, I think you should see these situations at conferences and meetings as opportunities to learn rather than ugly situations that you need to weasle out of as fast as possible. I do not mean that you should get into nasty fights with the audience during the Q&A part of a presentation, but I am certain you do have good reasons why you did some things and did not do other things. Do not try to evade ("Let's discuss this in the break, ok?"), but try to explain calmly why you did what you did. Yes, maybe that person asking the question will disagree, but so what? The fact that your actual peer reviews are good shows that there are a non-trivial amount of researchers that actually agree with you. The person asking the question is not your supervisor, you don't need to agree with him/her specifically on your research agenda or approaches.

Let me go over your proposed blanket statements one by one:

  “Thanks for your suggestion. I have been thinking about this, but it requires too much work, and that is outside the scope of my project. Further, it would not significantly contribute to the value of the work.”

That's ok, but I would leave away the part about "not significantly contributing to the value of the work". That sounds a bit too confrontational to me. Better just leave it at "that's really interesting, but we currently do not have the resources to tackle this complex problem".

  “I have considered it, but I don’t find it of interest, so I have decided not to do it. If you are interested in this topic, I invite you to collaborate.”

Stay clear from passive-aggressiveness.

  “That seems to be an interesting point. We can discuss this at the break in further details.”

Ok, but can come across as too defensive. I use the "ok, let's discuss this one-on-one" phrase usually only when somebody is asking variations of the same question over and over again, and it seems likely to me that the rest of the audience is already zoomed out of the conversation. However, in that case, a good session chair has already stepped in anyway.

How you could react is the following:

"Thank you for your interesting suggestion. We have indeed discussed a variation of this before, but implementing it in practice would require us to first do [complex thing A] and [complex thing B], which have been shown to be non-trivial efforts in the first place in [optimally you have some reference why this is indeed hard]. This would certainly improve the quality of our solution, but we are currently more looking towards extending our work into [more feasible other direction]. Of course, if you are interested in this, I would be very happy to discuss potential collaborations over [hot beverage of your choice]."

(a variation of your first suggestion, but a bit more formal and respectful while still making it abundantly clear that you are not actually going to do the thing that has been asked for)


Any way to create dynamic pdf from ppt presentation? I would like to upload a pdf version of my PowerPoint presentation lectures What software can I use to create pdf version of my PowerPoint presentation slides? My PowerPoint slides have animations, where multiple pictures are shown on one slide. When I use export pdf from the Microsoft office software, it shows just the last animated image for a slide. I want the animation images to be on different pages. Any software preferably open-source for mac ? Even windows software would do.

Keynote is a free app on your a Mac (it can handle Microsoft PPT files, but it doesn't always lead to 100% satisfactory outcomes -- you will have to check your case by hand).
In Keynote there's a setting 'make separate slide for each build stage' when you export your presentation as a PDF.


Is the prestige of a university correlated with how rigorous its undergraduate courses are? How much harder is it to get an undergraduate degree (say, in computer science) at a highly competitive university compared to a less rigorous institution?

Your intuition is correct; I nevertheless do not think is it easy to quantify how much harder (or easier) is one degree compared to another. It is imperative to also define how we measure "hardness"; eg. hours per week? success rate? span of material covered? etc.
Clearly one adapts the difficulty of the lecture to the audience. I am not talking about trivializing a topic (that can happen too and it is wrong) but actually as an educator you have to strike the right balance.

To give a small anecdote from Greece:
My very close friend graduated Physics and decided to go a second degree afterwards in EECS in NTUA. EECS in NTUA in Greece is one of the most prestigious and hardest to get in schools in the country (occasionally it is actually the hardest). In this programme he had to do a particular Physics class and while he was good, he had to put a lot of effort on it. So at some point he asked the lecturer (I am paraphrasing) : "I am a physicist, I know this stuff and I know you give them really hard problems on this subject. I see the class fighting to keep up; is it worth it? It is extremely unlikely they will use this material." the answer was : "Yes, you are right; but they are the best (theoretically) in country so I need to drill them the hardest." The lecturer was adapting the lecture to the audience. And I have heard complains from academics in minor schools for the exact opposite thing (under-qualified audiences).

To recap: Yes, the same class taught in a top school and in a average school will almost surely be harder in a top school. That is natural and should be expected to a certain degree. Quantifying the difficulty of it though is useless unless you have a particular "yardstick*.

Disclaimer: I am not a physicist nor did I attend the institution mentioned above aside a few lectures here and there.


Publishing editorial work on arXiv I have made an edition of handwritten notes of a physicist X (of the past century). What's the best way to submit it to arXiv?

I have seen two examples of editorial work in arXiv:

On one hand, the submission is made by the editor and also as author (e.g. https://arxiv.org/abs/1705.02601)
On the other hand the submission is made by the editor but he puts the original author (e.g. https://arxiv.org/abs/math/0206203).

I think the two are founded. But I would like to know what is the best way to do this.

arXiv has guidelines for how to publish a translation of someone else's work, and I assume this would be similar.

You, as editor, should submit with your name in the "Author" field, but include the original author's name in the title; e.g. "Lise Meitner's Notes on Uranium Decay".

Of course, there is a separate issue of making sure that either the copyright has expired, or that you have permission of the original author (or their estate), which is also mentioned on the link above.


How are mathematics conference presentations usually done and what to expect from the question and answer component? I'll be presenting at my first conference in 2 days, and I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to be doing, to be blunt. I was the second author in a paper that recently got published. So I more or less have an idea of what I need to discuss. I'm limited to at most 15 slides but what I'm dreading the most is the question and answer section. Can anyone tell me how these presentations are usually done and/or give hints? (I'm a grad student in math, by the way)

I'm not sure I really understand what you want to know.  Have you never seen a conference talk? (If you haven't, you can watch some here.)  Perhaps you're going to different conferences from me.  The question and answer part is usually 2 minutes at the end of the talk; occasionally no one has a question, but often to be polite people will ask for a clarification of some point or ask about a connection to something they free-associated about during your talk.  You should do your best to answer, but people will understand if you say "Gee, I hadn't thought about it that way" or "Let's discuss that during the break."  Generally people are eager to get to lunch/coffee break and won't draw it out too long.


Should I change a graduate class grade to pass/fail? Will it harm my PHD applications? I am an MS student in machine learning just finished my first semester at a U.S. university, and I plan to apply to PhD programs in computer science in electrical engineering or operations research for next year (also for machine learning and optimization).
I took three STEM advanced graduate courses this semester (two EE, one math course), did well on the engineering courses but only got a B on the math course (measure theory) because of a bad final. Even though B is not exactly a disastrous grade, but it is not good at our school because the graduate courses are heavily curved. My school offers an option this year to get a special Pass/Fail grade, where they will mention something like "pass/fail because of the global pandemic". This past semester was indeed hard for me as I was living in a different time zone because of travel restrictions and the classes usually took place at 1-3 a.m.
I am still thinking whether I should use this option. On one hand, I have heard multiple times that graduate schools frown upon P/F grades, but on the other hand, this course is not directly related to my research area (may be useful one day, though). I would appreciate any advice!

Grades matter when applying to graduate programs...until they do not. For the most part, a B is never a disqualifier for getting into a PhD program. (Getting a C or D...or F might be more worrisome). As long as you have a 3.8 or higher in your masters program, I usually would not even dig too far into the specifics of your grades if I was reviewing your submission.
When I evaluate graduate student applications, I place much more weight on letters of recommendation and personal statements. Especially where the measure theory class is not a core topic in your field, getting a B should not matter too much. Get strong LORs and write a good personal statement and you should be fine. You even could mention the challenges of COVID in your statement. (Although, I honestly would not even bring up the B. Least said, soonest mended).
I would not recommend changing the grade to a Pass; this looks like you actually are trying to hide something. Move on from the B and focus on building a good resume of experience and connections.


Timeline for late tenure track positions I have been waiting for a week after my first-round interview for a tenure track position in the US. The interview went well, I think, and ended up with a nice response from the chair of search committees. She was impressed with my presentation, but I took it as her courtesy. From the interview, I also knew that the initial interview was completed yesterday.
This position was posted in March (very late) and closed in April (very short). If offered, the candidate will have to work in August. I am curious to know if anyone has any experience with such quick hiring. What should the timeline be for the hiring decision?

After the last interview, the committee will have to come up with a ranked list of candidates. Then this is forwarded to the department head for approval. Then this goes to the dean for approval. Then an offer letter will have to be drawn up. This has to be approved by the Office of Equal Opportunity. This process can easily take 2 or more weeks, and this is particularly true at places where final exams are running at the same time.
In other words, have patience!


How does the admissions process work for Ph.D. programs in the US, particularly for weak or borderline students? When applying to a PhD program in the US, how does the admissions process work? If an applicant is weak in a particular area, is it possible to offset that by being strong in a different area?

Note that this question originated from this meta answer. Please feel free to edit the question to improve it.

Please feel free to edit the answer to improve it.
Generally, PhD programs in the US have many more applicants than they can accept. The number of positions is limited by finances (a department can only afford a limited number of RAs and TAs), space and resources (students often need offices and access to equipment), and the ability to supervise the students (there is a limit to the number of PhD students a faculty member can effectively supervise). The admissions committee must decide which of the qualified applicants are most likely to be successful researchers while taking departmental politics into consideration. These politics include things like the start-up package for Professor X including a funded PhD student and a particular resource being already at capacity.
The admissions committee bases its decision on a number of pieces of information including GPA, GRE scores, statement of purpose, references,  interviews, and, for international students, TOEFL scores. There is no formula (e.g., 6×GPA + 1×GRE + 2×references + publications) by which applicants are ranked, but some universities and/or departments set minimum requirements (e.g., GPA over 3.0 or a TOEFL over 85). The admissions committee looks at the entire application to make an informed judgment. This means that being strong in one area can, and does, offset being weak in another area.
GPA and major/background
When admissions committees consider the GPA, they are considering a number of factors including the grades: the strength of the school and major, the types of classes, and trends. An applicant who did poorly in first-year general electives will be looked at very differently from a student who did poorly in advanced specialized classes. The major is not nearly as important as the relevant classes. For example, an engineering department might look more favourably on a math major who took and did well on, engineering and applied-math electives than an engineering major who took humanities electives. As with everything in the admissions process, the admissions committee is trying to judge the potential for research success.
Compensating for a low GPA and major/background mismatch
A low GPA can be offset by a strong research record highlighted in the SOP and letters of reference. The SOP and letters of reference can also be used to make the admissions committee aware of any extenuating circumstances that may have lead to the low GPA. Similarly, the SOP and letters of reference can be used to address how your major and background prepare you for research in the field that you are applying to. Strong GRE scores can also help offset a low GPA, and a strong GRE subject test can compensate for mismatches between majors. The best way to offset a low GPA or a mismatch in the area of specialization is to consider enrolling in a terminal master’s degree and getting a good GPA in difficult classes.
I would like to add that an excellent way of improving a low GPA is by taking a senior thesis course, which is almost always available. Not only is this a proven way of building close ties with one or more faculty members (who will supervise you in your thesis) and getting those strong, personalized recommendations, but it could lead to a publication, or at the very least, a technical report published by the department. My senior thesis experience was life-changing: I ended up doing a Ph.D. because it made me realize that I was a better fit for doing research than I might have originally thought. In terms of grades, getting a good grade on the senior thesis course is usually not difficult (especially since you’re not evaluated on an exam performance), assuming you put in the effort.
It is also important to think honestly about why certain grades are low, and what you would do differently in graduate school. Learning from failure is a crucial skill (see, e.g., Dweck’s research on growth mindset, as well as  her widely-read book). In fact, almost all academics have been rejected by some of the programs, fellowships, grants, and journals that they have applied for or submitted to, and many have even failed classes. Finding constructive ways to deal with negative feedback, rejection, and failure is crucial in academia.
Examine why you struggled or what went wrong and how you can address a problem like that in the future. How have you developed the knowledge and skills that would have helped you then? Depending on the kinds of problems you faced and the extent of their impact on your record, they may not be appropriate to mention in your SOP and through your recommenders’ letters, but the steps you take to address them might tell their own story. (E.g., perhaps you failed a class but then did research with a professor of the same subject; perhaps you had a rocky college record because you were immature or bad at planning, but you have now worked for five years in a responsible position at a lab.)
GRE
There are a number of limitations to the GRE in terms of predicting research success, but it is the only standardized metric admissions committees have access to. The weight given to the different sections of the GRE and the subject tests can vary substantially among departments.
Compensating for low GRE scores
A low GRE score can be offset by a strong research record highlighted in the SOP and letters of reference. The SOP and letters of reference can also be used to make the admissions committee aware of any extenuating circumstances that may have led to the low GRE scores. A strong GPA can also help offset low GRE scores.
A particularly effective way to offset a low GRE is to retake the GRE. In many regions of the world, the GRE General Test is offered year-round via computerized administration at a testing center, and your scores are given to you immediately upon completion.  Upon receiving a lower-than-expected GRE score, you can, and should, immediately register for another GRE exam and begin preparing. Because of the short turn-around time, any preparation you did for the previous GRE should allow you to prepare much more quickly this time.
You are technically permitted to take the GRE General Test once every three weeks, or five times a year. However, repeat testings are detrimental to your schedule, morale, and finances, so it might be best to keep taking the test only until you receive a satisfactory score that you feel will represent your target school's applicant criteria, not until you receive the best score you believe is possible for you.
Once you have received the score you are satisfied with, the ETS offers a service to allow you to selectively determine which scores you provide to schools you are applying to, called ScoreSelect. This way, you can present your best cumulative score to the applications committee without being concerned about an older test, or one where extenuating circumstances made you perform worse than expected.

After test day, you can send additional score reports for a fee, and select from these options for each report you'd like to send:

Most Recent option — Send your scores from your most recent test administration

All option — Send your scores from all test administrations in the last five years

Any option — Send your scores from one OR as many test administrations as you like from the last five years

You will select by specific test dates, so your scores are all from the same testing session.

This applies to both general and subject GREs:

The ScoreSelect option is available for both the GRE® revised General Test and GRE® Subject Tests, and can be used by anyone with reportable scores from the last five years.

Again, I want to add that, in my experience, the GRE (particularly the General GRE) is a ‘filter’, nothing more. In many cases, even low GREs will be considered and not automatically discarded. Most top admissions panels do not accept one candidate over another simply based on GRE. I know for a fact that some colleges don’t even require candidates to submit GREs. When I was applying to CS Ph.D. programs a few years ago, for example, I noticed that MIT did not require GRE scores to be submitted.
In some fields, the Subject GRE is given significantly more weight than the General GRE, and so a low Subject Test score can be more harmful to a borderline application.  Since the Subject Test is usually offered twice in the fall (September and October), it can be to your advantage to register for both sittings.  This way, you can mitigate a poor showing on the September sitting by a stronger showing on the October sitting;  and if the September sitting yields a satisfactory score, you can simply cancel your registration for the October sitting.  This tactic can also be used for the General GRE in those regions of the world where computerized testing is not available.
Statement of Purpose (SOP)
Make sure you understand the conventions and expectations around statements of purpose in your field.  In some fields, something fairly generic will suffice, and in others, it could be the decisive component of your application. Talk to professors in the field you trust about whether your approach to the statement of purpose is an appropriate one.
This is also the ‘fairest’ part of your application. If you’re passionate about the research you want to do, it will show up in your SOP unless you’re a poor writer (in which case, you might want to reconsider the Ph.D. until you’re a decent one; good writing/communication is essential for successful researchers). There are several proven techniques of getting a strong SOP. I'll detail some below, but be careful about your field, as these suggestions are definitely not appropriate in all cases. One approach you might take before you even start writing your SOP is to:

Select your research area and actively check out the profiles of relevant professors, post-docs, and grad students (in that order) at the schools you are thinking of applying to. Check out their publications, and try to read (or at least skim) one representative publication before you start forming an opinion. The goals of this step are three-fold:

It will give you a good idea of how productive a research group is, and whether a professor is even accepting (or currently has) students. This is closely tied to the funding situation of that professor.
It will make you more informed about whether you really want to join that research group. What looks interesting at the high-level is not necessarily as exciting once you get into the nuts and bolts of the research.
If you discover a really good fit (which is the best outcome of this exercise; trust me), you can use that in a big way in your application. In CS, for example, students often post their code or demos. Download those and tinker with them. Apply them to new datasets. Have fun with what’s available. I’m sure similar things can be done in other research areas.

Try to make contact with the faculty member of your choice. At the same time, also try to establish connections with the grad students. My adviser once showed me a list of potential Ph.D. candidates he was screening and asked me if by chance I’d heard of any of them. As it turned out, I did know one, through early contact. Needless to say, she got the position. The rest of her application didn’t even really matter at that point. Note that the reason you should do this step after Step 1 is to enable you to write an ‘intelligent’ note to the person you’re contacting. It’s a good idea to not mention that you’re applying at all in your early emails. Instead, try to start a conversation around the actual research. Show that you’re interested and that you know what you’re talking about. (The ‘know what you're talking about’ part is pretty important though!) Become a familiar name in that group.

Make sure to attend lots of talks by visiting faculty in your undergrad university. You don’t know where that will lead you. If someone’s talk influences you to pursue an area of research, that’s an excellent thing to reference in your SOP.

How does all this relate to the SOP? The SOP is your chance to show your committee that you did this and more. You can drop faculty names you’ve successfully contacted, and even reference papers. You can personalize each application. Most SOPs don’t cite even a single paper. Citing a paper though will move your application up another notch in the eyes of an academic committee, but only if you do it intelligently and appropriately.
Having reviewed certain applications, I would also like to mention one major flaw that shows up in the majority of the SOPs that get rejected. The SOP is not the document where you should get too personal. Don’t waste too many words discussing your childhood, or random thoughts you've had, or your theory of life. It's fine to state interests and hobbies and unrelated accomplishments, but make every word as objective (and verifiable) as you can. This is generally true, but especially so for STEM programs. Academics are impressed by crisp, concise writing.
The SOP is also your chance to explain negative experiences, such as poor grades, letters, or lack of research experience. This is a tricky balance. It is important to candidly and directly address your weaknesses: it looks very out of touch if you write an aggressive SOP but never mention your awful grades. At the same time, the SOP is not the place to do a lengthy post-mortem on your failures. You should tell a very simple, clear narrative: "I had personal and medical problems during my junior year, but my performance during the  other three years was very strong." If you want to give a concise reason ("my father died"), you may, but don't overdo it.
Compensating for a poor SOP
Compensating for a poor SOP is very difficult. A high GPA and perfect GRE scores will do little to help an applicant who has difficulties writing about research. In some fields, past research experience is expected, while in other fields the ability to write about research intelligently may suffice in convincing the admissions committee to admit you, even if you don’t have experience doing research. Strong letters of reference can, to some extent, address a weak statement of purpose. However, there is generally a strong correlation between the strength of letters of reference and past research experience. If you have no official research experience, try and get letters of recommendation from professors where you completed a class research project that got a good grade. Even if you didn’t do supervised research with the professor, the professor may be able to comment on your research skills and successes. Definitely contact the professor and remind them of your class project, and the grade you received. Summarize it, and attach the project to the professor so they can refer to it.
References
You’ll want at least one very strong reference for a top-ten program and in many cases two strong letters (three is actually quite a stretch). See my note above for how you can secure at least one very strong letter by doing a senior thesis. Try also to aim for at least one research internship during your undergrad. This could lead to a second strong letter from a researcher in your area. Letters from industry don’t usually have the same appeal for academics.
Compensating for bad reference letters
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Interview
Most STEM positions (physics, math) do not require an interview.
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Compensating for a bad interview
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TOEFL
Improve your English and retake TOEFL; generally, schools have minimum TOEFL scores, and taking a student whose English isn’t good enough can be a huge headache.  Some schools in the US will do phone/Skype interviews with prospective international students to get a sense of their English.
Meeting the minimum requirements
Every university/department handles the stated minimum requirements differently. Sometimes a hard threshold is used such that if an application fails to meet all the minimum requirements, it will not be considered at all. Other times, the threshold is soft, and applications that do not meet all (or some) of the minimum requirements will still be considered. If you do not meet the minimum, only the department you are applying to can tell you if you are eligible to apply.
Transferring graduate schools
If you have a poor undergraduate record, getting a master's degree might make sense. Good performance during a master's might make up for poor performance during undergraduate. On the other hand, master's degrees rarely provide funding and often require the student to pay tuition. Further, some doctoral programs prefer or require that students join right out of undergraduate. So, you will need to determine whether pursuing a master's makes sense given your goals. The other option is to take another year of undergraduate to retake coursework/exams and pursue research opportunities.
If you do decide to pursue a master's degree, some tips are to: pursue a research-based masters (not coursework-based), find an advisor who will be able to write you a strong letter of recommendation, and carefully address your experience during your own statement of purpose.
If you have a poor record during graduate school, it can be very difficult to transfer graduate schools. As reported here are, you must report your experience at the other graduate school; concealing your attendance could end your career. Beyond that, most of the advice above applies; however, it is even more important to craft a clear narrative that explains what went wrong and why things will be better at the new institution.


How to find the list of universities running a specific program? Is there any way/resource for finding the list of universities offering a specific degree?

I want to find which universities have a specific program (both undergraduate and graduate).

My target is the US and UK universities, but other countries are also useful (though, I think it is difficult to search because of different terminologies in different languages for a discipline).

The UK graduate schools are officially ranked through Research Assessment Exercise (being currently phased out to be replaced by Research Excellence Framework), so you can get a full list of programs that are of any worth here.

In the US, rankings are produced from time to time by the National Research Council. The most recent set is from 2009. The methodology and reporting format are beyond weird, but at least the list of programs is useful (albeit difficult to navigate in the Excel file format; I found my area, statistics, under "Physical sciences", for instance, which is a very distant shot). The 1995 rankings were done with involvement of real statisticians, so I trust them better.


How much is an average time of waiting to receive a reply from Professional co-author? I have sent my manuscript to a professor of math about one month ago. This manuscript was written according to his encouragement for a joint research work. He told me that send him what I have done from my side, and then he will add additional materials from his own side. I want to send a tracking email about the status of that. Should I do that or I must wait for his reply?

"I want to send an email email asking him for an update about the
status of that. Should I do that or I must wait for his reply?"

Absolutely. Why? Because it has been 1 month and you have not received any communication from him yet. Usually after waiting a full 7 days, it is not inappropriate to send a follow-up email.

"How much is an average time of waiting to recieve a reply from
Professional co-author?"

It varies. Some people reply the same day, some the same hour, but it's also not uncommon for people to take a month or two to reply.
Usually it is not inappropriate to ask for an update 7 days after the first email. Another one after another 7 days can also often be considered okay. It's when you send more than 2 follow-up emails, or when you do not wait ~7 days between them, that it might start to be seen as "nagging", but even then that's not always the case. Please send him a follow-up email and ask us what to do if you still have problems after that. My guess is that he'll reply (since he asked you for the manuscript).


How to make good use of a small startup fund? I'm starting a tenure track position (in the US, computer science) in fall and the position comes with a startup fund that is insufficient to employ any (postdoc) staff and PhD students are funded directly by the department. Also, my conference travel is taken care of by other funds.

How can I use the (limited) funds that I have to benefit my career?

Edit: I'm mostly working in theoretical research (algorithms).

For those not familiar, Theoretical Computer Science is mostly formal mathematics. Thus the success patterns for research professors are nearly the same as those in Mathematics. In particular, research collaborations are critical.

  How can I use the (limited) funds that I have to benefit my career?

There are ideas in two categories that can benefit your career: 1) build fruitful, productive research collaboration relationships; and 2) professional service in areas of critical need. (Nearly all tenure committees and funding agencies consider "service" or "broader impacts" as one of the major criteria for tenure or funding.)

EDIT: These ideas are unconventional and represent a particular set of values.  They value long-term benefits over short-term.  They value making a difference in the academic community over immediate personal benefit.  If you have different values, then you'd make different choices.

For the first category, you could use the funds to sponsor or host activities that will expand your research opportunities, especially build new collaborations.

For example, you could host a series of workshops that bring together researchers that don't normally work together.  These researchers could come from your department (if large), from other departments at your university, or from other universities.  Because you host the workshops, you can organize them to meet your objectives.  Maybe they are oriented toward a "challenge" (a la "hackathon"), or maybe oriented toward writing interdisciplinary research grant proposals,  or maybe you give each other tutorials on your specialties, hoping to find fruitful intersections.  For a good source of topic ideas, read the "Dear Colleague" letters from Program Mangers at NSF, and also the NSF program solicitations.

It may be there is already some workshop or conference that is close to your interests.  You could use your funds to host an add-on event.

For the category of professional service, you might consider these two ideas:

Host a series of workshops for CS majors at your university who are in under-represented groups (women, minorities). The goal of the workshop would be  help them with the personal, professional, and practical challenges they might face at your university.  If you don't know much about this topic, then you should recruit experts as presenters and facilitators.
Find your nearest Historically Black College (HBC) and co-host a Theoretical Computer Science workshop with someone in their CS department, aimed at students from both institutions.  You'd have to spend time to learn about the HBC, what their students are like, and how to usefully engage them in this topic.  In addition to benefits for the students, this could lead to an unexpected research collaboration for you.


Who should write a recommendation letter? When applying for a faculty position (from assistant to full professor), the search committee asks for 3 - 5 recommendation letters by people who know the applicant professionally (and probably in person).

The first factor for choosing a reference is his/her relationship with the applicant, but another important factor is the (academic) position of the writer. Possible references can be:

Past PhD student/post-doctoral fellow who is now an assistant professor: probably he is the best person to describe the
applicant's attitude towards students and education (something that
is critical for the search committee).
A faculty colleague: closely witnessed the applicant works, but not directly involved.
Department chair: supervised the applicant, but probably his view is just the standpoint of a boss.
Dean: had less connection with the applicant, but can provide a top view about the applicant.
Provost/Vice Presidents: very little direct connection, but can show the applicant's relationship with senior people.

The point is that how to balance the level of relationship and the reference's position? Normally, recommendation letters by people with higher positions are more reliable, and can be trusted search committee, as a colleague may bias the letter for a colleague, but a provost will not do this for an employee.

Is the position of a reference more important than his/her direct connection with the applicant (considering the fact that a senior person has no reason to write a recommendation letter for someone he does not know personally)?

UPDATE: Some commented that references should be not-related peers, not people who know the applicant. It seems I'm a little bit confused.

Do you list references who do not know you at the end of CV/resume? References named in the applicant CV can be contacted for a job application.
Some job ads ask the applicant to arrange submission of three letters of recommendation to the search committee (for example, see a job ad at UC Berkeley). Do you ask people who do not know you to submit a recommendation letter about you?
Nowadays, most job applications are via online systems. When the online system requests a recommendation letter just send an email to the named reference to submit his/her recommendation for Mr./Mrs. X (but will not attach his/her resume or works). How one who does not know the applicant can then submit a recommendation letter.

Your letters should come from experts in your field who are familiar with your work.  They should be written by professors who are substantially more senior than you are, and who will be known to the people reading your applications.

A typical situation for someone applying for a first job out of graduate school would be one letter from your advisor, one letter from someone else in your dept. who is also an expert in your field, and one letter from an expert at a different school who saw you speak in a seminar or at a conference and who has read your papers.  It is not necessary, at the new-graduate level, to have had more substantial interactions with outside letter writers than their having seen you talk and read your papers.  If you can get two good outside letter writers, then do that instead, but in my experience it's common to have only one outside letter writer at this stage.  At least two of these people should be at the associate or full professor level, and all should have excellent tenure-track jobs.  For someone a few years out of Ph.D. one would expect, in addition to the Ph.D. advisor and postdoc advisor, letters from well-known experts in the field who have interacted more substantially with the applicant.


Is it appropriate to include class presentations in CV? I have just earned an MA degree in a social science field. I'm planning to apply to American PhD programs (sociology). I'm from a developing country, and my university is quite modest, if not godforsaken, no extracurricular activities, no interest in research. My CV is quite empty. All I have is the  B.A. and M.A. degrees (I'm ranked first in both of them, if it matters), plus a B.A. thesis and an M.A. one; both of which are, I believe, worthy of publication.

I used to jump at every class presentation opportunity in my B.a. and M.A., sometimes in front of more than 100 classmates, at other times around twenty (M.A.). Sometimes, I used to spend half of the session presenting and leading the discussion, sometimes the whole two-hour session.

Is it appropriate to list these presentations (+10)? If so, in what format?

I feel your CV is already quite strong based on the fact that you have topped in both the mentioned bachelor and masters degree. Adding this detail in the achievement section would be sufficient to make the CV look strong.

However, I feel that presentation and discussions are integral part of the degree in Arts itself. So, by adding these details (which are trivial in some sense) would not help much. However, you could probably mention something in your strength section of CV under "Presentation skills", "Discussion skills". You don't have to mention the topics that you have presented, as these would look like junk to some people.


PhD thesis without acknowledgements During the process of writing my PhD thesis, I was close to falling out with my adviser, the advice I received from other staff at the lab (including the director) was unhelpful at best.
I have since made up with my adviser and have successfully defended the thesis.
I now have to publish my thesis.

The department says that one can include acknowledgements. All of the theses I have seen in my lab and in my department feature acknowledgements.
Due to this special situation,  I don't quite feel that acknowledgements are called for. Yes, my adviser helped during the first half of the project but then almost completely reverted his stance. In terms of contribution, it is my opinion that he comes out at 0%.

I do not want to address any of the issues in the acknowledgements. I do not think that this is the right place. Likewise, I do not feel like thanking any of the involved people.
Therefore, I would just leave out the acknowledgements completely.
In academia, is this considered worse than lukewarm acknowledgements?
Should I actually care about the acknowledgement, because others do?

A thesis is not a place to solve grudges. It is a professional document that is eternal. As such, it should be handled professionally and gracefully.

Still, I am having trouble why you do not want to have an acknowledgement section. Do you really believe you have done the entire PHD entirely yourself? Even if your advisor did not help enough, you had some funding right? And someone provided that. Should not he be included in the acknowledgement section? Someone also proofread your thesis. You probably also had co-authors in your papers. As you see, there are multiple people that contributed to your success.

But on a more informal tone. Don't you wish to thank your family or significant other for the support? Or your PHD co-students? The people that you share your office with? You have finished a PHD and especially since it probably was a rocky one this a very good reason to celebrate. Do not spoil the moment with petty grudges. Do what you are required to do, be professional and move-on to better things.


How does the COVID-19 crisis affect durations of peer review and editorial handling? One question we often get on this site in one form or the other is: Is my paper under review (or similar) for too long and if yes, how should I react? Now, suppose I have gone through all the steps to answer this question in a normal situation: I have procured statistics of the journal’s handling or peer-review times, added a fair margin for individual variability, etc. My question is: How should I modify these in lights of the ongoing COVID-19 crisis? I do not want to bother editors more than appropriate.

The obvious thoughts are:

Some reviewers and editors are busy with challenges arising due to the crisis, e.g., due to having to switch to online teaching, having no childcare, etc.
On the other hand, some reviewers and editors now have more time available due to conferences being cancelled, not being able to access their labs, and similar.
Some fields are obviously directly affected by the crisis, in particular medicine, virology, and epidemiology. I am not considering those.

I am only interested in answers that go beyond such obvious thoughts, for example being based on experience as an editor.
The ideal are answers based on statistics, but those likely do not exist yet (but will be welcome when they eventually will).

I am an associate editor for two journals, and although the situation is fairly new, I expect to have no substantive change in the time for me to handle papers.

The reasons for this are:

Pretty much everything is handled purely electronically anyway, so there's no physical interaction to be disrupted.
Reviewing is typically a sparse activity by people who are mostly always overloaded anyway, and it's always fairly low triage for people.  As such, I don't anticipate the availability of reviewers to particularly change: if people have more time, they'll fill it with things more important to them; if people have less time, I'll just have to ask a few more to find a full reviewer set.
The time to review is typically dominated by the time that a manuscript ages quietly on the reviewer's desk before the review deadline arrives --- actually carrying out a review often does not take all that much time, by comparison. The number of weeks we give our reviewers isn't going to change, so that dominating time won't either.
Because of the preceding factors, there's already a lot of stochasticity in time to review. Even if it does go up a bit, I doubt it will be readily detectable against the background of stochasticity.


Paths to mathematics/university/research while dealing with a few difficult situations I'm a (just turned) 17 year old student (Year 11) from Australia in a bit of a tricky situation. Unfortunately, I spent most of the last few years and am currently in a psychiatric unit. I've also liked math for a while now, specifically certain subfields of algebraic topology and differential topology/geometry, like (topological) k-theory and cobordism for the former and spin geometry/index theory for the latter.
However, I've fallen very far behind in schoolwork and because of the risk associated with my going back to school, my the school admins decided to prevent me from returning  (it was not a good school  anyway - an all boys school (club) full of Neo-Nazis (that isn't even an exaggeration), rapists and the like. This leaves me in a difficult position because I don't thing it's possible for me finish school (I've been described/diagnosed by almost half of the DSM, MDD, Adjustment disorder with depressive features, GAD, SAD, BPD, cPTSD, NPD, OCD, ASD - all at different times).
I also can't really go back to home, so sometime next week I'm being put into a youth hostel/communal living place/refuge (this is bad because I might never get to see my cute dog (golden retriever) again). I really want to go to university to study math and eventually do research(?) in some of the areas I mentioned above but I don't really see a feasible way there. I know asking for life advice online is questionable but I really don't have any idea what else to do. Any suggestions/hard truths/similar experiences/comments in general would be really appreciated. Thank you all.

Universities typically demand qualifications, which you don't have. You could get some: You seem familiar with advanced areas of mathematics, perhaps you can study some revision guides, teach yourself whatever you need to know to get some qualifications. (I'm unsure which institutes you can enrol with in Australia. I presume such institutes must exist. They do elsewhere—not everyone follows the traditional route.) Alternatively, you could reach out to universities, explain your situation, negotiate why they should admit you without typically mandated qualifications. Perhaps you have someone who can help you, e.g., some staff member who happens to know an academic who is willing to help you navigate the system.