Is it okay to get a Reference Letter from a PhD holder with years of experience in a related field that is not a Professor? Is it okay to get a Reference Letter from a PhD holder with years of experience in a related field that is not a Professor and can speak well of me because he/she was my undergrad thesis supervisor?

Letters of recommendation are not restricted to professors (unless directions specifically require that).

Someone who has a PhD who acted as your research supervisor should be qualified to make a judgment about your potential as a researcher, which is usually what admissions committees are interested in when they review applications.


Are Graduate Schools Less Likely to Fund and/or Accept Nontraditional Students? I once heard that nontraditional students are less likely to be funded for graduate school. Supposedly (according to this person), this is because 40+ year old students rarely get tenure track positions. Thus, I guess they aren't profitable for the school/program (perhaps unless they're self-funded). I wanted to ask if there was any truth to this.
I'm in my late 30's and am deciding if/where to apply for a master's degree (in a humanities field), but my long term goal is a PhD. Even at the master's level, however, would I have difficulty getting funding at my age?
Also, are nontraditional students more likely to be rejected? I know we present more of a risk for the program, as we're statistically more likely to develop health issues, have fewer productive years in the field, etc. Do admissions committees take this into consideration when evaluating nontraditional applicants?
*Edit- I understand that discrimination is illegal, but this can be difficult to prove since all they have to find is one flaw in your application or decide that you're not a good "fit" for the program. (And my questions is not about winning a discrimination case but about initial acceptance vs. rejection.)

this is because 40+ year old students rarely get tenure track positions.

False.  PhD students of any age rarely get tenure track positions.

Even at the master's level, however, would I have difficulty getting funding at my age?

Not because of your age; however, PhD funding is more common than master's funding.

Also, are nontraditional students more likely to be rejected?

In most cases, no.  You may experience confusion if the program has never had a nontraditional applicant.


"Official" journal abbreviation of MAGMA I am struck by the use of "Magn Reson Mater Phy" as an abbreviation by the journal "Magnetic Resonance Materials in Physics, Biology and Medicine" (a.k.a. "MAGMA"). See here for an example.

Their instructions for authors say:

  In order to have all citations to the journal taken into account in
  the calculation of the Thomson-ISI impact factor and citation index,
  please always refer to MAGMA as Magn Reson Mater Phy in all your
  publications. Magn Reson Mater Phy is the only official abbreviation
  of the journal.

That use is of course reflected in the Web of Science.

On the same site, they say:

  Always use the standard abbreviation of a journal’s name according to
  the ISSN List of Title Word Abbreviations, see ISSN.org LTWA.

Using the LTWA and ISO-4 rules, I determine "Magn Reson Mater Phys Biol Med" as an abbreviation; note "Biol Med" and the extra "s" in "Phys". "Physics = Phys." is even an explicit example in ISO-4 (section 3.5) and often used, for example, in the abbreviation of "Medical Physics" ("Med Phys").

So, I wonder why Springer says the "official abbreviation" is one that is different from the LTWA. Is that for historical reasons, and MAGMA just sticks to it because the ISI impact factor is so powerful? Is there a title history that I may have overlooked? Or is there another reason Springer uses a different abbreviation for "Physics" and omits everything after the comma? In the whole ISO-4, I have not found any indication to do anything like that.

Update:
A little bit of history. MAGMA was born as "MAGMA" in 1993 (with no explanation of the meaning in the first editorial). The NML catalog says that "Issues for Apr. 1994- have subtitle: Magnetic resonance materials in physics, biology, and medicine." So there is no indication of any title not involving "Biology and Medicine".

The header line read MAGMA in all papers until the end of 1997 (see that year's last paper), and had been changed to "Magnetic Resonance Materials in Physics, Biology and Medicine" in the first editorial after the publisher had changed to Elsevier in 1998. It remained like this until issue 15 (some time in 2002), when the publisher changed to Springer; they started using "MAGMA" again until issue 18; since issue 19, they have been using "Magn Reson Mater Phy" in the header line until today. Note that the ISO-4 standard has not changed since 1997.

Also, the Web of Science says in the JCR:

  Titles

  ISO: Magn. Reson. Mat. Phys. Biol. Med.

  JCR Abbrev: MAGN RESON MATER PHY

So there is no doubt the abbreviation I determined is correct. (Yes, there is! Note the difference in "Mater" [my abbreviation, according to LTWA] vs. "Mat" [ISO abbreviation according to JCR].) But still my questions remain:

Why does Springer/JCR use a different abbreviation?
Who was the first to use it?
And why do they still recommend using it?

And a bonus one:

Why does the JCR use a wrong ISO abbreviation?

Update: More facts.

MAGMA appears in the JCR for the first time in 1998, already as "MAGN RESON MATER PHY"
A fact that I have ignored so far is how the journal uses it's own name in references of their papers. Late 1997, MAGMA was cited "MAGMA", but I can't find self-citation after that (and before the JCR). So did the JCR ultimately define that abbreviation?

There is probably nobody but the particular administrators of the various organizations involved who can speak to the exact details of why this journal's abbreviations are inconsistent.

I suspect, however, that the answer that you would get, if you could track them down would be something along the lines of:

  I don't think it's inconsistent... hmm, I guess maybe it is?  We should probably try to figure out how to get that sorted out at some point.

The point is that curation is hard, curation of periodicals is harder, and curation of periodicals over long time frames and across multiple organizations is particularly difficult and easy to get wrong.  Worse yet, repairing a problem will often create more problems for the future (e.g., an inconsistency might get fixed by hard-coding in an alias).

Even within a single organization, it's difficult to handle different parts of a process consistently: for instance, yesterday I proofed my final version of a paper for a major journal and found that some of the links to instructions that the production staff supplied were incorrect.

All of this is a long way of saying: probably it's just an unintentional mess.  You can point it out to the people involved, and they might be able to fix it; they might also have work-arounds in place already and not care.  At the end of the day, however, it need not be your problem, unless you are in charge of curation of the journal or other resources involved.


Letter of Rec from Lab PI/Brother I am a college student considering applying to PhD programs both in the US and internationally. Currently I research in a lab affiliated with a top US university and run by my older brother, an instructor at that university. I really enjoy my research here and hope to continue with it; however, I worry about getting letters of recommendation for grad school. I will ask professors in project based classes at my university, but if I continue with this lab as I hope to, only my brother will be qualified to write one about my research abilities. Although the group has other affiliated instructors, my brother oversees the division I research in and my work. Will an admissions committee simply chalk a letter from him up to nepotism or, provided I demonstrate meaningful research, understand the circumstances?

I am of the opinion that as long as you disclose that he is your brother, you can still get a LOR from him. This is one reason why most universities generally want at least three or four letters of recommendation. (Maybe not specific for the sibling case here, but more broadly just the various nepotism cases).

Assuming that your brother would be qualified to write you a LOR if he did not happen to be your brother, I personally would not be too worried about having him write you a letter of recommendation. He does need to focus on the facts and not speculate on future potential or future outcomes too much. If he states the actual outcomes you have accomplished in the lab, him being your sibling becomes somewhat less important.

I would have something at the top of the letter and in your statement of purpose that very briefly discloses your relationship:

  Professor Jadir Grupta is my biological sibling [unless you are adopted I guess]. I have asked him to write a letter of recommendation based solely on the merits of my work in his lab.

Your brother could write something similar:

  @taurus is my biological sibling. I am providing him a LOR based on his academic work in my lab, not on the basis of our personal relationship.

Every LOR I have ever written is for someone that I am biased towards liking. I could even recommend some of them more highly than my own sibling or spouse or child. At the end of the day, most every LOR is coming from someone who could show nepotism towards the candidate.


How does a typical CS Ph.D program start I  am just starting a computer science Ph.D. in the EU, and i have been assigned, since the first month, various papers to implement by myself (no team members to help neither the advisor is helping)
I want to ask, is that normal from first month ?
I was expecting to find team members, maybe Post-Docs to give me a hand when needed, when there's something i couldn't comprehend etc.
What's your thoughts on this ?

A PhD program is principally about training you to be a researcher. Research is all about doing things no one else has done before and pushing the boundaries of knowledge.
A necessary first step is to get some understanding of what others have done before you. Unlike coursework where you typically learn things that "everybody" knows, when you do research you often need to understand what other people on the boundary of some specialized area of knowledge are doing: you have to be able to read their papers and understand what they are doing.
If you're in a field that involves algorithms and computation, one of the ways to understand what is going on is to take algorithms that other people describe and code them up in a way that you can test them and probably replicate the results of the paper. This is also a first step to either modifying their work or to making a comparison to something else you might design.
The thing you are meant to be learning is not only how some algorithm works or should be implemented, but also in learning how to learn. You won't learn how to learn if you rely on someone else teaching you all the time. So, yes, it's normal to be expected to do these things on your own (for the most part). It's not a job where the goal is actually to replicate these papers in the most efficient way with the personnel available, the goal is your own learning how to understand and do things.
That said, it's okay to get stuck and ask for help. It's just that you should make a lot of your own effort first.


Can I select any of my published paper in journal for book chapter I have been invited to submit a book chapter. The invitation email says:

  Due to your involvement in the field, and the research you published in your paper, 'X', publisher 'Y' invites you to extend your work and offer a more comprehensive overview of your studies. Contribute a chapter to 'Z', an upcoming Open Access book edited by Dr.'W'.

Surprisingly, paper 'X' is completely unrelated to the Book 'Z'. The book is edited by a renowned professor, the publisher is InTechOpen.

What to do in such case? Can I select any of my published papers in journal for this purpose? Will it not create any copyright problems?

If they're sending you invitations to contribute to volumes that are completely unrelated to your work, the next step's simple: ignore the email. They're clearly not doing their research and are resorting to mass mailings.


Professor didn't write recommendation letter on time, what should I do? I'm applying to graduate school programs, and for a few applications due yesterday only 2/3 of the professors I asked to write rec letters for actually sent them in. Will I be removed from consideration from the programs where the third person didn't send them in? Note:they did send them in for schools that had their due date a few weeks ago. Is there anything I can do? Or is it all out of my hands. I emailed them a day before with a reminder and also a day after asking if they will send it in.

Thanks

It sounds to me like you're in the US and I'm going to answer this from a UK perspective, but I expect the situations are broadly the same. I'll first discuss a similar thing that happened to me, and then give some advice.

So, this exact situation happened to me last year with two different universities, and two different letter writers. All the places I applied to required a minimum of two reference letters, so in each case, I was down 50% on letters.

In the first case, the university notified me that I was missing a reference letter and I had time to find someone else who was willing to very quickly write me another letter. My application there was ultimately unsuccessful, but not because of this (it's the best uni in my country and my application was wildly optimistic).

In the second case, the university didn't notify me at all that they had only received one reference letter in support of my application. In fact, I didn't find out until they mentioned it in the interview, after which they subsequently gave me an offer, still only having seen one reference letter. So it didn't matter in this case either.

My advice to you is the following: contact the schools which are missing letters. Ask if it matters that your letter might be arriving slightly late-- I expect it probably won't. People working in academia are aware of the time constraints that academics have and will likely be lenient in this kind of situation. I also don't think it will reflect badly on you, as you have done what you can to rectify the problem.

Secondly, send another gentle reminder to the letter writer in question, or, if possible, pay them a visit in person. Chances are, it was an honest mistake and they just forgot.

Good luck with the rest of the applications!


Generalization of results obtained from a paper that may be "false" I am a PhD student in mathematics, currently working on an article (article A) from two leading researchers in my field published in an 0.72 Impact journal.

I have an idea to generalize their results and publish my first article (paper B) but I have two problems:

In one of the proofs in paper A, the authors made a passage "crucial" which is not quite correct, according to several discussions with my supervisor .

What should I do with this situation? should I try to find another proof for the theorem and write it in a paper?

In paper B, I will use theorems similar to those of Article A, but weakening the assumptions assumed in A.

Do you think there is any chance that this can be considered plagiarism?

Any other advice about what to do in this situation is welcome, and I would especially appreciate answers from mathematicians, as I have the impression that standard practices differ significantly from field to field.

What should I do [when a published result contains a mistake]? should I try to find another proof for the theorem and write it in a paper?

You cannot use their result as-is, because it is incorrect. If their result is sufficiently interesting, then you could perhaps publish a paper that corrects their result, otherwise, you could include a correction in your paper before using the corrected result.

  In the paper B, I will use theorems similar to those of Article A, but by weakening the assumptions assumed in A. Do you think there is any chance that this can be considered plagiarism?

No.

You should make it clear that the theorems introduced in Article A are incorrect, and you should clearly motivate the introduction of your similar theorems that correct the originals.

This isn't plagiarism.

The OP clarified their plagiarism concerns as follows:

  my proofs will be similar to those used in paper A, except that I weakened the hypotheses.

Before stating your proof, you could explain "The following proof builds upon a proof by Original Authors [Theorem X, Paper A]," you could go further and explain "novel aspects appear in the first, third and fourth paragraphs" or "novel aspects will be highlighted in the proof" (with suitable highlighting in the proof, e.g., "this aspect is new," possibly parenthesised).


How to recruit participants for online experiments? We are currently doing a study where we thought it might be smart to try out the possibilities of recruiting participants from the Internet. I was thinking it might be best to ask more experienced members, where would be the best kinds of places to publicize the experiment, and what strategies they would recommend to this?

One approach that has become popular amongst many social and cognitive scientists is the use of Amazon Mechanical Turk, which is an internet piecework marketplace.  Many people have used this for recruiting study participants, and IRBs have been quite receptive to its use.

Designing studies for Mechanical Turk is challenging, and presents different issues than designing for in-person studies.  A number of online resources exist that discuss the advantages and challenges (e.g., this blog, this paper, and this website).  Mechanical Turk also poses sampling issues---as has been noted, however, typical recruitment methods also end up getting almost exclusively WIERD participants, so it's unclear how much of an issue that actually is.


PhD transfer during first year This year I was accepted into two PhD programs (USC and WashU). I had a very specific research interest, and the USC program used to be my first choice, because there were so many professors in the program who worked on this topic. But later I found that the PhD training in WashU was slightly better. So I ended up to WashU.
Now my question is, if the program at WashU is not as good as I expected, is it possible for me to transfer to USC after/during my first year of rotation?
(At the time of my decision, I had conversations with the deputy director of both programs, and they knew I had a tough choice between the two)

You can take the best of the two worlds. Get all your PhD training (by the way, what does it mean?) at WashU and then start a clean research cooperation with the relevant people at USC, while being at WashU.
You can do that by applying for exchange funds, by "stalking" people from USC at conferences ... there are many different ways, but for sure you want to keep bureaucracy and practical hurdles at a minimum, so stick with your PhD program at WashU.


Is it okay to join a self-funded PhD Program with possibility/intention of leaving in future for funded position I have done my masters a couple of years ago and now I want to do my PhD. I have been trying to get funded positions but no success yet. Without wasting my time, I am thinking about joining PhD program on my own funding. I know it will be hard for me, but I can do parttime work etc. Moreover, I am thinking to keep applying for funded positions or may be the current professor has funding later on.

I am not sure if it would be okay to leave a phd position. I read here that it would be unethical to leave a funded PhD and they have valid reasons that they fund you and invest you. However, in my case, I am totally self-funded.

So my Questions are:

Would it be okay/ethical to leave phd given that I am self funded.
Will I get any PhD position if I tell this to professor/admission committe?
Should I tell them upfront about the possibility of me leaving before?
will professors understand my justifiable reason to switch to phd to a better and funded position? May be I need a recommendation letter from them in future and I don't really want to create any bad impression of myself.

P.S.

Reasons to register for self-funded phd position:

I don't want to waste my time any further; it has already been an year and a half.
I shall get a research experience and will be in academia network that will help me to get a funded position.

The only ethical concern here, hence the only thing that would make it not ok, is if your leaving breaks commitments to others and leaves them hanging. This might happen in some lab-intensive fields where your research dovetails with that of others. In that case you would need to clean up the situation, but still aren't obligated to continue forever.

Most people will understand your situation and your desire to move if you do. I don't think that obtaining letters will be a problem as long as you fulfill your obligations. If you are doing good work, there may even be an incentive at the first institution to find funding for you in some way.

The only negative I can see is a question might arise about why you can't get funding. Is there some deficit in your background. That might make it harder to get accepted, but otherwise I don't predict any  issues.

Actually, people leave funded positions as well. The same basic rule applies. Fulfill your obligations and don't leave others hanging. Laws and contracts may modify that rule in some situations, of course.

Joining a doctoral program isn't a one time, irreversible, life-time commitment.


How to request an extension for submission to a conference? I am writing a few research papers for an upcoming conference and things have been going decently. But I could really use more time to analyze my papers.

I am new to writing and this entire conference process, however - How should I e-mail the organizer requesting a deadline extension?

Hi Dr. Bobster,

I would like you to extend the deadline for the
international conference on procrastination.

Sincerely,
Procrastinator

Also if it helps: I should make this extra polite because this is also someone of high influence.

Updates

It looks like for the past versions of this conference, they gave at least a week extension. This is a fairly well known event, though it doesn't usually end up presenting any ground breaking research.

It looks like the past few events had extensions, its a well-known event but not too crazy. There's no way I can finish this with the other things I have..

If anyone wants an update, I cut the paper short, finished it on time and submitted it.

I asked for an extension. I didn't get a reply - so I thought that they thought I was being stupid. BUT.... they extended the deadline! Phew!! Maybe I didn't have to cut it short..

The words you propose are reasonable, but unlikely to have much effect. Usually, you just plain cannot affect the deadlines of a significant conference. If it is a small conference, however, there is a good chance that you can get a one week extension, and even that they may give a blanket one week extension to everybody.


How much background detail should go in the introduction section in a paper? I have been trying to write a paper. Reading the introduction part I am getting different behaviours from different papers.

Some papers cover themselves more than 50% with introduction content as if they are the only source of information present anywhere while some give it very briefly expecting user to be well aware.

As a reader I never expected to learn the concept from paper intro part itself but from books and then read papers. I rather think that introduction section shall be used to provide very brief intro and references for further understanding. Repeating an algorithm that's present in 500 books makes no sense.

I need some tips on writing introduction part that its just about enough or is it mandatory to repeat info to make it somewhat complete in itself ?

How much detail to provide in the introduction depends on the circumstances.  The minimum requirement is to give enough context and references that a diligent reader could fill in any missing background, at the cost of some extra work.  However, that's a pretty undemanding requirement; a few papers fail to do this, but they generally fail by not even trying.  It's often valuable to do more to make life easier for the reader.  How much more depends on who you expect will read the paper, and on what you believe they want or need from the introduction.  (Some papers are read only by impatient experts, while others attract a broad audience.)  What's considered appropriate may vary between fields or even subfields, but here are a few general principles:

Targeting an audience for your papers can be a self-fulfilling prophecy.  If you aim at a very specialized audience, it becomes much less likely that anyone else will read your papers.  Attracting a broader audience is on the whole a good thing, both for scientific progress and for your own career, so it's best not to limit your audience unnecessarily.  If modest changes will make your writing much more accessible, then they are probably a good idea.
It's easy to overestimate how much readers really know.  In an ideal world, every researcher would remember all the details of everything they ever studied, but life doesn't work that way.  Of course you can't re-teach things from scratch (and shouldn't even try), but sometimes a brief reminder can be really helpful.  This is particularly true when the details matter: if the reader really needs to know exactly how a certain algorithm works to understand your paper, then restating the algorithm can be worthwhile even if you suspect most readers will already be somewhat familiar with it.  Those who already know the details can easily skim just enough to convince themselves that their version is the same as yours, while those who don't can read more carefully.
The introduction plays a crucial role in describing the context and explaining why you did these things and what the consequences are.  It may not be the part of the paper that most excites you, but it will almost certainly be the most-read section (not counting the abstract).  The purpose of your paper is to communicate your discoveries, and making the introduction more accessible is sometimes the best way to achieve this.


During college I was in an accident, changed majors & took a tough schedule, my GPA is low & no recs from a prof, is grad school still an option? I was in an accident during college, and I graduated with a low GPA (just under 3.0 or so). I switched majors to Math and while I did well in some classes, in general I was a B/C student or so. I think if I went at a normal pace, I could have done much better. Since graduating I've worked as a statistician and a computer programmer. I don't have ANY profs to ask for a letter, but I think I have an employer reference.

Can stellar GREs help me get into a Math PhD?

Stellar GREs can help but they won't get you into a top tier program on their own.  Recommendations from faculty who know you are very important, academic research experience is desired, and in most programs grades matter quite a bit. That's the bad news.

The good news is that there's a fairly straightforward way to address the situation. In a case like yours, a masters degree can often offer a way to reset your record and give you the portfolio you need to get into a good PhD program. You'll get a chance to show your ability in the classroom, you'll presumably get some research experience, and you'll have the opportunity to get to know a number of faculty well enough that they can write strong letters on your behalf.


What are the standards/expectations from a teaching postdoc contract? Recently, I talked with a CS Professor regarding working in his lab as a postdoc. He said that he is interested in my CV/profile, but he can only give me a contract as a teaching staff until he gets the grants next year. However, he said that all the courses he currently instructs are given only in German (which is a constraint for me).

But I was wondering if I'm supposed to do teaching as a postdoc, I shouldn't be expected to act as a TA of his courses. Instead, I should be the instructor of a course and not his own course. At least, that's what I always imagine as the level of teaching responsibilities for a postdoc researcher.

Then, if that assumption is correct, I wonder if I can suggest a few topics that fit his group's research profile and is not given by other groups so that I can instruct in English. For instance as a course (or block course or seminar) in the international track. But, I like to know how realistic/practical this could be before discussing it with him.

If you are going to a new country (assumed based on the German tag and the language being a challenge) or even only a new university, then first acting as a teaching assistant can be very good - you will learn how courses are organized, teaching handled, what you can expect of the students, possibly some of the bureaucracy and the online systems that are in use.

The alternative is to learn all of this while, at the same time, creating a course or mastering the contents of an existing one, and learning all the involved bureaucracy. This can be done, for sure, but it will be involved and consume much time.

This probably also depends on your teaching experience: If you have already lectured a course, or have extensive experience as a teaching assistant, then you should be more prepared to lecture a course and can ask for it.

Consider also your language skills. Giving a comprehensible lecture in a foreign language is significantly easier than a free conversation. There will be an accent, but if you write and speak everything, many students can cope. You will need to find a good resource for learning the vocabulary and how to pronounce mathematical expressions, though, if do not yet have such.

There might also be intermediate roles between a teaching assistant and the main lecturer - I had such a position in Norway (at NTNU) as an øvingslærer.


Convince professor to allow submitting paper? There's some  work X that I did with my advisor. We got stuck, and she thought it was too preliminary to submit for publication. She didn't think it was worth putting the effort to turn it into a submission. Now we're on to some other work Y. I'd like to submit X for a journal/conference, since it can't really hurt to submit. If anything, we might get useful feedback on future directions from referees.

What are some things I can do/say to convince my advisor to allow me to submit the work with her? For one thing, I'll tell her that I'm happy to do the writing up.

There's a few separate things to consider here. I'll try to cover each succinctly.

Your advisor probably (hopefully?) knows the field well. They should have a good idea of what would and wouldn't be accepted. I'm sure they will have been in a similar situation in the past, and have experience of it. Therefore their view on the matter is perhaps important from the angle of experience and subject knowledge.

It may be that your advisor simply doesn't feel comfortable publishing the work as it stands. As a professor, there is a lot of pressure to publish high quality works. As academia is highly competitive (at least in some disciplines), perhaps your advisor is worried about publishing ongoing work at an early stage for fear of giving a competitor an advantage? This isn't a negative remark as to them, rather them looking out for both your interests (as you wouldn't want someone to snatch this away from under you).
Having a discussion about the situation (as I believe you began) is important in these situations.

Perhaps this is discipline specific, but you could maybe approach the subject by suggesting a recent results track (or ongoing work) in a conference? Often these are good places to sound out ideas and seek feedback or potential input or collaboration. You would definitely want the active support of your advisor for this though, since they would likely be the one paying the conference fee and travel expenses.

It may be that your advisor simply doesn't feel the work/results so far are good enough, or that the experimental procedure (if applicable) was suitable, given the early stages of the work. I know of situations in the past where (for right or wrong, that's a whole separate debate), advisors have told students to remove their name from a submission if they were going to insist in submitting it. While that's hopefully not the case here, it often is an indication of the advisor's feelings on the matter, in them saying they don't wish to be associated with the work.

I would suggest you perhaps approach the subject with your advisor along the lines of point 2 - perhaps suggest a recent results or ongoing result track at a smaller conference? You would hopefully then be able to discuss the advantages or disadvantages of submitting for publication. I can't comment on the offer to do the writing yourself, as that was how I worked anyway, but I'm well aware this is probably disciple specific.
At the end of the day, your advisor will probably make a recommendation as to how to proceed. Remember they likely have a fairly good idea what will and won't be accepted for a conference or journal, and perhaps simply want to save you the time in preparing a manuscript for what they feel is inevitable rejection. So talk to your advisor, and perhaps propose a destination with a suitable recent results or ongoing work track?


Is it necessary to reply to a solution email by a thank-you email? If I asked via email someone, say a member of the graduate admission staff of a school I am applying to, some question, and if the staff member replied to my email with a solution to my problem, does the staff member expect to receive a thank-you email from me?

At the present stage I still am not good at evaluating if it is suitable to reply to such an email by a thank-you note.

It is appropriate? Sure, what is the harm? It is always nice to see one's work recognised and appreciated. Just keep it short, polite, and to the point.

Is it expected? Probably no. The staff is busy, and if your question wasn't anything out of the ordinary, they would probably forget you asked soon.

Edit: mbert adds in the comments some interesting inside information:

  I am an assistant at my university and answer a lot of emails through a ticketing system. Our signature says something similar about replying. This is because when I answer an email, the ticket gets closed and marked done. If you answer to this email the ticket gets reopened and somebody needs to close it again. So I would suggest to answer with a short sentence but only if you are not emailing with a team that shares an email ( like staff@... or support@... )

(Emphasis mine).


I will fail 1 (or 2) classes this semester as a master's student. Should I forget about PhD applications to schools in US? I am an engineering master's student, and I could not cope with the quarantine during the last few months, and I will be failing one or two classes this semester.
I just finished my year, and I had a very high GPA in my first semester. Is this red flag a dealbreaker for PhD applications in the US? I am not sure if I should bother applying.
I also had this unusual situation where I was about to transfer credit from a former university where I was a graduate student but received no degree, and it was too late to drop by the time my grades were transferred, because quarantine caused delay when I was obtaining documents. So hopefully I will have completed a decent portion of my credits, but realistically I am not hopeful.

If getting a PhD is something you really want to do, I suggest applying. If your failing those classes is truly not a reflection of your abilities or motivation, but - as you said - relating to effects of the pandemic/quarantine, then hopefully the rest of your course grades and other application materials will make up for those two failed courses.
When I applied to PhD programs, my own bit of insecurity came from the fact that I had graduate credits from another university where I didn't receive a degree (it was my first attempt at a PhD and it just wasn't a good fit). I decided to address it in my personal statement. I acknowledged that I attempted my PhD before but quit, explained why, and quickly moved on to explain how it was still a learning experience for me in terms of coursework, gaining teaching experience,and learning more about myself and what I valued/prioritized in a PhD program.
I would suggest you do something similar in your personal statement (if engineering programs require them), and to keep it brief. Acknowledge the failed courses, offer an explanation for why you failed the classes in such a way that they understand that this was an atypical experience for you, and then come back with a statement of some sort that illustrates why - despite what you just shared - you're still a great candidate for their program. None of this should dominate the personal statement, I would keep it to just a few sentences.


We or "the authors"? Now, say authors A and B are writing their second paper. Which is more appropriate, or which sounds better. Referring to their previous work as "we researched/we surveyed" or "the authors researched/surveyed". This warrants a question because, in the first case, it may sound like they are "broadcasting" their presence, while in the second case, it seems like they are "hiding" their identity.

Although, the following questions 1 (which applies for a single author case) and 2 (which refers to when there may be many authors but some of them may not share co-authorship in a new publication) are similar, they are quite different from what is intended here. Also question 3 is quite close, but I guess the question applies for use in a thesis.

I don't think it makes much of a difference; both are used widely. Some people like to write their names as well, eg. J. Doe may write, 'Doe et al [22] demonstrated...'.

The last one is important if you're submitting to a double-blind review. Between the first two, it  depends on how much attention you want to draw to the previous work- it could be of prime significance, or it may be an offhand, supporting reference. In the first case, you may like to use 'we' to establish your group as an important contributor in the field. Nothing hard and fast, it's quite subjective and a matter of style- most people would consider 'the authors demonstrated' to be a more formal expression.


The best way to thank my research supervisor? A few weeks ago, I finished my undergraduate research project. I had 2 supervisors for the project: One supervisor signed off on everything I did and gave me the opportunity to work on the project. He was my official supervisor. The second supervisor oversaw all of my work, assigned tasks, and graded my work. I would like to thank both of them since this was an incredible opportunity, especially when applying to graduate school. I also plan to keep in contact and use them both as references in the future. How should I go about thanking them and what should I say?

You have the options already mentioned: sending an email or visiting them in person to say thank you.

However (like me), you might be a little unsure of what to say when speaking face to face. In this case, a handwritten note or card would be a nice touch, as it's more personal and permanent than an email.

You might want to ask for a reference at a later date, nearer to when you submit your applications. As Prof. Santa Claus says, if the project went as well as you describe, I see no reason why they would refuse.


How to avoid competition while giving a talk or presenting a poster? I would like to know how people avoid unnecessary competition if they are going to give a talk or present a poster about their work. Of course, presenting our work might hopefully lead to new collaboration and connections, however, it might lead to competition with others if they find the idea behind the work good.
Do you only present your published work? or do you present your work when you are sure it is going to published soon so even if someone else wants to do the same work cannot finish in time?

Firstly, I think you overestimate the risk of someone stealing your ideas at a conference talk and publishing them ahead of you. Really, at the point when you're presenting your ideas at a conference, you are so much closer to a successful publication than most people:

you have studied a lot in a chosen narrow field and understand the background of your problem really well
you have a nice idea which you understand better than others
you have a working code or set of experiments or other solid evidence of success
you have made at least some literature review
you have at least a draft of your paper in mind (and some plots already on your slides)

It is really unlikely some freshman in the area will understand your methods and results and publish them ahead of you. Also, bear in mind that most conference talks only hint the idea anyway, as 95% of details are impossible to fit and explain during the conference. And of course, the fact that you present something at conference is remembered by your colleagues, who might then be involved in the revision process. So my strategy is - the more publicity the better (but I am not prepared to make my git repository public yet, so don't ask).

However, if you really want to protect your contribution - only present what is published. Many people still do this, and they're mostly as successful as others.


Who writes the solicitations? Who writes the solicitations for funding agencies? The program directors or possibly other invited researchers.

The answer to you question is that it varies both within agencies and across agencies.

I have seen program coordinators write solicitations by themselves. I have seen them ask for scientists working within the agency to help write them. I have seen them ask for external feedback on research priorities. I have also seen scientists working within agencies write their "statements of work" for small, project driven proposals.

To answer your question for a specific agency and program, I would ask their coordinator or someone within their agency. You might also be able to ask a faculty member who has served as a reviewer for an agency.


How do I get to know research areas in Physics and Mathematics? I posted this on the Physics Site and I was warned that I would be best fit here.

I'm a freshman undergrad and I plan to get a Physics major. I don't know actually in what area I want to follow, I do have an idea that I don't want to be and Experimental Physicist but I'm open to every experience. I know many universities offer their colloquium/talk on the Internet which most of the times I find very interesting and informative, but I find it hard to get to know many good colloquia. I will be very glad if you can recommend me anything that would help me to understand the research fields in Physics and Mathematics.

While I agree with Coder's comment that this is probably off-topic here, perhaps I can provide a general answer which would apply to users looking into any new discipline, not just physics or math.

In order to really come to terms with any field, I would recommend the following (in no particular order):

Take relevant classes. As an undergrad, this should be extremely easy.
Talk to people currently performing research in these fields. This can include your professors or perhaps emailing researchers whose work you've seen and been interested in. This is the option I would suggest most, as you're likely to get a wider array of viewpoints.
As Coder mentioned in the comments, go check out some of the recent research papers in your field's top conferences. You'll likely be unable to follow the majority of the work, but you should be able to get a good feel for the general tone of research being done in the field.
Per Carol: Attend the colloquia and seminars that the relevant departments host.


Bad GRE with an otherwise good record - is it possible my application will not even be considered? I will try my best to remain anonymous. I have studied my bachelor and master's degree in a university outside the US. The math department is very strong and my adviser is well known - he has several papers with over 200 citations. I have good grades with many advanced courses, in fact I believe I have already studied beyond what is required in some PhD programs. My MSc thesis features some new results known to experts but not otherwise. I believe I will have good letters of recommendation.

I am trying to apply to the top 10 math departments. I believe that my record is overall strong but my GRE scores are extremely bad, in fact much below average. I did my math GRE under very bad circumstances, both physically and personally. Is it possible that my application won't even be considered by the committee? I am worried I won't pass the initial filter and that nobody would even look at my letters of recommendation. Is this reasonable?

In my experience with graduate admissions in mathematics departments, all complete applications are looked at by departmental faculty (and mildly incomplete ones may be looked at as well, albeit more briefly).  So I think it is likely that your letters will be read.

However, you say that your GRE scores are "much below average".  I will assume that your description is somewhat factually based and thus that they are below the 35th percentile.  In my department -- about the 50th best -- we would like to see higher scores than that, but we can take chances on some applicants for whom that is the only weak point.  Admission to the top 10 math departments in the US is much more competitive than this: they can fill their classes with applicants who are extremely successful according to all the standard metrics.  If they deviate from that then they will do so only for someone who is truly exceptional.

You say that your "thesis features some new results known to experts but not otherwise".  I don't mean to be harsh, but this sounds quite equivocal: to a research mathematician "new" implies that it is not known to experts.  I suppose you would have mentioned if you had published your results, so I will say that it is often difficult to publish such results in a reputable journal.  Anyway "truly exceptional" here means that you have results that were not just unknown to everyone but are actually surprising / exciting to the experts, and that they are eager to build on your work and learn more about your ideas.  It sounds like what you've done is write an ordinarily strong master's thesis, and in my opinion this is not going to offset your poor GRE scores.

My advice is to apply to a lot of departments.  Every individual committee gets to decide how much to value GRE scores; I have certainly met individual faculty members who do not place much stock in them, so while it is unlikely that an entire admissions committee would feel that way, it must happen sometimes.  If you don't get into a good enough department, you should consider deferring for a year, retaking the GRE under better conditions and really nailing it.  If you really do feel that you can do much better on it, then waiting one year and then going to a top department is probably a better career move in the long run.  However, if you wait a year, take the GRE again and don't do better, it will be disappointing, so you should make an effort to figure out whether you will really do better, which may involve taking practice tests but also some soul-searching and personal honesty.

Good luck.  And to everyone else who is reading this: yes, for math PhD students, the GRE is a very serious business.  Please take it seriously and plan to do well, rather than trying to figure out how to paint over this weakness in your application.


Publications that use public review I sometimes find that the reviews I get on papers I submit to various high-impact journals are of surprisingly questionable quality. I typically get the impression that reviewers only read a paper in a cursory fashion, make rash assumptions, and hence make comments that are actually not relevant to the content. Or they might make unreasonable comparisons, along the lines of 'we know fusion works in principle, so why should one bother with research on photovoltaic cells '. I think this is a great waste of precious time and resources. I know that some journals use a public review system (https://www.nature.com/nature/peerreview/debate/nature04988.html), and I'm convinced that more accountability will incentivise reviewers to do a better job. I'm interested in hearing about others people's experiences with this system (does it work?), and if there is an easy way (such as a list) to find publications that use this system (how do I find them?).

I don't think there are many journals that currently use public peer review, so it's unlikely that there's a list of them. The most well-known journal that does this, I think, is F1000Research, which also powers Wellcome Open Research and Gates Open Research.


Succes in research, awful in solving in basic things I am a fourth-year Ph.D. student in pure mathematics. I am studying abroad. I need some advice.
Before getting through to my question, let me say something about myself. I am studying at a good university in Europe. I have 3 papers, which two of them are my own papers(without co-authors). I am planning to defend my thesis in the following summer. Moreover, I am applying for a postdoc position.

My Ph.D. story is a sad story. After two years, my Ph.D. supervisor informed the university that I do not know any things about math, and he could not work with me. Then, the university chose a co-supervisor for me. After 1year, I and my co-supervisor wrote a paper. To be honest, my co-supervisor had a lot of nice ideas and I wrote his idea in papers. I did not fill good because that was most of his idea, but my colleges told me we always did the same things. There was a lot of pressure on me because all of the people found out my problems with my supervisor and they thought I am weak and stupid.

Last summer, I wrote two papers in the area which I have been working since my Ph.D. Then, everything changed. My supervisor said hello to me every day( before he did not say) and behavior everyone changes to me. I got some emails from great mathematicians about my papers.

I have two big problems. First, I can not solve basic things in math. That makes me feel upset and worried. For instance, when I got up today, I was thinking the following statements are equal: For all x, there is y such that x+y=4& There is x, for all y such that x+y=4, but somethings in my heart was saying I am wrong. So I start to read a logic book. That is not shaming for a Ph.D. student? Is it? or, Why I do not remember Linear Algebra? and other whys?

These kinds of questions make me feel I got lucky to write two papers. Anyone get lucky. My supervisor might be right, I do not know any things from math. How I can pass PhD exam?

I have seen my fair share of mathematicians failing basic tasks. Probably more iconic ones are related to arithmetics but that is more understandable.

For example I have seen a +40 years old working mathematician volunteering to teach differential equations because s/he didn't feel confident in his/her ability do solve them and wanted to force him/her-self to improve.

I don't think it is detrimental to fail basic tasks as long as you behave accordingly. As long as you discuss with others while doing your research and prepare before you teach, you can avoid most of the potential issues and fix them along the way.


How to become a better researcher in a shorter amount of time? This question could also be read as :
As a professional researcher, you wish you would have done some things differently than you did when starting your research career. Things that would have benefit you more in being a successful researcher. By successful, I mean having the most impactful contributions in your field.

I am not concerned about others being better than me but rather want to know how to become a better researcher and make better decisions that will contribute to that end. What are the things that you as a professional researcher would tell the younger you to do differently to be a better researcher.

My first, and maybe best, advice would be to do more collaborations. Collaborations with local and remote colleagues. Collaborations with students. Build yourself a circle of people willing to work with you so that you learn from each other. Start with your own advisor and try to get to be a part of their circle.

Go to conferences and use them to expand your circle. Talk to a lot of people. Share a lot of ideas. Take a student or two along when you go to conferences. Introduce them around. Talk about ideas between sessions.

Write a lot of joint papers and be generous about such things as "first" authorship. Work with people who you treat as equals and who treat you the same way. Give a lot of help to students and include them in your circle. Keep the relationship alive after they finish their degrees. Try to assure that they learn everything they need to build a good career.

Build a critical mass so that better work gets done by the ever expanding circle of contributors.

Do this even if you are an introvert at heart, as I am.


If you have severe problems with speaking, is it okay to use more text and equations on slides? I understand that it is best to give a good oral presentation supported by slides with minimal text. Questions like this have been asked before, but in the context of a "normal" presenter.

My ability to communicate in front of an audience is however so impaired by my nerves during a presentation that I think I can communicate more information by making nearly self-explanatory slides.

What is your advice on this in case of unusual limitations or problems of the presenter? Problems such as:

nervousness up to the extent that language gets incoherent,
people who do not speak the language required for the presentation well,
people with voice problems.

I understand this question can be a general debate of taste or style. But in general the objective in communication is the exchange of information by means of imperfect/corrupt media. If it’s difficult to repair or replace the media, it seems to make sense to change the mode of transmission. In an academic setting such as a conference presentation, or even a keynote, how acceptable is it to make the talk supporting the slides, in stead of the slides supporting the talk?

Slides with a lot of text or equations aiming to be self-explanatory tend to:

visually overwhelm the audience and don’t provide visual guidance – which is more relevant in talks than in written text as the audience needs to multitask to some extent, listening to the speaker and reading the slides at the same time;
contain more information than the audience can digest in the given time – regardless of what the speaker does;
have overly small text and graphics;
be read verbatim (which usually is a bad idea).

Mind the tend to: Neither are these issues inevitable, nor are they tied to the slides being self-explanatory. Rather, they are what often happens if an inexperienced speaker tries to make slides self-explanatory. In fact, I would consider most of my own slides self-explanatory and I am rather confident that my talks do not suffer from the above problems.

Hence I think your strategy to make your slides self-explanatory is fine – if you avoid the above problems. In detail, I recommend:

Avoid complete sentences, as they are bad for discontinuous reading such as usually done in talks.
Make sure that the main structure of each slide is easy to grasp.
Find a reasonable trade-off between not putting too much information on one slide and showing slides long enough.
If possible, use some test audience to ensure that your slides can be comprehended within the allotted time.
If a slide is complicated, build it up step by step in pieces that can be assessed by the audience within seconds.
Be careful not to overuse this feature, e.g., by uncovering a list item by item.
The audience likes to read ahead, in particular if you are rhetorically challenged.
Self-explanatory does not mean containing all the details.
In most cases, you barely have sufficient time to communicate your main message – only show what is essential to this message or at least make sure that sidenotes are visually distinct.
For example, if there is a standard way to choose the temperature at which you conduct your experiment, you usually don’t need to write this on your slide.
If you know that there are some people who cannot stop themselves from asking about this or it may be interesting for some members of the audience, give this information on the slides in a smaller font size or visually separate (and don’t talk about it).


My advisers did not want to be coauthor of my accepted journal article Recently a manuscript from my Masters by research thesis has been accepted in a Q1 journal with Impact factor nearly 4. At the beginning of the manuscript submission, I requested my advisers to be the coauthors of my article but they denied my request. Is that ethically ok to publish the accepted manuscript?

There are a few different situations that could lead to this:

Most plausible case: Your supervisors determined that in accordance with the standards of your field, they do not count as coauthors.
Different fields have different customs concerning whether supervisors are assumed to be coauthors of papers resulting from the supervised work. If you worked independently and your supervisors agree, then being a single author on the resulting paper will always be reasonable. Since you mention asking them only at submission stage, it does sound as if their involvement is limited.

Your supervisors really ought to be coauthors by the standards of your field, but declined to give you an (unfair) advantage or similar.
This is problematic from an ethical perspective. Having another persons consent still doesn't allow an academic to present their ideas as ones own. A carefully worded acknowledgement might work.

Your supervisors declined because they are aware of flaws in your paper, and don't want to be associated with it.
While one would hope that peer review would spot problems, there is no guarantee that it does. If your supervisors are aware of any major flaws, it would be your ethical responsibility to find out and either fix the paper, or to withdraw it if it is unfixable.

The manusscript is sound, but your supervisors are under political pressure to not associate themselves with the results. (pointed out by nick012000 in the comments)
Probably no ethical concerns about you publishing here, unless the political pressure is there for very good reasons.


Are you limited to the interests of the professors or your advisor during graduate research? I am applying to school for a degree in food science and am looking at potential schools and advisers. I've stumbled upon a particular subset of food science that I really want to get into, but only seems to be currently pursued by a couple professors at a certain University.

If, for some reason I am not admitted to this University, or the professors conducting research in this field do not accept me in their labs is there still the possibility of gearing my studies towards this type of work? If my graduate studies advisor had similar research focus, just not exactly the same, would this increase my chances of getting to work in this area? Is it worth it to mention your interest in this field while contacting potential advisors, even if it does not relate to the reason you consider the professor a good match?

Say you're a professor reading the application of a prospective student who wants to work on topic X, which is not your specific interest (your interest is Y). You may be thinking along any of the following lines:

"I'm doing Y, and I have lots of interesting research ideas around Y. I want students to help me explore these ideas in Y, so I won't supervise a student in X."
"I'm doing Y, and I can supervise students in Y reasonably well. But supervising a student in X for the first time would require a substantial extra investment of time and effort on my part, and I'm not able to offer that right now."
"X is really interesting. It would be useful to develop expertise in X. But currently I only have funding for Y (and PhD offers in our field are always funded), so I can't take on this student unless they are fully funded by an external fellowship."
"X is really interesting. It would be useful to develop expertise in X in this research group. I'll take on this student even though I have no interest in or expertise in X." But then this advisor may turn out to be an ineffective advisor for this student.
"X is really interesting. I don't have any expertise in X specifically, but I do know about the closely related field Y, and I think this expertise would enable me to effectively supervise a student in X, so I'm willing to take on this student." (It may or may not turn out to be true that expertise in Y will translate to effective supervision in X.)
"X is a major up-and-coming topic, which is why I just hired that postdoc with expertise in X to start this fall. With her help, we could definitely get a PhD student started in X."
"I wouldn't take on a student whose main topic is X, because that's not my primary research interest. But if the student was working on my topic, Y, I would be open to also pursuing X with him as a side project."

Since you don't know which of these apply, if you contact this professor, it would be a good idea to indicate that you would be very happy working on Y (if that's true) in addition to your interest in X.


How to deal with unwanted physical contact, presents and attention by a postdoc supervisor? Posting this to academia stackexchange, but if this may fit better in other place please let me know.
My girlfriend is a new PhD student in a male dominated field, and is supervised by a postdoc in a research group led by a professor. For the last few months, her postdoc supervisor was constantly giving her small presents, and trying to meet with her outside of work hours such as in a restaurant on weekends, for a reason of discussing the current work. This makes my girlfriend uncomfortable, but she is too shy to say no to those things, and the behavior of the postdoc supervisor up to this point was borderline, I even accompanied her for one such meeting on a weekend. Yesterday however her postdoc supervisor surprised her where he took off her glasses from her head without her asking or warning her (because her glasses were a bit dirty); My girlfriend was startled, and pulled the glasses from his hands, and put them back on. At this point he further unannounced tried to touch and fix her hair, as she put her glasses in a rush which messed her hair. The overall situation stressed my girlfriend considerably, and she ended up in tears in the evening when she was telling me this. There have been some other similar situations (albeit with no / less physical contact) which makes my girlfriend distracted and nervous when she communicates with her supervisor, which impacts her ability to do her work.
My view on this is that we should let her supervisor know clearly that this behavior is not acceptable asap and escalate to the professor, in order to prevent such situations from happening again. The issue right now however is that her scientific work is depending on her supervisor, so she does not want to escalate or bring up this situation for discussion until the paper deadline that she works on. I am inclined to go and talk with the professor and postdoc myself, but I also do not want to do anything that my girlfriend did not ask for. Do you have any advice for me of what I can do to help? Do you have any suggestions or comment in general what to do in this situation?
Edit 1: As pointed in the answers / comments, I will not attempt any talking with prof or with postdoc on my own or other similar actions.
Edit 2: Unfortunately some 1:1 situations cannot be avoided, as my gf needs to take measurements together with her postdoc who knows how to operate the machinery.

This might be more of a Interpersonal Skills question, but:

don't take any action on your own
do support your GF in any way she asks, including (1) being supportive and helping her deal with the stress (2) being present as a third party at meetings or (3) in conversation as a reminder that she's unavailable or (4) as an excuse ("oh, sorry, I have plans with my boyfriend (cough) so it'll be inconvenient to meet in person this weekend, but we could communicate via Zoom/Slack/e-mail ...") — not that it's OK that any of these are necessary in the situation.
after the submission deadline passes, it's a judgement call (depending on personalities, relationships, etc.) whether it's best for her to try to work things out with the postdoc supervisor or go immediately to the professor

@Buffy correctly points out in a comment (I should have included this) that the highest priority is for your GF to stay safe by making sure never to be in a private/one-on-one meeting with the postdoc: if you're not available or she doesn't want you there and she can't set the meeting for a public professional space, ask her to ask a friend or colleague (especially female) to be there (mentioning this advice to your GF would be the one possible exception to "don't give her any help she doesn't want"). If your GF and the postdoc need to work together to take measurements on some equipment, do whatever you have/she has to to make sure there's a third person present.


What can I do to recover from a short term burnout? Over the past few days, my advisor and I had been going really hard. We got a really good idea and the preliminary results looked good, so I started spending long days in the lab, going home only to sleep. My advisor saw this and he started spending a lot more time with me and we had long meetings whenever I requested. This has been going on for about 4 weeks and although I loved it while I was in it, I feel burnt out now. There are still really exciting things I need to try but I don't know why I can't get myself to do any of them.

What is a good strategy to escape this burnout phase?

I have already tried:

Playing an instrument I was good at
Just taking some time off
Limiting my work hours

But none of these and others seem to work.

For a true burnout you will need to stop working, rest, and seek counseling/medical help. You need to lower your expectations of yourself and virtually eliminate what others expect from you. Ultimately, because work is about expectations (either self-imposed or set by others), I doubt that you can continue working and recover from a burnout.

Given that you state that the burnout occurred over a short period, rather than a sustained year-upon-year effort, my advice is to take a vacation. Three weeks should do the trick.

Just remember, life is about enjoying it, not earning money, because in the end you will take nothing with you.


Can I add an inscription on a bachelor thesis that I have been working on for almost a year? I have been working on my bachelors thesis for 10-11 months now and am about to hand it in. Without bragging, my topic was by far harder and more work than most bachelor theses.

Now I am wondering whether I should add an inscription to my parents in it. I really want to show that I am grateful for giving me the opportunity to study. Now I have read up on some advice on the internet saying that I probably shouldn't do it because bachelor theses are generally only meant for a small amount of people.

With my thesis this is different as I am planning on releasing at as a documentation of my work (my bachelor thesis was to write an improved version of an existing API).

What do you think?

EDIT:

I am talking about a short "To my parents." on a separate page in the beginning.

EDIT2:

Please remember, a Bachelor thesis is different to a dissertation.

If you want to dedicate your bachelor thesis to somebody, or acknowledge people: by all means, just do it!

It is your thesis, after all.


With a background in mathematical finance and desire to apply for a mathematics PhD in another field, do I need a second master's? Pardon the dumb question if ever. I notice similar questions all sound like "can I get a second master's?" but mine is "do I need?"

I am nearly finished with my master in mathematical finance. I have finished my thesis and have one course left to take.

Edit: I am about to graduate from a third world university and am planning to apply for a PhD in a first world university.

I am interested in taking up a PhD in a different branch of mathematics called stochastic analysis (stochastic calculus. or whatever it's called.) but am wondering if my background is insufficient. If so, I may take up a second master's.

Given my limited background in stochastic analysis and other information (below), can I already apply for a PhD with stochastic analysis for my dissertation topic, or might I need a second master's first?

Some information:

I am not particularly interested in mathematical finance anymore unless it is in a rigorous context rather than with computers, modeling, statistics, non-mathematical finance, simulations, etc. As of right now, I no longer have any plans to go into industry.
My background in Stochastic Analysis is 2 courses on Stochastic Calculus, 1 prerequisite course for Stochastic Calculus (probability) and 2 halves of classes which apply the stochastic calculus.
I don't know about the basics of one kind of stochastic calculus as we were taught mainly the other kind.
My thesis is about credit risk, having mainly to do with statistics, the part of mathematical finance I don't want to go in to, if I were still interested in mathematical finance. Hence, I feel have no background in mathematical research given that the research conducted was mainly to do with statistics and finance.
I have read a sample PhD proposal and have no clue what to put for methodology. I am not quite sure what kind of research methods pure mathematicians have.
Furthermore, while I technically passed the thesis, I scored the lowest passing mark. Meanwhile, I did score well in all the classes relevant to stochastic analysis.

I would say the answer depends on your background in mathematics, and from the information you give, I can't tell how extensive that is.  It isn't so important what the title is on your degree; it matters what you've done and what you know.

To start a US-style PhD in pure math, in which the first couple of years are coursework, you should have the equivalent preparation of a bachelor's degree in mathematics.  It should include, for example, about one year each of proof-based real analysis and abstract algebra.  You should be very comfortable with reading and writing mathematical proofs.

To start a European-style PhD, you are expected to be ready to begin working on research.  You should have completed graduate-level courses in algebra and analysis, and be very familiar with fundamental material in your subfield.  For an area like stochastic analysis, for example, I'd say you'd want to know the majority of the material in a textbook like Karatzas and Shreve, and be able to work through the proofs and solve the exercises.

One question is - what was the level of mathematical rigor in your courses up to stochastic calculus?  If it wasn't high, that's likely to be a problem.


How to overcome feeling that published articles lack public interest? I am a MSc graduate student, still trying to get a PhD position, but with no success at all. During and after my graduation I struggle to publish some articles (right now I got 6, mostly published in IEEE conferences or indexed in Scopus), but I do not feel happy at all.

The problem is that I see my publications as having a lack of public interest. I would like to publish more interesting, formal and mathematical stuff (I am in the field of Computer Science), but the problem that I have is that in my current place of work almost all my time is dedicated to lecturing. Also, and because I am working in a university of applied sciences; the research made here is highly applicable and less theoretical. All this things has put me in a state of deep depression.

What should I do to start looking to my research and my made publications with a different attitude? Should I seek for medical counselling?

Thanks

What should I do to start looking to my research and my made publications with a different attitude?

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that your problem isn't that you are working in applied sciences vs. theory. Further, I am not sure if your problems are of medical nature (but this can of course not be ruled out from what you wrote). Let me recap some things you wrote and provide some interpretation. I am not sure to what extend this will answer your question, but I hope my ramblings will provide input and perspective anyways. Maybe somebody else will provide a more direct answer to the question.

You are a master student who published 6 papers during his masters at a university of applied sciences. All of the papers have been in IEEE/Scopus venues. Yet you still can't get a PhD position.

First of, IEEE conferences or indexed in Scopus isn't the quality label you maybe hope it is. There are terrible venues for which both of these things are true. The fact that you say you have very little time for research, and still wrote 6 of those things indicates that the quality of your papers may be not all that super. If this is the case, the problem that prevents your papers from having impact isn't that they are applied, it is that they may simply not be very good.

This may also be the issue with your PhD applications. For me, and many others, papers below a certain (subjective) quality standard count for next to nothing. Really bad papers may actively work against you. Again, "IEEE conferences or indexed in Scopus" does not rule out either of these cases, so try to evaluate your publications independently of these labels. For instance, pick a few PhD student papers from the group that you are applying to. Try to neutrally evaluate whether your papers play in the same league as those. If all papers of PhD students of the prof. or lab you are applying to are much better, and/or have appeared in much better venues than your papers, I am uncertain how much your publications will help your case.

You worry that your papers do not have a strong impact.

I think this point warrants some additional explanation. One of the sad realities of research is that most papers in all but the very top venues of your field (think ICSE or CHI for applied computer science) have very little to zero impact on the research community - and even the papers in the top venues often have close to zero impact on anybody outside your research community. Papers that really get the attention of your fellow researchers are few and far between. I have written papers that I personally consider good to great, which remain pretty much uncited (and, presumably, almost unread) to this day.

You want to progress as a researcher, but you work almost exclusively as a lecturer.

Try to see your situation as it is. Similarly to above, your problem isn't so much that you are working in a university of applied sciences - your problem is that your current position is incompatible with your career goals. You want to do research, but your job is teaching. Your situation would be none the better if you worked as a pure lecturer in a research institution (maybe this would in fact be even more frustrating for you). What you need to do is either (a) find a job or stipend that allows you to do what you want to do, or (b) accept that you are currently not on a research track.


How can I zip and share my files in my Mendeley favorite My professor asked me to send the pdf files of my articles. However, I have about 80 articles in my Mendely favorites. The pdf files are on my PC but in different folders. I would like to know if there is any way to select them all, then zip all the physical files, or export or copy them to a folder, or any method so that I can have them together. The other option could be synching them with the Web; however, I don't know how then I can share the link of them to the prof. I prefer to have the pdf files in a folder.

It's possible in new versions of Mendeley (Currently version 1.19.4). Then:

Select all documents in favorites (Right click and click select all)
Then right click and from context Menue (or click File) and select Export PDF(s) with Annotations
It will ask you to save them in a new folder.


How/where do I publish a 50-page-long writeup? I've written this document developing a new theoretical model, with many definitions, some examples (with diagrams), and some fundamental uses of this model which are closely intertwined with its definition (specifically, without them it is not clear why it's interesting at all). It does not present nor discuss experimental results.

So, this thing is shaping up to take somewhere between 45-50 pages (still working on a few parts of it). Granted, that's in 1-column mode and in the default font size of the article document class, and there are generously-sized diagrams, a TOC, references and an index - but still, pretty long. I don't think that a reasonable 10-12 page conference paper can be cut out of it: Either it would have no grounding and be based on hand-waving; or it would be bits-and-pieces all over the place; or it would be a long series of definitions which doesn't go somewhere very interesting. On the other hand, this is not book-length material.

My question is: How / in what kind of venue could I try to get this thing published?

Notes:

I'm in applied computer science, even if the document is somewhat theoretical/reflective.
I'm open to outside-the-box suggestions

The options are really to either find a place that will publish in the format that it is or to figure out how to break it up.

The first thing I would do is try and get an accurate estimate of the length. A 50 page document with the standard LaTeX font and margins that includes a TOC, index and big diagrams may not actually be too long for a lot of journals. Depending on the complexity of the article, you can try creating a "preprint" to get a pretty good approximation of length. A 20 page article can probably be made to stay under the maximum length requirements of many journals. Getting a 40 page article to work will likely not be possible.

In terms of breaking it up, you need to figure out how to chunk the work.

  Either it would have no grounding and be based on hand-waving; or it would be bits-and-pieces all over the place; or it would be a long series of definitions which doesn't go somewhere very interesting.

Trying to publish bits-and-pieces all over the place is going to be painful. Most reviewers want some sort of cohesive story. The other two options sound like dividing the work into two chunks. The first chunk seems like something you could publish in a good journal if somehow the theoretical grounding was published.

The second chunk seems boring that no good journal is going to want to publish. I see three approaches to getting it published. The first is to publish the second chunk as a stand alone item. Depending on your field you might be able to publish it as a methods article or in a methods journal. You could also target a low impact journal/conference that is targeting work that is slightly better than pay-to-publish quality and doesn't really care if things are interesting. Finally, you could use something like ArXiv (or whatever your field uses) to self publish the work.

The second option is to publish the second chunk as supplemental material in a journal that allows that. Here is an example of what APS supplemental material can include.

The final option, and probably the most difficult, is to find a journal that allows big appendices.


I passed JPLT N5 exam with average score, should I be worried about MEXT examinations in Japaneese? As part of preparation for MEXT scholarship I had given JPLT N5 examinations (I know I will give seperate written examinations in Japanese and English as well for the Mext Scholarships) and I got average scores (~97/180) on it.

My major is in Computer Science with a Masters in Digital System's security and I plan for a PhD in Japan. So I wonder does by having an average score in JPLT N5 mean that I can have a low score in Japanese examination for MEXT?

What worries me is a failure for my application for being rejected, because of low Japanese level. Also, I wanted to know how does the English test affect my application as well (I am really confident on my English level.)?

Also, should I focus on getting My Japanese on N3 Level before applying, as seen on this answer a good result in these examinations is a crutial part of a successful MEXT application. Though the answer is for an application through Indian Japanese embassy and not the one that is in Greece (I am a Greek native). If yes (bringing my Japanese in N3 level) I think I may not have as many chances due to time limitation (cap for research students is 35yrs old, and I am 29.)

I think the evaluation varies a bit from country to country but in my case (from Tunisia in 2008 for doing Master degree), Japanese language ability was absolutely not required. We passed the English and Japanese test, but I left most of the Japanese test sheet blank, and my friend (who also got the scholarship) did not know any Japanese except for some words (konnichi wa, arigatou, ...).
The embassy then chose the topmost scorers from the English test and invited us to the interview at the Embassy. During the interview, there were many questions about our capacity to live in Japan and to adapt to life there (because many people get the scholarship but don't acclimatize well and drop off in 6 months or a year). Language ability was a bonus but not an absolute requirement because we spend the entire first year learning Japanese at the university you get.
This was also the case for many of my friends that I met in Japan: many of them had no japanese skills when they got the scholarship.
So unless things changed a lot in the last years, your japanese language ability should not have too much of a bearing on your application, and the fact that you got the N5 already is a boost!
Good luck for it!


How to complete PhD when your advisor knows very little about your subject area My advisor is very young full professor who has been an advisor for only less than 10 years. She has many diverse projects. The project which I've started is 1 year old and this field is quite New to her and she is not so good at it.

However, the main problem is that she does not have enough time to help me. She is chair of academic courses and has lot of industry projects. So currently she is more like manager managing money and resources for projects.

So my problem is:

Whom should i approach when I'm stuck ?
I have many ideas, but i find very little utility in discussing with her as she understands nothing. What should i do ?

Thanks in advance

Ten years sounds like plenty of time for your supervisor to become an experienced researcher. If they are young, don't discredit their abilities as a supervisor. If they are busy — well, all professors are busy. It's unlikely a replacement supervisor would help, there.

Most PhD projects stray sooner or later from the comfort zone of their supervisor — the very nature of a PhD research project implies that there will be novel work completed. It's also not the role of the supervisor to solve technical problems on behalf of the student (in my institution I receive less than 2 hours per week ‘workload allocation’ for my PhD students).

Trust that your PhD supervisor can guide you through the process of completing and writing up the project, and bring additional people into the project that can assist from a technical perspective. One of the best ways to do this is to contact active researchers in your field and invite them to be co-authors on your papers in exchange for technical input. They might not be able to put in any more time than your actual supervisor, but their different perspective might be enough to see you through.


Does in review mean an external reviewer is assigned ? Three weeks ago, I have submitted a paper to a journal that has a reputation for fast publication process. On their website, they mention that decision on acceptance or otherwise are taken quickly normally within a month of receipt of the paper. One week after submission the status of the paper changed from waiting assignment to in review .  The journal use OJS for submissions. in review page something like this appear:

Peer Review
Round 1

Review Version    Final version.pdf  2018-11-24

Initiated    —

Last modified    —

Uploaded file    None

Does that mean still no external reviewer is assigned to the paper? Giving the circumstances is it too early to ask if any reviewer is assigned?

'Under Review/In Review' can mean that your manuscript is currently assessed or 'under review' by the assigned editor. This could be very likely, since you mentioned the status changed straight from 'waiting for assignment' to 'in review'. During this time your manuscript could be checked for formatting guidelines, the editor might judge the article himself or he might be in the process of trying to find suitable reviewers. For details on the different status messages of journal's workflows, here's a great answer.

Especially around holidays it might additionally be hard to find reviewers, and get back their scores within a certain time period. Also, even if a journal claims to normally take one month until the first decision, I suspect these times can have a big variance.

I suggest to wait until the holiday season has passed, and then follow up if the status has not changed yet.


General education requirements across U.S. universities Is there any study / database / etc, that documents what commonalities there are amongst different American universities?

A department at my university is trying to remove my department's courses from the general education requirements, which besides being absurd in today's society, would make us unique for public schools in the state.  I was curious if there was a go-to place to look this up nationally without needing to do an expansive survey of random universities, so that we could see to what extent the requirement is (or isn't) across the country, or our peer institutions at the least (we're a regional university).

My sense is that this would be a very slow and painful survey to undertake... but here are a few leads on where you might find people who have already done it.

There's a Journal of General Education published by Penn State University Press, and it probably has articles about recent thinking or trends in this regard. In particular, it published an article on how the University of California at Merced designed its general education curriculum, as a research university that first held classes in 2005. There's a lot there about different philosophies of designing general education.

Another possible source of a large-scale comparison of general education curriculum is cross-campus research undertaken for other purposes, such as using the National Survey of Student Engagement or the Collegiate Learning Assessment. Research focused on the first year of college may also mention this.

Writing programs seem to be especially well-studied, and in general there seem to be trends toward designing early coursework to improve skills (such as writing or data literacy) rather than to impart specific knowledge.

Finally, there's a trope that every (American) university always copies Harvard, so you if you do not find a ready-made list of general education classes across schools, you could make one based on your state schools, a few regional rivals, and Harvard. ;)


Does there exist Top 50 rankings of applied math phd programs? For example, if one were to apply to Top 50 business schools for a full-time MBA program, one could get rankings from the NYTimes, the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, U.S. News and World Report, and the Economist, just to name a few sources - I bet there are plenty more.

I plan to apply to Top 50 applied math phd programs, however I cannot find any sort of rankings other than the one from the U.S. News and World Report, which only ranks up to Top 14 -- schools that I wouldn't realistically have a shot at getting into.  So, I am looking to aim a bit lower but am not sure where to even start.

How should I go about figuring out which applied math departments are generally regarded as  "Top 50 applied math departments"?

Why aren't there a ton of different sources where I can get rankings from -- like in the business school world (and probably law school world too)?

Why aren't there a ton of different sources where I can get rankings from -- like in the business school world (and probably law school world too)?

One issue is that I think you are comparing apples to oranges.  Applied math is generally considered a part of mathematics--it is often not a separate department: the AMS only lists 30 graduate applied math departments.  What you are asking seems to me more akin to "what are the top 50 schools in environmental law"?  (I don't know whether such lists exist or not.)

Second, what is considered "applied mathematics" varies from department to department, and perhaps from person to person.

Last, neither overall rankings nor specialized rankings should be regarded with too much seriousness.  There aren't meaningful, natural orderings on departments which measure "how good" a department is, largely because "good" is a nebulous concept.

As for how to choose schools, here are a couple suggestions:

Ask some of your professors in applied math for ideas.  Where I went to grad school was a place suggested by an undergrad professor.
Use general math rankings to get an idea of reputation (and thus selectiveness) of departments, and look at department websites to see which have active applied math groups.

Note: many students won't know going into math grad school won't know whether they want to do applied math, stats, probability, analysis, algebra etc etc, so in terms of selectivity, looking at the general reputation of the department may be more helpful anyway.


Do students need traditional books? Do students need books to learn in courses? For example, I found that books often contain some mistakes and therefore it is better for me to study those things on the Internet where I can concentrate on one thing, learn the best knows methods of that subject and then move to the next. Okay, that course wasn't really advanced.

But if you have to decide whether one should write a traditional book or editable lecture notes like in http://stacks.math.columbia.edu/, which one would a lecturer choose?

No, Students don't need a book. They DO need good resources.

Maybe its an eBook or a PDF compiled from your teaching notes or outline/slides (Hopefully cited well) and things like short stories needed for a language class can often be found online in their entirity, for free legally, when copyright has expired.

For a language class, using a Sherlock Holmes story could prevent students from needing to buy a book as they're out of copyright. You can also look for material that is licensed as Creative Commons which allows for free use, such as material from MIT open courseware, Khan Academy, and P2P Univerity. You can learn more about Creative Commons for Education here.

Long story short, make good content, and use it legally, either by using stuff people have given to the public, or under doctrines such as Fair Use.


Can I use someone else's research commercially? I found a published research paper from the research arm of a company. I would like to use what is presented in the research paper commercially. The materials presented in the research paper do not seem to be patented.

Is this legal? Does the originating company own the intellectual property, or is it now "public domain" due to the research paper being published without a patent? Does this happen quite often? What is the proper etiquette in this situation, should I just leave an attribution to the researcher?

If the subject material in the research paper is a patentable invention, it might also be the subject material of a patent.

The inventors of an invention may be the first applicants of a patent application. However, if they were employees, employed to invent as part of their normal duties for their employer, the employer is usually considered the first applicant for a patent application.

The rights in a patent or a patent application may be assigned to another person.

So: if there is a patent for an invention relating to the subject material of the research paper, it might be owned by someone other than the company from where the research paper originated. How did you check whether a patent or patent application exists for this subject matter?

Bear in mind that patent applications are made publicly accessible a certain time after the application for a patent is made. So, an applicant may have filed a patent application for the subject material of the research paper, and then published the research paper. The patent application - if extant - may not be publicly available yet. What this means is, if you put into practice the subject material of an unpublished patent application, you may in future receive notification of the patent application, and be advised to cease your operations. If the patent is granted, and you haven't ceased your working of the subject material, you might be liable for damages.

Bear in mind again, that there might be other patents - or patent applications - which relate to the subject material of the research paper. For some degree of certainty, you will need to do a patent search. You can do this yourself, but you have to bear in mind the warnings I gave above in relation to unpublished applications.

There are patent search firms who will do this service for you for a fee.

For a professional legal opinion, ask a patent attorney.

EDIT: If there are intellectual property rights to the subject material of the research paper, you can ask the proprietor of the rights for a licence.


Why are degrees revoked due to data fabrication/manipulation only in specific fields? I read on the Internet that most degrees in psychology and medicine are revoked because of data manipulation/fabrication. In other areas like engineering, degree revocations only happen due to plagiarism.

How can data manipulation misconduct only be detected in medicine or psychology, but not in the other fields of investigation?

I think that part of what you see is due to the fact that in some fields it is more necessary to actually look for problems than in others. Thus, in medicine, for example, people's lives may depend on the accuracy of results, so people are more inclined to want to either investigate the accuracy of the claims or to replicate the studies. Faked data becomes obvious only if you look. If opioid research is faked, for example, bad things happen to a lot of people. When bad things happen, other people want to know why.

In other fields, where the consequences may not be so dire, there is (a bit) less incentive to go looking for trouble. If few are looking, not much will be found. On the other hand, people who find themselves plagiarized are generally happy to raise the issue, but I think that happens in all fields, but is also fairly rare.