Can I apply for a PhD in the United States with a 3-year undergraduate degree from Italy? I'm currently studying in Italy for an undergraduate degree which is 3 years long (standard BSc in Computer Science). Since I'm also U.S. citizen, I was thinking it would be interesting to perhaps apply for a PhD in the states since it doesn't require a master's degree (it does in Italy). Is this possible or are the systems inherently different?

Many universities in the US have policies that prevent students with a 3 year bachelor's degree from applying for graduate admission.  To get into one of those programs you would have to complete at least one more year of study before being admitted to the graduate program.


Strategies for getting involved in students' work during labs? As a TA I conduct computer laboratory classes (the lecture is conducted by one of the professors). These are part-time studies, so labs take place during weekends, 3 clock hours each. Some students are older than me and are mostly male (I'm female). Some students have longer job experience than me, but I still feel I can teach them something important, not particular technologies, but rather an engineer attitude.

I prepared detailed written tutorials for these classes, which students follow step by step. At particular steps there are some general remarks included, like as you just saw, it's a good idea to include validation both at client and at the server site. The reason I don't say these remarks by myself, is that the speed of work differs significantly from student to student.

The result is that I don't have anything to do during these tutorials. I say a small introduction at the beginning, but it's not extensive, because the theory is covered at the lectures. Students don't ask me for help because the written tutorials address a large set of mistakes that students from previous years already did. When they really don't know what to do, they ask their colleagues.

In rare occasion they ask me a question I rush to them and explain everything, I also say in the beginning that if they have any questions I will be happy to help, so I don't think I deter then from asking for help.

But still I sit silent for most of the time. I only make few rounds around the lab, asking if they achieved the particular step, but they say they did and that's all. The rest of the time I do other things related to the classes (for example review tutorials, check homework, answer emails).

Last year I overheard students saying they like the written tutorials very much, because they are clear and include everything they need. Still I'm worried they can give me bad notes for my teaching, because from their perspective I do nothing and I am of no use to them during labs (last year my final score wasn't count because too few students decided to grade me).

What could be strategies to make tutorial-based lessons with tutorials more interactive? Or maybe I should not worry about it?

My idea was to make the tutorials more vague so that they ask more questions but it seems ridiculous. The tutorials are also used by students who could not attend classes or couldn't finish during labs. Also only first part is step-by-step, because the second part contains homework, on which they can practice self-reliance.

Edit

This situation also makes them ask if they can do the work at home, without attending labs and just send in homework. I'm ok with that, but I think my department is not.

I also had a situation when student send me an email with finished task during labs instead of showing it to me.

From your post it appears that the labs are already highly interactive. Students are engaged working on the assignment among each other. From an education perspective the current learning environment is student-centered, which is often the ideal.

However, one common drawback to an engaging, student centered environment is that the teacher is not the focus of the learning. This can be somewhat un-stimulating for the teacher but the goal is always for the students to have maximum involvement.

One option for dealing with this situation is to shift from trying to lead the students to provide expertise when necessary. When students have questions be available to answering them. Another useful strategy is monitoring. This involves observing student progress and providing additional unsolicited support.


how remind a professor we were supposed to have a conversation through Skype? Recently, I am looking for a PhD position.
I emailed a professor and he said I chose a day for Skye, I did.
Then he said that afternoon is OK with him, and asked me a bout time difference between my country and his country.

then he did not answer me for 3 days and yesterday was the day we were supposed to have Skype.
now, I do'nt now how to remind him

This is a starting point.  You can adapt this to your own style.

Dear Prof. X,
I hope all is well with you.  Did I misunderstand when our Skype appointment is?  I thought it was yesterday.  Maybe I should make sure I know what your skype ID is.  Is it profx?  Mine is maryam.
If you have time next week -- days that would work for me are m, n, or p.
I'm attaching my unofficial transcript.
Sincerely,
(name)


Journal allows me to choose whether to transfer copyright – why would I do so? I am a mathematics undergraduate in the USA. Recently I had a paper accepted to a math journal, and in the final steps of the process I had to fill out a “consent to publish” form, in which I had the choice of whether to transfer the copyright to the journal. My question is: given the option to still have the paper published while retaining the copyright, is there any reason to still transfer the copyright?
In this situation I don’t think it matters much, because regardless of which option you choose you still retain the right to post on ArXiv and your personal website, etc. But I’m curious about what is considered acceptable and/or standard, in case I have to make the decision again.
The specific form I had to fill out is that of the AMS, and choosing not to transfer the copyright has the effect of deleting points 3 and 6.

To expand a little on user2768's answer, the text provided by the publisher normally explains the benefits and implications of the different options quite well.

If you choose to retain your copyright, you are only giving the publisher permission to publish and sell your work, but all rights to your work remain with you. You are in principle free to give other publishers permission to print your work, but there still may or may not be a rider about exclusivity (for a specific time or forever) in the copyright agreement even if you choose to retain the rights to your work.

If you choose to transfer your copyright, the publisher becomes the owner of this piece of text, similar to if you had written a book through a contract with them. You cannot simply turn around and sell or give away the same work to another party.

The (theoretical) incentive for you to transfer is that if the copyright is with the publisher, the publisher has the legal opportunities and incentives to protect their intellectual property, for instance by taking legal action against plagiarized versions of your manuscript. If you retain your copyright, the publisher basically can't know whether you have given another publisher permission to reprint your work, and they also don't really care since it's your work, not theirs.
However, in practice a publisher is only willing to protect your work to the extent that they suffer actual financial damages. For instance, if an obscure spam open access publisher publishes a plagiarized version of your article, you may be very annoyed but the publisher is unlikely to take legal action (or at least none that goes beyond sending them an unfriendly email), since the actual financial damage for them is very, very limited. In that light I agree with you that for most people retaining their copyright is probably the more natural choice.


Should I worry because I don't have Publications Yet? Publish...Publish, I am worried about publications as I don't have any yet, I just have few in masters, but was not a good quality, now in Ph.D., I am working on a new topic and to get a significant and validated results it takes times, I focused on developing a model that could really explain the phenomena which are not explained yet by any researchers.

However, as I am apart of the project, all other members are getting papers so fast and every meeting they mention, how their methods are great, I feel low and less confident, maybe I am stupid as I take time.

According to the current situation, I didn't do any success which I think my career in academia is impossible, as I see all successful researchers have tons and tons of citations.

I don't know if I should give up, I bring this to my supervisor, however, he does not care so much, he is not recognized in the field, so it is not a big deal.

I am serious, feel low and lost because of the high competition and I did not have even one good paper yet.

Should I wait or withdraw from Ph.D., I really like research and my topic, what you recommend me to do in that case?

P.S. I am also getting psychotherapy as I am suffering from terrible OCD because of the past experience, I am doing my utter best and fight, but no one knows that in my lab. I am also so ambitious and hard worker, but not intelligent enough as peers that's why I am asking whether I am wasting time in the wrong direction maybe.

Until your supervisor starts worrying, I wouldn't start worrying. Pure paper count isn't the best measure because some topics yield more papers and others much less. For example 2018 Nobel Laureate in Physiology & Medicine, James Allison, has a h-index of 127. Meanwhile 2018 Nobel Laureate in Economics Paul Romer has a h-index of 49. This doesn't mean James Allison is 3x more accomplished than Paul Romer; it just means they're from different fields. In the same way even if your labmate has published 3 papers and you have zero, it doesn't mean they're 3x as capable as you.

Your supervisor knows what is expected of a PhD student at your university. If you are performing badly, he/she will let you know (or it will come up during a performance review). Until that happens, it's not time to start worrying.

If you are really concerned, you can ask your supervisor if you're making expected progress, or ask him/her to set some targets for you to strive for.


Dividing paper after Reject & Resubmit decision In a recent manuscript, we used a first principles calculation A and used it to explain experimental results B. A and B are based on existing methods, the novelty primarily lies in combining them and going from theory to real world application.

The reviewer gave several comments (fair & helpful), one of them being to divide the work into A and B. The decision was Reject & Resubmit. We (the authors) are divided on:

Submitting A as a letter (short communication) and B as a full paper to the same journal, together, explaining the changes to the editor and attaching response to reviewer.
Submitting A as a letter to a new journal and B as a full paper to the original journal, giving response to reviewer only to the original journal.
Submitting an edited but undivided paper to a lower impact journal.

Which of these is the optimal option?

*Additional information:

The original journal has perhaps 10% acceptance ratio, the lower impact journal closer to 40% (anecdotal numbers only).

Besides the division, reviewer comments are significant and there is some chance that we may not be able to satisfy all the suggestions.

In this field, A and B are generally treated as separate domains, though this is changing now.*

EDIT: Clarification about letter and full paper:
For the journals in question, a full paper reports new, original results, typically without stringent page limits (but conventionally 5000-8000 words). A letter on the other hand reports brief results of immediate interest. These often describe a breakthrough that may not be fully developed, but which opens up avenues for further work. These letters are strictly limited to 2000 words and have a cap on figures etc (typically 3 max.).

This is common for very novel, high impact findings, particularly when the issues are complex and have both theory and application. What I’ve seen work is a shorter theoretical work submitted to a high impact journal that touches on application (often, the work references this ‘submitted’ or ‘in preparation’ work). The longer work is then submitted to a lower impact journal, sometimes just because the page limitations are more forgiving.

This of course works best when you can tell two separate but related stories that feel complete on their own. If you and your coauthors feel like such separation is forced, it may weaken rather than strengthen the effort.

I’d say your #1 might be unlikely unless you get buy-in through discussion with the journal. #3 may not do your work justice. I’d lobby for #2 based on the limited information available.


Differences between the introduction of a sandwich thesis and a paper I would like to know what are the main differences between the introductory part of a paper and of a thesis. My thesis would be a sandwich type, so I would have to wrap everything there.

Some of the differences are:

Longer in thesis.
Deeper in thesis. Extended definition of key terms, concepts and methodology in thesis.
Clear definition of the whole goal in thesis, whereas paper smaller goal.

To narrow the possible answers, I do research on the molecular aspects of the infection steps of a pathogenic swine bacteria. Also develop strategies to block infection by using vaccines.

From a structural point of view, there is no major difference. An introduction should set the work in a wider context starting by establishing the wider context and showing the need for the work done and identifying the knowledge gap that is filled. What is different concerns the matter since a thesis introduction should focus on the thesis not the individual studies (articles/manuscripts).

If the articles/manuscripts all are very tightly tied, then it is probably easier to write the introduction. If the articles are more disparate, which is not uncommon, then trying to tie everything together can be more challenging.The stumbling block for most is that they have not thought about the wider perspective and some do not even manage well to include it in the articles/manuscripts themselves. So I would say that the difficulty does not lie with the fact that it is a thesis introduction per se but rather that many do not see the forest for all the trees while they write the articles/manuscripts to be included in the thesis.


Is it a scientific misconduct to change a variable or a function name when citing a math paper? Is it a scientific misconduct to change a variable or a function name when citing a math paper? The standard name of a function is S, but the author called it E. I want to cite his work, while I use the standard S.

It's certainly not a misconduct. Different authors use different notations. I've even seen different notations being used in papers from the same author. If the new name helps the reader understand what the function is supposed to do, or if it's a newer standard notation, then you are perfectly allowed to change it. In fact, I would encourage you to do so.
I would simply cite the work, write the formula and add a footnote on the lines of

¹ For consistency with the rest of the manuscript we renamed the function E in [1] as S.

Or

¹ Note that in [1] the function S is denoted as E.


Can you submit to journals after presenting cases as eposter in conferences? I had a few medical cases that I presented in conferences as an eposter, I sumbitted the case as eposter, It was presented as a slideshow in big screens in the conference
My understanding is that eposters are not considered publications; so can I submit these cases to journals?

Some journals specify as a requirement that the case submitted should not be published before on other journals or electronically. Where do cases presented as eposter stand on this?

Very few medical journals consider a poster presentation a publication. So vanishingly few that I have never encountered one in my career. Indeed, the primary expectation of the posters I've encountered is "This'll someday be a paper, but these are the preliminary results."

As long as it hasn't been worked into a full paper as part of the conference, there's no reason to worry.

If you're concerned about it, you can include a sentence in your cover letter to the journal something like the following:

"This manuscript is not under consideration at any other journal, however the preliminary results have been presented as an ePoster at the Conference of Big Deal Science."


When citing a paper with a lot of authors; is it OK to shorten the author list in the references section? I want to cite a paper that has a lot of authors. The list of authors take up half a page in my reference list, and considering the prospect of paying for extra pages, I would like to shorten it, if possible. Is is okay to shorten the author list? If so, how many authors should be included?

Every citation style has some threshold at which it is OK to change a long list into an "et al." citation ("et al." is an abbreviation of the Latin "et alia" meaning "and others").  The particular threshold depends on the citation style, but if you've got half a page of authors it's certainly over any reasonable threshold.

You then simply convert your citation of, e.g.:

  A, B, C, E, ... , Z, "Massive Joint Study," Journal of Big Science, 1(4), 2012.

into:

  A, et al., "Massive Joint Study," Journal of Big Science, 1(4), 2012.


What are your responsibilities if a student announces their intention to commit a crime? As a faculty member, it can happen that a student tells you that they are intending to commit a crime (while also attempting to swear you to secrecy). This might be something as simple as buying illegal drugs but it may also be something more serious.

It seems you might have three sources of responsibility.  A moral one to do the right thing, a second responsibility to follow university guidance and potentially a legal responsibility to report the intention.

Assuming the university has no clear policy on this question, what is the right and legal thing to do?

what is the right and legal thing to do

I think this question mixes two different concerns: The right thing to do is a matter of personal ethical judgement. The legal thing to do is, well, a matter of law.

One might argue that the ethical concern is more fundamental than the legal one, since "I will do whatever the law requires me to do" is already an ethical statement -- and, depending on the case, a highly problematic one: History is full of examples where laws were set up in a way that was clearly not right -- from our view as citizens in modern societies today, and from the view of ethically-minded individuals who initiated changes to these laws.

One's personal ethical judgement, however, will depend on the case at hand, unless one takes the shortcut of just doing whatever the law requires one to do.


How to alleviate "back to school" anxiety as a graduate student? I find myself experiencing back to school anxiety as a new semesters begins in less than three weeks, mainly because the unpredictability associated with graduate life.

In some ways it feels less structured than other endeavors such as starting a new semester as an undergrad, starting a new job or moving to a new country, since in graduate school you have to constantly prove yourself using your creativity and intellect and you have to do it alone. Whereas in industry (or some other structured work) you always have the opportunity to move up, or stay where you are at just by showing up to work, in academia there is plenty of room to free fall.

Things are on my mind at the moment:

How do I maintain a healthy relationship with my professor(s), how can I get them to look favorable toward me as a student while not appearing overzealous?
How can I find a new research topic that is interesting to me AND has
practical application AND leaves room for future works AND satisfies
my supervisor's research direction AND get it published AND host a
conference about it AND grabs attention AND leaves room for collaboration AND... ... ...
How do I balance these extremely open ended research oriented
courses? Will I find time to keep up my health and keep up my grade? Is my body even capable at waking up at 8:00 in the morning anymore?
Can I still learn given that I have forgotten so much and can't even understand the things I learned 4 month ago?
What if I hit a dead end and fail? What happens next? It is unthinkable.

Yes we all experience anxiety from time to time, but never is there a time when all these anxieties are bundled together then unleashed all at the same time.

Of course I could always pretend that things are going to be okay and just "deal with it"...but I find going into a new semester with a lot of anxiety does create problems, such as getting extremely upset at professors when they make a small mistake (it would be as if they are "intentionally" ruining my year), becoming overzealous at proving myself that I miss the point of a course altogether and professors are annoyed by high-fi questions only tangential to their course.

Is this feeling normal and is there anything one could do to alleviate some of the anxieties?

Early in my grad school career, I dealt with many of the same feelings that you describe. Often, I could not sleep or function well academically or personally because my anxieties were uncontrollable and intrusive. If you are finding it difficult to deal with your anxiety, I would suggest visiting student mental health services or a similar resource available to you as a graduate student. They may be able to help you determine whether your anxieties are typical or reaching the level of clinical impairment, and suggest behavioral and/or pharmacological strategies for managing your anxiety. One of the thoughts that most delayed my seeking help was the notion that I should just be able to "deal with it" or "stop stressing out." But sometimes it's not possible to do that without help.

Today, even having received, and continuing to receive, help for my anxiety, sometimes I find myself at particularly stressful intervals and dealing with the types of thoughts you describe. In addition to continuing to follow my medication regimen, I use some of the following tools:

Regular exercise
Good sleep hygiene (http://www.sleepeducation.com/essentials-in-sleep/healthy-sleep-habits)
Meals with adequate protein and fruits/vegetables (e.g., not just fast food/delivery even though it's easier)
Progressive muscle relaxation--you can find cheap or free audio files on Amazon or iTunes that will lead you through this exercise
Try exercises in the Anxiety & Phobia Workbook by Edmund Bourne.
Avoid becoming overwhelmed by setting concrete, achievable goals and breaking larger goals down into smaller pieces. Make daily, weekly, and monthly goals. Ask your advisor(s) to help with accountability for certain self-imposed deadlines. I have found habitica.com to be a fun way to help keep myself on track with my to-do lists; you could set up a group on there with fellow grad students to help each other stay on track.
Inviolable "you" time, set aside at the same time every week. Don't work all the time. Make time for an activity you enjoy. You'll be more productive and creative afterwards.


Pen name similar with real name: Zu Yangzu instead of Zu Yang for papers East Asian countries have some very common last name. This is so common that there are 10s of millions people with the same last name. In the western tradition of citing papers by authors' last name, this makes East Asians very indistinguishable with each other.

I somehow feel this makes it hard for Asians to be remembered and known in western academia.

If someone's name is "Zu Yang" on the passport, what if he just puts his name as
"Zu Yangzu"  in his papers?

Will it cause some academic trouble?

Well, if some people are using pen names on their papers and they experience no trouble, then that's an enough evidence that I also can do this.. but I don't know any case. Does anyone know?

In CS, no publisher I am aware of strictly requires the name on the paper to be your unaltered true (in the sense of "as written on the passport/birth certificate/ID card/...") name. Customs in other fields might differ, although I see little reason to.

However, some issues might arise where the name from the paper has to match with some other information about you. These issues can sometimes be solved, but you should be aware of them:

Funding agencies may wish to see what you published. If you use a different name on the papers than what you are known as to the agency that funds your position, your participation in a paper you indicate to have contributed to may not be obvious.

Publishers sometimes ask for some meta-information such as your personal website on your institution's website. If you have no influence on how you appear on that personal website (again, because that information may be administered by your employer), the connection might again be non-obvious. The publisher might not care, but readers who see your paper and look at your website might assume an association mistake by the publisher unless the website explicitly states in a prominent place you are using a pen name.

Things might indeed get more complicated if you are in a field that puts emphasis on conferences:

Your conference registration might be coupled to the publication of your paper, in a way that the former is a prerequisite for the latter to happen. Some conferences explicitly ask upon registration which paper (number) you will present, but others will try to do a simple name-match. If you decide to register with your pen-name, though, a chain of other problems might ensue:

Conference registration is sometimes coupled with hotel registration, and the hotel will need to know your real name.
Your funding agency probably needs some registration confirmation from the conference, which may have to show your real name to serve as valid proof that you really paid for and attended the conference.
Even before that happens, you may need a confirmation of acceptance of your paper as a valid proof that you are required to embark on the respective conference trip, which can be more difficult if the confirmation of acceptance is seemingly directed at a person of a different name.

While it is a minor issue (because the existence of workarounds is likely), sometimes employers provide business cards with the information they know about you, without a way to indicate something such as a custom name. Handing out such business cards on conferences (point from above), or also other kinds of meetings with collaborators from other organisations, might be confusing with respect to your publication history.

Note that the workplace-specific items are also relevant because they might apply to any future employer of yours, not just the current one.


Would a masters in maths at a much lower ranked university be a good preparation for a masters course at a very top university? I have finished my mathematics undergraduate degree in the UK at a low ranked university. I just missed out on a 2:2.
I struggled with modules such as statistics and Operations research but excelled at pure maths and applied maths modules.

I have miraculously still been accepted by a university to study for MSc in maths.
This university is not part of the Russell group universities but does do better in the league tables than some of the universities that are part of the Russell Group.

Out of fun I was researching the masters course in maths at Cambridge.
In the handbook they mentioned something interesting.
They said that if your first degree is not up to scratch then you may take the second and third year at Cambridge to bring yourself up to the right level.

After contemplating this, I am thinking about doing a second masters in maths but with the aim of doing it at Cambridge.
Off course I will need a very high distinction to do this.

I was wondering in general, would a masters in maths at a much lower ranked university be a good preparation for a masters course at a very top university?

They said that if your first degree is not up to scratch then you may take the second and third year at Cambridge to bring yourself up to the right level.

Are you talking about Körner's unofficial guide to Part III?  He says "If you are a very able student whose first degree course is not up to the standard required for Part III, it may make sense to apply to become an 'Affiliated Student' taking the second and third year of the Cambridge mathematics course to obtain the Cambridge first degree."  This is closest statement I'm aware of to what you mention, but it means something different.  It's talking about repeating undergraduate studies (when the applicant did very well in courses that are insufficient preparation for Part III), rather than repeating a master's program.  Furthermore, admission as an affiliated student at Cambridge requires first or upper second class honours.

I'm not at Cambridge and can't offer definitive guidance about what they will or will not allow.  However, I'm skeptical about the idea of studying for a second master's degree.  You shouldn't plan on this unless you have a clear indication that Cambridge will consider it.  I'd bet that the chances are low.


Masters by Distance Learning accepted for PhD? I have done by B.Tech in Biotechnology couple of years ago. Since then I am working with a company on bioinformatics research. I also did 1 year PG Diploma in Bioinformatics from classroom program.

Most of the Indian and UK universities have this prerequisite that I need to have a masters degree for PhD. As I am currently working in a company, will correspondence or distance learning masters will be valid?

I already saw these:

Distance learning: taken seriously?

Are Master's becoming required for USA PhD programs?

Skipping the reputation aspects discussion, programs and degrees from any nationally accredited higher education institutions are all valid. In US, such institutional accreditation comes in a form of an accreditation from one of several regional commissions, such as Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACS-COC). I imagine that similar accreditation mechanisms exist in UK, India and most other countries. Keep in mind that there is a significant difference in the educational process and its outcomes, as well as, consequently, your future career prospects, between nationally accredited programs and degrees and the unaccredited ones. For more information, see this Wikipedia article as well as articles linked in the its "See Also" section.


Is it better for me to audit or enroll in a class for independent research? I plan to conduct independent research on different forms of early childhood education. I have a B.A. in Early Childhood Education but no formal education in research methods or statistics. I was hoping to enroll in a statistics class at a community college (I specifically chose this one because the professor is by far the highest rated and helpful in showing us how to actually conduct research) but the waitlist is full and I probably won't get in if I hope for someone to drop the class. Since I'm not working towards a major (currently, though I do eventually plan on doing a Master's in psychology), would it be best to audit instead? I'm not in a rush so I can wait to regularly enroll next year, though I'd prefer to audit now if it won't make a huge difference in terms of how it'll look to have an audit instead of a grade when I eventually apply for Master's programs.

In general, auditing a class provides somewhat close to zero information for anyone considering your application in the future. At the very best, it shows you were interested in the subject even though you would get no credit for it. Its not much different than taking an online course with no grade, studying on your own, or just showing up to a class without being enrolled. At least in the US, auditing doesn't even require you show up to class, much less do any work, thus why it has little signal meaning.

So I would suggest that if you audit the class, do it for some other reason than what people looking at your application will think of it. It is reasonable to try to audit if you want to improve your training, prepare for a more advanced class (or just taking the same class next semester), just want to do it for fun (I personally plan to audit stats classes in the future, but that's because I'm at a point that no one cares what classes I take so its just for my own utility and interest), want to get to know the professor a bit better to see if you'd like to work more with them or take other classes by them, etc.

If programs you are planning to apply to strongly value or require quantitative/statistical training, though, auditing a class generally won't do it. This completely depends on what sort of program you apply to, as some won't really care about stats preparation anyway, while others will demand a lot more than 1 class in stats and research methods/design. Now would be a good time to look ahead at what sort of programs you are applying to, what they say they like to see, and plan your courses accordingly.


What should you do if you learn after posting a paper to Arxiv that it is not a novel idea? Consider the following scenario:

Assume you try to  publish a paper in a journal, but before sending the paper, you place the paper on Arxiv.
Then, the journal rejects the paper because of it lacks novelty due to an improper literature survey.
Furthermore, Arxiv does not permit permanently deleting papers.

What can you do?
Leaving the paper on Arxiv will haunt you for all time.

Should you replace the pdf with a dummy pdf?
The previous versions will be intact and the people searching for her papers comes to know all those flaws.  Is there any way to remove the paper from Arxiv?

Adding something like "After submission of the initial version, it has come to our attention that our main result is a rediscovery of a prior result by XXX (citation)." to the comment section of the arXiv metadata and the frontpage of the article itself should be an elegant way to handle this.


When is the right time to quit, if at all (2-year Master's)? I am five weeks into a two-year MS program in statistics at a public university in the US. To be honest, I do not think my graduate program was the right choice for me. I am struggling a lot with the work. I do not find my instructors helpful in class or in office hours; what is taught in class is difficult to relate to the homework and is often a different focus than what's in our textbook.
Although I want to do more data science/research analysis work as a career, I picked a program that included both applied and theoretical courses because I thought the theory was good to know. But now the theoretical side feels like a burden. I still like stats, and I'm not sure if my unhappiness is my particular graduate program or being in grad school at all.
The question is, how soon is "too soon" to know to quit, and is there any way to tell if I would be happy or not in another, more applied program? I have spoken with my parents (who are funding my graduate education) and we are all agreed that I should at least finish out this semester. Do I quit then and look for jobs? Do I wait until the end of next semester and see if different professors make a difference, and if not, go to a different program or get a job? Or is it silly to do half of it and not finish the MS?

I think that it really depends on how much you're struggling. Are you failing your problem sets? Are you merely unhappy with the courses?

I expect that there will be huge variations with the answers, but personally I would advise you to finish out your MS. The reason being that there actually is a huge difference in terms of your career (salary, promotions etc) when you have an advanced degree, so usually an MS is a worthy investment (as an aside, there are studies that suggest that having a PhD does not offer a lot of extra advantages compared to an MS, so if you are already unsure of your MS, I could advise against a PhD).

Another reason is that it would not look too good to your employers to show that you dropped out after just a semester in your program. Perseverance is a very strong quality that is appreciated by many people.

Furthermore, your experience depends largely on your professors. I would talk to other students to see if there are particularly popular professors who teach courses that you are interested in, and try to take those classes next semester (and while you are talking to your fellow grad students, you might as well ask them about your current feelings and ask if this is common).

That being said, I suggest that you talk to your program director, because maybe your program is notoriously hard, and there are many students feeling this way. You may walk out of that meeting feeling reassured, or maybe that meeting will give you a very strong and concrete reason to drop out of your MS. Or maybe the program director could suggest an alternative MS program that can still credit this semester towards the degree (for example, it sounds like an MS in computer science might have been a better fit than an MS in statistics, but I can easily imagine an MS in computer science requiring some statistics courses).


How can I show local universities that I am someone they will want to hire in a few years? I've split this question into a general question that I feel applies to many people and specific details for those who are interested.

General question:I have accepted a 2-year teaching/research position in my home state and would like to look for a job in the surrounding area at the end of the time.

My just-finished job search convinced me that having skills is not enough to get a job in mathematics; you have to show the universities that you are someone they want to hire.

  Given two years to work with, what can I do to show local universities that I am someone they would like to hire?

My ideas so far include:

Attending and speaking at local seminars and conferences (for research-oriented schools)
Attending MAA meetings and giving talks on teaching (for teaching schools)
Working together with faculty at these universities on projects.

I'd especially like to hear from those who make hiring decisions on what would make them feel more comfortable hiring a candidate.

Non-essential, specific details
My postdoc is at BYU in Utah, and the schools I am interested in are all the 4-year schools in the area. University of Utah is most likely out of my league. I'm interested in UVU, Dixie State, SUU, USU, U of U (though that's a longshot), Weber State, Westminster College, and staying on at BYU. I'm also interested in nearby schools such as Reno, Colorado State, Northern Arizona University, Colorado School of Mines, ASU and U of A, University of Colorado, etc.

I'm finishing a postdoc at Temple in Philadelphia. I've done reasonably well in research (4 publications in well-known area-specific journals). My teaching record is excellent, with very good letters of recommendation, high student ratings, and a record of being given good classes to teach.

I am genuinely more interested in teaching than research, but I enjoy research enough that I am happy doing it for a good position. I have a research topic in a small new area (finite subdivision rules) that provides an essentially inexhaustible amount of new theorems but may attract less interest as it is off the beaten path.

I have friends at many of these schools, including UVU, SUU, Utah State, and Dixie State.

My students (at a large well-ranked R1) are having trouble finding a job anywhere in the world, given the current problems with the academic job market: too many PhDs at a time when universities are reducing the number of t-t faculty.

By limiting your search to one particular geographic area, you greatly handicap your ability to find a job. You must understand that in some departments, they will not have a job in your particular niche come up but once in 20 years when someone retires or leaves. Even given that you are looking at half a dozen schools, the odds that a job in your area will come up next year is -- there are some mathematicians here that can give you the odds.

That being said, the best you can hope for is to do what you are doing:

Research: Keep publishing as much as you can. Publish or perish.
Service: If there is a local/state/regional/national association of scholars in your discipline, join it and become very active. Show that you are the type of person willing to put in grunt service time and will create community. Organize a symposium that brings people in the area together.
Teaching: Come up with innovative courses that put you on the radar.

But you must also accept the very real possibility that your geographical limitation may very lead to no jobs or only adjunct positions in the coming years until the statistical anomaly of a job-in-your-research-area-in-your-geographical-area comes up.


Is it right for a supervisor to try to prevent his students from pursuing other research directions by simultaneously working with other professors? I have faced a problem recently with my academic advisor and I seek some advice. I have been working with my advisor for one and a half year now. No publication resulted so far.

One of the problems is that I feel unfocussed. I tried to enter a lot of subjects at once. I felt that there are many interesting approaches that I tried to learn. This led me to waste a lot of time without making a significant progress in a definite direction. My supervisor has the same opinion of me.

Recently, I suggested to him that I want to work on a problem in which he is actively working on which should shorten the time to get the degree. Now however, even if it is true that I am unfocussed, the biggest reason that prevented me from making progress on this problem is that I keep hearing from everyone that my supervisor writes mediocre recommendation letters to all his graduate students (maybe to keep them working for him, I honestly do not know). It seems dishonest to me to write lukewarm letters without warning the students beforehand that the letters would not be that good. I do not know this for certain because I did not see the letters. I did not trust these claims at first.

However, some interactions also led me to the conclusion that I do not want to work with him. For instance, he did not tell me about various exchange opportunites. When I adked him  he denied that an opportunity exist. Then  he explicitly told me that he was afraid that I might, through this exchange program, get interested in another research problem that another professor is working on and start working on that.

Is it right for a research supervisor to try to discourage/ prevent his students from contacting other professors/ working with them with other research projects and so on?

Another question is: is it normal to remain unfocussed on a definite research problem for a long time ? (E.g. two years or so)

First and foremost it is the advisor's responsibility to aid and guide your research to get you out the door and into a career. But there are many ways to do that.

One interpretation of the advisor not wanting you to work with others  is that it is a distraction and leading to your loss of focus. That would be a good reason for "preventing" your work with others.

But, after two years, if you don't yet have a problem to focus on, then the advisor is falling down on the job, perhaps. They should be making suggestions about questions and directions and suggesting starting points, etc. But if they have been good at directing your research then you should have no issue with them.

You have hearsay evidence about their letters of recommendation, but no direct evidence (I think). It is probably best to ignore it.

I doubt that it is in any advisor's best interest to "keep people around." Everyone is better served by getting people out the door and new people in. There are a few exceptions, but you don't give indicators of that here.

The advisor is correct to try to get you to focus. You will be best served by leaving other things aside and focusing on the one big idea that will lead to success. Perhaps the issues with "exchange" opportunities is also about getting you to focus, but it is impossible to say from a distance.

If you have a lot of ideas, I suggest that you simply record them in a "future research" notebook and then let them go for now. It is very useful to start a new job with such a notebook. But wandering around a vast landscape won't get you to that spot on the research frontier that will lead to success.

Nose to the grindstone.

However, there needs to be mutual trust between student and advisor. If you have truly lost that, then it might be best for you to give up your current advisor and move to another. It might mean starting over, and it might or might not have an effect on your ability to "focus".


Self plagiarism of a post adapted from a public forum into a journal article I recently wrote out some recent experiences I had onto a relevant public forum and am now wanting to adapt the post and publish it into a journal as a reflective piece.

Do I run the risk of self plagiarism if the original post on the forum is left up and available? Should I remove the post before submission?

tl;dr: The rules vary, check your intended journal's policies

I'm going to interpret your question as asking about what's acceptable in publishing, what issues you have to consider when republishing work and what problems you might run into.

You have three considerations here (self-plagiarism (1), duplicate publication (2) and copyright (3)); the boundaries between these can become somewhat blurred. Typical conventions vary from field to field and specifics will vary from journal to journal and publisher to publisher. Let's look at each consideration in turn, from a practical perspective the section on journal rules is probably most important to you. This is because, although it's easy to obviate self-plagiarism with adequate referencing (see section 1), this doesn't guarantee compliance with journal duplicate publication policies (section 2).

1) Publishing/scholarly ethics

(For ethical background on duplicate publication, see: 1, 2, 3.)

You should always cite original sources, and be specific where you've lifted quotes/figures from them; just as if you were taking from someone else's work. This is enough to obviate the risk of valid accusations of self plagiarism, but you still need to consider issues like duplicate publication (see links above and the section 2) and copyright (section 3). If work has been made publicly available (either by you, or by someone else), you should consider (for the purposes of referencing) that it has been published, however (in)formal or (non-) academic the context.

The only exceptions I can think of for this are: preprints, where the preprint server will be updated with a link to the version of record instead; publishing work that was included in a PhD thesis (strikes me as odd that a reference/note isn't required in these cases, but typically one isn't); publishing work that was presented at a conference without publishing a proceedings paper (even if the presentation abstract is publicly available). Link 1 goes into a bit more detail on duplicate publication.

In your case, you should cite/reference the online posts. How/when you do this depends on exactly what form the work takes, but a line in the introduction along the lines of the following may well be suitable:

  This piece grew out of some posts the author(s) made on [forum][reference post(s)]; here, the author(s) have revised and expanded these posts into a reflective piece on the topic of...

In the case of any doubts about the acceptability of such a submission, mention it in your cover letter. This is probably a good CYA policy, even if you're sure what you're doing is allowed.

2) Journal-specific rules

Every journal will have its own specific rules on prior publication, blending the considerations under publishing ethics and copyright (discussed below) and considerations such as field-specific practices and editorial considerations. These dictate what is or isn't acceptably in a particular journal. You will have to look at your intended journal's policies yourself to find out what they are, if you're not sure how you fall under them, their editorial office will be able to guide you.

In general, putting a thesis online is almost always OK and use of preprint servers is becoming increasingly widespread. Other online publication, is not necessarily allowed. Let's look at some specific examples (emphasis added):

Nature:

  The Nature Research journals are happy to consider submissions containing material that has previously formed, and continues to form, part of an online scientific collaboration such as a wiki or blog, provided that the information has not been publicised outside the scientific community, and is not publicised until the publication date of the work in a Nature Research journal.

In this case, it would seem to depend on whether or not the forum could be considered an academic collaboration or not
Science:

  The Science Journals will not consider any original research paper or component of a research paper that has been published or is under consideration for publication elsewhere. Distribution on the Internet may be considered prior publication and may compromise the originality of the paper as a submission to a Science Journal.

ACS ethical guidelines (note, I don't think these are their publishing policies, but good practice guidelines issued as a professional organisation)

  Scientists should,  however, be aware that disclosure of research results in the public press or in an electronic database or bulletin board might be considered by a journal editor as equivalent to a preliminary communication in the scientific literature

From Wiley's best practice guidelines

  Journals from different disciplines vary in their approach to pre-print servers. Many biomedical journals would consider posting an article to a pre-print server to render any subsequent journal publication redundant. Thus an
  article submitted for consideration after having been posted to a pre-print server would be rejected. However, many researchers working in physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance and
  statistics post their articles to arXiv before submitting an article successfully to a journal for peer review and publication. Journals should establish a policy about pre-print servers and declare this in their instructions for authors. Any previous publication should be disclosed in the paper.

  The following types of “prior publication” do not present cause for concerns about duplicate or redundant publication:

  ...

  Results in databases and clinical trials registries (data
  without interpretation, discussion, context or conclusions
  in the form of tables and text to describe data/
  information).
  Dissertations and theses in university archives.

I won't give any more examples, because without knowing what field you work in for someone to give specific advice (mention of a "reflective piece" suggests it not STEM?), I don't think it would add much to the above.

If you aren't sure whether your use falls under the rules for your journal, you can contact the editorial office. You should also mention in the cover letter when you submit, eg. a sentence paragraph along the lines of

  This work is an extension on materials previously posted to [forum] and, consequently, makes heavy reuse of this material. We believe this is acceptable under [journal]'s rules on prior publication.

3) Copyright

You will need to confirm that you have the rights to reuse your posts. Double check the small print of the forum in question to make sure you didn't transfer copyright when you posted them (hopefully unlikely!). If you did, you will need to obtain permission to reuse them from the from the forum operator and provide this to the journal during submission.


Changing tactics when natural ability is reached? Question
What habits and attitudes need to change when one hits the upper bounds of natural ability? This is the situation where you can no longer increase your rate of advancement. In effect your effort is "bounded from above". I am thinking primarily about research and learning from a student's perspective but I am sure this problem is common to everyone eventually. There must be some limit at which even the greatest stop accelerating. Given that this barrier has existed for a long time and affects every human that ever lived, there must be structual approaches to overcoming exhaustion of the lowhanging fruit. What are proven methods to continue improvement, or, failing that, hug the limit of natural ability as tightly as possible? Similarly to compound interest, if you underperform by 3% every year, then in 24 years you will be half the man you could have been.

The answer from Ben succiently explains this idea in the work equation:

work = (work rate)*(hours worked)

Assume that for whatever reason the goal is to maximize the work. If one can no longer increase the hours worked, what are strategies to increase the work rate?
 What are new ways of thinking that can keep one at maximum possible performance? Are there ways of structuring your time that you have found that just work. What really helped you in staring down your own limitations?

My Motivation:

   I have been fighting this ceiling for several months now, and I am getting   >! to a hard physcial limit. I am at a barely ranked school and still have the  dream of significant contributions to my field. Realistically this dream requires me to perform on the level of students at top universities. My first strategy was to just put in more time than the students who do better than me. It worked to beat the undergraduates here who spend 40% of their time on extra curriculars and social lives. However the graduate students are much more disciplined and working harder than their 80-100 hrs/wk is of much greater difficulty. To further compound the problem, we are nowhere near the quality of the top schools, so I fear beating the best grad student in my department would be equivalent to a freshman at T1 school.

 I only started to work systematically when I started university, and have now developed a strong work ethic. I am at the point where I have eliminated everything else in my life except classwork and research projects. There is no longer any significant reservoir of time I can tap to make progress. I likely can obtain about 10 more hours a week if I mange to crack down on the instances where I am actually unproductive. This is my budget for improvement. Others may have more time available which is why I am not asking about quick hacks (although quick hacks would help me more).

Note:I am just beginging my academic career, but I am really concerned about not being able accomplish my goals. If you understand what I am getting at please feel free to edit to make the key idea more clear. There has to be a way using logical frameworks to minimize the inherent limitations of whatever body you are stuck with. I am not looking for a "self-help", "positve thinking" style answer. I am looking for methods that you, SE.Academia, as men of science and reason, find that work.

edit
I have put the motivation in spoilers because it is not important for answering the question I want to ask (should I just remove it?). Some answers are addressing my specific situation which I think is not the purpose of this site. We are supposed to ask general questions that can apply to others, not just advice threads.

"I am at the point where I have eliminated everything else in my life except classwork and research projects."

That is likely to be counter-productive. You need to leave room in your life for inspiration to strike, not just perspiration. Go for a walk. Take up a hobby that does not require total concentration. You may be limiting yourself by not allowing enough time for rest and relaxation.

I know I am much more likely to get a creative idea for solving a problem doing something else, rather than staring at it, once I have the background firmly in my mind.


Invitation to review for an unknown journal I recently received the following invitation to act as a reviewer for an unknown journal. Is it ok to just ignore it?

  Subject:   Invitation to Review Manuscript for  Asian Journal of
  Current Research

  Dear Colleague,

  I am approaching you with the peer-review request of the below mentioned manuscript, submitted in  Asian Journal of Current Research
  Title:  X   I would be grateful if you would kindly find some time to
  review the above mentioned manuscript and send your valuable comments
  within 10 calendar days (13 Mar’2017).   Abstract of the manuscript is
  available in this link (http://[]). If you require the file as E-mail
  attachment kindly let us know.   If you accept our invitation, we’ll
  send you the full paper.  Authors’ affiliation will be supplied, if
  requested by the reviewer.
  After completion of timely quality peer review, we’ll be pleased to provide you Official   Certificate of peer reviewing from the journal
  (signed PDF copy). You are requested to submit your full affiliation
  in review comments forms to facilitate the preparation of the
  certificate.
  Please inform as early as possible if you agree to accept our invitation to review. Would you not be able to find time to act as a
  reviewer this time, please let me know through an email. We hope as
  part of academic community you’ll appreciate our efforts to complete
  quality peer review within stipulated time period. Comments received
  after stipulated time (as mentioned above) may not be utilized. Here
  we politely want to mention that, if we do not receive any
  communication within next 7 calendar days, we’ll be approaching to
  alternative reviewers to complete this peer review.
  Useful Links: Journal scope link:    Editorial Policy link:   Thanking you

  Mr. Sadek Mallick www.ikpress.org EUROPE: International Knowledge
  Press, S107, 3 Hardman Square, Spinningfields, Manchester, M3 3EB, UK,
  Fax: +44 (0)161 667 4459, Email: contact@ikpress.org ASIA PACIFIC:
  International Knowledge Press, N. S. Road, Tarakeswar, Hooghly,
  PIN-712410, West Bengal, India, Email: contact@ikpress.org (Editorial
  Office)

The title of the journal is very suspicious. You cannot even tell whether the journal is within your area of expertise.

This is probably one in the sea of many worthless journals. I am the editor of the SCI indexed journal and have trouble finding reviewers, so they are probably essentially spamming everyone.


Should acceptance letters be answered? If somebody receives an email from a journal stating that their paper is accepted for publication, should they write back?  If so, what should they say?

There might be exceptions of which I'm not aware of, but usually, no, you don't reply, unless there are specific queries from the editor.


Good resource/advice on mentoring undergrads As a graduate student I will mentor some undergrad students so that they can help me with my work and get some useful experience working in a lab.

From my past experience, I realized that they lack knowledge. So I do not want to them work on data analysis at least for a semester (unless they show promise) but at the same time do not want to just work on tightening nuts and bolts.

Also they lack time to get up to speed on doing research on their own.
What is a good way to get them interested in learning more? Also if you can point to some good resources on mentoring that would be helpful.

Edit (following eykanal's comment): I do not need to interact with undergrads on a regular basis. So I am not thinking about getting them interested in research, in general. I believe most of the students, who come to work in lab, are in general interested in learning, ignoring few who are just want to beef up their resume.

Last time I worked with a student, I had assigned him some data analysis related work only to realize later that he was more interested in working in the lab then in front of a computer. Lesson learned the hard way, because we ended up wasting time.

What I am looking for is the missteps to avoid when mentoring a student so that they would stay interested and try to do things on their own.

All of the below stems from my own experience mentoring and working with undergrads, both as a grad student and as a postdoc.

Firstly, realize that many undergraduate students aren't ready to do research on their own when they first arrive in a research lab. (Heck, neither are many graduate students...) Additionally, many will not want to do their own research, but they're very happy learning what you do and helping you set it up and work through it.

That being said, you'll want to start with simply talking to them during the interview process to determine what they want to gain from the experience. Most won't have a solid answer, but for the few that say something like, "I want to improve my MATLAB skills," or "I want to gain experience doing cell cultures", you now know whether they're a match for your lab.

The majority don't have specific interests, though. For those students, consider allowing them to work on a variety of projects with multiple graduate students. This allows them to observe different research techniques, different approaches to solving a research problem, and the different tools used in research. If you have the time, you (and the members of your lab) can take a more hands-on approach and actively mentor the student, showing them the various steps involved in constructing an experiment and the logic behind the data analysis stream.


What do faculty members mean when they say "happy to find a time some time to chat more about it..."? Sometimes in correspondence with faculty I get emails that end with a sentence like "happy to find a time some time to chat more about it though, just let me know."

What medium do people usually mean when they say this? Is this an invitation to schedule a phone call? Or because this is on an email is it best to stick to to sending responding with a detailed email about the said topic?

The "just let me know part" invites you to let them know your preferred times and propose a way to have a chat.

The typical medium to let them know would be via email. And then the typical medium to chat would be in person. But that's it's not so important. You've been invited to make a suggestion without much advice. So any response that is both reasonable and polite should work. Even if the professor will "counter" your suggestion with an alternative.


What is the difference between volume editors and series editors? I am filling out a "Consent to Publish" form and I need to fill out the Volume Editor(s) field. I tried to find out who these editors are, but all I found was the series editors and the main editor.

For example for the Lecture Notes In Computer Science there are 12 series editors. I doubt that I should list all 12 of them. Are the volume editors a subset of series editors, or are these two concepts unrelated?

I guess this is a paper in conference proceedings that are published in the LNCS series?

Usually volume editors = programme committee chairs (or at least the PC chairs are a subset of volume editors).

Just put the names of the PC chairs; it is close enough. The series editors are something completely different (related to the entire LNCS series, not this particular volume).


Can a paper proposing an algorithm use pseudocode only (and not a high-level mathematical description)? If it greatly simplifies the explanation, is it possible to present an algorithm in a paper without a high-level mathematical description but simply with pseudocode and very clear elaboration? Or should a high level mathematical description always be included?

I would say that it strongly depends on the target conference/journal that you will be submitting to. For instance, if you plan to submit to e.g., Algorithmica I wouldn't say that this would be suggested. But if for instance, you plan to submit on a conference that is not algo-oriented, then a high-level mathematical representation might be replaced with a detailed pseudocode along with the appropriate explanation.
But, even if this is the case, there is still the matter of

Completeness
Converging

I do believe, that you would need at least some mathematical representations in order to convince the reviewers about those two points. And in many cases, those are not THAT hard to prove, but once again, this also depends on your algorithm and your application.
So to answer your question, it is possible that you will be asked during the peer-review at least for the completeness of your approach. So I would put a bit of effort in order to justify this point.


Can I wait to take my GRE until after my bachelors, thus delaying my application dates for graduate school I'm panicking quite a bit at the moment. I realized far too late that I need to be applying to graduate school yesterday. The problem is I'm completely broke. I have 1000 dollars to my name and I need for gas it to commute to school.

I'm a theoretical mathematics major, chemistry minor, and I'm also worried about my performance. I can handle as much Abstract Algebra, Linear Algebra, Combinatorics, an the like as they want to throw at me but taking limits and manual integration and the more elementary things have not been in my life for a long time. Also I haven't yet completed/taken the full analysis series or topology yet.

I have a lot of questions, I also don't know where to expect to be accepted. I've got decent grades, I have to calculate some stuff but I think I
m sitting above a 3.7. I have kids and cant travel far (I already commute 75 miles) And what to do if I don't get in anywhere. I LOVE mathematics, I love learning, but did I just waste 80,000 dollars and 5 years of my life because I couldn't be better. I'm more competent than most of my classmates 99% of the time (I'm taking two graduate level classes this semester so it's a bit different), I feel like I have something special to offer.....

Anyways I'm rambling, I'll save those questions for other threads, I could spend my gas money and hope it works out in the end, but I think I may do very poorly. I'm looking for a job. What should I do?

You can only do what you can do. The timing of your future education is less important (my view) than that you make a plan to get there.

Make a list of your options. For each option list its advantages and disadvantages. Prioritize them. Don't neglect your family's needs in the list of priorities.

Choose one that has a reasonable path and chance of success. It needn't be the optimal solution. It needs to be a workable solution.


A short research conference paper benefits My paper has been accepted as a short research paper to be published as a conference paper. My question is, what is the best benefit for such a publication?
Edit:
It will be published at the IEEE conference.

It depends heavily on what field you are in. In a small number of fields (mostly ones adjacent to theoretical computer science), the majority of new work is presented at conferences. Having a paper published at a good conference in those fields is just as good as having it published in a good journal. If you are in one of these fields, the thing you should find out is whether or not it’s been accepted for an “archival track,” “archival conference,” or similar (the word “archival” is very important). If the answer is yes, congrats! You have a full fledged research article that’s been reviewed by your peers and judged worthy of publication.
If your paper was accepted to a non-archival track or if you are not in one of those fields, then presenting your paper at the conference is primarily a learning experience. You are going to meet more established researchers in your field, and have a chance to present your research and ideas to them. This is a great experience to get (virtual) face-time with other people in your field and share ideas. Coming away from the conference, you’ll hopefully have received by praise and criticism, and can use what you learn to extend your conference paper into a full paper.


Importance of Math Subject GRE I will be applying for a PhD program for mathematics this year. When graduate schools are considering applications, how much weight does a GRE score carry compared to research experience and grades acquired in undergraduate coursework? I have all A's in my math and physics course, with the exception of one A-, and two papers. Mind you, these are not papers based upon solutions to trivial undergraduate problems, but are problems of interest to professional mathematicians, especially those working in operator algebras.

My question is, if I were to get a less than fantastic score on the GRE, would I still be considered because of my grades, research experience, and two publishable papers?

I think the simple answer here is that (a) it depends and (b) the entire application "package" is considered when admission decisions are made.

What I mean when I say that it "depends" is that it depends on where you are applying. If you are applying to a top math program then there will be many many individuals applying for admission. Of these, a subset will also likely have publications and will also likely have high GRE scores. I say "likely" because it's impossible to know the strength of the applicants in any given admissions cycle.

What I mean when I say "entire application package" is that, in some respects, you can make up for one lacking area by excelling in another; take this with a grain of salt however. You are applying for admission into a PhD program. The important question the admissions committee is trying to ask for each applicant is "Is this individual likely to succeed in doing research in this department?". Past publications speak to this much more directly than do GRE scores. Classroom performance is no longer the emphasizing factor -- it's all about the research!

As others pointed out, if you have a faculty letter of recommendation that supports your contribution to the publications you have that will be huge! If not, the admissions committee may certainly wonder what your role in these were, particularly if you are not the first author.

Additionally, top PhD programs may use GRE scores to "weed out" some initial applications. Nobody has time to go over the complete admissions package of 500+ applicants.

My advise: if you have time, spend another month or two doing some extra GRE prep and retake the test. It sounds like you have a strong application other than the one score. Spend your time only studying for the math portion. Some programs will let you "pick and choose" which scores of which test to submit (i.e., submit math from "test #2", submit vocab from "test #1", submit writing from "test #2"). At any rate, because you are applying to math departments, the math score is really what matters!

Hope this helps and good luck!

Edit and disclaimer: My background and experience is in applied math and computer science fields. As another poster pointed out this may be different for pure math department applications.


Submit an extended version, of a paper presented as short one in a conference, to a journal? I have presented a paper in a conference as a short paper, now I want to submit an extended version of it to a journal without cite the previous paper, this extended version is a completly different version but is the same idea as a short paper.
Is it possible to do that ?

If the paper is considered a 'paper' in your field and you are submitting to a journal which requires submission to be new and unpublished, then this is not appropriate. (I am assuming that the two papers are indeed as connected as implied (a short paper, and an extended paper using the same work, discussion, conclusions and adding perhaps more detail but otherwise the same work).

The one scenario that I can imagine in my field (physics) that this might be appropriate is if the conference 'paper' is not a paper, just an extended abstract  that is done for the program booklet.  If it isn't even something I am going to put down on my CV as a publication, then I don't consider it a 'paper'.

As a referee, when I know a similar paper has been published previously by a group in a conference proceedings or if I check up on their webpage and see that a very similar paper has appeared earlier, it sets up a red flag, particularly if the group did not reference it (hid its presence). It implies to me that the authors are hiding something for a reason.

If the 'new' paper is similar to the un-referenced conference proceeding, but has nothing new in it, then I conclude that the authors deliberately hid the conference paper. My journals require that a paper be 'new' and 'original' and previously unpublished. Writing a paper with different words but the same data, conclusions, main points and discussions with more detail is not new and I would both reject it and point out to the authors and editor the problem. I feel sorry for the authors if they had transparently referenced the prior work (I do also check their work they reference), but not at all sorry for them if they hid it.

If the submitted work has additional data, or a focus on a different aspect of the problem  or other features that make it 'new', then I will referee it on its merits and in the review mention the previous work ad suggest they add it to the references. But depending on the relevance of the prior un-referenced paper, it can make me wonder whether they deliberately chose to hide it thinking it would hinder the publication of their new paper. That makes me in future remember the group as potentially suspect.


How to prepare for being a TA (Teaching Assistant)? I start my graduate program next week, which includes spending some of my time as a Teaching Assistant. It is my least favorite part of job, and I do not want to teach in my career after that. I don't want to become professor but get a job in a company.

Nobody told me how to teach and I don't even know what classes I have. I have little time to prepare, and probably don't know the professor (professors?) well. So what can I do to prepare, until I know what courses I have and can go over the material? I'm quite scared right now.

Be honest and be yourself. Students will latch on to your discomfort and will use it as an excuse for their performance. I have found that if you are honest with them with a statement along the lines of "I am new to teaching, so please be patient while I work out my teaching style and get more comfortable. If you have any concerns about how class is going, please speak to me as soon as possible." they are much more forgiving of your mistakes which you are bound to make. There is nothing worse than students who feel they cannot pass the class due to your teaching, so allowing them to voice their opinions early can both help in your teaching (i.e., "You stand in front of the board too often." or "It would be more helpful if you spent a little more time going over X.") and in your students attitudes towards you. But be careful on this front, make no instantaneous decisions. I always will say something like "I will think about it and get back to you next class if the policy X needs to change." Always get back to them about it, even if it is a no.

Additionally, talk to other grad students and faculty if you are finding you are having problems with teaching. I would be surprised if your department or university had people did not staffed just for training of instructors for teaching duties. Talk to them and voice your nervousness, they are there to help. Even think about all your classes and what the professor did that you hated or liked and try to emulate the best attributes as best you can. But don't try to be these people, just be yourself.

The key here is talk to everyone, do your best, and be yourself.

Since you're just starting out, I don't believe that they would throw you in cold into a classroom and say "teach" without any forewarning or even knowledge of which class, but they might depending on where you are (and talk to other people about what to do quickly if possible). You will probably start out grading and/or doing recitations/review sections a few times a week until you are more capable/comfortable with maintain your own class.

Good luck in teaching and studies! I always think being able to explain what you know to other people is a true sign that you know it yourself.

Addendum: The books that earthling suggested will always help. If you are in mathematics, I also suggest How to Teach Mathematics by Steven G. Krantz. Even though it is written for those teaching math, it is also a good read for almost any new instructor, particularly in the sciences.


Thinking about grad school for computer science. How to talk to my old professors now? I am considering grad school for CS now after graduating my undergrad in 2014. I have been working for the past 4 years and it has been fine, but I feel like I might need a more complete education in order to reach where I want to go in my career.

I understand very little about grad school applications. I know I need to take a GRE test which is fine, I can study for those. I need a statement of intent, I can write one. But then there's letters of recommendation. Apparently I want these from my old undergrad professors. I mean my grades were fine, but I never had a close relationship with any professors and even if I did, it's been awhile. How do I go about making that happen now?

Any advice for approaching this. Is there a good resource of information for someone in my position? Thank you.

If you are in a position to do so, go visit in person. Tell them what you've been doing and what you want to do. Give them a good picture of you as a success story. Catch up a bit on old times and what is going on with the newer students. Thank them for what they've already done for you.

All of that is worth doing even if you don't want letters, of course.

Doing it in person will help jog their memories of you as email won't. They've had quite a few students since you left and those are more likely to be remembered than someone from four years ago.

But you probably want to do most of that anyway even if you have to do it by mail/email. You might need to be a bit more complete about what you've been doing since graduation, describing projects and such.

But in general, professors like to hear from previous students, and, in general, like to help with their careers. They might even appreciate some guidance from you on what to stress in any letters.

They will also, likely, be full of advice about where to study and how to go about applying.

I would probably give the same advice no matter what the field of study.

Note that you will probably want recommendation letters from current or recent supervisors at work, as well.


How do I deal with graduate school rejection from an university that I considered easy to get into? Things you should know:

It was not a dream school.
It was considered "safe/moderate" i.e. the kind of students who get in
have more or less similar profiles like mine.
From graduate school student discussion forums , seems like no one else got
rejected.
This really hurts. If this school rejects me, what hope do I have with others?

Speaking from purely personal experience, I wouldn't necessarily worry about it. Of course it's possible that your application was weak and that generally the other schools will feel the same way. On the other hand, it's also possible that something you wrote just didn't appeal to someone working on the applications at this particular school and you were looked over. In my own experience applying to graduate school I actually got rejected from some of my 'backup' schools but was accepted (and was given extra incentive to come to) one of my 'dream' schools.


Writing my speaker's bio when I have very little relevant experience I started a new job a month ago, the first one after my PhD employment. Recently, a conference organizer invited an established researcher from our group to give a talk at their conference. The researcher was not available at that date, but suggested that I hold the talk, which the organizer accepted.

Now I am required to submit a "speaker biography", which I assume will be printed in the conference programme. There are parallel sessions, so I expect the speakers' biographies will have an impact on people deciding which track to attend.

The problem is that I have very done little in my career to interest the conference goers, whose background is in a completely different field than mine. None of my previously published research is of much relevance for this conference. The content I will present interests them, but it is the work my colleagues did before I joined the group.

So I see a few options:

Leave the biography at 50 words stating name, institution and current project. It will probably appear very short in comparison to the other speakers' (upper limit is 250 words).
Add previous work, even though it is neither relevant nor impressive (the PhD is not yet finished).
Write a bit more about the current project, which is relevant for them, but not exactly biographical. And also awkward to phrase without giving the impression that I am responsible for the work that has been done so far.

Due to a tight printing deadline and it being vacation season, I cannot get advice from the conference organizers about what they would prefer. I also don't have access to earlier years' speakers biographies, or to any other material from earlier years of this conference (abstracts, programmes, proceedings, etc).

What would be a good strategy for writing the biography in my case?

Don't overthink it. It's true that people will be attracted towards some talks because they are given by a "big name", but it's also true that people will also base their choices on the content, regardless of the speaker. The majority of attendees, if they see a talk on a topic that is of interest to them, will not turn it down just because the speaker has an unimpressive bio. In fact, I suspect many people don't read the bios at all, certainly not all 250 words!

I would recommend a cross between 2 and 3. Give a brief mention of your previous work, because it's a part of your background, and if nothing else, people like to know about the different career paths that others have taken. Then perhaps describe why you moved to your current role/area (avoiding phrases like "filling a mundane role"...), with an emphasis on what you find interesting about it and any ways that it links with your previous experience. That should allow you to talk a bit about the project while still keeping it relevant to you personally. You can keep it fairly brief though - don't feel like you have to use up all 250 words just for the sake of it.


Transferring math graduate school to another country I joined my current university (in a South Asian country) as a PhD student in mathematics last year (August 2016). My first year was spent doing coursework mostly, apart from doing reading projects in my areas of interest. My relationship with my advisor is excellent. However i want to transfer to a PhD program in Europe (more specifically Germany or Switzerland) as there are more people working in that area ,it's much easier to attend conferences (usually limited support offered by organizers is usually not enough to travel from my country) and I feel it will better for my career to do a phd from a more prestigious university.

How feasible are my chances or is it frowned upon in academia?

I think that definitely it is possible to do a "transfer", although that probably would imply some extra overhead to deal with the requirement fulfilling of your destination university.

I started my PhD in a European university, to move to a US one. I said this because I was in a similar situation and I think that talking openly to your advisor is a key thing. You said:

  My relationship with my advisor is excellent.

I think that if this is really the case, you should openly talk to him for the following reasons:

If your Prof. is reasonable (I am sure he is given your words) he will understand your willingness and ambition and will be able to recommend you what is the best thing to do. Present to him the reasons as honestly as you are doing in here, he for sure is aware of situation.
He will hopefully help you through the process with strong recommendation letters and with recommendations to european colleges that he knows, increasing heavily your chances of landing in a good program.
Offer to keep him involved. If you consider this is a good opportunity for you, it may involve being a good opportunity for him too. Try to keep him in the loop -- maybe he can be your PhD co-supervisor?
Talking to him, if you do it carefully, does not mean burning your boats of staying in your current institution. Once again, assuming he is a reasonable and wise person, if you tell him that this thing is going in your head, that this idea came to your mind and ask for his opinion he will most likely do not consider it disrespectful (in fact you are being honest with him) and he will in my opinion do not prevent you from staying if at the end things do not work out.

Best of lucks!


I used a fork of a GitHub repository whose paper I cited – should I also cite the fork? I want to cite a GitHub repository in scientific publications.
The repository that I used is a fork version of the original GitHub repository which is accompanied by a paper.
Both repositories are the same, but the fork has additional code for further calculations and plots.

I cited the paper to refer to the methodology.
But I did not use the original GitHub provided by the paper. Instead, I used the fork.

Should I cite the fork?

You should cite the original paper and the GitHub fork.  You are obligated to cite all sources you used, even if they overlap.  Your methods should also state exactly what code you reused.


How to get academic reference for grad school admission if I didn't interact with professors in my online bachelor's degree? I need a letter of recommendation, but am unsure how to get it.

I am applying to graduate school. I need three letters of recommendation. I have 2/3. Some schools to which I am applying require the third to be from an academic, such as a professor.

My undergraduate education was online. I never interacted with a professor. Even if I could get a letter of recommendation, I am not sure that it would be relevant. I am applying to graduate school in a field completely unrelated to business.

Do I submit a non-academic reference? Do I ask a professor with whom I have no pre-existing relationship?

First of all, what I'm about to say may vary depending on the field. I'm in mathematics.

The role of the recommendation letters is for someone who can be seen as an authority to tell the admissions committee how well you will do in academia. Someone from outside academia is unlikely to be able to tell them that. You need at least one recommendation letter from someone with experience in academia. Part of the work you do in undergrad, once you realise that you want to go to grad school, is build relationships with professors who could potentially write recommendation letters. A letter from your supervisor at work will tell an admissions committee nothing about how well you will do in academia, unfortunately. You need someone who can say, based on personal experience with grad students, that you will be successful.

Unfortunately for you, it sounds like none of your professors know enough about you to write a good recommendation letter. However, an application (at least in math) without any academic reference would be very unlikely to succeed. I would say that you should pick a professor from a class where you did well, and there was considerable coursework that the professor can base his recommendation on, and email that professor and ask for a recommendation. It won't be an excellent letter, since they don't know you personally, and they may refuse to recommend someone they don't know personally, but you should try. The recommendations are one of the most important parts of a grad school application, and by not getting to know any of your professors well enough that they can write you a recommendation letter you've put yourself at a huge disadvantage.


Publications and career trajectory in the 'About me' section of a job talk I am preparing for an upcoming job talk for a tenure track assistant professor position. I am strongly encouraged by the hiring committee to have an 'About me' section mentioning my career trajectory (like here) and to show a glimpse of my publications.
I am wondering what is the best way to do this in a manner that won't come across as aggressive or showing-off or shamelessly being proud of myself. Showing a list of publications as a slide looks like an uncomfortable thing to do as the audience will just get an idea of the volume of work I have done, without being aware of the quality of the content in the papers. What can possibly be the best way to do this?
Also about the career trajectory, I am trying to see what can be the natural way to 'fit' this information in the talk so that it is not abrupt. Of course, there is a way to tell the audience which universities I have been a part of while I am talking about my work. However, this needs to be done separately in the 'About me' section.
Any thoughts or ideas on this will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Since they have asked for it specifically, it won't come across badly unless you make it "over the top".
But talk about how your publications set a base for future studies and, and maybe how you see your work benefiting future students in their own studies. If it is "in person" then a slide listing your publications could save you some time and words. Maybe in an online talk you could do likewise. Let the publications speak for themselves, but say some things about what they imply for the future "trajectory".
OTOH, sometimes "over the top" is a good ice breaker. "Greatest mathematician since Poincaré" would do it.


What makes a good engineering PhD topic and is this one? (I don't know if this is the right place to post this, but it's the best I could think of)
I am soon to graduate from my MEng and I am contemplating doing a part time PhD in the future.
PhDs always seem very 'research' focussed, while research is certainly something I do, it has always been a secondary thing behind the doing (designing making etc.), the engineering.
How does one do a PhD where the goal is to make something? (and can one do a PhD where the goal is to make something?)

Now the more specific question about my current idea.
A C++/Rust like language with a parallelism checker that natively compiles to run segments of code on a GPU (and possibly other ASICs).
Rust's borrow checker runs anaylsis to check memory safety, a parallelism checker would run analysis to  check code is as parallel as it can be, warning when code is not and how it may be best made so (via multi-threading and/or gpgpu), even in very complex scenario. From a more mathematical perspective could a perfect algorithm/model be devised and proven that would never miss when parallelism can be implemented?
In the simplest example, giving a warning for something like:
int a[100000]={1,2,...,100000};
int b[100000]={1,2,...,100000};
int c[100000];
for(int i=0;i<100000;++i) {
    c[i]=a[i]+b[i]
}

How does one do a PhD where the goal is to make something?

This is country specific, and needs approval from your PhD advisor.
But the lab I am working in at CEA in France has several PhD candidates working on Frama-C. In the UK see also this.
You could also continue or take advantage of my work on Bismon (funded by CHARIOT & DECODER projects; see this DRAFT report). You may consider (with approval from your PhD advisor) implementing your ideas as a GCC plugin, or as an extension of the Clang static analyzer, or something generating OpenCL.
Of course, the ongoing Brexit is adding issues at end of 2020 (e.g. end of Erasmus, no more European funding to UK research labs)

From a more mathematical perspective could a perfect algorithm/model be devised ?

Probably not a perfect one. Be however aware of Rice's theorem and of the Halting problem.
Read also J.Pitrat's last book on Artificial Beings - the conscious of a conscious machine, which is closely related to your topic. Also become familiar with abstract interpretation and type inference techniques. Consider generating C code.


Is Obama's JAMA paper OK? As some of you may have heard, Barack Obama recently published a paper in JAMA describing the US health care reforms (link). First of all, I am not trying to start a discussion on the validity of the content of the paper.
Maybe I am overreacting, but as an academic, that specific publication raises a number of concerns. Within scientific research and publishing we have a number of ethical principles that should always be adhered to (e.g., authorship, conflicts of interest, plagiarism, ...). When I look at that publication, I can't help but wonder about a number of things, such as:

Authorship: Obama is listed as sole author on the manuscript. I personally highly doubt that he has done all of the research and writing himself. That constitutes a problem in publication ethics, as is often discussed at length on this site. He does name a couple of people in the acknowledgements, but in my opinion these people should have been authors while Obama should've been in the acknowledgements. Quoting the acknowledgements:

I thank Matthew Fiedler, PhD, and Jeanne Lambrew, PhD, who assisted with
planning, writing, and data analysis. I also thank Kristie Canegallo, MA; Katie Hill, BA; Cody Keenan, MPP; Jesse Lee, BA; and Shailagh Murray, MS, who assisted with editing the manuscript. All of the individuals who assisted with the preparation of the manuscript are employed by the Executive Office of the President.

Conflicts of interest: the paper essentially "finds" that the reforms done by the Obama administration are a good thing. Of course Obama will say his reforms are good, yet this was not explicitly disclosed in the conflict of interest statement.

Political papers: the article is published as a special communications, which requires prior inquiry before submission. I feel that this type of paper does not fit into a scientific journal. It's fine to do politics, but I feel it should be done elsewhere.

I am genuinely left wondering whether papers like this one are good or not. While I applaud the idea of scientific papers coming from policymakers, the above mentioned issues (and others) are significant.
My question: are such papers in scientific venues OK or not?

Authorship: This one is messy. The JAMA instructions say Authorship credit should be based only on (1) substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; and (2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and (3) final approval of the version to be published based on the acknowledgements, I think there is a case that Matthew Fiedler, PhD, and Jeanne Lambrew, PhD could be authors for their contributions to planning, writing, and data analysis while those who only edited the manuscript fail the test.
The difficulty is that the JAMA requires written permission from everyone named in the acknowledgements. For whatever reason, the contributors did not feel they deserved authorship. It is possible that they were bullied out of authorship. Universities, and I am hoping the White House, have systems in place to handle this type of bullying. In the absence of any evidence wrongdoing, I think we need to assume that credit was fairly given.

Political papers: This is also a little messy. I think good scholarly journals should include non-research papers (as long as they are clearly mark something like special communications) that likely have broad appeal to the readership. I think journals should strive to keep readers up to date on important issues in the field, even if it is not original research. I also think journals should actively engage in activities that will bring wider attention to their respective field. I think the specific paper falls well within the scope of JAMA which includes all subjects that relate to the practice of medicine and the betterment of public health worldwide. What makes things messy is that in addition to Special Communications JAMA also publishes Controversies in a point-counterpoint and Health Law and Ethics, both of which may have been better fits. Given the partisanship surrounding obmacare a Controversies may have been a fairer way to present the issues.

Conflicts of interest: The JAMA instructions say A conflict of interest may exist when an author (or the author's institution or employer) has financial or personal relationships that could inappropriately influence (or bias) the author's decisions, work, or manuscript. and I don't think that being the originator of an idea counts as a personal relationship that would qualify as a conflict of interest.