How to deal with inappropriate comments during interviews for academic positions? My friend told me this story that happened to him a few month ago during an interview for an assistant professor position in a north-american university:

I was on a campus tour as a part of a full-day interview program and was accompanied by two members from the selection committee: the department head and one of the senior professors (in his mid-50's). Everything was normal and they were showing me the facilities each building has etc. Now, we are at the gym and out of nowhere the senior professors tells me while pointing at the climbing wall:

  This climbing wall is the best place to watch young girls, I like doing that when I come to the gym.

The department head heard him and shushed him right away. He also told him to lower his voice otherwise someone will hear him and he might get in trouble (or something along this line). Honestly, I didn't know how to react, so I just kept quite and didn't comment. It still bothers me so much that I didn't respond to make him know how inappropriate his comment is.

My question has two parts:

Should he try to reach out to someone at the university (and who is this person?) to let them know what one of their professors who deals daily with female students said?
How should anyone react to such comments given that this person is on the selection committee? I know this might be a Workplace question, but I felt it fits here given these circumstances.

Although the comment was absolutely inappropriate, it wasn't directed toward your friend and had nothing to do with the selection process.

The department chair took notice of the comment in your friend's presence.  We could hope the department chair will have taken appropriate action.

I think that's sufficient, especially since your friend is a candidate for a position.  If your friend believes he or she must do something further, your friend could write to the department chair, saying something like, "I couldn't help but hear Professor X's comment.  Have any students complained about his comments or demeanor?  Should I report his remark, and to whom?"  That puts the department chair on notice that you took notice, didn't like it, and are prepared to go further.


Can a reviewer suggest literature for improving the language? I am working on my PhD now for 1.5 years and was recently asked by my supervisor to assist him with a review. The reviewed paper was also written by a non-native speaker.

For my first publication I bought a book on English writing skills for research papers, which was very helpful for me.

Can I suggest this book to the author of the paper I got for review, so he can improve his English? I do not want to critize him, only to give him an advice I also give my colleagues.
I am not sure if this exceeds my responsibility.

Certainly, poor English is a significant problem, one that hinders communication, and undoubtedly has an impact on one's ability to publish top-quality articles.

It may sound a bit rude to make such a suggestion, but in extreme cases I think it is warranted. It's probably better and more cost effective than trying to improve the English yourself and better in the long run than  simply ignoring the problem (and suggesting to reject the paper).


How do I talk about my abusive former advisor if people ask? I was just at a conference where I met another grad student who - upon learning about my specialization and university affiliation - excitedly asked me if I knew Dr. -- and if he was my advisor (she's a fan). Deer in the headlights moment for me, as I did know Dr. --; he had been my advisor - one that until recently I admired and was very fond of. Only he's not my advisor anymore, because our once enviable mentor/mentee relationship is now in ruins. (In sum: he crossed a professional line with me, I called him out on it, he started punishing me for it in various ways, and it culminated in him stepping down from my committee and me reporting him to HR (human resources) when my dept chair dismissed my complaints about his abusive behavior. After effects: we're not speaking to each other, avoid each other as much as possible, I get panic attacks/have some sort of PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) whenever I have run-ins with him, and I've slowly become isolated from the rest of my department because he practically runs it and no student or faculty member wants/dares to step on his toes).

The thing is, I came to this university primarily to work with him...he and everyone in the dept knows this..and pretty much anyone in our field of research would assume that he and I are connected somehow, given that we're at the same university, and how much our research interests align. So, as I've discovered from this conference incident, I need to come up with a response for if/when people ask me if I know him/work with him/why am I not working with him. Personally, I'd love to just answer truthfully and throw him under the bus since that's what he's done to me several times over these last few months, but I know doing so will hurt me more than it'll hurt him. Any suggestions on how to handle those types of questions?

EDIT:
First, thank you so much to everyone for taking the time to respond. I really appreciate everyone's feedback and different opinions. You've definitely given me a lot to think about. From reading the responses, I think I can clarify a few items if you think it'll alter your suggestions:

"crossed a professional line" - admittedly, I intentionally used that vague term because it's very complicated, and also because he crossed that line in a few ways. One is of a sexual harassment nature, but I was reluctant to use that term because it happened in a very subtle and covert manner - so much that the Title IX (gender equality) office at my university said that technically his behavior (both initial line crossing and his reaction to me standing up to him) - however unprofessional it was - did not rise to the level of sexual harassment. But as I said, he was unprofessional towards me in other non-sexual ways as well. Ultimately, for the scope of my question, I don't think it matters much, because regardless of what he did to me initially, regardless of whether or not I had any right to be offended, and regardless of which specific incident he took issue with when I confronted him, nothing justifies how he subsequently treated me/how he handled his anger, which was essentially bullying me and then later gaslighting me and becoming verbally abusive/hostile when I tried to address the bullying.
HR investigation: the investigation is ongoing; I filed my official complaint about a month ago, so hopefully I'll hear back soon re: next steps/resolution.
I'm an American student in the U.S.
The extent to which others know: a few of the the graduate students/TAs/my friends do know about everything that's happened. Some of the faculty do as well (including my other two committee members, one of whom is my new advisor; the other was also willing to take over as advisor) Outside my department: HR, Title IX office, the graduate ombudsperson, assistant dean of the college of arts & sciences, university police (Dr. - didn't do anything criminal...it was just a formality that HR had to observe when I filed my complaint) so his behavior has definitely been publicized a bit, but in a very hushed/behind closed doors sort of way.

First, let me say that I'm sorry to hear that your relationship with your original advisor has deteriorated to such a state that you have been emotionally scarred by the relationship. That is certainly not the desired outcome.
That said, you have a very important cautionary story to tell. Unlike cactus_pardner's answer, I don't think you should "jokingly defer," but instead take a very serious tone about the situation:

I wish I could be more positive about my relationship with Prof. X.
If you are serious about working with Prof. X, then there are some things that you should be aware of.
This may not happen to you, but I had some significant issues during my time working in that lab.

You can then offer to talk with the asker in more detail, if she so wishes, and leave the choice up to the asker. But do not blow off the discussion. Hiding the situation will just allow it  to continue unchecked, which is exactly what you do not want to see happen in the long run.


Students' illicit access to answers for online homework systems I teach physics. Back in the 90's, people teaching freshman physics were pioneers in creating open-source systems such as LON-CAPA for checking students' homework answers. Today the use of open-source or home-grown systems has become uncommon and has largely been replaced by the use of MasteringPhysics, a product of Pearson which functions both as a revenue stream for the publisher (students pay per semester) and as a way of killing off used textbook sales. During this same period of time, we've seen the advent of web sites such as Chegg that sell students access to answers to homework. Physics homework seems to be the killer app for Chegg. If you read about Chegg et al. in the media (example), physics homework seems to be a dominating presence.

In a 2010 paper, Palazzo et al. study students' cheating in MasteringPhysics using an ingenious technique applied to their classes at MIT. They make the following claim:

  Our survey shows that copying written homework is more
  prevalent than copying electronic homework. [...] This may be because the most common self-reported
  mechanisms for copying written homework on our survey,
  “copying a borrowed assignment” (58% of survey responses)
  and “finding the solution online” (34%, often using the MIT
  Open Courseware site), are not available avenues for the
  electronic homework.1 Furthermore, online students who are
  stuck on a problem or unsure whether their solution is correct benefit from the feedback and hints available, reducing
  the need to “borrow” others’ assignments.
  [footnote 1] Pearson
   regularly searches for posted solutions to its Mastering-
  Physics problems and requests that they be removed from the web.

Question: Does anyone have any reliable information about whether it's true that Pearson is (or still is) successful at this?

It seems unlikely to me, given what I've read in the media and what I've heard from students. However, I'm not in a great position to evaluate this for myself. In my classes, I use an open-source system rather than MasteringPhysics, and I also haven't paid for access to Chegg, so although I can search for the text of a problem in a printed book and see it pop up in Chegg, I can't see what the solution is. I also don't have access to the text of the problems in MasteringPhysics, so I can't search on the text of those problems. My impression is that most of the problems in MasteringPhysics are actually just minor variations on the problems in the printed text, but I don't actually know for sure. I wonder whether this statement by Palazzo is out of date, or was perhaps unrealistic even in 2010 and influenced by assurances from Pearson's sales reps. From what I can tell, Chegg's business model is designed to make it practically impossible for a textbook publisher to do what Palazzo claims Pearson does. It seems like it would be an endless game of whack-a-mole.

Palazzo et al., "Patterns, correlates, and reduction of homework copying," Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 6, 010104 (open access)

I talked to a group of students about this, with the understanding that of course they would have no personal knowledge of it, but ... er... they might know someone who had experience with Chegg.

Before I had even finished explaining the question, some of them were already laughing. They say that 100% of MasteringPhysics questions are on Chegg, including both the conceptual questions and the quantitative ones.


Is it normal to interview for faculty positions in December-February and not hear back yet by the end of March? I had several interviews in December-February in R1 universities for tenure-track assistant professor positions in a life sciences field.

I was told that they would get back to me in March, so I emailed them and some have not replied back and some said to wait some more.

So, I was wondering if this is normal to wait for that long or "the ship has sailed" and I'm not getting any offers :(

Commiserations -- the job search is tough.

If they haven't gotten back to you by the time they said they would, it most likely means you are not their first preference candidate. They probably have already made an offer and are waiting to have that accepted or rejected. You could still get an offer as their second/third/fourth/etc. preference.


What sets "top" universities apart from "mediocre" universities in continental europe? Every year rankings are published that list Oxford, Stanford and the like at the top, while many(most?) universities in continental europe share ranks well beyond 100. I myself am a Phd student at a technical university in Austria that is ranked somewhere beyond 300 and I don't quite understand what makes the difference.

Some things that occupy my mind:

Like my own many european universities are free to enroll, which means a lot of candidates and also unfortunately many drop-outs (especially in STEM), which affects the score negatively as I understand. I assume that top-universities, that rely heavily on expensive enrollment fees, take more action to keep their students. Am I correct in this assumption?
Do top universites have simply more money to make better research?
Are the people there actually much smarter? Is there a different mindset that leads to more/better research? A fellow student of mine who spent some time in the USA told me that the people there are not "more knowledgeable" than us here in our bad university but I don't know which university it was.

We do have a lot of satisfied business partners here so I don't think our research is "bad". On the other hand my kinsmen always say "those rankings are arbitrary bullshit anyway", and Austrians like to sugarcoat reality a lot. We often hear some self-praise about how our institutions are well regarded but then there are those rankings, wich makes me very doubtful.
I've only ever seen this small academic world of mine as I never had the chance to study abroad because of my family so I am hoping that someone who knows both sides can shed some light. Am I missing a chance to become so much more than I currently am because I'm at the wrong university?

To be honest, I don't much like the idea that some people suggest there are "mediocre" universities. Good research can be done just about anywhere in many fields. Caveat: Some fields require funding beyond what is available at other than the biggest, richest, universities.

But there are several things that go into the rankings. I suspect that most of them are cumulative in some way. A lot of great research gets done at Oxbridge because of its size and history and attractiveness to scholars (and funders). Other schools don't have the same features. But the ranking is due as much to the quantity of good research as to the quality, as the quality can be good anywhere, but the resources available don't support as much of it.

A larger university has an advantage since it can more easily support working groups that can collectively produce great research. A smaller place leaves its faculty more isolated (less true today than historically - but history is part of this) with less opportunity for sharing and synergy.

Some of it is just luck over time. Good faculty attract good faculty. Researchers attract researchers. An older university, if well managed, has an advantage over a newer one. It takes time to build reputation. The magnetic attraction of a good place increases over time. Harvard University, like most others, had a modest beginning. Its founders would be unlikely to recognize what it has become. Certainly its mission is quite different than it was originally.

A good reputation attracts students. Often it attracts far too many students. This lets such a place choose really good students who wind up having really good careers, adding to that reputation. And for some of those graduates it means wealth and for some of those, contributions back to their university. Harvard graduates tend to be pretty smart. But they were already judged to be pretty smart before they went to Harvard. Ubiquitous? Maybe.

Resources matter a lot. Especially today, with a more mobile pool of researchers than was possible in the past. For example, Europe is largely without borders and the links between Europe and the Americas are strong. So people can go where there are other compatible people (and good funding). So reputation tends to build on reputation.

But not every brilliant researcher or teacher wants to put up with the constant pressure of a "top" university, so it is possible to find that brilliance spread out. Just because you happen to be at an R2 or a teaching college doesn't make you mediocre. It can make you sane, actually. Hence my objection to the "mediocre" characterization.


Week before Master's thesis deadline, found publication that explores same concept with slightly different results My Master's thesis is due in a week and I am currently writing up all of my results. To my horror, I have just found a paper that seems to explore virtually the same concept as I do, although they appear to generate results that differ slightly from my own. How should I treat this? In my defense, the other paper has only been cited four times according to semantic scholar, but I can't simply ignore its existence despite not having used it to write my own paper.
Edit: this is a master's thesis and my current plan is to add it to the related literature section and mention how and why the two models generate some different results.

You will need to speak to your advisor about this matter, but if the paper is relevant to your research (and it certainly sounds like it is) then you are correct in your view that it should be incorporated into your thesis.  If one week is insufficient to do this, I recommend you seek an extension for submission from your supervisory panel.  It should not be too difficult to secure an extension in this circumstance, and it is likely that your panel will want you to do the extra work to incorporate this work into your thesis.  The golden rule of all research work is to make it as useful as possible for the reader.  Adding reference and discussion to this other paper sounds like it will certainly improve your work and give relevant information to the reader about the state of the field.
Finally, in regard to the "horror" you are experiencing, it might aid you to learn that several highly aclaimed researchers have had similar ---but far more horrifying--- experiences of this kind.  The most famous case I am aware of is Gottlob Frege, an eminent German philosopher and logician, who wrote his Magnus Opus on logic and arithmetic, only to be informed by Bertrand Russell that one of the core axioms on which the entire theory was based was inconsistent (and therefore the entire theory was invalidated).  It is instructive to read the history of this matter (see e.g., here), and it is a fascinating story in the history of mathematics and academic publishing.  Russell later remarked on the immense integrity of Frege in dealing with the disappointment of finding out that his life's work was wrong:

As I think about acts of integrity and grace, I realise that there is nothing in my knowledge to compare with Frege’s dedication to truth.  His entire life’s work was on the verge of completion, much of his work had been ignored to the benefit of men infinitely less capable, his second volume was about to be published, and upon finding that his fundamental assumption was in error, he responded with intellectual pleasure clearly submerging any feelings of personal disappointment.  It was almost superhuman and a telling indication of that of which men are capable if their dedication is to creative work and knowledge instead of cruder efforts to dominate and be known.  (Quoted in van Heijenoort (1967), 127) (Quote taken from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, History of Russell's Paradox)


Steps for creating a scientific journal I have organized several times some international conferences on my field (computational chemistry), where accepted proceedings are afterwards evaluated again for it submission to a special issue of a journal. Now I am thinking that I could create a journal for all those submission, even if at the beginning we have no impact factor (ISI) or if people are not so interested, but I would like this idea very much.

So I wonder of you can point which steps should I follow for creating a journal. I think I could attract many submissions, and I have servers where I could host it, but do not know the other technical and/or legal details.

Having followed a few new journals from birth to quick success I can see the following steps:

Make sure you identify a scope that has long-term interest (pretty obvious)
Make sure the idea is supported by your scientific community; that they see a benefit in yet another journal. Community involvement really helps.
Assemble a group of enthusiastic and well-respected scientists in the field of interest to form a group to plan for the journal and who may constitute the nucleus of the editorial board (equiv.).
Create a proposal including a description of your goals and target audience for the journal.
Decide how the journal should be published. Open Access seems like a safe bet and initiate discussions with an Open Access Publisher. It is possible to publish on your own but using a publisher may provide access to other types of support so a careful assessment of the options are important.

----Now we assume the journal has passed the planning stages and will be launched

Make sure the community knows about the journal. This ground work can be continuous throughout the process but has to be realized by this point.
Try to attract as many prominent authors as you can and have them submit high quality work. This will help make the journal attractive. One goal, like it or not, is likely to get an impact factor (if that matters in your field) and that means publishing papers that get referenced. Attracting good papers in under any circumstances a good start.
Maintain high standards in your review process and make sure to maintain high publications standards. Good papers attract other good papers when people realize the journal is to be counted.

Only the contributions you can attract determine the success of the journal. Although some of the points above may seem obvious or even trivial, the more effort you add early on the higher the chance for success. In the cases I have seen, having the community on the train from the beginning and following the development has proved to be fruitful.


Why don't things work with comparisons in reference letters and refereeing? This recent question How high should I rate a good student for PhD admission? is just an example of how puzzling the problem of writing reference letters is.

One knows that there is inflation in the field, so they feel they have to adapt, but it is not clear how much inflation is appropriate and when it is too much. Negative comments are often omitted, and this gives the evaluators less data.

There is an analogous problem when refereeing papers, or serving as anonymous referees for research proposals and grants. This seems to be a flaw which is implicit in the evaluation method. Apart from this voluntary inflation bias, there is also an involuntary component: if I ask you to evaluate your research field/colleague/student is, you will unconsciously feel biased towards it/him/her.

Is this perceived as a big problem? If so, why is there no attempt to obtain more reliable results? Some possible strategies, although difficult to apply, spring to my mind:

if there are enough data points for the recommender, normalize everything and "grade on a curve".
don't ask "how good X is?"; give them two paper/applicants/projects to evaluate, and ask "which one is better, X or Y?". This makes it more difficult to find good referees, because they have to be familiar with two of the persons/projects under evaluations.
force the evaluators to provide at least 3 positive and 3 negative points, the most outstanding ones. This won't affect the inflation bias, but at least it provides some more data on the negative aspects.

I have seriously considered writing a standard addendum to enclose to my letters and reports, stating that I realize how biased and unreliable these things are, I am in a difficult position giving an absolute score on a scale that is totally unknown to me and the other evaluators, and I'd really feel more comfortable with a comparison-based evaluation system. Would this be appropriate, or raise some eyebrows on the trustworthyness of my evaluations?

I suggest that an academic committee, sitting in consideration of an applicant to their PhD programme, would very likely view your addendum as being an honest attempt to preserve your set of professional ethics with regard to fairly ranking the applicant.

I do not think that the academic committee would doubt your trustworthiness. However, I expect that the committee would view whatever ranking you provided on the Good/Great/Excellent/Outstanding/Genius scale in light of your action of submitting your addendum.

Therefore the committee are not going to doubt your ability to rank the applicant, but are going to doubt the veracity of your ranking on the artificial scale.

However, I would hope that any sensible academic committee is going to be aware of the problem that we are discussing here and are therefore going to take a scaled single-valued ranking of any applicant with a massive grain of salt. They must know that a single value rank is going to be useless when judging the suitability of an applicant for a PhD programme.

Thus I would hope that, with or without your addendum, a sensible academic committee would take very little notice of the single value ranking and pay much more attention to the substantive letters of recommendation.

The addition of your addendum would not, I think, damage the applicant's application before a reasonable academic committee, as it wouldn't be news to the committee that such single-valued rankings are untrustworthy. To a reasonable academic committee, your actions of submitting the addendum might prompt others to do the same, and the practice of demanding a single-value metric abandoned over time. To an academic committee that places great store in such single-value metrics, your addendum sets out your concerns and presumably instructs the committee how you the single-value ranking is to be interpreted.


What's the best way to justify your choice of baseline methods for academic paper? As the title states I'm curious how to justify the choice of baseline methods for academic paper when proposing a novel algorithm/method. For example, when proposing an algorithm, there is a suite of methods applicable. When I choose one method to compare my algorithm to, how do I justify it?

When you propose a method in a research paper, it is customary to describe how you came up with the method and why choose it over the others available in literature. There are a few tips you could follow to justify your selection.

The traditional way to do this is by doing a thorough literature survey of all other methods assessing the advantages and shortcoming of each and then show how your chosen method could probably supersede those methods.
Sometimes you may find many such methods that are applicable but for which you cannot find existing results. In such a case, the best thing to do is to produce results for all of those methods and select the one with least drawbacks and most desirable merits. If the amount of publishable work exceeds your paper limit (or if your time is limited), choose one among such methods for your current publication, but discuss the other methods that can also be applied that could be of scope for future work for research.
A few journal publishers would also welcome negative results (such as PLoS ONE). Hence you could assess a method and show how suitable/unsuitable it is for a certain application based on the results.


Should I ask for a LOR from my future Master's Supervisor? I start my master's year project in mid November this year and am currently applying to graduate school, most of whose deadlines are 1st of December. I was wondering if it was acceptable to ask my master's year supervisor for a letter of recommendation despite not having actually started in the lab yet? For more context, we have interacted twice in person and over video and have been communicating over email. But as a research lab degree I was wondering if it would be too soon to ask my supervisor for a letter, but at the same time wouldn't it appear odd that I haven't submitted a letter from my supervisor for my graduate school applications, especially considering my masters field is very closely linked to what I wish to pursue in graduate school. Also, when would be the best time to ask - once I start in the lab mid Nov for a 1st Dec deadline or just before starting, giving them a bit more time?
EDIT: I'm doing a Master's in the UK and applying to US graduate schools

I would ask them now if they could imagine writing a letter, either now (outlining the reasons why they took you as a student), or close to Dec 1st.  But I would phrase it in a way where it is clear that you don't expect them to do it, since they don't know you well yet.  This way, your prospective supervisor can choose whatever they prefer - either they are happy to do it, or they will tell you that they can't judge you sufficiently well and that you should ask someone else (this is what I would do).
What I wouldn't do is to wait until close to the deadline and ask them then - first, if they say so you have to find someone else within a very short time (and most people don't like this, understandably), and second, this might come across as some kind of blackmailing ("I need your letter, since now it is to late to get someone else's").
In any case, good luck with your application.
(P.S.: As always, adding context about the country/region in which you are doing your master and in which you are applying can help you to get more tailored answers.)


Scholarship rejection | Should I tell Supervisor So I applied to an MASc program in Canada where basically the supervisor approves students to admit. I applied for a separate departmental scholarship and got rejected. Is it a good idea to tell the supervisor about this?
Supervisor said he hasn't sent out the final decisions to the graduate studies department and he'll decide in a month. Also, the scholarship I applied for is separate from the funding that he provides.
My point is he did not specifically ask for me to apply here. I initiated it and he told me I could try. Would complete transparency in this case help me or kill the chances I have?

Speaking as a Canadian academic, who also sits on a graduate committee. These decisions are separate, as you note, and I would not feel obligated to mention this to your supervisor. He might or might not know the outcome of these scholarships, depending on how engaged he is with the program's funding picture.

My advice in this circumstance would be to wait for the admissions decision.


Mathematical proofs in non-math paper: What if they are wrong? So my first paper from my undergraduate research just got published! Yay!

However: I am still stressed out: What if there were any mistakes? I did my undergraduate research in a psychology lab, all other coauthors have a psychology background. I myself got very interested in mathematical modeling and took many math classes as an undergrad. As a result the paper also had a lot of mathematical statements and proofs in the supplement. Nobody except me has ever checked the proofs. They passed through peer review; though I am not too sure the reviewers were in a position to judge the proofs either (unless the editor was very diligent and sent the manuscript to mathematicians; it did not sound like that from the reviews).

To the best of my ability these proofs are correct. However, I would not describe myself a mathematician yet (though I will start my PhD in the fall in an applied math department), so I am worried there could be some subtle error in there.

What would my current advisor think if someone actually found a mistake there? Or my future department? Are such thoughts common and how do people deal with these?

I think you are probably right: it seems unlikely that mathematical statements and proofs included in the supplementary materials to a psychology paper would receive much scrutiny.  Even if the editor took the time out to get an extra, mathematically sophisticated referee, the fact that you received no comments about this part of the paper (right?) indicates that even if "read" it was not regarded as an important factor in the evaluation of the paper.

What is the upshot of this?  In a nutshell: for better and/or for worse, probably this mathematical work of yours will receive little or no attention.  I don't know any mathematicians who regularly read psychology literature.  Since you have just been admitted to a PhD program in mathematics, the time for people to scrutinize your undergraduate research has already mostly passed.  By the time you graduate, you should/will have much more relevant material for people to focus on.  It is debatable whether you should even list this paper on your CV at the end of your graduate career: I would say you probably should, but in a separate category from all of your math papers.

If I were looking to hire you for a post-PhD academic position, I honestly would not even consider reading a psychology paper you wrote as an undergraduate.  I would not expect such a paper to have any substantial mathematical contributions, I would expect to be entirely unable to evaluate the significance of the paper as a work of psychology, and -- more honestly -- knowing that you put some theorems and proofs in it as an unassisted undergraduate student, I would expect this material to be a bit callow/superficial.  Most undergraduates have not begun to independently engage in research-level mathematics in any way, so it is hard to hold against them whatever they put in papers.

Viewing this as a teachable moment, here are some possible takeaways:

1) I agree with Kimball and Nate Eldredge: you should do what you need to do to gather confidence in your work before you publish it.  By professional mathematical standards, yes, it is a mistake to publish a piece of mathematics without soliciting the opinion of at least one mathematically qualified person.  If you happen to be in a similar situation in the future, you should show your work to teachers and mentors in the mathematics department.  You may have to wait what seems like a long time to get a fairly quick reading / reaction from them, but even an instantaneous reaction is valuable.

2) On the other hand, just because you're worried doesn't mean you actually did anything wrong, and it certainly doesn't mean that you did anything terribly wrong.  A large percentage of papers contain minor errors.  E.g. just yesterday I got an email from a collaborator informing me of a typo in a published paper (on the same subject as our collaboration, but he was not a coauthor).  There was a missing "+1" from several formulas.  This really doesn't distress me at all: I will make the change on the copy of the paper on my own webpage, and that's that.  And by the way, I have made worse mistakes than this in published work (and in my PhD thesis): ones that do bother me a bit, but much more me than anyone else.  In the realm of honest mistakes, I can't think of what you could have done in an undergraduate paper in a different field that would be so bad so as to place any clouds in the sky of your academic career.

3) Let me not completely neglect the possibility that you did something right: maybe your paper has a real mathematical contribution.  If that is the case, you should not drop the matter but try to continue, improve and refine the work, with the goal of publishing it elsewhere.  Again, mathematics hidden in a psychology paper is very well hidden indeed.  Maybe that's not what you or the mathematical community wants.


Chances of admission for a PhD program with high WAM (GPA) for masters but an average GPA for undergraduates (A unique case) I have completed a Master of IT specializing in cybersecurity at an Australian University ranked around 200 - 250 in the world for computer science and IT. In my master's, I achieved a Weighted Average Mark of 90.875%  with all HD (higher distinction) grades for the coursework and a thesis mark of 95%. The thesis accounted for 25% of the course.

In addition to all of this, I have two refereed publications (a journal and a conference) of which I am the first author. I am currently working at my master's university as a research assistant.

However, I am still concerned about my bachelor's of Engineering (Computer Engineering) GPA which is average at best. My bachelor's GPA is 3.0/4.0 although I showed significant improvement in the final year of my 4-year bachelor's with a GPA of 3.52/4.0. My bachelor's university has a much lower rank than my master's university.

Could anyone tell me what are my chances of admission to a Ph.D. program? I would also like to know whether I would be competitive for scholarships?

I really hope to pursue a Ph.D. but I am really worried about my bachelor's GPA.

P.S - I have 322/340 for GRE with 168/170 for Quantitative reasoning

I have seen people get into harvard within 3.20 range and I have seen people get rejected with perfect 4.00 from "lesser" schools. From what I have seen it is more about what a transcript / application tells rather than whatever the GPA is. Espcially, you having a masters degree, there are many stories an application could / should tell. I fear no one here would reliably be able to tell you your odds with this amount of information. Even if you disclose every information you have available to yourself, the recommendation letters written about you will have significant implications.

I personally would ask a question like this to my proffesors (with whom I had academical interractions). Your thesis advisor or references would be a good place to start.


Why do faculty use two different email addresses? Why faculty usually have two official email addresses, the university and the department address?

Name@university.edu
Name@department.university.edu

Do they use the second more to communicate with students and the first for other tasks? They could use one and add emails to folders or labels.

As Andy Putman points out in his comment, the two addresses often go to the same place.  Even if there are two different accounts, it's common to forward e-mail from one to the other (or to a third account).  Nobody uses both accounts independently unless they have some idiosyncratic reason to do so.

The existence of two addresses is not nearly as universal as you suggest.  You don't usually see english.university.edu or art-history.university.edu in e-mail addresses, for example.  The departments that do have special addresses (such as CS or math) often ran their own mail servers long before university-wide servers were common.  Some still do, because they don't like the way the university servers are run or don't trust them to be reliable, while others simply provide aliases for the university servers.  Either way, getting rid of the departmental addresses would be disruptive, so they are likely to exist for the foreseeable future.


How to interpret a postdoc rejection letter? Few days ago I appeared in a postdoc interview. The PI was very much impressed with my resume and the interview went very well. The PI asked me when do you want to join. The next day he asked recommendation letters from two of my references (I am sure that they will give me a very good recommendation). After 2 weeks I got the rejection letter. How to interpret this rejection (he told me that the position is filled by some other candidate). This will be useful for my future postdoc endeavors.

I politely asked him the reason. He did not reply.

Thanks in advance. Sorry if this question is inappropriate.

There isn’t anything to interpret. The only conclusion you can draw is that there was another candidate whom the professor thought would be a better fit for the position, for an unspecified reason.

Our minds have a psychological tendency to want to fill in a lack of information with speculation and beliefs. The added information you have in this case is literally zero, so you must resist the urge to “interpret”; it is futile and serves no useful purpose.

Good luck with the job search!


CS Conference paper reviews, decision and supervisor issue I have submitted one research paper in a famous Top rank conference, my main supervisor was not happy to submit because he thought it will be rejected and still needs to be improved but my co-supervisor encouraged me to submit.

So, finally I submitted the paper and my main supervisor asked me not to write his name on the paper, I requested him again but he refused. now I got positive feedback from two reviewers first one accept, and 2nd reviews was weak accept. when I told my main supervisor about it but it seems he was not happy and after 3-4 day which is very unusual , I got the third review which is weak reject and it had same comments which my main supervisor used to tell me before submitting. I doubt that he used his influence and caused the problem for my paper.

The final decision is still due but I don't have many hopes because he told me that the program chair is his very close friend.

I wanted to change the supervisor but everyone is scared of him and nobody wants any issues with him so everyone refused, even one agreed but after this incident of 3rd review he also excused and said sorry he cant supervise.

now my question is this, how and what i should do with my current supervisor? should I continue with him? or what? also do you guys advise to discuss things openly with him>

Generally, it is a good idea to do what your supervisor says unless you really, really know what you're doing. In this case you have two supervisors who disagree. This is why people say that it's a good idea to avoid having co-supervisors. In any case, now you have them - the ideal solution is to get a unanimous decision from them. Maybe try to have a meeting with both present, or send an email to both, and ask for a clear decision on whether you should continue with the submission or withdraw it.

It's usually a bad idea to submit a paper that your supervisor is not on. In this case, one supervisor is on it, so it's kind of a grey area. But you say your supervisor is mad you submitted, that makes it not grey! It's hard to go far in science if you do things that make your supervisor mad.

Just because the reviewer had the same objections as your supervisor doesn't mean your supervisor influenced them. Maybe they independently recognized the same objective flaws. If you really want to get this published, I think your best option is to talk to the supportive co-supervisor, figure out how to deal with the problems, figure out how to best make a case to your unenthusiastic supervisor, then go to him and ask him to reconsider. If he won't reconsider, let it go. The benefit of the paper to you will not be more than the harm of annoying your supervisor.


How do I write a compelling statement about my interest in diverse domains? My primary interest is in Data Mining. Secondary interests are Intrusion Detection and Energy Efficient Buildings.

I have done projects in data mining approaches for intrusion detection. I have also done research in data analysis on energy consumption patterns in smart-buildings.

I will be applying for graduate school (MS) shortly. Now, how do I proceed writing my statement? Should I lay more emphasis on Data Mining? Which professors should I mention I want to work with? Ones doing data mining research, or the ones doing network security/sustainable energy research?

My main concern is finding potential advisers. I believe if I can find some before the application, I can find out their requirements and write a statement accordingly. This in-turn might help me get admission in the desired school as well.

My question here is whether I should look for researchers in data mining (which I have applied in my works) or intrusion detection/sustainable energy (the domain where data mining technique was applied)

I understand that chances of me finding advisers that share interest in both data mining and (intrusion detection/sustainable energy) is very less. So which advisers should I target?

I have some insight here.

There are some advantages and pitfalls in the advisers you have described and I have experience with both.

Researcher in Data Mining: Here most of your research will be focused in the way you can modify the algorithm to attack the task you have at hand, your adviser will want to see some insight from you on how things are actually working and why are you getting the results you are getting. He will be potentially interested in the application, but he has had so much experience with many different applications, that he will want you to use a generic dataset so you can compare it with other works and prove your approach works better.

You will have insightful conversations about your algorithm, and what can you do to modify it, but any insight from the data itself will probably have to come from you.

Researcher in Area X where Data Mining is going to be used: He will probably not care much about the algorithm you use, as long as it is useful in the particular problem he is working with. He will most likely have a problem for you to work with, and he will expect results, good results. You will have good conversations about the nature of the data, and will learn a lot about the field, but you might feel a bit isolated in the Data Mining part.

The main question is, what do you want to do afterwards, if you want to do a PhD, in which kind of conferences do you want to be? Data Mining Conferences, or that area conferences?

If you are going to the industry, having much expertise in a particular area can be both good or bad, depending on he job you are applying to.

As an example, I did my PhD on Machine Learning applied to Molecular Biology, and even though I had all the theoretical framework to apply it to Natural Language Processing (NLP), most places would not look at me unless I had some NLP experience.


When conducting a follow-up review for a paper you already made comments on, how detailed should the review be? I think the title stands on its own, but I am not sure how detailed to make follow-up reviewer comments for a paper.  My sense is that I don't need to re-review the paper, but just comment on whether or not I am satisfied with the changes the authors made.  This leaves a rather skimpy review the second time around.

The extent of a re-review depends on what has been done with the manuscript (MS). If the first review round yielded questions and comments that can be fixed but may require checking to make sure the implementation of the comments are correct, then, as you say, you will not have to do a full-blown re-review. If, on the other hand, the revisions are such that the MS has been substantially modified, perhaps with new parts added, new data included, etc. the situation is different. Then the paper is so modified it is in some way more of a new MS than just revised and, hence in need of a new throrough review.

So in my opinion, the need of re-review depends on the severity of the required changes. How you decide depends on your opinion of the new paper. If an editor feels a MS is in need of so substantial revisions it becomes a new MS, then it is often rejected with a note about re-submission after work has been done. So in the end it is your view of the severity or magnitude of necessary changes that largely determines how much should be done. In some cases authors may disagree with a comment you feel strongly about and in such cases it may be necessary to enforce the view through more careful and convincing scrutiny.

EDIT: I should perhaps add that a second or more reviewers may have given other comments that influence your review. This means parts of the MS can be changed in ways you have not suggested so although a new detalied re-review may not be necessary a careful read through and comparison with the old may be in order. Sometimes authors (we) can use conflicting reviews to argue against one or the other.


When a journal requires that the work has not been published before except as a "preprint", is an arXiv publication considered a preprint? In the copyright transfer agreement of a journal there is the following sentence:

  "The Author warrants that the Work has not been published before in
  any form except as a preprint."

Nowhere do they mention ArXiv specifically, but does "published to ArXiv" fall under "published as a preprint"?

Usually depositing a paper in arXiv prior to journal submission does count as a preprint. Wikipedia explicitly says so...here's the wiki link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArXiv.

You can check out this list of journals with preprint policy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_academic_journals_by_preprint_policy
If you posted your paper in arXiv before submitting to the journal, do inform the journal (include the link to your paper in arXiv). From your post, it seems that your journal does not have such a tight preprint policy.


Should I encourage foreign students to adopt local handwriting customs? I am an American teaching in a US university, and I've noticed that many foreign students come with their own handwriting customs for writing English. In particular I've noticed that Indian students often write the letter 'x' so that it (to me, anyway, and probably to many Americans) resembles an 'n', and makes their work (very slightly) harder to read. (Another example: a Croatian friend of mine wrote his 'q' so that it looked like 'g' to me.)

Should I encourage them to write in an American way? I am especially interested in hearing from foreigners and whether they would have appreciated this. On the one hand I don't want to presume that my culture is superior to others; on the other, they have chosen to study in the US and I would like to help them communicate their ideas with as few obstacles as possible.

Does the answer depend on circumstances (e.g. whether the student is an undergraduate or graduate, whether the student has teaching responsibilities, and where the student aims to work after graduation)?

In ordinary text, this might help a little but probably doesn't matter much, since there's plenty of redundancy to aid in understanding.  However, it can make a big difference for equations.

If the students are in a math-intensive field, I would definitely point this out, but in a broader context.  When I teach beginning American undergraduates in mathematics, I offer them handwriting advice for equations: make sure t doesn't look like +, z doesn't look like 2, the letter l doesn't look like the number 1, etc.  Furthermore, mathematics students have to learn how to write all sorts of potentially unfamiliar symbols as they progress in their studies (aleph, Weierstrass P, fraktur letters for Lie theory, etc.).  If you are working on a calculation on a whiteboard with someone, it's a real issue if they can't easily and reliably parse your equations, so just about every mathematician has put at least a little thought into this.

From this perspective, I wouldn't tell people "You're in America now and have to write like the Americans", but rather "Writing equations clearly is something everyone has to deal with.  Here are some issues you may need to adapt to, some of which are generic and others of which are specific to your background."


How did authors prepare figures in their publications before the advent of computers? I am often amazed at how neat figures in old scientific publications are. How did authors prepare those plots and diagrams, when there were no computers around? Did they draw them by hand? Were there any special methods and tools involved? Did the authors prepare the figures themselves?

I believe many of them did the drawing themselves with ink pen, for example. Graphs can be drawn using pins and a metal ruler: you put pins (or small nails) in a measured points of a graph, and then bend a ruler to pass through all nails. The ruler will eventually form a curve, known as a B-spline interpolant of a given set of points.


Does significant editing of a paper with the possibility of minor contributions to its scientific content warrant co-authorship? The question of whether writing/editing alone merits authorship is already addressed here. This question is about writing and editing with the possibility of minor scientific contributions.

I have been asked to review a draft paper written by a colleague (a more senior PhD student in the same research group), whose native language is not English. The main purpose is to improve the style and grammar of the paper, rather than make substantial comments to the scientific content.

It is possible that I will be able to contribute some science to the paper, however not likely of the "pedagogical oversight" variety that is normally the domain of the last several authors on a ten-author paper.

Should I approach my colleague with the request that I be placed on the author list, only if I can make a reasonable contribution to the science (by way of some substantial comments or extra data analysis)?

The short answer is: it should not. But the reality is some think it should. Since there is no law that dictates authorship the closest to an answer is to look at the Vancouver Protocol and derivatives here exemplified by the ICMJE (Internationa l Committee of Medical Journal Editors) which defines an author as follows:

Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
Final approval of the version to be published; AND
Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

With these guidelines in mind many co-authorships would disappear but it becomes quite clear that help with language simply is not enough for co-authorship.


Timing and length of 'author response phase' I've submitted my first scientific paper to KDD, an academic conference with a decision deadline of May 12, 2016. However, before decisions there is an "author response phase" (see below). I'm a bit surprised that we haven't heard from the reviewers yet as there is only about 5 weeks from now (Apr 3) to the decisions deadline.

Is this normal? Also, how many days are authors usually given to formulate a response? It seems like we'll have very limited time so I'm slightly concerned with how intense the author response phase will be (seeing as I also have other ongoing projects).

  Papers will be reviewed by members of the KDD program committee and
  decisions will be emailed to all authors by May 12, 2016. Note that
  there will be an author response phase between submission and
  decisions.

It's still relatively rare for conferences to have an author response period at all, and when it happens, it's typically very different from the response to a journal submission.

For a journal, you are expected to submit a revised version explaining how you've changed things to deal with reviewer criticism. For a conference, on the other hand, the author response period is typically more an opportunity for quality control on reviewers, in which the authors get a chance to say things like: "Reviewer #3 claims that this paper should be rejected because we didn't do experiments, which we find confusing because several key experiments are presented on pages 4-5."  The program chairs then use this review/rebuttal pairing to make decisions on which papers will be accepted and whether they will need shepherding to ensure quality of the camera-ready (for those conferences that use shepherding).

As such, the response time is typically quite short, often only around a week, and typically happens not long before decisions are scheduled to be sent.


Can I use facts from surveys which are done by others and are available on internet? I am doing a research on family business and there are few survey available on internet providing a lot of key information/data.

For examples, there is one detailed survey done by a accountancy firm (2000 interviews around the world) and showing very interesting results which I want to use in my research paper.

This accountancy firm is sharing this survey with viewers on their site, they are even allowing to download the .pdf copy.

So my question is, can I use this information (of course I will give credit to them for this information) OR do I need permission from them to use these facts?

From my perspective, there is nothing wrong with using results of surveys in you text. In many cases, this can help your argumentation and give the reader the idea of the state of the art. And in deed, surveys are used in research papers or other publications as a source of argumentation. Survey papers have their place in academia.
This is one papers using survey in the introduction:

Small and Medium Size Enterprises (SME) are the most common employers across the world. In 48 out of 76 nations covered in Ayyagari, Beck and Demirgüç-Kunt (2007), SMEs employed more than 50% of the formal workforce

What have we learned from the Enterprise Surveys regarding access to
finance by SMEs?,Kuntchev V.,Ramalho R., Rodríguez-Meza J.,Yang J. S.,2012

This is THE TECH WRITER’S SURVIVAL GUIDE written by Janet Van Wicklen who uses surveys many times:

A 1999 survey by the Society for Technical Communication (STC) found
that 95 percent of its membership had a bachelor’s degree or higher1.

with references after every chapter:

1STC 1999 Technical Communicator Salary Survey (Arlington, Virginia: Society for Technical Communication, 1999)

Anyway, before you will use the information you should check:

reliability of the source - you do not want to include results from a company which is considered to be unprofessional and discredit your research
sufficient statistic sample - surveys which say: 9 from 10 asked doctors recommend using alcohol as a medicament against cough will not help your credibility
check the survey closely to avoid some misinterpreting

And you should:

include appropriate citation
be careful when interpreting the results
NOT to change numbers : )

If you are interested, you can take a look at more surveys and related papers at Enterprise Surveys


How can professionals vet research ideas (and potentially collaborate) with academics? I am a professional software engineer. In my downtime, I enjoy following some of the informal streams about advances in my field (Lambda the Ultimate for example, academic email lists, etc.) as well as more practical practices to keep myself up to date. Some of those practical aspects involve playing around at the edge of my knowledge/skill to try and advance it.

Recently I've had a particularly good idea that I've been able to turn into a workable prototype for something a little novel (as far as I can tell looking into past research). Normally, I would pat myself on the back and go about my life - or maybe post it to a blog. But this one falls into a realm that is almost entirely academic (Type Theory and Parsing). Nobody reading a random blog would understand or be able to extend/expand it into anything greater. On the other hand, I've read enough papers to know that I wouldn't be taken seriously by academics (or even skilled amateurs) without a boatload of formalism, that I honestly don't have (and may be beyond me).

It's been 20 years (and 2000 miles) since college, so contacting my alma mater's CS department seems to be not an option. These questions ask about how to get into doing research somewhat full-time, and their answers recommend actually entering a degree program at a research university. That certainly seems premature when I'm not particularly interested in doing research full time, and odds are heavily against this idea actually being novel or non-trivial to someone with more formal training.

This question is similar, but is asking more of "is it possible? how is it possible?". I know the options, but I also am pretty sure they won't do much, or I can't effectively do them. The answers point out the difficulty of being a solo outsider, which I readily acknowledge, even if I don't well understand how little I know about the difficulties.

So as someone well removed from university, how would I find someone to vet this idea - and in the best of scenarios, help form it into something respectable?

odds are heavily against this idea actually being novel or non-trivial to someone with more formal training

That last line puts you way ahead of most amateur researchers.  In my personal experience most of them follow this line of thought.  If you're interested in talking about your idea with researchers, look up a prof in the field at a local college and write something like

  I'm John, a software engineer with an interest in research in your field.  I've come up with an idea I think is interesting and would like to know more about it.  I was wondering if you or a knowledgeable student might be interested in helping me understand it better.  I know you and your students time is valuable, and I can offer some money if someone would be willing to help me understand this better.  (Be sure to attached an explanation of your idea)

I've never had someone offer me money for help in an unsolicited email, but if I did, I would likely find a grad student who would really appreciate an extra $100 for explaining it.  There may also be scholarly meet-ups a grad-student could direct you to.

Although it sounds like your expectations are not sky high, don't expect to have discovered anything revolutionary, and please be nice to whomever ends up helping you, and don't try to convince them you are an unrecognized genius toiling away in your basement.

EDIT: You might find math.stackexchange.com or codegolf.stackexchange.com to be useful.

EDIT 2: Any prof you send an email to will likely measure it against this scale  for crack-pot ideas.


Why does a university not require me to send proof of high school degree? I'm applying to a online Bachelor of arts degree at a very well established university in the United States.

However, I'm almost through the application process and at no point did they require an actual print of my high school diploma. They simply asked me to sign (digitally through docusign.net) that I have completed high school. I've been corresponding with an agent of theirs and according to him they are just reviewing what I've sent them (which does not include a diploma) and after that I can enroll.

I do have a high school diploma but how come they don't require proof of this?

EDIT: Continued story:

I recently got accepted into a university and they had me attest to having a high school diploma, which I did. After being accepted without needing to provide any proof of having said diploma, I naturally asked why they didn't ask me to provide proof of graduation.

They replied: "We randomly select 1 out of every 20 students to provide further documentation. You would’ve been selected at this point so it looks like you were not chosen."

Is this normal in the United States? Where I'm from (Iceland) this just sounds plain weird...That potentially 95% of students can get in without a diploma at all?

This is not normal in the US -- but that doesn't mean it's an illegitimate process. Private institutions can select applications using whatever criteria they deem appropriate; so while it sounds a bit questionable to me, it's perfectly within reason.

It is also perfectly valid to admit students without a high school degree; it happens to be uncommon, but depending on the subject matter of the BA, it may not be (at least in the university's eyes) a strict necessity, provided your other credentials are sound.


How do you include a poster in an academic resume? I'm a chemistry major and I've done a few poster presentations and an oral presentation. I have to put together an academic resume for a class. I was told to include mt presentations.

First off, are these things worthwhile to include or is it like putting in that participation ribbon you earned in gym class in 5th grade?

If it's worthwhile to list these things, how do I do so? Do I separate the oral presentation from the posters? Do I include the name of the conference it was presented at?

In academia, one lists things related to accomplishments and dissemination of research in the CV.  This typically includes things like papers or preprints, software, as well as presentations one gives.  In particular, your list of presentations gives one piece of information into how active you are in your research community.  So yes, assuming your poster presentations are academic/research related, it's appropriate to put them in your CV, though in-class presentations are typically not included.

General comments:  a CV is different than a resume so there's a lot of flexibility in what you include and how you format it.  Still, there are some dos and don'ts.  You can find loads of example CVs online, but it might be most helpful for you to look at sample CVs of young researchers (students, postdocs) in your field for some models.

Specific comments: there are different ways you can organize your presentations, but my suggestion is make a section titled presentations, and within that two subsections, one for oral presentations or "talks" and one for poster presentations.  Then for each presentation, list the title, venue including conference name and date.  E.g.

From Cervantes to Swift, 33rd AEIOU Conference, University of Lillipilut, Mildendo, Lilliput, April 1, 1726.


Will marking on graduate application that I'd like to be considered for admission without funding hurt my chances of receiving funding? One of the graduate schools I'm applying to asks if I would like to be considered for admission even if they can't fund me. Would it hurt my chances of receiving funding if I checked "yes?"

It shouldn't but it might.

For example, in my department, if you are the best candidate then you will get the funding no matter what. However, if you have exactly the same qualifications with another candidate (almost never happens) and we have funding only for one, we would offer the other candidate funding and to you to come without funding. Of course, once at the department, we would try to get funding for you for the next semester/year.

All these, depend on the department policy though.


Is MSc the way to go? I've been a software developer for about three years now (making custom ERP software), I love programming and also other areas in CS like AI, but I really don't like the fact that you have to learn a lot of business related topics (accounting, finance, so on) and also having to deal with end-users and managers.

I've been thinking about starting an MSc degree in computer science and turning my career more onto academia. I think it's best to do a MSc and not directly a PhD because I feel that I can go back to industry if I don't like academia.

Is the move to academia over industry the way to go or I'll face similar problems there?

Here is some more data: I am still somewhat young (28 yrs) and with a B.Sc Degree in Information Systems with 4.1 out of 5 GPA from a small college.

Many M.Sc degrees in the US are not research oriented (try Canada, they seem to be more common here), and you should be wary of this. If you want to gain experience in research to see "if it is for you" then you need to find a thesis bases Masters, and not a course based one. A good sanity check to see if your potential Masters program will involve real research is to see who is paying who. If you are paying them, then this is not where you want to be. If they are paying you, then it is much more likely that you are in a research based masters.

In general, a Master's degree is a good way to test the waters. It is also a good way to shore up on any knowledge you might lack after being out of university for 7 years, and make sure you have all the necessary foundations (sometimes Information Systems degrees don't teach these). If you change schools between your M.Sc and Ph.D it also offers you a chance to work with more people and if you don't change schools you can often fast-track before graduationg as if you had been in a Ph.D program all along.

However, getting an M.Sc degree does have potential downsides:

it can take longer to finish the whole process (B.Sc + M.Sc + Ph.D tends to be longer than just B.Sc + Ph.D)
Ph.D programs tend to have more stringent requirements for applicants that already have a Masters degree.
Some funding opportunities (such as NSF) might end up unachievable.


Academic policy does not let me earn credits from certain past courses. How can I challenge it? I have read the policy below:

No undergraduate courses taken to satisfy prerequisite requirements for admission to a graduate program may be included in the minimum number of units required for that program.

I completed a course at my previous university that is considered a graduate elective that also happens to be an undergraduate class.
My personal course audit from my former university shows this course is considered an elective for graduate students.
I want to earn credit for the course taken at my current university. Since I took it as a graduate student and I am not using it to satisfy pre-requisite requirements to admission (I am three semesters in at my current university), how can I successfully challenge this policy?
(Edit: I misquoted the quotation above.)

Edit: this answer was written based on the original policy quote.
The policy is clear, if the undergraduate course was taken to satisfy pre-requisite requirements then it can be counted.
As you clearly state that it was not needed to satisfy a pre-requisite requirement, and you state clearly that it was an elective then it will not be counted.
So, it looks like you will need to complete some credits to cover that lack.


Professor asked to write part of reference letter due to time constraints I am applying to graduate programs and one of my research professors will write me a recommendation letter, but wants me to write a rough outline of the letter. He will add his own content and edit all my work, but wants me to highlight things he might not know.

I am not sure how to write this outline, advice from people who have written graduate recommendations on what to put in one?

This is pretty common, actually.

I'd suggest making it an outline, not a narrative. But use complete sentences so that he can copy paste if he wishes. Include the things from your background that you want highlighted in a letter. But, I'd probably not recommend writing glowing praise for yourself. Let him add that part.

You can also include some forward looking things, such as what you intend to focus on in grad school.


How to send TOEFL score to a particular department? I am applying to the Ph.D. program in McGill. As it says at the end of this page, we have to send our TOEFL score to the department. But in the ETS website I cannot find the department, I can only find the institute.

What to do ?

The website lists the following:

  Appropriate exam results must be submitted directly from the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) or directly from the IELTS Office (International English Language Testing Systems) to McGilll University (Code 0935), Department code for: general Math (072) and Statistics (059).  An institutional version of the TOEFL is not acceptable.

If those codes are not available, I would reach out to the department for advice on how to proceed via email. Screenshot the list of departments on the website to show that it is not listed. Perhaps also CC the testing center/company.


How do I tell my supervisor that I've been offered a job and want to leave? Yesterday I posted about wanting to leave my PhD and I've definitely decided that it's the healthiest choice for me. Now comes the hardest part- telling them that I plan to leave the program once I find an alternative role. I'm not a very confrontational person and I hate to feel that I am wasting anyone's time so I want to be as polite and direct as I can be.
Is it as simple as emailing to say that I wish to discuss my progress and long term goals and then inform them during the meeting that I've been offered a job?

There is no reason for it to be confrontational. It is a sad situation, not a confrontational one. Just say that you are leaving and have considered your options.
Don't get talked out of what you want to do. If the person is angry, that is on them, not you. Say you are sorry, but determined.
Make some effort to clean up unfinished work that impacts on others if that is at all possible.


What are some good ways to lead a discussion session for a TA in a graduate-level STEM class? I'm a TA for a class on graduate-level Digital Signal Processing, and one of my responsibilities is to lead a discussion session. It's a 50-minute session that happens once a week, and the professor teaches the class for 3 hours in the week.

The professor had suggested that I discuss the solutions to the homework problems in this session, so today for my first session, that's what I did.

However, I felt this was quite a waste of time, since everyone who had had problems in the homework had come to my office hours and got them cleared, and everyone else in class had managed to do the problems. While I went through solving the problems on the board, I wanted to actively engage the students by throwing in questions about details, what-ifs, some important tricks to remember, etc. But it was a mostly unresponsive, bored-looking class with frown faces.

Should I not go through the homework solutions, and instead focus on important topics covered in lectures?

Also any ideas on how to lead a discussion session in a way that the students who actually managed to do the homework (which is the vast majority of the class) don't get bored?

Clear up common points of confusion you've encountered while grading.

If you are also grading homework for the class (or you know the grader...), you can identify common mistakes or points that students seem confused about. Even if you explain these on the individual homework papers on which students made those mistakes, (a) many students don't bother to follow up if they don't understand the grader's comments, and (b) it's possible that other students would have made those mistakes, and didn't only because they made a different mistake instead.

Discussion sessions are a great time to point out these potential pitfalls, warn students away from them, and discuss why they represent a wrong understanding.

Ask a question as a confused person.

I like to challenge a class (in the context of the discussion - not necessarily on an exam!) by asking a question that is ill-formed, confusing, or based on a mistaken premise. (Not to trick them - I warn them that this is what I'm doing.)

For example, I like to find questions asked by Real People on Stack Exchange sites (like Signal Processing Stack Exchange!) related to what I'm teaching, and challenge students to formulate a good answer. Then we discuss the answers as a group.

Answering a "real" question posed in this manner often requires much greater mastery of the material than solving the "nice" problems we usually give students.

Pose a design problem.

On a similar note, the "nice" problems we ask questions often have boring, "nice" solutions that require straightforward application of what they have learned, but not much original thought and critical thinking.

Raising a design problem - i.e. "How can we design a DSP pipeline to do X?" or "Here are two designs that solve a particular problem. What are the benefits and disadvantages of each?". These, too, can come from mailing lists and forums. Here's an example of the type of design problem I'm thinking of.

(Of course, these should be problems your students can solve, based on what they have learned.)

Have students nominate topics for discussion at the
beginning of a section.

At the beginning of the session, ask the students to suggest a few topics from the lecture or homework that they would like you to review in greater depth. Then have the class as a whole vote on the nominated topics to determine what to do with the session.

Source of this suggestion: TA handbook for UCSC

Ask the professor to provide you with past exam problems for use in the discussion sections.

Students seem to love working on past exam problems :)

Specifically, you may want to do it as follows:

  Hand out a printed copy of the questions (double-sided, stapled). For each question:

  Read the question aloud, or ask a student to read the question aloud.
  Ask if the question is clear.
  Have them discuss the answer in small
  groups.
  Ask for votes, or ask someone to explain their answer.
  If the
  class doesn't all agree on the correct answer, then you can have them
  discuss further, or you can try to clarify a difficult point.

Source of this suggestion: Jason Eisner

Give mini-lectures about things you think deserve to be retaught.

Especially if you have the time to also attend the professor's lectures, you can identify topics that he may have had to rush through.

Similarly, you may give a "refresher" on a prerequisite topic that students don't seem adequately prepared in.

Or, you can give a mini-lecture on a topic that, based on homework grades, students just aren't getting.

Source of this suggestion: Jason Eisner


is it possible for me to Co-author research paper(s)/article(s) and get it published? I hold a M.Sc. in Finance from UK and currently live in Toronto, Canada. I want to Co-author research paper(s)/article(s) with a professor/PhD academic and get the paper published in good journal. I want to do this on volunteer basis to gain experience of conducting high quality research and publication. Is this possible in Toronto or Canada?

Is this possible?

Yes, it is possible that one could volunteer to co-author something and find someone who is willing to let you do it with them.

Is this probable or likely in the abstract?

No, it's very unlikely that someone will just take on a co-author who has nothing to offer but their time to the project. What could increase the probability is if you have some thing to contribute to authoring the paper.  For instance, there would need to be some particular feature of your finance knowledge that they lack or would find useful in producing the paper.

Primarily, the issue is that academic researchers in most fields are not looking for apprentices that can watch the research process and then learn how to do research in this way. Instead, they often co-author things with (A) each other by bringing different areas of expertise or (B) graduate students who undertake the research.


PhD: Online philosophy courses and their worth when transitioning from an unrelated field to philosophy I want to enter a PhD programme in continental philosophy in about 7 months. This is while I hold an MA in Computer Science. While the school is very open to my application, -- i.e. they don't strictly require a Master's degree in a related field-- I still want to make my application stand out as much as possible.

I have found quite many philosophy courses online (on coursera, and other websites) but the only ones that have captured my attention have been the ones coming from prestigious universities such as Harvard and Oxford.

https://www.conted.ox.ac.uk/courses/introduction-to-philosophy-online

Are such courses of any value when applying to universities? Specially in the case of a person coming from a very unrelated background.

My guess is this depends on what sort of on-line course it is ...

(1) In the course, you write one or more papers, which are critiqued by them, and at the end they issue some sort of credential to you

(2) You listen to lectures on-line, do assigned reading, and nothing else

Perhaps (1) would be of value in applying.  But not (2).  Of course (2) could still be of value to you, personally.


In applying for fellowships, is it better for 'majority' students to select "Prefer not to respond" in racial identification? I am a second-year graduate student in applied mathematics looking to apply for fellowships for this upcoming year. It also happens to be the case that I am a Caucasian male. Would it be more advantageous for me to select "Prefer not to respond" in applications that ask for my race and gender (especially applications that give preference to women and minority students), or is that generally considered to do more harm than good?

Technically, I see nothing wrong with not reporting your race/gender. However, I suspect that if a fellowship gives preference to a specific group, putting "prefer not to respond" puts you outside of that group by default. Therefore, it would make no difference if you were a Caucasian or unidentified, you would still not gain the selection benefit for minorities. Hence the net benefit would be zero.


Zero papers in first PhD year. Is this common? I am terminating in these days the first year of my PhD in computer science. As I come from a different field, I spent the first semester doing courses, and most of the second in posing the basis of the thesis project: we have a couple of results, still nothing actually published, and only one paper waiting for approval (with a very low probability of being accepted ).

At the same time I can see many colleagues who already have published a couple of papers during the first year, so I am a bit worried. Am I going too slow? How common is for a PhD student to publish zero papers in the first year?

Also consider that the length of my PhD is 3 years, and this further worries me..

In my experience (in environmental science), it is unusual for students to publish in their first year, and typically only happens if they are publishing work that was largely done before starting their PhD (e.g. from a research Masters degree).


Starting postdoc before getting PhD. Is that possible? I have already submitted the PhD thesis for examination. I have started to email potential supervisors yesterday to get information regarding postdoctoral positions in their departments. I am wondering whether it is possible to start postdoctorate while waiting for PhD viva.

Yes, it is possible. I and many others started a postdoc before officially obtaining the PhD. However, your chances may depend on country, postdoc position, and field. For example, in some countries before the official defense the PhD has already been examined by the committee and hence there may be more trust from a potential postdoc PI that you will not still be focusing on your PhD.


NSF graduate research fellowship eligibility, I've read from past questions and answers on this site, namely an answer by JeffE, that anyone with more than 12 months of full-time graduate study, MS or PhD, is considered too late of an applicant, unless there is a significant change of field.

What if my undergrad degree was not in mathematics, but I have an MS degree in math, and am looking to apply to PhD programs in math?  Would my MS degree be considered something equivalent to an undergrad / first degree in math, and thus make my application eligible for a review by the panelists?

If you have had 12 months of graduate study, then no, you are not eligible, regardless of your undergraduate degree.

Note: there are some exceptions to this (I think they have some language in there for exceptions), but I wouldn't bet on it.


How can I avoid overuse of words like "however" and "therefore" in academic writing? I am in the field of computer science (more specifically robotics), and as I am writing, I must actively avoid using the words "however", "therefore", etc... every few sentences. This is especially an issue in proofs, as I feel like every other sentence follows from the previous.
For example, I am tempted to write something like the following:

This constraint is satisfied because... However, if blah blah..., then blah blah. Therefore, something something. However,.... (and I can go on forever).

Often, I can just delete some of the "however" or replace "therefore" with words like "consequently". I can also sometimes change the wording to use "then", "so", or "but". However (see I can't even help myself), I feel compelled to use words like "however" to help with flow.
How can I avoid using words like "however" so many times? Is this bad writing? Is this normal?

Let me suggest an alternate view. This is in regard to writing proofs and other very technical things. You want, above all, for your intent to be clear. It may be that "however" and "therefore" are the best available words and that they clearly express the flow of the argument.
After all, if you were writing the proof purely symbolically you would "overuse" certain logic symbols in order to be exact.
And, don't let "fancy words" get in the way of your readers deep dive into the ideas themselves. Sometimes the most obvious word is the one that is most quickly understood to express your intent. This might be especially important for those who know your subject, but are not native speakers of your language.
OTOH, I haven't actually seen your prose. If an editor or reviewer objects, then you can change it to suit, of course.


What sources of funding do faculty in Computer Science dept. in US universities have other than NSF? I made the question a bit more specific (location:US, discipline: CS) as I'm interested in answers pertaining to those details, but I can make it completely generic if the community so suggests...

By funding, I mean grants awarded to faculty as PI/co-PI for supporting Research Assistant-ships, travel to conferences, equipment acquirement etc.

My motivation behind the question, if its relevant, is whether I can use the NSF website as an exclusive source for looking up whether a particular faculty can support more students - if there are other sources of grants, doing just that would not paint a complete picture! As to my reasons for looking up faculty funding, its just so that I can answer emails from prospective applicants to the PhD program which ask "Do u know if Prof. X in your dept. has funding for new students" with a one-liner - look it up on the NSF page!

Off the top of my head, I can think of American CS faculty who have been supported by grants, contracts, or gifts from each of the following:

US funding agencies: DARPA, Department of Defense, Department of Energy, National Instutites of Health, Department of Homeland Security, Office of Naval Research, Army Research Office, Department of Education, NASA, ...
Foreign funding agencies (usually in concert with NSF, for international collaborations): Deutsche Forshungsgemeinschaft (Germany), Centre national de la recherche scientifique (France), Israeli Science Foundation, Danish National Research Foundation, ...
Private foundations: Sloan, Packard, Simons, Fulbright, Guggenheim, ...
Industry: Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Cisco, Boeing, Adobe, NVidia, ...


Should I cite author names as they appear in the journal or as I know them to be complete? Since I've been using Mendeley to manage and extract metadata from my PDFs, I've come to notice that authors are sometimes denoted with all their initials and sometimes with just one. I assume this has to do with different journal's rules on denoting author's names. However, this makes a mess in my author list in Mendeley, as the same person may be known under two or even more names (e.g.: "Last, F."; "Last, First"; "Last, First M,"; "Last, First Middle").

If, for completeness' and tidyness' sake, I edit the author fields to always have the most complete name of the author available to me regardless the journal the author published in, I inevitably will change the way I cite them. For example, an article from a certain journal only uses the first initial:

  Last, F. Article Title, Journal name, x:y (YYYY), pp. xxx-xxx

After I have "updated" my authors, it is possible my citation includes also the second initial, i.e.:

  Last, F.M., Article Title, Journal name, x:y (YYYY), pp. xxx-xxx

So my question is: am I incorrectly citing the article when I include more complete information about the author's name than is given by the journal article itself?

I disagree with the statement of "a publication must be referenced exactly the way it is published."

From Knuth's Mathematical Writing

  In his bibliography Knuth has tried to keep his citations true to the original sources. The bibliography contains mathematical formulas, full name spellings (even alternative spellings when common), and completely spelled-out source journal names. (This last may be unusual enough that some members of a field may be surprised to see the full journal name written out, but it’s a big help to novices who want to find it in the library.)

This means that you can change reference, give full name of authors, give full name of journals. It may be unusual but it can be done and it is DONE. It is done by one of the most respected authors in the academy.

To answer your question:

  So my question is: am I incorrectly citing the article when I include more complete information about the author's name than is given by the journal article itself?

When you include more complete information, you are not doing anything wrong. Actually according to Knuth, you are doing very good job.

Therefore if your target journal does not have any rule about same reference rule, you should be perfectly alright.


How to deal with career breaks in CV I am about to finish my first postdoc (2 yrs) and the positions and grants that I am applying to frequently require me to specify and explain any career breaks. I feel somewhat uneasy about this since I was out of work for a year and a half after finishing my PhD, due to the fact that I could not find a postdoc position.

During this time I was not able to do any science as I was not affiliated with an institution. I also submitted nearly 90 applications, almost all of which were tailor made. This required a lot of time and effort.

The 1.5 yr gap is the only stain on my otherwise good CV and academic track record. Any suggestions on how to approach this issue would be much appreciated.

I wouldn't bother to explain a break this short on your CV directly. I would instead just have a "canned" response ready when people ask you about it that puts a spin on it to look as good as possible. Something like:

"I wanted to make sure that I stayed in the field that I wanted to be in, and proper opportunities can be hard to come by, and short-lived. I applied for over 90 post-doc positions over that time, but decided that I wanted to make sure that I was open if the right opportunity came along, so I didn't take other work. Instead, I lent extra support to my partner as they started a new position, and made sure that the applications that I put out were top-notch."

Based on your question and comment, none of that is likely dishonest, it's just a nice and clean way to describe what happened in your life during that time. They really just want to make sure you didn't get bored in your field, but seems like you stayed engaged and dedicated to your field, so I wouldn't see it as a problem.


I want to review my old college applications via FERPA - is this possible? Several years ago I applied to a bunch of universities, many of which rejected or waitlisted me. Since then, there has been a lot of discussion about transparency in the college admissions process, including this lawsuit against Harvard and this video about Yale. In the latter case, the student also later wrote an article asserting that people can look at old application materials under FERPA - though typically only for schools they attended. (*I am not attesting to the quality of or agreement with the resources; I'm merely citing their existence.)
I recently remembered this and wanted to see if I could do the same out of curiosity. However, I have two questions regarding this.

Can people do this for schools to which they were not accepted? I read that they might only honor your request if you were admitted. (If this is the case, then is this stipulated in FERPA? And how can they “choose” not to honor the law unless this is the case?)

What is the retention period? I would think that if I applied over four years ago, they might not have my record on file...?

Edit: For clarity, I DO have closure and am extremely content with the outcome. I cleaned up the original question and corrected my wording to provide more context. Thank you to everyone who answered.

Can people [request their records under FERPA] for schools to which they were not accepted?

No. From the FERPA text, education records are defined as:

those records that are:
(1) Directly related to a student; and
(2) Maintained by an educational agency or institution or by a party acting for the agency or institution.

and a student is defined as:

any individual who is or has been in attendance at an educational agency or institution and regarding whom the agency or institution maintains education records.

Since you have never been in attendance at the schools who rejected you, you have are a not considered their student and FERPA does not accord you any protections.
This accords with most "plain English" descriptions. For example, it agrees with this description from PrepScholar and this explanation from USC.
As Nate points out in the comments: "section 99.5 (c)...says you don't even have the right to view your application records if you applied to a different component of an institution you were already attending." So there is no loophole if you applied to grad school at your undergraduate institution.
There is therefore no question of "choosing not to honor the law" -- rather, the law does not impose any obligations on the school until a student-university relationship is formed.

What is the retention period? I would think that if I applied over four years ago, they might not have my record on file...?

FERPA does not specify any retention period. As noted here, however, state law may impose certain retention requirements.
In a larger sense, the goal of FERPA is protect privacy and allow students to correct errors in their educational record. It is not concerned with the admissions process directly (until the point where admissions documents become part of the student's educational record).
I agree with the commenters suggesting that you would do better to ask professors you know to review your application materials and give you feedback. I admit I am also a little concerned that you are still seeking "closure" five years later, but that is perhaps a separate matter.


How to write a scholarship press release? I recently won a scholarship related to my career focus. I was chosen as a winner in part because of a recommendation from a former professor. She is now asking me to draft a press release about winning the scholarship. I am hesitant because I do not want to appear press-hungry, but I would like to allow a write-up to be used as a means of increasing the visibility of the college and this professor. I do not want the focus to be on myself and my accomplishments. How should I handle this?

I do not want the focus to be on myself and my accomplishments.

While many of us (hopefully) have a modicum of modesty, there will be many times in your career where it is in your best interest to triumph your accomplishments, and this is one of them. In this case, it is a no-brainer: your former professor asked you explicitly to write the press release, and you should do it. Your university home page or newspaper probably has a news section that demonstrates the type of press release you're talking about (e.g., a short story with a picture and a description of the research and/or accomplishments).

The press release will be primarily about you (if you are the only winner at your school), but you should also include a paragraph about the scholarship itself and about the college and how it relates to the scholarship (e.g., "The X Scholarship has been awarded at Y College for the past 10 years, and was funded through the generous donation of so-and-so, who graduated from the college in 1954...).  If it fits in, you can mention your professor's relationship to the scholarship and your involvement (how did she know to recommend you? Was it her impetus or yours?).

If you're concerned about how to write the press-release, I would reach out to someone with journalism experience, whether it is someone who works for the school paper, or the news-section of the school website.


How to provide English translation of non-English words scattered in a thesis I hope this is the right place to pose my question.

I'm writing a thesis in English, but it's based on a project aimed to Italian native speakers (and so am I) and therefore I have often to refer to Italian terms.

Since its main language is English, I want it to be completely understandable by English speakers, without the "gaps" due to Italian words. What is the best way to address this problem?

My current solution is to write translations in parentheses or footnotes, but I don't like it very much.

Is there a better solution?

If you provide a glossary of terms at the end of the thesis, then you only need one footnote, at the first Italian word, to point readers to the glossary. If the first usage of any Italian term is also written in italics, then the reader is prompted to consult the glossary if needed.