How important is to include an acknowledgment in the poster presentation? The organization where I work provided me funding for a poster presentation. My opinion is to acknowledge the funding organization due to the research team of an organization is the authors of the paper.

  How important is to acknowledge the funding agency?

I am using Logo of organization in the poster.

  Using the Only logo will be good without acknowledgement in the
  poster in Acknowledgement heading?

It is acceptable to use one or both ways unless there is a restriction policy from your organization or the committee of the event, at which the poster is going to be presented.

However, a poster is very short to present your work and ideas and you want to properly invest in the space. In my opinion, a logo is enough to acknowledge the funding agency. The assumption is that there are no other reasons to put a logo of any organization in your poster if it does not support the work in one way or another.


Are researchers for big digital companies experienced researchers/scientists or just experienced industry programmers? Are people doing research for Microsoft, Apple, Intel experienced researchers/scientists or just experienced programmers using other people's research? Do they hire full time researchers for their research or do they take experienced/skilled professionals who are familiar working with java, C++ and other commercial technologies?

Microsoft has a prominent research arm, Microsoft Research.  Intel has Intel Labs.  Both organizations hire research-focused PhDs from both industry and academia, and both employ researchers that have joint appointments on research university faculty.  Employees at both organizations also routinely publish fundamental research at peer-reviewed conferences and workshops, and in journals.

Apple is a tougher nut to crack -- they spend truckloads of money on R&D, but rarely publish in peer-reviewed venues.  However, they do hire plenty of PhDs who do focused research on products that sometimes turn into the next iPhone.

All three companies file many patents, as well.

Many other big companies also have research labs, and openly hire researches specifically working on fundamental research.  However, as with any company, research tends to be focused in the direction that could eventually produce profitable products -- if you are considering a research job at a company, you should take this into consideration.  For what it's worth, Microsoft Research seems to be closer to the "research for the sake of science" than some other labs, although there are others (notably, labs such as (formerly) Xerox PARC and Bell Labs are famous for groundbreaking fundamental research).


Attend conference without a published paper What are the advantages for a new grad student to attend a conference without having a published paper?

Actually, there are several things. One is you get exposed to a lot of ideas and current research by attending the talks. Don't be afraid to be visible. Ask a question or two if the opportunity arises. Smaller groups/talks/workshops are more useful for meeting people than plenary sessions.

Another is that you can meet a lot of people in your field, some of whom might give you more idea or be interested in your ideas. If the conference has lunch venues, be sure to spend some time there. Introduce yourself.

If there is a poster session, you can meet with some folks, many of whom are also grad students, and learn about their research ideas.

While you are there, take a lot of notes. Collect a lot of business cards if you can. Pass out a lot of business cards with contact information if you can.

Ideas. Networking.


Is having a master's thesis important for US PhD applications in linguistics? I'm a recent BA graduate. In my field (linguistics), it seems like most successful applicants to PhD programs at top schools have Master's theses, and writing samples in the field are probably the most important part of the application. My writing sample will probably be only 20 pages long at best, even though I think it's really interesting and good.

Am I at a disadvantage? Would it be better for me to get a Master's before trying again? Or do they only just care about the kind of research that you do?

Ph.D. student in linguistics here.

I'd say "probably not," especially if you and your educational background are both American as well. Stand-alone MA programs in linguistics in the U.S. are difficult to find. Where they exist, they tend to be focused on applied linguistics and education. Most domestic applicants will have only undergraduate degrees. Focus on demonstrating that your research interests are well-defined, that you have a good sense of how to pursue them, and that you have a rock-solid understanding of why the University of X would be a great match for you. Don't worry too much about the writing sample; mine was just a small course paper that the professor liked.

That being said, it can't hurt to have an MA from a reputable school, and aiming for that might make sense as a backup plan. I've seen several people move to Canada or Europe to do an MA in theoretical/quantitative linguistics, then come back to the U.S. for a Ph.D. One of these ended up saying that their MA experience north of the border was something they'd wholeheartedly suggest to people having trouble getting admitted to Ph.D. programs in the U.S. I've heard that there are even a few schools up there that provide funding for international MA students in linguistics, though I'm not sure which ones they are. Worth looking into, though!


Segregation rules for females studying in Saudi Arabia Saudi universities are best in Middle East with nice modern programs and financing and scholarships. Unfortunately, as some of you may know, Saudi Arabia has special segregation rules for women entering the country (they must be followed by a guardian - male-relative or husband) and studying in colleges/universities.

What are exact segregation-related conditions for a foreign woman to study in the Kingdom? Can somebody here share their own experience? Not touching every university, but the situation in the country as a whole.

I myself study as a PhD student in King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). It's a mixed-gender university. A single woman can study here without being accompanied by a husband.

It is a graduate-level university, that is, you can study only for Master of Science (MSc) or Philosophy Doctor (PhD) degrees here.

Regarding programs we have applied mathematics, computer science, electrical engineering, material science, Earth science, marine science, environmental science, statistics, mechanical engineering, chemistry, and many others (I'm not aware of all possible fields that are studied here).

You can find more information on the official website (https://www.kaust.edu.sa/en).


Is the classical chair system (in which a senior professor supervises junior professors) obsolete? Historically, only full professors could have a specific chair, and assistant and associate professors could only wonder under supervision of a chaired (full) professor.

Now, every assistant professor is an independent academic, only with a lower salary and possibilities. On the other hand, a chaired position gains secured research funding, but no other faculty member is under his supervision (yes or no, this is my question).

I think the classic chair system still exists in Japan (at least to some extent). Do universities in West Europe and North America still have such system to place junior faculty members (assistant/associate professors) under supervision of a senior (chaired professor) faculty member?

I know of no American university in which any tenure track faculty member works under any other tenure track faculty member in any official capacity.

The main difference between assistant professors and full professors is that assistant professors do not have tenure.  (Going far enough back in the history of my department, one sees "tenured assistant professors".  I don't know what that's about.  I am not willing to claim that nowadays no American university has tenured assistant professors, but I do not know of any.)  "Associate professor" is ambiguous on this point: in most cases associate professors have tenure, but at my university the promotion and the tenure are distinct processes with slightly different rules, although they are similar enough and onerous enough that candidates get pressured -- perhaps a little unfairly, in my view -- to carry them out simultaneously.  There are a few really good places where "associate professor" is a title awarded to young faculty for which their future tenure is by no means assured -- I'm thinking of you, MIT.  But that's rare.

You write that an assistant professor is "with a lower salary and possibilities".  I wanted to let you know that this really need not be the case.  Academic salaries are most competitive now at the assistant professor level; since annual raises have been meager or nonexistent in many recent years, an associate or even full professor cannot be counted on to have a higher salary than a new-hire assistant professor.  In fact the amount of our first offer to new-hire assistant professors in my department is very close to my current salary (I am an associate professor not so far away from promotion to full).  This means that if the candidate negotiates at all, they will get offered a higher salary than mine.  This has certainly happened.  (All this is a matter of public record.)  I think that there are no full professors in my department making less than new hire assistant professors, but there are some who are not making substantially more.

Also, in my department and at many others, assistant professors do not have fewer "possibilities": with the exception of certain voting rights in faculty meetings, they have identical privileges with all other faculty.  They may begin with less "service responsibility" than older faculty; that is probably an advantage.


What if in hindsight a Nobel Prize is wrongly awarded (for example, after the concerning theory has been proven wrong)? I read in this paper (maybe popular, but I think they didn't tell nonsense) observations have been collected by a group of researchers that maybe after all dark energy doesn't exist. Dark energy implies an accelerated expansion of the universe.
For these observations, a Nobel prize (if I remember correctly in 2011) was awarded.
More generally, does anything happen for the winner(s) of a Nobel price, financially-wise or price-wise, or whatever-wise if it turned out later in time that their awarded theor(y)(ies) turn out to be wrong?
To be clear, I'm talking about physics, chemistry, medicine,...Not about literature, economics, peace...

Nothing happens. After all, many, many scientific papers are wrong, and many of them aren't recognized as such for a long time. It's often not fair to criticize the prizewinners this way either, since they can be very careful and competent scientists, they just weren't "lucky" enough for their life's work to be correct.

Perhaps the most clear-cut example hearkens all the way back to 1926, when Johannes Fibiger won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for "for his discovery of the Spiroptera carcinoma." In layman's terms, he found a tiny parasitic worm that causes cancer. Subsequent research conducted in the decades following his receipt of the award would show that though the worm definitely existed, its cancer-causing abilities were entirely nonexistent. So where did Fibiger go wrong?
Though widely respected and considered to be a careful and cautious researcher, Fibiger fell victim to improper controls and inadequate technology. To elucidate his hypothesized connection between parasites and gastric cancer in rodents, he fed mice and rats cockroaches infested with parasitic worms and observed what he thought were tumors grow inside the rodents' stomachs. Later studies would show that they were not tumors but lesions likely caused by vitamin A deficiency, which resulted from a poor diet.
It's hard to fault Fibiger or the Nobel Committee too much for this blunder. At the time, cancer was much, much more of a mystery than it is today, and Fibiger worked tirelessly to solve it, exploring all sorts of hypotheses, not just those involving parasites.

That said, I wouldn't put much weight into the argument that dark matter/dark energy don't exist. There've been many attempts to do away with one or either ever since the 1980s. Every now and then they make the media too. But standard dark matter theory has scored many significant successes to the point that Sean Carroll said in 2012 that "by now we’ve accumulated enough data to conclude that the universe cannot be explained solely by modifying gravity". The evidence for dark energy is less compelling, but still getting more compelling constantly. Until we know what they are people absolutely should work on alternatives to both of them! However, these papers come with big caveats about how likely they are to be wrong, which the media seldom mentions when they write about them. For example, the paper cited by the article you link dates to 2017, which is ample time for the community to process it, but Lambda-CDM remains the gold standard (i.e. the paper hasn't convinced the community and is most likely wrong).


How to adopt flipped classroom strategies without student complaints? I have been adopting flipped classroom strategies (in upper-level chemistry classes ~20-30 students), but I often get feedback from students that they want me to "just go back to regular lectures" and that they perceive the flipped classes as more work.

I think the results are positive for student learning in my classes, although I haven't done formal assessments. I also personally appreciate the change of pace and style. Previously students might have felt that I wasn't giving enough concrete examples and this definitely solves the issue, as well as making me more responsive to a particular class's needs.

I am wondering about strategies to overcome student apprehension about active learning styles.

As a student who has experienced a flipped learning method and especially one which was done horribly, I'll throw my two cents in. The way the flipped classroom was executed at my school was to have the students read an interactive textbook online before classes (this course was finance 1) and come to class to do some practice problems. The strategy that my professor used, whatever that was, failed horribly. There was petition at the end of the semester to remove the format signed by over 1000 661 students and the idea was pretty much scraped for the second semester.

The following points are ones that I feel are important to having this work successfully.

Classroom size
Lecture material
Difficulty of quizzes and tests related to the amount of lecture material
Make it worth their money

Firstly, it is incredibly important that you are present at all times especially if the classroom size is big. The students are hoping to come to your lecture to learn from you and to learn from your experiences in the subject. Therefore, being there and always lending a hand is very important. Furthermore, if the size of the classroom is too big then consider getting many  TAs. The consequence of not always being present or not being helpful usually means that students stop coming to class because they feel it is not worth their time. I believe the classroom attendance steadily dropped to less than 15 - 20 people per class out of 100+ students across all sections.

Secondly, if you don't want students to object to this teaching style then make sure the teaching material provided to students is sufficient to study from. If the course is technical then a couple of handouts will not be enough. Students need a concept to be explained a number of times in numerous ways using multiple examples. This is how they will study for quizzes, tests and exams. Furthermore, embed your personal experiences and neat tricks/tips into handouts. If you are going to ask students to learn from just Khan Academy videos or something similar then I can guarantee that students will hate it.

A follow up point to this is the difficulty of the quizzes, tests and exams. If you don't want your students to grovel over the course then make sure your quizzes, tests and exams are representative of the material that you have handed out. One of the main reasons a petition was signed at our school was because of the results. Whether the fault was with the teaching style or the students, that is difficult to say. However, most if not all of the students blamed the teaching method. At the end of the day, most students care about their grades and they will blame the most recent change which in our case was the change in teaching style.

Lastly, make it worth their money (time). It is important that you explain to students either via hardcore stats or some other method that this is worth the money they have paid for the course. In our case, most students felt that the professor was being simply lazy by not teaching and felt they were losing their money.

I hope this was helpful! Good luck!

EDIT:

@JessicaB suggested that I didn't say explicitly where the professor went wrong so I would like to elaborate here.

The professor did not provide adequate learning materials. Finance 1 is heavily quantitative and therefore, most students require lots of examples and in-depth reasoning as to why things work. The strictly online textbook the professor used was not thorough enough to explain some of the problems students were having. Furthermore, the practice problems were not at all indicative of the midterm which was given. To draw an analogy, picture learning only how to solve equations of the form ax+b and then being on the midterm to solve equations of the form ax^2 + bx + c.
The professor made no effort to provide students assistance even in class (which is the entire point to the flipped classroom concept). The professor usually had one TA which he would, literally, point to whenever we had a question. He made no effort to help students and would simply stand in front of the class. This pretty much made most people believe (and no evidence to the contrary was seen) that he was lazy.
He did not have office hours. If the student was not comfortable asking questions during class then tough luck. He refused to answer questions via email or during office hours.

Hopefully that is explicit enough on top of the points already provided before.


What are the differences between a cover letter and an application letter? I would like to apply for a PhD position, and I have found the following requirement in their web page:

An application letter that includes at least:

contact information of the applicant
the topics of interest in ranked order
names and contact information of two senior academics available for reference per e-mail,
information whether the application can be used in filling other vacancies at the Department and,
from which source the applicant received the information regarding the current call.

I was thinking to put all these items in a list and fill them like some type of survey, but I am dubious if I should do that. I mean I have found templates for cover letters, but not for application letters. Is there any format for this?

Good question, and has been something that I have been thinking about also.

Digging around, I found a few articles that may be of assistance, This eHow article (Even though it is more trained towards work, rather than academia), and thi about.com article.

Both links state that there are subtle differences - specifically, an application latter explains what qualifies you for the position/study, and the cover letter goes into more detail as to what qualifies you and explains your interests in the position/study.

I hope this helps (and best wishes with your application and studies!)


How to understand if it's the moment to become a team leader? I am finishing my first postdoc in computer science, and I have to make a decision about what I want to do next.
I have basically two options:

Try to get a new position as a senior postdoc or junior researcher. In this case, I will have limited scientific freedom, and there will be a principal investigator supervising my work. This means having to adapt myself to the scientific strategy of the research group, but also not having big responsibilities, and having the possibility to learn a lot (and get help) from the principal investigator.
Try to get a new position as a team leader or junior principal investigator. In this case, I will have a lot of scientific freedom, and I will be able to decide the scientific strategy of my research group. But I will also have more responsibilities (that is, I'll be fully responsible of my group mistakes), and I won't have anyone directly from which to learn new stuff, or to help me.

My long-time goal is to become a team leader for sure, but I just don't know if now is the right time for the "jump".

How to make the right decision? How to understand what I would prefer most?
How can I understand if I'm ready to become a team leader?

As someone has noted, much of this is down to your personal preference, but there are a few notes I would make on your question, your thinking behind it, and what it entails:

Postdoc

Your characterization of a postdoc isn't necessarily accurate - especially the parts about scientific freedom and adapting yourself to the scientific strategy of the lab. In my lab, I deliberately recruit postdocs with strengths that are not my own, and rely on their expertise to help guide strategy. Similarly, when I was a postdoc, my interests in several different approaches to a problem were something the lab indulged, even if they were decently far afield from their "mainline" work.

Junior PI/Team Leader

It's not clear here what you mean by "Junior PI" - if you merely mean that you'll be new, and not senior faculty. But when it comes down to it, you're a PI, or you're not (and note depending on the project you might not be - for example, I have some full professors who are on a project with me who are adapting themselves to my scientific strategy, because in this case I'm the PI).

But the advice I give my students and postdocs is this: You should be ready to tell your own story. Not an extension or adaptation of mine. You're ready when you can string together what you've done into a coherent whole, and be able to point to a spot on the scientific horizon supported by that story and say "I'm going to head that way." But it needs to be past "I used X method", "Y question was asked and here's the answer...", etc.

Note, some people don't care to get there, and live long, fruitful, and scientifically interesting lives.

And the flippant, slightly bitter answer: When you're tired of doing research and want to spend your time in meetings and answering email. ;)


A way to search for journals that are in a similar area to a given journal Does anyone know a website or application that can be used to search for similar journals to a given journal?
There are many ways to search for journals based on keywords from your title or abstract, e.g. Journal / Author Name Estimator (JANE), but I can't find anything that will give all journals in a similar field to one you already know about.
Many thanks if anybody knows of a tool like this.

The Scimago Journal Rank does this reasonably well for journals in specialized fields (example). However, if you look at a given journal (example) there can be many subject areas listed, so unfortunately it isn't a great tool for finding similar journals that cover multiple areas.

Just don't rely too much on such lists. They're good for exploring what's out there, but the various scores it provides should be taken with a grain of salt. And as D.W. wrote in this answer,

  There is no shortcut. If you are knowledgeable about your field, a random webpage is not going to know your field better than you do. If you are not knowledgeable about your field, then the first thing you need to do is to fix that.


Is it normal for an advisor to expect >80 hour workweeks from PhD students, and threaten them with dismissal? My advisor always keeps pointing out that I should have publications and I should keep working and stuff like that. Recently he's been saying that not all student will finish Ph.D. and you should be careful not to be kicked out. He has this notion that Ph.D. students should work more than 80 hours per week on regular basis and near deadlines even they should cut off from their sleep time. I get the idea that he wants to encourage me and I also know that as a Ph.D student I need to have publications.

Is this type of behavior common among most advisors? Is it common for Ph.D. students to be expected to not have a life and just work? And finally do all advisors keep threatening their students like this?

I'm currently a second year computer science student. I've been accepted by the department, not a specific faculty member. Also my funding is coming from TAship not his grant.  I'm not sure if I should start looking for another advisor, because I'm not sure whether the behavior I have described is normal.

I'm sure some advisors do act this way.  I don't think it's very common, but it does happen.  It's more common for advisors to expect certain results than a particular hourly commitment, but all these things are a matter of extent.

However, in trying to figure out whether to switch advisors, I think you're asking yourself the wrong question.  The right question is:

  What type of advising relationship works for you?

If you feel energized, motivated, and happy under your current conditions, that's one thing.  If you feel overburdened and miserable, then you should probably look for a different advisor.  Even the most competitive Ph.D. programs have faculty who are not so demanding.  You have to figure out what type of style works best for you and try to find an advisor who is a good match.


Acknowledging a reviewer from a journal from which the paper was rejected My paper was rejected from a journal. However, remarks of one of the reviewers were useful, and I incorporated them into the next version of the paper.

Is there a general pattern of acknowledging such contribution (in the Acknowledgement section)?

Or should I leave it, not to advertise information that the paper was rejected from a particular journal?

(As a side note, this paper was rejected two times, each time with one positive review, and one of type "OK, but I think it is not of general interest".)

EDIT:

In my case (as in general in my field) reviewers were anonymous. (Otherwise I would just use their names.)

And in my case the helpful comments were in positive reviews (but I doubt whether it changes anything).

First, I think it is good to acknowledge reviewers as you consider doing. It is the editor who rejects any papers based on the results of reviews so the reviews may still be very constructive and indeed helpful in improving a paper. So I would suggest something like the following

  We/I (gratefully) acknowledge the (critical) review by X on an earlier
  version of the manuscript.

There are many ways to express it and what words you wish to use is up to you and the way you wish to express your gratitude. I would not add the name of the journal(s) where the reviews were conducted (other than in the letter to the journal editor accompanying your MS submission).

I also would like to take the opportunity to add that the following issue, not that it applies to your case but more to point out some bad practices for the community. The poor behavior concerns when someone acknowledges a famous persons review just to gain leverage in resubmitting it to another journal. I have seen how persons have used reviews stating that the paper should be rejected because it is "crap" as a "most valuable input to help improve the manuscript". Since no-one typically knows what this review did, the gut reaction is to think it must have been valuable since the reviewer is well known. For this reason it is good to provide the review/revisions from the old MS when re-submitting it so that the review-revision work becomes obvious to the editor.

As a final point, I would not add the acknowledgement of any reviewers new or old until the time when your MS has been (hopefully) accepted in the new journal.

EDIT: Based on the good comments by Tara B on anonymous reviewers and how to distinguish reviews from old and new MS I would write something as the following

  We/I (gratefully) acknowledge the (critical) review by two anonymous reviewers as well as the (critical) review by another anonymous reviewer on an earlier
  version of the manuscript.

Words in parenthesis are optional and can be exchanged for others that better suit your needs.


Do graduate schools care more about my grades in math courses or my general GPA? I'm currently a junior in mathematics at UIUC. I have been doing pretty well in my math courses (mostly A and A+). I will be completing a graduate course in topology, a second course in abstract algebra, and a complex analysis course before I graduate.  I feel that I can work hard to maintain good grades in my math courses, but my non-math courses are not that good (some B and C's).

Do graduate schools care more about my math courses grades more or my general GPA more?
Will poorer marks in non-math courses hurt my chances of getting into good grad schools?

(I am a tenured professor in the math department at UGA who was on the committee that did graduate admissions for four years.)

If we have to make a choice, then math graduate programs definitely care more about your math GPA than your undergraduate GPA.  We also care, equally, that you take the most challenging and graduate-preparatory math courses that can.  So a math GPA which is close to 4.0 including year long courses in analysis and algebra, some exposure to geometry and/or topology and at least one graduate course would make you a strong candidate for most graduate programs in mathematics.  Certainly one or two subpar grades in other courses are easy to ignore.

Having said that, it would still be better if you got good grades in all your courses, and admissions programs do care about that to an extent.  [Added: Wait, I didn't say exactly what I meant here.  Not good grades in all your courses, but good grades in most of your courses, as reflected by a good GPA.  We will almost never look at individual course grades outside of mathematics and very closely related fields.]  Here are some reasons:

1) If you have across the board difficulty with courses in the humanities and social sciences, then that signifies either a lack of linguistic or writing skills or an inability to focus on a single topic (generally you spend longer writing a paper than doing a single problem set, and the paper itself is one big task whereas the problem set is a collection of largely independent smaller tasks).  But skills in language and writing and the ability to focus on a single topic both play a larger role in the study of mathematics at the graduate level (and beyond) than the undergraduate level.  This kind of poor performance would be exacerbated by a subpar GRE verbal score, and conversely a high GRE verbal score would partially offset it.

2) Some academic scholarships take your overall GPA into account.  At my university eligibility for the highest class of internal graduate scholarship is determined by the student's "academic index", which is calculated using their GRE scores and overall GPA.  This may be a more extreme situation than the norm, but in my experience many if not most scholarship winners are students of the bulletproof credentials variety.

3) In line with the above, you have to remember that the graduate admissions process is highly competitive.  Most math PhD programs in the US only admit students who are fully funded, and therefore by no means could we admit all fully qualified applicants.  (Even without funding it is clear that finiteness conditions on the faculty, the course offerings, the facilities and so forth must impose an upper limit.)  So if for instance you have a 3.8 math GPA and 3.0 general GPA, you will almost certainly be ranked ahead of candidates with a 3.0 math GPA and a 3.8 general GPA (assuming other factors, mainly the difficulty of courses and the quality of recommendation letters) are equal.  But you will be ranked behind some students with a 3.8 math GPA and a 3.8 general GPA.  Such students exist, and it only makes sense to take this information into account.

My best advice to you is to realize that your overall GPA counts for something and therefore do whatever you can to get strong grades in all your courses without sacrificing your efforts in your mathematics courses.  Something that you might want to think about: why are you not doing as well in your non-math courses as you are in your math courses?  I can't think of an answer that wouldn't point the way to room for improvement.  Some possible answers:

English is not your first language, and your reading / writing skills place you at a serious disadvantage in certain courses.

This is a very particular situation.  If you're in it, you should take pains to demonstrate that your English skills are good enough.  Probably you should take and do well on the TOEFL or similar exams.  You should also mention in your personal statement that English is not your first language but have the English in your personal statement be flawless.  The point is that if you're a foreigner and you're English is okay but not as good as the natives, then as time passes it will get better and be less of an issue.  Also a C grade in, say, a Shakespeare class by a non-native speaker has a totally different meaning from the same grade by a native speaker.  The admissions panel will cut you some slack for that provided they believe that your English skills are good enough for you to be successful in the program.

You think it is not possible to give the attention you need to your math coursework as well as your general education requirements.

It certainly is possible.  The students who are winning the Putnam, taking graduate courses in their sophomore year, publishing solo papers in serious journals...are usually also excelling at all their courses.  My own view, which I think is probably shared by many math admissions committee members, is that advanced math courses are much harder than general education requirements.  If you read the assigned materials, can think and write clearly, and give yourself enough time to write suitably and according to the requirements of the assignment, you'll get good grades in these courses.  It does not even necessarily take more time to get an A- in a humanities class than a B-: it's more a matter of having your act together.  (In math courses I have seen students stretch themselves to their limit to get a C and actually been quite proud of their achievement.)

You haven't mastered the skills necessary to succeed in writing-intensive courses.

As above: you should work on this before you get to grad school.

You don't take these courses seriously and didn't realize that graduate schools do.

Well, we do.  Most academics take all academics seriously: generically speaking we are "overachiever types" across the board.  If you look through the profiles of award-winning undergraduates, you will usually see that they graduated summa cum laude, at the top of their class, as a student marshall...whatever is the local form of highest honors.  Success in one academic discipline is undeniably positively correlated with success in another academic discipline.  This is far from logical necessity, but it's out there and we do take it into account.

Added: Since I wrote this answer, I became the Graduate Coordinator for the math department at UGA.  So this topic is much more vivid in my mind now.  Here's what I can report: most applicants have very good GPAs.  The median undergraduate GPA (all classes) of all our applicants this year is around 3.7.  I dug a little deeper, and among American students there is a high correlation between undergraduate GPA and other metrics (including various GRE scores).  Let me also say that we looked specifically for candidates with very low GPAs but did not reject any for this reason alone. Interestingly, many of the (not many) applicants with very low undergraduate GPAs also had not great undergrad performances in math but had nevertheless gone on to a master's program (not at Princeton...) and put up a much more respectable graduate performance.  The brilliant math student who blows off all their other classes is indeed not much seen by us.


Applying for Masters Program at University I work at as a Developer I am currently a developer for a middle tier software company in the US. I have this job despite a bachelor's in economics. With my employers blessing, flexibility with working hours, but with my purse, I have been taking CS classes at a flagship state school here while working. I found that I really love taking CS classes and the formal learning!
Mean while, I have an offer at another uni as a full time developer as part of a grant funded team. One of the perks is covered tuition. My question is, should I decide to apply to graduate school for a CS Masters, does working as at the university as a developer affect the admissions process at all? For example, make acceptance somehow "easier"?

That depends on the university and its rules. General advice is probably worthless. It may be more lenient for an MS than a doctorate, perhaps. But the competition will still be there, and there may be specific rules about candidate selection.
I would expect that most places tuition reimbursement is a complete separate issue than placement into a program.
My advice, if you want an MS is to apply to more than one university. Include this one, of course, but don't cast a small net.


When meeting a professor for the first time, is it always a good idea to ask about their research interests? I'd imagine that a good fraction would actually start to tire (a bit) of the repetitiveness of describing their research hundreds of times over, and would probably want to talk about something else.. After all, does the professor usually benefit when they talk about their research to a random undergrad?

Yet, "ask the professor about his research" is generally considered to be standard social advice in academia... (after all, people love to talk about themselves - http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-people-brain-scans.html ). Is the pleasure of talking about your research similar to the excitement of having the liberty to be self-centered and to talk about yourself?

But maybe professors would prefer to talk about something else - it's just that it's hard to think of a topic that they would prefer talking about, so it's simply a "safe option" to ask them questions about their research?

What I am really interested in - is this - would professors usually prefer to talk about something other than their research, if some such common topic could conceivably be found?

Two points from experience (as a student):

Don't ask/talk about something that can be googled

If you want to talk about the professor's research interest, that's great but the key point is not to talk/ask things that can be answered in a Google search. Asking a professor about his research interest might qualify as one of these cases. Checking his webpage (if updated) might answer the question. "Why did you use X instead of Y in your paper titled Z" might probably be a good question to ask (depending upon the occasion).
Now that I reread my answer, I feel professors are like SE sites. Ask closed non-google-able questions while showing interest and initiative and you will have a good time.

Gauge the occasion

Needless to say, meeting a professor for the first time in an orientation party, conference or a course orientation might call for different "first conversations". Don't force what you want to talk about on the professor. (But then, this is true for all people not just professors.)


I have deep desire to study Physics after I graduate from Computer Engineering; want to know if I have what it takes to be successful in this field I am now studying Computer Application, a bachelor degree in India. I can get a job in the IT sector if I try only a little harder. But I have this deep desire to study Physics starting from undergraduate.

My high school science scores were average. I consider myself as a smart working science student. I want to apply in UK colleges as there I can start from bachelor degree even if I already have one. I study Physics whenever I get time apart from my present course preparation.   But, I have this depressing and demeaning feeling within me that I shall not be able to cope up with Physics, I shall fail and that I don't belong to that field.

I want to know how can I be finally sure whether I have what it takes to study Physics. So that either I can finally remove this desire of Physics from my head and concentrate on Computer/IT jobs or prepare myself for another field of education that I think will best fit me. How can I assess myself?

It's private to me, so I don't want to ask anyone close to me. Not even my almost-a-physicist brother. I struggle a bit at solving deep thinking problems. I am slow at math but I don't give up. Often it makes me cry, but the next day I'm again after it. And I don't think I shall be happy in the IT sector.

Answer from a physicists. Please make an effort to define what it means to "belong to the field of physics".

Do you have what it takes to get a bachelor in physics? Sure you do: if you can graduate in another STEM field as computer engineering you can graduate in physics as well. Physics is hard, but with good math skills, and lots of passion this is certainly not an insurmountable challenge.
Do you have what it takes to get a master in physics? Pretty much same as above. If you still like it after 3 years you can certainly put one or two more. If anything, master is easier as you are already through the first barrier (having the proper mindset)
do you have what it takes to obtain a PhD in physics? If you got till here, then the question is more about attitude: can you on work for long hours, many days a week toward a very hard, possibly ill defined problem, for years? This is a skill you develop in any PhD
do you have what it takes to become a physicist? (physicist = an person that does research in physics for a living, typically in universities or laboratories) It takes a person with a PhD who can prove he/she is creative, relentless, ambitious, can get papers published and money grant flowing, and face extreme competition without crushing under pressure. At this stage, it takes exeptional hard and soft skills, and a good dose of luck.

I think you were referring to the bachelor. Go for it, follow your passion. Are you not sure you want to become an academic? Most physics graduates I know who left the field are now working as quant traders, data scientists, entrepreneurs, journalists, teachers, politicians. Not too bad if you think you would not make for a good academic, right? :)


How long do I study on my own before applying to math grad school? I'm one of those who realized near the end of their Bachelor's in Business Mgmt that they really really love math. I'm interested in research in pure, theoretical math. I am confident in my ability to learn advanced math on my own. I admit this is based on a small sample of experiences I've had so far with self-studying. After a year of working, I decide to do it full time.

Since I'm behind my peers, I was thinking to just learn the fundamentals (Logic, Real Analysis, Abstract Algebra and Geometry) on my own, and then apply for a Master's. The reason I want to do these on my own is that I find I understand things better at my own pace taking the time to solidify the fundamentals. I took a year of math courses on an exchange program at London School of Econ and it felt like learning disconnected facts. Something like saying object x is round, black, with 4 holes etc. vs showing you a picture a black shirt button (which I find more efficient mentally). Concepts were introduced which were too new but no time was given to "form a picture" of the objects. As a result, it felt like very "syntactic". If I understand the basic concepts used over and over in math, rather than things built out of those facts like calculus, linear algebra, applied math and other "less abstract" branches, I feel I'd do well in my Master's course. I love taking the time explore mathematical concepts on my own, seeing how things fit. I find quite often I make my own concepts (simple ones though) where the picture feels incomplete, which is why I want to do research.

I was wondering how long I should continue this approach (i.e. when have I learned enough fundamentals)? More objectively, what should aim to master on my own, before applying to a master's program? (unless you disagree this is the right approach)

PS: I'm 22, and I have financial support at the moment while I get this done. I've started with Logic and Set Theory and becoming good at proofs. I find calculus and linear algebra intro books skip over too many of the more abstract underlying concepts, hence the bottom up approach.

I disagree that this is the right approach. Many grad schools in the US would require you to have a Bachelor's degree in some subject and to make up the courses you missed by not having a Bachelor's degree in math. So your best option is to get started actually completing those courses. I think that unless you have some publications in math with someone who can vouch for your skills even though you don't have the coursework, you're not going to get into a good Master's degree program without the necessary coursework. The further your history is from the required classes, the more work you're going to need to do. Some programs might admit you with the requirement that you take a few semesters of undergrad classes to catch up, but if you need more than a few catch-up courses, you're really looking at a second Bachelor's degree or working on the side through a non-degree-seeking program at your local university.


Why ask for GRE score on the form? This might seems like a silly question, but I don't understand why grad schools ask for GRE score on the application form. In almost all instances, they also require official score to be sent to them before they even start reading application anyway. So is there a reason why they ask for self-reporting of those score?

Also, is there any harm in not putting the score into the application? As in let's say the GRE being taken too late, and the score is not known at the time of application.

(talking about both revised general and subject score)

Thank you.

It's to make the application form easier to review. That way, all the fields on the application form can be printed in one handy package, which could then be sent to a program chair for easy review.

No one in the admissions office wants to have to gather and collate transcripts, GRE reports, and other application information into one printout (or file) just to be able to send the package somewhere for review. Moreover, when reviewing, no one wants to shuffle through a bunch of papers just to find the information they are looking for. This way, GRE scores are always right there on the left-hand side, in Box 10.

In a word, it's for the sake of convenience. It's much easier on everyone at the university if you simply type your GRE scores into an application form where you are already typing so much other pertinent information.

As for why you have to submit the official results, too, that's simply to verify the scores you self-reported.


Does failing the qualifying exam leave a record? For a PhD student, is it common that failing a qualified exam and thus leaving the PhD program results in a termination record, which any future academic program (the student will apply to) will be interested in accessing after getting the student's permission?

For example, some can leave their PhD program with a clean record, according to this blog:

  The graduate committee chair who gave me the news reminded me that I could still apply to other programs and that it wouldn’t go on my record or anything so it will just look like I just left with my MS degree. If I ever want to, I can return to grad school in the future, and I will be better able to choose a department that fits me.

But if the student has received his masters way before his qualify exam, is there other way to write the record that looks better?

But if the student has received his master way before his qualifying exam, is there other way to write the record that looks better?

First, the student doesn't get to write the record. The university writes the milestones that the student passes, specifically, which classes they took and with what grades, and which degrees they earned. (In some countries, the thesis itself also receives a grade, like a class.)  At least in the US, intermediate milestones like finding an advisor, passing or failing quals, proposing or failing to propose a thesis, probation, suspension, termination, and even academic integrity violations are rarely recorded on university transcripts.

So, for example, if a student were asked to leave a PhD program after 2.5 years, for whatever reason, the transcript would show five semesters worth of classes, ending without the student earning a degree, because they didn't.

Many PhD students in this situation opt to switch to an MS degree program in their final semester, so that they can plausibly claim that they were just a masters student.  (After all, in their last semester, they were just a masters student.) They don't have to explain why they left without a degree.

If the student already has a MS in their home department, earning a second MS in the same field is usually impossible.  But another option is to switch to an MS program in a nearby field, for example, applied math or computer engineering or operations research instead of computer science.  At least at my university, switching from a PhD program in department X to an MS program in nearby department Y is usually fairly painless, especially if you have a supportive advisor in department Y.

If even that is not an option, I'm afraid there's little one can do.  Your transcript will end without a degree, and most people reading it will assume that (or at least wonder if) you left because you were forced out.


My Anatomy and Physiology professor is charging for the outline My class already requires two books for the lecture and one for the lab. Is it actually legal to charge $15 for the course outline, written by the professor and published by the community college. I think its unreasonable and kind of suspicious considering it could easily be uploaded to blackboard these days...at no cost and no excuse for any student not looking at the doc or powerpoint. Also, who would i need to speak to at my college concerning the matter and try to persuade for the syllabus.

My view is that this would be unethical if the professor profited from sales of the notes to the students, but not otherwise. I've done this sort of thing myself, writing an extensive set of notes for an important course and having the university sell it at the cost of duplication.

The reason that it was important to do it this way was that I needed to quickly refer to the notes by page (and line) number for certain discussions. It also made it possible for students to use the printed notes as a means of keeping their own notes, by annotating the printed version. But I never "earned" anything from the sale.

While it wasn't "required" in the sense that you were forbidden to take the course if you didn't have a copy, it was essential enough and referred to often enough that the students got their money's worth.

My opinion also, is that if a professor requires a book that s/he wrote in a course, then the professor should refund to the students any net revenue that they receive from the sale. Usually a $90 textbook would yield around $5 or so to the author(s). But, if no revenue to the prof occurs, then this case doesn't apply.


Is there any term that describes the main example that goes through the entire research paper? One of the comments I received on my journal paper was that it lacks a "running example":

  the paper would benefit much from a running example that could be used in the introduction to motivate the idea and referred to in later sections to illustrate algorithms

I understand the idea of an example that works like a backbone throughout the paper and connects all the ideas and sections in order to make them easier to understand.

Now my question is, do we call it "running example" or does it have any other term? I would like to add a brief on the example at the end of the introduction, but I'm baffled with what should I call it.

Note: my field is computer science, but I believe this applies to some other areas too.

When I use a running example (as I frequently do), I just call it a running example.  I don't know any reason why that wouldn't be a good enough term.


Is it appropriate if my former advisor is editor of a journal I submit to? I am a young postdoc. I am considering submitting a single-authored paper in a journal. My former advisor is member of the editorial board. Would this be appropriate? Obviously she cannot be the handling editor, someone else would have to manage my submission and take the decision. But would it be appropriate at all for me to submit in this journal, or should I just find another?

I am afraid that this situation does not pass the "appearance of impartiality" test; even if my former advisor is never involved in the decision, if the paper is accepted in the end my situation will be "I have published a paper in a journal where my advisor is member of the editorial board", and no one will be able to verify that I did not receive unequal treatment.

I don't see any conflict of interest on your side preventing you from submitting to this journal. You can only assume that your former advisor has good ethics and will abstain from handling this manuscript.

Consider the consequences if someone you had a close working relationship with being on the editorial board would prevent you from submitting to a journal: many senior scientists could not submit to any journal in their field.


What is considered "completed work" for a conference submission I was looking at submitting to a conference where the call says:

  completed work only

Q1: Now what exactly is considered completed work here?

That I have already submitted that paper to journals and put a pre-print/working paper version of it online?
That it is a complete write-up (i.e. not just an extended abstract) but still rough on the edges and missing some precisions?

or

Is that completely up to the organizers and I should have emailed them yesterday to enquire?

Background: Said conference is in the field of Economics/Finance if it makes any difference. There is also a poster session and job market candidates are encouraged to submit which makes me hope that also a not-so-complete "completed work" of mine might be suitable to be submitted. Submissions will be subject to a double-blind review process.

Q2: If I do decide to submit such an "almost-completed work" is it fine to try anyways and worst case I do not get accepted or is that considered bad style and will irritate the organizers and reviewers?

Completed work consists of work where you've gone through all the steps of formulating your research question, applying a methodology, and generating and analyzing results. Incomplete work is where you're still in the phase of applying your methodology, or you haven't fully analyzed the results to figure out what they mean. A paper or poster on incomplete work might focus on the methodology or preliminary results, but it doesn't fully answer the questions posed when the work began.

There's definitely a judgement call when you can consider work "completed". Oftentimes, the answers to research questions lead to more questions, creating a line of related work that's never really "finished". In this case, you'll need to compartmentalize your results into digestible chunks that can be considered "completed". Describing future work planned on a project doesn't mean that a work is incomplete.

For a work to be "completed", it doesn't necessarily have to have been written up already. That said, you'll probably have to write up the work before submitting anyway. You almost certainly shouldn't be submitting the same work to a journal and a conference. You could try to submit "incomplete" work to the conference, since it's a somewhat fuzzy line, but don't be surprised if you get a rejection if all you've got is the methodology and no results at all.


Mentor added his name as the author and changed the series of authors into alphabetical order, effectively putting my name at the last I was recruited by a university to work on a research project as a research fellow and have dedicated over 8 months to it. I have maintained a schedule of fortnightly presentations with another senior research fellow and professor to update them with the progress of the research. After I shared the first draft of the paper with them, the senior fellow rewrote the introduction and added his and professor's name to the author list. He alphabetized the list by our last names stating that's the convention they are beginning t follow, which effectively puts my name at the very last. I have done all the research and I feel shortchanged. I did not like the fact that this was not even discussed with me before changing and the senior fellow will be presenting my paper, I was informed. Again, I am upset about this.
Yet, I have been in the system for 8 months, 4 more months to go before my contract is over with the institute. It matters a lot to me that my name appear first in the list of authors as I am planning to do my PhD soon and having a list of publications with my lead authorship will help me get work with the university of my choice.
What should I do? Should I let this go and not be bothered or should I discuss my concerns with the professor? The senior fellow and professor are very good friends and have been working together for over 6 years and I do not want them to gang up against me as I am new to the field. Please advise.,

Speaking from a field where author lists are always alphabetical: This will do you good in the long run! If you follow this convention, you will never have to argue over authorship order - take a look at the amount of questions on this site dealing with exactly this question, and be thrilled that you have the option to simply exclude that from your life.
Since I am in such a field, I also know what people do on their CV: they explain what they did for the study. You can write that you did the experiment, the analysis and wrote the first draft of the paper. This will be more informative for a hiring committee than any amount or author-list ordering principle you can come up with.


Shall I go and see my advisor's father who is on his death bed? In my country in East Asia, it is extremely impolite if I don't do it when I have this information.
However, the US and the EU are known to be more "professional", in my humble opinion. So, in the US, is asking the advisor about his father generally considered "impolite" or "unprofessional" from a professional point of view?

Unless you have some direct relationship with his father, this is not something we'd normally do in US, UK, or Australian culture. (I'm not sure if it's the same everywhere in the EU.)

A polite option might be to tell your advisor something like "I'm very sorry to hear about your father, please let me know if there is anything I can do."

If your advisor is from a different culture, that might change things.


Unplanned sequential interviews with different groups I have recently conducted a set of qualitative interviews with a particular group. Their interviews yielded interesting info about a certain phenomenon. However, based on the information gathered from the first group of interviewees, it led me to a different type group whom I also conducted interviews with in order to explain/expand the first group's perspectives.
So it was a sequential process that I couldn't have planned beforehand without coming across the info gathered from the first group.
When parsing this information in a research manuscript (under methodology section), is it perfectly okay to explain the process of how I did or is there a set of framework out there that explains what I just did?

In general you do not have to disclose the exact order or reason for data collection. Most papers are ‘narratives’ written with the available totality of data at this point. Constructs such as ‘because we found xyz we then tested if abc...’ don’t necessarily describe the actual order of events.
The only times where this is truly relevant is when you run statistical tests. For example, if you collected data from the first group and analysis made you collect a larger dataset that now jointly gets analyzed, this has to be stated and included in the statistical analysis.


Where to find documents/information about research group policies Due to different problems I have had in my research group (I am the PI) and in order to solve them I have decided to write down in a public document, what is our research group policy.

I considered did useless before since I considered it to contain laws that are straightforward in most of the cases, but now I realize about its importance, with the hope that previous problematic situations will not happen again.

The document will contain directives about who and how will lead research projects, what can be expected from the PI and the members, authorship and participation in papers and patents, who can add new members, how will be new collaborations established, etc.

Therefore I wonder if you know or can point where such documents from another groups can be found, I would like to read as many as possible in before I create ours.

You may want to check out this thread by @samuelmehr on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/samuelmehr/status/1139733291899080705

It gives an overview of typical content in what he calls a "lab handbook" (despite the different terminology, this is about the type of document you are looking for), plus a list of links to such handbooks which he reviewed to compile this overview.


Where to find computer science conferences which accept engineering work? I'm studying Master in a school where it's required to publish 1-2 papers in conferences. My lab focus on computer vision/machine learning but I'm not so good at mathematics. I tried to learn but I'm quite overburdened because English is not my native language.

I'm quite good at engineering, coding but not in comprehen math works (the more symbolics & less natural language interpretation --> more scary for me, I don't understand). I don't think I like to be a researcher much because I recognize that every paper is just a node of a huge knowledge tree. Sometimes to understand one node (one paper) I have to also read a lot of dependency papers too. The more I read, the more I get confused and messed up.
(Please not advise me to drop out, my parents and siblings always push me for that).

So I have 2 questions. Is there any chance to get published with only engineering work in machine learning? (Not something too academic/scientist much with math work)
And can you recommend me some conference in CS with some more focus on engineering/application using existing techniques ?

Thank you very much.

The three primary ways of finding a community and venues that suits you are:

talk with people familiar with communities that might be of interest to you (will be heavily based on luck and talking with a lot of different people about their work)
find publications that make the sort of contributions that you want to make (requires broad reading of the literature in your field, and possibly beyond it)
find venues that sound like they are on-topic for you and read papers from it to see what variety of papers seem popular there recently

In short, there is a three-way link here: People <-> Publication <-> Venue

Find one and you can work your way to the others. Find a publication that fits what you want to do, and you can find the venue it appears in, as well as the people involved with it. Given people, you can find what other papers they publish and where they publish them. Given a venue, you can find what sort of papers are published there, and who is responsible for those papers.

All of these are in a constant state of change, so what contributions are valued, what work people do, and what are top/good/ok/bad places to publish changes at least yearly. Ideally you would have local contacts (advisor, other professors, fellow researchers) who can help you, as the search space is so large, but sometimes you are (or want to be) in the minority and so what works for most people near you won't work for you.

Specific to engineering, you should be aware (and look for) the fact that not all engineering contributions are the same, either. Some focus on novelty, technical difficulty, real-world application, industrial applicability, actual deployment, etc. You'll discover that as you read through papers.

I should also clarify that math is not a short-hand for academic or scientific work. While math is often a part of papers, there are many types of paper where you could remove the math completely and the contribution would be the same. Sometimes math is part of the key contribution, sometimes it is sprinkled on for effect (like a garnish), sometimes it is just for clarity, and sometimes it is just because it is standard to include some definitions/equations but they aren't otherwise important. Learning to distinguish them is just part of the process of reading through them - though I suspect you are getting hung up on the fine details before you get to the general big picture, which will actually make it harder to figure out what is going on.

I would suggest you try to read the papers in a less detailed way on the first pass or two, and basically replace the math with this: input -> (magic happens...) -> output. First understand the general gist of what purpose the math is to serve, and then you can go back and look at the math more closely when it seems relevant - but most papers won't be relevant enough to the task at hand to bother with that level of detail. It can also help to join a reading group so you can get the experience of seeing how other people talk about the papers and work through them. This is especially important with unfamiliar math, as there are many natural language ways of talking about the math that makes it make sense, when you would never get that from only reading the paper itself.

Eventually you will be able to find papers and say, "hey, this is the kind of paper I want to write and the work I want to do, only instead of this detail here I would instead like to do this other thing..." - and there you go. Since you have less time to do this than a full PhD, I suggest you be a bit less picky and instead focus on the lower-hanging fruit of being closer to the work your group does, or at least focus on papers you feel are more intelligible to you and settle for an OK fit.

Finally, don't be afraid to ask for help from those around you, that is part of the process and point of being in a program. Well, you can be afraid, that's fine - just ask for help anyway. You will not understand every last bit of what you do, much less what other people do, and that's part of the work - don't worry about it. Much of the goal of the field you are in is to try to make advancements even though the level of complexity has long gone beyond what any one person can understand fully, even with many more years of experience than you have. Do what you can, muddle through, and accept that you will only understand a small percentage of what there is to know.


How should 'van'-names be ordered in a bibliography? How would names with 'van', written in the Dutch style - e.g. van Beukering, J., be ordered in a  bibliography?

Do we count the 'van' element so that e.g. van Beukering, J. would be some point after Campbell, S. - or do ignore the 'van' element so that the first letter is  and would therefore come before Campbell in a bibliography?

Does this depend on whether the author uses the Dutch 'van X' style or the American 'Van X'? Obviously concatenated forms such as Vancouver, C. would be counted as .

This depends on the specific style or country. In the Netherlands, surnames are sorted by the "main" part, so van Beukering would come before Campbell. On the other hand, in Belgium it is sorted by the first letter of the surname. There capitalization is also dependent on how the name is registered in the passport. In the Netherlands, one would write "Van Beukering" if the first name is omitted, and "J. van Beukering" if the initials or first name is there.

In short, it may be difficult to tell if you are not a native speaker. It is probably best to just pick one of the alternatives and stick with that.


Can I get a refund if I bought an article that contains a major flaw? Is it possible to get a refund from a publisher if I bought an article that contains a major flaw (i.e.,one that invalidates the main results or the main conclusions)? Assume the article was bought through one of the main academic publication's paywall.

Of course you can request one - just send an email. You'll brighten up the publisher's office for the afternoon, and they'll be chuckling all the way home.

So just as long as you don't seriously expect to get your money back, you'll be fine. When you paid your fee, you were paying for access to read the paper. As long as that access was provided, then the publisher has met their side of the bargain. Peer review is not a guarantee of correctness. It's a first-level junk filter, nothing more.

And on top of you getting what you've paid for, you've got the additional bonus that you've now got a new paper that you can write, that's practically already written itself; the paper where you take apart your bought paper's argument. Magnanimously, the publisher won't require you to pay extra for this bonus - you got it thrown in for free.


Applying to summer research project, should I tell prof about mental health issues to explain poor grades last year? I'm currently a junior undergrad in a mathematics program, and emailed a prof at a different school if I would be able to apply as a candidate for a summer project he advertised on the school's website. I'm interested in attending this school for graduate work, and mentioned that to the prof.

In his response, he was very excited about my interest in his project (work in ocean sciences) and in the graduate program, and asked if I could send a transcript. I'm very happy about the response, because the prof was very enthusiastic, but due to (what I now know was and is) depression, my grades took a dip, which can be seen in my transcript. For reference, I've done poorly in a mathematics class and computer science class in my sophomore year (2 Cs, and a D in a genetics course, but that's unrelated to this project). Since then, I've gotten Bs in Calc III and Adv Calc (the only other courses relevant so far).

I know this is not a representation of of my ability, as I've done research projects utilizing the material from classes I've done poorly in, and have done well in the projects. At the same time, I don't want to make excuses for myself, and I don't know if it's fair to disclose that information to the prof to make him choose between a candidate like me, and someone else who is "normal".

How should I respond to this? Should I tell him I can't do his project because my grades aren't up to par, or should I try and explain myself?

If the lower grades belong to a specific time period, then it might be worthwhile to provide an explanation.  If they are scattered here and there through your first four semesters of college, then maybe not.  Keep in mind that many students have a bumpy start to college, and professors are used to that.

At this stage, perhaps you could leave it rather vague ("health problems") for now.  If you are accepted for the summer project, do mention that recently you were diagnosed and began treatment, so that your professor is aware of the general situation.  Also, if there are any specific accommodations you would find helpful during the summer project, let him know what those are.

Speaking of accommodations, if you are in the U.S., but don't have ADA accommodations (also known as 504 accommodations) set up, this would be something to consider looking into.  If you are interested, you could start by

looking at your college's office for students with disabilities web pages to see what documentation they require;
thinking about what accommodations would be most helpful for you.  Look around on the web at lists of accommodations some people have found helpful, to get some ideas.


Should a graduate student accept random offer to be a reviewer for IEEE Transactions paper? I have been asked by a well-established professor to review a regular paper submitted to IEEE Transactions, however, I am concerned as in the email, he titled me "Dr. Monkia" although I am still being a graduate student. Of course, I am interested in the paper's topic, but I don't consider myself an expert. He asked if I couldn't review, I can ask a qualified colleague to do so, or let him know immediately.

I had been asked many times to review for predatory conferences or journals, of course, I declined. As far as I know, IEEE transactions are reputed, however, this sounds a little bit weird.

The question: as a graduate student should I accept to review or decline in that case (given the fact I know the topic)?

It is probably a good thing to do, just for the experience. It will also get you on the good side of the professor.

However, make sure, in accepting, that the professor and others know that you haven't finished your degree yet. That might cause them to withdraw the invitation, of course, but it should be made clear.


Could I ask an employee of my company's client for a recommendation letter ? Will it violate any company policy? I will be applying to Graduate schools for Fall 2019, so far I have given my GRE and will be planning to give again, I work full time as a Team Lead at a software company and am planning to resign if I get an admit into a good school.

Now my undergrad CGPA is not very good as I had health problems and I will be probably mentioning this in my SOP.

The thing is that the company I work at has a contract with a very huge software company, lets call this company BIM (name changed) and I work for this company as a contractor but involved fully in software programming and development. The people I work with at BIM are scientists and practically the rightest kind of people to write Letters of recommendation if you want to get into a good college especially to offset the low CGPA. My work experience will probably also help with this but LOR's from scientists is a big deal.

My manager is alright with approaching them for requesting LOR's for the application process, my Project Manager is not. Apparently he believes it will create a "chaos" and probably thinks it would make the clients uneasy (the BIM people I work with might feel uneasy since I am handling a major project)

Now, I spoke to HR whether it is against company policy and waiting for her to reply. Nevertheless I am thinking of going ahead and requesting the BIM clients directly for an LOR since I dont think in anyway that it is a violation of any policy just to ask for an LOR.

What do I do ?

HR can get you the answer concerning company policy. No one here can make a determination other than by guessing. Wait for them to respond or follow up with them.

But also consider the consequences of making your project manager unhappy. Again, you can judge that, but no one here can.


Structure of book chapters A few days ago I was approached to write a 10-20 page long chapter in a book in field of mathematics. I did a little research.  Authors are well known and no scam there. The issue is that this is my first experience and  would be great to know some of the charactristics of a book chapter in math ( research level).  How is it structured? Should one provide more background than typical academic papers?

I assume you were approached by one of the main authors, rather than an editor. They can answer your question as they know something about what they want the book to be. You might even be able to get a draft of another chapter if the project is in progress. But there is too much variability for a general answer here. Perhaps the background you would provide is already covered elsewhere in the book, for example.

But it might also be that whatever you write as a first draft will need to be modified before it is accepted. You might have to do a lot of modifications so that the entire volume fits together properly.


What to tell students who want to know how to succeed in your class Setting is math in the US.

It's quite common for a student who is not doing super well or is worried that they might not be to approach me and ask how they should be studying/what they should be doing do succeed in the class.

I never know what to say. I just don't see it as part of my job to give "study skills" advice and probably won't be able to say anything particularly apposite (especially because I was educated in a completely different system in Europe, so I have no first-hand experience of taking the kinds of classes they are taking). Also, I think developing your own study skills that work for you it literally part of the challenge of being an undergraduate.

But they still feel like, as the professor for the class, I ought to be able to tell them something extra and useful about studying.

What is a good way to deal with these sorts of requests for advice?

Actually, in the US, in modern times, it really is your job to help them develop study skills. Many students arrive at college with hardly any skills at all, having coasted through their previous education, often with few learning burdens put on them. Many don't know how to take notes, or summarize them, or separate the important points from the rest.

More important, in math, they may not have an attitude that it may take more than the minimum to get by and that memorization isn't going to carry them very far.

I've discussed the teaching of learning skills here in other answers, so won't repeat it (search: Hipster PDA, for example).

But there are two things that might work. The first is to require more practice and make sure that students have some way to get feedback on that practice. A text book usually has more exercises than you want to require, but you can suggest that more (even all) be done. You can even hand out supplementary problems that are graded or not.

The second thing is to have a daily quiz, taking up the first 5 minutes of your class. Ask questions based on the previous few lectures (2 or 3, say). The quizzes don't need to count much toward the grade, but should count for something. Students can swap papers and grade each other for a short quiz, so your load doesn't need to increase. But an additional advantage of this, other than the goad, is that you get feedback every day on how they are doing.

I can't say that the students will love you for this, of course. They will likely grumble. But you will learn who most needs your help and it won't be much of a burden on those who don't need additional work to succeed.

I once became something of an expert on rational functions and could look at a definition and pretty much know what the shape of the graph would be. I learned this by graphing hundreds of them, by hand (1960s) using derivative information.

Two specific links you might want to examine for Hipster PDA are one here and one at CSEducators


What do the Dutch academic titles "prof.dr.dr.h.c.ir." mean? Some Dutch academics - I think probably full professors with chairs - have a rather confusing string of abbreviated titles.

One example is prof.dr.dr.h.c.ir. M.J. Plasmeijer, but many other examples can be found by searching for that string.

What do these titles actually mean, individually and collectively?

Here you go:

prof is short for professor.
dr is short for doctor, which signifies either MD or PhD.
dr. h. c. stands for doctoratus honoris causa, which is an honorary title.
ir stands for engineer (ingenieur).

In this case it means a professor (with a PhD) with an engineering background, who got an honorary title at some point.


Using BibTeX when submitting an article Some journals have their own bibliography styles (bst) for BibTeX.

  If a journal does not have its own bibliography style, am I supposed to include the content of the bbl-file into the tex-file I am sending? Or can I send the bib-file instead?

Many journals offer LaTeX-templates showing the style of the article. (This is almost always true if a journal recommends using its own document class.) In some case I have seen that this template contains BibTeX style (.bst file). But in other cases BibTeX was not used in the template, instead it was shown what the preferred formatting of references looks like.

I know that if I were the person who has to do the final typesetting from the sources submitted by an author to conform the style of the journal, I would prefer to have the BibTeX-file. (It is easier to simply change the formatting of references by changing the choice of BibTeX style than changing each separate entry manually.)

  If a journal does not explicitly mention the recommended BibTeX style, what would be preferable way to submit the paper? Should I send both, TeX source and BibTeX file, so that editor can change the references using BibTeX style of their choice, or should I simply send the TeX-file, where I include also the bibliography generated by BibTeX. (And, if necessary, I modify it manually to be in the style required by the journal.)

(So far I have done the latter, but I am not sure whether it was the correct choice.)

I'd send the .tex and .bib file, which seems by far the most logical thing to do, to both you and me at least. On explicit request I'll grudgingly provide the .bbl file.

This should make things easier for them, as you correctly suggest. It is easy and fast to convert a .bib to a .bbl, but the other way round is impossible.

If the journal has a workflow that can't handle .bib files, that seems their problem and not mine. They are the professional publishers who charge for the "added value" of the professional typesetting and printing service, right?


What academic functions does a Professor Emeritus usually serve? I for one have never understood the distinction between a regular prof with a prof Emeritus/Emerita aside from the obvious fact that a Prof. Emeritus is someone who is usually fairly elderly and has spent quite a bit of time in the University.

I am currently spending a working with a Prof. Emeritus who is the a supervisor/advisor to my project and conducts biweekly meetings (which are really brief chats about life) and am in need to make a serious request. I feel uncomfortable because he may have a lot of other work on the side. I do not know whether has classes on the side nor am I aware of any research activities.

How does a professor become Prof. Emeritus (is age-status a must?) and do Prof. Emeritus usually still actively conduct research, teach classes? What is the distinction between a retired professor and a Prof. Emeritus?

To the best of my understanding, the primary function of a professor switching to emeritus status is that it frees up a faculty slot for a new hire.  Emeritus is essentially retirement without giving up affiliation. An emeritus professor can ramp down their duties, go part time, etc.  In some cases they may still do some teaching and supervising, and may have office space, but I believe they are typically no longer paid and no longer expected to fulfill normal faculty duties.  That said, when they are still active, their advice and participation is often still quite valued by the active faculty.


How to welcome new PhD students/postdocs to the group during lockdown? These days several countries (including Germany, where I am situated) are heading towards some kind of lockdown due to the Corona pandemic. Nonetheless, new group members arrive and I have the feeling that I do not have enough good ideas for the question:
How to welcome new PhD students or postdocs to the group during a lockdown?
Many things are not available like meeting in the halls, getting coffee together, going to lunch together… Of course, virtual group meetings work, to some extent, but apart from that?
For the sake of clarity you may consider the following circumstances:

Office spaces may still be used, but only one person per office is allowed.
Many people work from home, some are using offices in a shared fashion to avoid meeting in person.
The new PhD students may have just moved to the city from someplace else.

Here are some things the grad students in my department did to keep connected:

We have a slack group with lots of channels. Some are dedicated to posting memes/talking about random things

We have occasional game nights on Zoom where we play games like Contact and other games that can be played over Zoom.

We sent emails specifically to the new grad students (even though there were only two of them) to check up on them, invite them to our slack group etc. One of the two did start participating quite frequently in our Slack conversations so that was successful.

Also, depending on how careful you need to be with Covid, I think you really can get coffee together. If you're a grad student, and you are new to the city, it's going to be really really lonely staying in your apartment possibly alone and never meeting anyone. Getting coffee or takeout and hanging out outside while socially distanced with one or two people every once in a while is probably a relatively low-risk activity and unless you're particularly vulnerable, I would say it's probably healthier than having no contact with anyone whatsoever.

Along those lines you can also ride bikes, play tennis, or go running together. These things are pretty low-risk depending on where you live. Where I live, there are public outdoor tennis courts that are not very crowded so you don't need to be close to anyone. Exercise has helped me cope with isolation a lot and really improves my productivity.


Is an undergraduate thesis a requirement to get into grad school? I'm about to start my last term as engineering student, and my goal after I graduate is to get into grad school and pursue a master's degree in Computer Science or software development. However, my university is offering me two choices in order to opt for my degree: undergraduate thesis, or just internships (+ internship project). I already received some suggestions from colleagues that due quarantine and confinement is preferable to just go for internships, which I'm almost finishing working from home.

Nonetheless, I'd like to keep asking for second opinions about this. Can I freely choose only my internships without worrying if that could harm my application into grad school? I'd deeply appreciate any suggestion. Thanks in advance.

No, it's not necessary.

Of course, all other things being equal, writing a (good) undergraduate thesis can only help. It demonstrates research capability and independence, and you'll probably get a more detailed letter of recommendation than you would from a professor who you saw only in class. But a similar argument can be made for many extracurricular activities, and you don't have time to do everything.

If you choose to write a thesis, do so because you are interested in the challenge and the topic, not because you are afraid not writing one will prevent you from getting into graduate school.


Should I insert a colour bar if arbitrary units are used? In a journal article, is it advisable to insert a colour bar (i.e. an explication of the colour scale) in a figure if arbitrary units are used?
If the colour order is already stated in the legend, does a colour bar add additional information in this situation?

An example can be found in this abstract. Imagine that this figure was generated by colour-mapping a signal in arbitrary units, if the legend had specified that the colour scale goes from red (disordered) to green (ordered), would the colour bar have been useful?

I would definitely include the color bar.  It just makes things easier to read, since you can compare the displayed values directly with your eyes, rather than having to refer back to a written explanation.  The bar also lets you see how the colors shade into each other as you move along the scale.

If it seems awkward to have the color bar in arbitrary units, you can explain exactly how you came by the arbitrary units (such as "data scaled by the maximum deviation from zero").  Then you can give the bar scale a more quantitative meaning.  Or, you might go the other direction and just labels the ends "low" and "high."


NSF graduate fellowship: how specific should the statement of purpose be? Several of the students who have come to my group as summer students are planning to submit NSF graduate fellowship applications in the coming weeks. However, one question that I am not sure about is how specific the statement of purpose needs to be.

When I applied for the NSF fellowship (going on fifteen years ago), I had absolutely no clue what I wanted to do as a student, other than it was computational rather than experimental. Therefore, my application was all over the place, talking about three different types of projects I might want to work on as a graduate student (and I ended up choosing none of them in the long run!).

However, I get the impression that today such an essay wouldn't be suitable for the application, and that a more narrowly tailored essay is required. At the same time, there's also the challenge of ensuring that the research problem can be done at the school one has chosen, and not narrowing things so specifically that the student is too "boxed in" or too opaque for a review panel to see the merits of.

So how should students thread the gap between vagueness and specificity in writing these and other fellowship applications?

I think this is an issue that a lot of students struggle with; at least I did when I applied last year.  I was rejected, so probably take what I say with a grain of salt.  They say some things on their website that are important to note.

Keep in mind that NSF does not just seek to fund scientists and engineers; NSF seeks to fund future STEM leaders.
Use appropriate scientific form (hypothesis, figures, references) in the Graduate Research Statement.
Instead of elaborate details on theory, focus on the rationale for your studies and the existing literature as it supports your proposed work.

The students that I know that were given the award properly addressed these issues.  My proposal did focus on one research idea and that was rewarded with comments on the creativity and feasibility of my proposed idea.  One of the critiques I got in my review was "While the applicant does demonstrate an excitement of discovery and should be able to communicate his results to a large audience, ...  Broad societal impacts are not evident with respect to encouraging diversity and enabling the participation of underrepresented groups."

The feedback that I got was based on two scores: Intellectual Merit Criterion and Broader Impacts Criterion.  I would make sure that your students take both into account.  As far as the research proposal goes, I what JeffE said is true.  It is an opportunity for the students to show that they are familiar with the current research and are able to come up with an appropriate idea to pursue.


Is it inappropriate to give one faculty member a larger thank you gift than another? I'm a student at a large university, and, after a recent family emergency, received a lot of help from two faculty members in my department. My department adviser, after hearing about my family emergency, offered to contact all of my professors and request assignment extensions for me (because asking for extensions myself would require me explaining my situation to multiple people, and would probably result in some embarrassing crying jags). One of my professors went above and beyond, and gave me an "indefinite extension" on all of my assignments for his class; my entire class grade is made up of three essays, and I've turned in none of them so far, which I realize is probably a big inconvenience for him. He's also helped me personally, as he's been the only person comfortable asking me straightforward questions about my situation at home (which is a topic that most people are very uncomfortable talking about).

I'd like to get both of these faculty members thank you cards, but I'm also considering getting the professor, who's really gone out of his way to make things easier for me, and who I've spoken more extensively with about my situation, a small additional gift (a travel mug from the campus coffee shop that he frequents, a paperweight, etc.). I'd also like to get the professor a gift because I might not see him or take any of his classes again, but I speak with my adviser pretty frequently and have more opportunities to thank her.

Knowing all of this, would it be inappropriate to give the professor this kind of extra gift while my adviser is only getting a thank you card? The two faculty members' offices are fairly close to one another, and I assume that they speak regularly. I don't want my adviser to find out and feel that I somehow didn't appreciate her efforts as much, especially since I rely on her for recommendation letters and the like. Any advice?

I would suggest sticking with a card, but writing your appreciation as extensively as you wish.  There's no reason for the contents of the cards to be similar.

Even ignoring the question of differences between faculty members, gifts can be tricky for professors to deal with, ethically, particularly when it's regarding a favor in a class.

Finally, I guarantee that a heartfelt explanation of how much the help mattered to you will mean a lot more to the professor than a $10 mug.


What is (S’73-M’76-SM’81-F’87) in author biography? What does (S’73-M’76-SM’81-F’87) mean in author biography. I am writing a paper and the format given for author biography also include a must fill entry: (S’73-M’76-SM’81-F’87). I tried to Google it and I can see many similar entries in authors biographies in published papers.

Can someone please help me about how to fill up the field (S’73-M’76-SM’81-F’87) for myself?

Disclaimer: I base my answer on my familiarity with the IEEE. Other societies may follow similar conventions.

For members of the IEEE, the notation in your example is a "shorthand" way for indicating when the author achieved a certain membership status within the society. For example,

  (S’73-M’76-SM’81-F’87)

means that A. N. Author became a Student Member (S) in 1973, a Member (M) in 1976, a Senior Member (SM) in 1981, and an IEEE Fellow (F) in 1987.

If you are not a member of the IEEE, then you do not use this shorthand in your biography.


Is it wrong to change the name of the university on a recommendation letter One of my professors gave me a recommendation letter for my master's degree application however I just noticed that she wrote the specific program that I'm applying to from a different university that I want to apply as well. Is it alright to just change that data? She send it on a pdf file, and I could easily change it to word and change it, but I don't know how acceptable that is. I'm afraid that the new program I want to apply will think is a fake letter or something like that. What should I do? Is 1.45 am and I need to finish the application ASAP.

You cannot do this.

Your professor recommended you for University A; changing their recommendation to University B is fraud. I realize that they are probably also willing to recommend you for University B (they may even have promised to write a letter for University B), so I know it seems like you're just saving everyone some  time.
But, the professor still hasn't authorized you to do this. I for one would be angry if I found out that anyone submitted a letter with my name on it without my explicit permission (and, for an undergraduate student, I would indeed want to glance at the updated letter before approving it).

The other concern is that University B could somehow find out about this and assume the worst (that you falsified the letter). They could reject you without even bothering to ask for clarification.

So, three options:

Ask the professor to change it
Ask the professor if you can change it (this addresses the first concern only)
Submit it as-is -- as noted in the comments, programs will not generally be too concerned about this mistake, particularly if Universities A's competitiveness >= University B's competitiveness.


Can external examiners be from research institutes? Firstly, I understand what matter are the regulations from my own college and advice from my supervisor. I would like to ask this question more as a survey of experience and opinions.
It happens that my supervisor has suggested an external examiner that has lead a lab for numerous years, with extensive experience, knowledge and publications in the field of my thesis, who would surely be suitable in examining the quality of research work by expertise, but also one who comes from a research institute that does not use the titles "Lecturers" or "Professors".
According to the written regulations, an equivalent or higher rank is required, without specifying the nature of origin institute. As I search for more information to understand more of the general practice, I saw some writing "universities or research institutes", while oftentimes this is not specified.
It would be nice if anyone could share more on what have you seen and been thinking so far. Thank you so much!

Yes.  For universities that use external PhD examiners, typically the examiner can be from a university, non-university nonprofit/government research institution, or an industrial research laboratory.  Typically the examiner has a PhD.
University faculty are most commonly selected.