Is the gap between lower- and higher-ranked graduate programs in pure math really that big? Initially I asked this question on math stackexchange but it seems academia stackexchange is more appropriate place for this.

Note: a question similar to that I'm going to ask was discussed here, but answers to the questions I'm going to ask were not covered there.

Basically, I'd like to understand how significant is the gap between lower- and higher-ranked graduate schools in mathematics. I'll be referring to the USN graduate schools ranking. Let me fix the notation straight away. By 'higher-ranked schools' (which I will also refer to as 'top schools') I will mean top 10 (or if you want top 20) and by 'lower-ranked schools' I will mean schools ranked 20-40 (all according to USN).

What I understood from the question I provided the link to above is that being amidst 'top students' at a higher ranked school is more beneficial than being amidst 'average students' at a lower-ranked school. Also, higher-ranked schools may be more diverse and provide more opportunities in meeting people from other top schools as well as in obtaining a job in the academia.

But I still have a couple of questions.

The first one is about the first two years of the study. Is, in general, the instruction level at lower-ranked schools worse than that in higher-ranked ones? Also, are graduate corses at 'top schools' more difficult to master and to pass? If so, does it imply that one needs a better preparation (i.e., a stronger mathematical background) to succeed in a top graduate program? Also, does it imply that the students enrolled in a top program will eventually have a better mathematical background that will make it easier for them to conduct research? If you have anything else to say about the coursework at top universities in comparison to that at lower-ranked universities, I would appreciate it.

Secondly, in the question I referred to above (or elsewhere), some people mentioned that exposure to new ideas in various branches of mathematics (which is one of the advantages of top programs) is a consequence of the size of the department and the 'quality' of faculty/post-docs/students. Whereas I do agree that students at top universities are more knowledgable and creative, I cannot see why the other assertions hold. Correct me if I am wrong but the the math department of say Stony Brook or Indiana (ranked 25 and 34, resp.) is not smaller than that of Chicago or Columbia (ranked 5 and 9, resp.). Furthermore, the vast majority of professors in all of the places mentioned are alumni of Harvard/Princeton/Berkeley/MIT/Chicago/Stanford (i.e., a top school in my terminology); post-docs also come from very prestigious places to all of the four mentioned universities. So what makes Chicago or Columbia 'better' than Stony Brook or Indiana? Just their name? (Of course Chicago may have more publications than Indiana but I don't think that graduate students feel it.)

Looking at the problem as someone who has been on a variety of hiring committees and grant panels,
I would say that in general, having someone with a good reputation in the field writing a strong letter of support is the most important factor, together with the journals where you have published.

In view of this, the school doesn't really matter: if you do your PhD in a small school but with a supervisor with a solid reputation who produces a multi-page letter highlighting well your contributions to the field, you will usually fare better than if you come from a very well known school with very little endorsement from your supervisor. Of course, some people tend to get a little bit star struck, but the dynamics of a hiring (or funding) committee usually smooths things out. Actually, contrary to what Dave Kaye was saying, I would argue that the school matters less in academia, more if you want to venture out into the real world, where name recognition is more important and might help you land your first job.

So why favor a good school? Well, there will be more visiting speakers of a high caliber. There might be a wider variety of grad courses to choose from. Overall, probably a more enriching experience. The difficulty level will not be very different, if at all, once you have been admitted.


What is the industry equivalent of a post doc? I've just finished my PhD in Genetics, and I am looking at moving into industry, as a scientist.

"Senior Scientist" seems to be the closest match, because the salary is slightly higher than a junior post-doc.

I am not sure how much sense this question makes, given that no position in a research lab is really comparable to a postdoc position.

That being said, I have seen the term "research staff member", or just "researcher" or "scientist" being used a lot as an entry-level, permanent position in a research lab which requires a PhD. "Senior scientist" or "senior researcher" is typically a bit more advanced ("researchers" become "senior researchers" through regular career progression). However, concrete names of course vary between companies, so you should never assume much of anything about a position purely based on its name.

  "Senior Scientist" seems to be the closest match, because the salary is slightly higher than a junior post-doc.

That's a very bad heuristic. Too many other factors influence salary for it to be of any worth for judging the level of a position.


Should figure captions include the "take home message" that the figure conveys? Should figure captions only describe all of the necessary components (e.g. the meaning of axes, etc.) or can the figure caption also include a brief sentence about the main conclusion drawn from the figure. For example, say the axes are labelled "speed" and "time". One caption might be "Speed of a giraffe in meters per second as a function of time in seconds from when it first starts moving." It could also have the additional sentence "... Note that Speed is increasing with time." For the previous example, this is probably unnecessary, but for more complicated "take home messages" the point of the figure may not be as obvious. So should comments describing the main result behind the figure be only put in the text body or is it OK to put it in the caption as well? I think this might be field dependent.

The justification for wanting to put the main message of a figure in the caption is that it makes the paper easier to skim, as, anecdotedly, I've heard quite a few people say they skim the paper and focus most of their effort on the figures before ever looking at the results.

A short comment in a caption is ok. But generally captions should stay descriptive of what is drawn in the figure e.g.

  Fig. X: estimated airspeed velocity of an unladen European swallow.

They should also ideally not be too redundant with legends although sometimes it helps to say things like "shown at various headwind velocities". The place to draw attention on a specific aspect of the data shown in a figure is the results section.

These are customs and not strictly-enforced rules, nothing bad will happen to you if you take a few liberties. Worst case scenario, you'll have to make a few minor edits during revision.


Can I copy parts of a glossary verbatim in my thesis? My thesis uses domain language of a (software) project that needs to be precisely defined because those words are ambiguous in the "natural" English language. This software project hosts a glossary using Attribution 4.0 International that I would like to include partly (ca. 20 out of 60 terms).

Can I write the following?

  Glossary

  The XYZ project glossary¹ defines a set of terms that are used throughout this thesis:

  A [Verbatim text defining A]

  B [Verbatim text defining B]

  ....

  ¹ https://link.to.project.website.glossary

I saw several questions about copying normal text but I think this does not apply here, because I am not copying scientific findings but merely a definition of a "language"?

The license makes it pretty clear that this is allowed. However, you should probably also, in the footnote, give the license as well as the link. Then a reader needn't follow the link to know that it is licensed.

You might even make it more clear that you are quoting from the original.


Which authority establishes the equivalence of degrees from different European countries? I hold a degree from a European country, and at that time we didn't have a system similar to the common "Bachelor +  Master". My degree has been considered as equivalent to a Master by the University of another European country, and in this other University I obtained a Doctorate.

Now, I have been offered a teaching position in Russia, and they want a statement of my undergraduate University, saying that that degree is equivalent to a Master. But this University (where I graduated) tells me that they can't make a statement of equivalence, they can only certify that I have that degree.
So, who should be the authority that officially takes care of confirming the equivalence?

To complicate things, I graduated before the Bologna Process came into effect.

Each country should have a government office (or equivalent organization) that makes such determinations. You should ask the university to which you're applying for the appropriate office to consult in their country. If you want one from the country where you obtained your undergraduate degree, ask their registrar (or equivalent officer) who is responsible for such certifications.


How to address the ability to work with culturally diverse populations and on interdisciplinary teams in an academic job application? Sometimes it is mentioned in the US academic position announcement that "Applicants must address in their application their ability to work with culturally diverse populations and on interdisciplinary teams" where the following documents are asked from the applicants:
1) resume,
2) work-related references,
3) letter of application,
4) official employment application

I would like to know how to address one's ability to work with culturally diverse populations and on interdisciplinary teams in an efficient and effective way through these above-mentioned documents. No.3 (i.e cover letter, usually not more than 2-pages) could be the most probable one where the applicant may claim briefly that he or she has the ability ...... Is there anything else the candidates should be doing in this regard?

Broadly, this can be addressed in (1) and (3) by specifically (re)writing portions of your resume and cover letter to highlight interdisciplinary work you've done and multicultural teams you've been a part of, and in (2) by asking your references to mention it in their conversations/letters.

More specifically:

While it's pretty obvious that most cover letters you send out will be at least somewhat specific to the each position, it may be less apparently that your resume can be the same. In this case, you'll want to modify your resume to highlight cross-disciplinary and multicultural work you've done at previous institutions. List bullet points that specifically call out researchers from other fields. Mention the nationalities of the colleagues with whom you've had a public collaboration. For both of these, it will look waaay better if you also list papers you've written or grants that were funded as a result of the collaboration; it will show that you can not only collaborate, but you can collaborate effectively.

For your references, you should mention that this position is something that the institution is asking to have called out, and request that they do so in their letters and conversations. This is as simple as it sounds; just speak to them and make sure they're aware of it. Hopefully they won't forget and all will be well.

Good luck!


Should interviews be arranged by less-preferred schools first? I read that some candidates will arrange their interviews by not placing the preferred ones at the beginning. How that is possible? Do they wait for few weeks to know all their interviews and then decide?

This is a common strategy, but it can backfire on you in the following way.

If you interview for the position that least interests you and are given a job offer, you may have to respond to that offer before you have a chance to complete the other interviews (or before those institutions are ready to make an offer.)  If this happens you may be faced with the choice of accepting an offer from your least favorite institution or refusing that offer and then running the risk that none of the other interviews will result in an offer.


Will excellence in professional career be considered for admission or financial aid If I have strong professional IT skills but average educational background, will a university consider me for admission or financial aid?
I have looked through Stanford's site, including application procedures, admissions requirements, and GRE/TOEFL testing, but I cannot find a mention of anything other than TOEFL/GRE scores required.

Professional IT skills have very little to do with graduate-level work in computer science. While such skills may lead to a positive letter of recommendation, it is unlikely that you will receive either admission or financial aid (in the form of a teaching or research assistantship) solely on the basis of your record as an IT professional. There may be exceptions to this (for instance, if your professional work is in a specialized area that maps closely to an existing research area at the school to which you are applying), but in general, but that would be more the exception than the rule.

In other fields, such as bioinformatics and chemistry, where "professional work" may be more similar in nature to ongoing academic research, this is more of a possibility—I know several people whose work careers did have an influence on their admissions to graduate programs.


I have a paper in review. Can I send to to NIPS (Neural Information Processing Systems) conference as well? Question is in the title.  I'm not in computer science but I have a paper that I think is a novel application of machine learning.  It's now in review.

I'm not sure how competitive I'll be, but I think that it's worth sending to NIPS.  Most of the conferences in my field don't publish the papers that comprise them, but NIPS does.  If my paper is published in the NIPS proceedings, would that constitute prior publication?

Does it depend on the journal?  If so, what about the top interdisciplinary journals, like Science/Nature/PNAS?

NIPS does not allow for dual submissions.

  Dual submissions: Dual submissions will be identified via a combination of automated methods and human (reviewer, area chair, senior area chair, program chair) judgment. NIPS coordinates with other conferences to identify dual submissions. Submissions that are identical or substantially similar to papers that are in submission to, have been accepted to, or have been published in other archival conferences, journals, workshops, etc. will be deemed dual submissions. Submissions that are identical or substantially similar to other NIPS submissions will also be deemed dual submissions; submissions should be distinct and sufficiently substantial. Note that slicing contributions too thinly may result in submissions being deemed dual submissions. The program chairs reserve the right to reject all NIPS submissions by all authors of dual submissions, not just those deemed dual submissions. The NIPS policy on dual submissions applies for the entire duration of the reviewing process (i.e., from the submission deadline to the notification date). Authors should contact the program chairs if they need further clarification.

There is a good chance that the journal does not either.


Professor won't comment on research in his recommendation I asked a professor who is my research co-supervisor for a recommendation letter and he said "OK I can write that you are my student and you are good, but I can't comment on your research until you complete your thesis." When I first asked him he asked me to stay and do PhD with him. Now he won't comment on my research which would really hurt my chances of being admitted. I mean when I have completed my thesis I would have missed the deadlines and would have to wait for another year (supposedly as a researcher with the same professor).

My question is, should I take his recommendation or ask someone else based on what he said?

If you are applying for positions where you need recommendation letters, it's going to look pretty strange if you don't have one from one of your co-supervisors if it's possible to tell who they were. You don't say what degree you are currently working on, but I'm guessing it's either your undergraduate or master's degree since you appear to be applying for a PhD. I wouldn't recommend saying the following directly to this person, but refusing to write a letter of recommendation in order to try to prevent a student is highly unethical.

I recommend you talk to your other co-supervisor and see if you can get them to help you talk the recalcitrant co-supervisor into writing you a letter. It is very common for students to move from group to group and institution to institution while getting their successive degrees. In fact, most institutions in the US have a preference towards moving around like this. While losing a good student is hard, it's very inappropriate for a professor to try to prevent a student from moving on.

If the professor is having trouble coming up with things to say about your research progress, you can help him out by writing some text about what you've done so far and the good progress that you've made. Faced with some true statements about how good your research prospects are and the progress you've made to date, they may cave easily and write you the letter you need. If you show your resolve to apply elsewhere, they should hopefully give in.


Which section to start with when writing a research paper Which section of a research paper should be written first? When I finally finish my analysis I begin to write the Methods section and the Results section. That is the first "block" of my writing. After that, I discuss it with co-authors (they are of course involved in the analysis, but at this stage they have the real results, graphs, and tables) and co-workers. Only after that do I begin to write the Discussion section and the Introduction. Is that right or is it better to write it in a different order?

There's no 'right' order. Starting where you feel able to do so is far better than not getting started. I usually write lots of sections concurrently, or start writing and work out what the sections are later.

On the other hand, it will make your life somewhat easier if you can work roughly in order of dependencies, so you don't have to keep changing what you wrote earlier. From example, it might be helpful to write out some of your notation before you start using it. The introduction will often come late in the process for this reason.


US Master Admissions, LoR: Academic vs. Employer As a matter of recommendation letters, how do US admissions to MS programs generally look at LoRs from employers as opposed to those from academics? And how are recommendation letters generally weighted in the application process? I know the paradigm varies by institution, so I'm just looking for an idea.

Preface: I worked full-time during my undergraduate studies and admittedly at different jobs, so I feel that I haven't built any particularly strong relationships with faculty at my institution. I do, however, feel that the individuals I've asked to draft letters at my employer could provide reasonably strong recommendations (they are supervisors).

The program itself isn't traditional: It includes an industry internship with a relevant project and paper as opposed to a research/thesis component, though candidates can register for directed research as a part of the electives.

If I can provide any more pertinent information, please let me know!

For graduate study, what the committee looks for is primarily ability to do research. You need LoRs that highlight that aspect of your work. If no faculty can attest to it (or you in general), a letter from a previous boss at work might do.


Are there any universal rules for bibliographic references recognised all over the world? There seem to exist many bibliographic reference styles and many universities have their own guidelines too. I wonder, whether there exist any universal guidelines for formatting bibliographic references in publications?

There is no truly "universal" system—that's why packages like EndNote and BibTex both come with hundreds or even thousands of different bibliography styles.

That said, there are some common approaches—the Modern Language Association and Harvard formats are quite common in the humanities. The sciences have more widely spread systems, but I think the most common I've seen is the "abbreviated style," containing authors, journal, volume and page info and year. (There are some variations within that style based on different publishers, and some publishers, like ACS, are now starting to take advantage of electronic distribution by including full titles.)


After contacting a potential supervisor, is it ok to ask if my application is competitive? I contacted a professor for PhD study, and discussed the project. I would like to make a formal application: should I first ask would it be competitive?

You can ask us but this is a very difficult question to answer for faculty members.

On the one hand, we don't want to say "yes" and make you feel as though you've been guaranteed a spot when we have no idea of how competitive the pool is this year (see multiple questions/rants on academia.se that reflect just this kind of misinterpretation) --  nor do we want to say "no" and shut you down prematurely.

So you end up with a qualified "maybe" which doesn't help you (the student) much.


How can someone from a developing country study pure mathematics/theoretical physics at a university abroad? The quality of university level education in developing countries (North Africa in my case) is mediocre at best, especially in the sciences (my interests lie primarily in mathematics). I've found that the appropriate places for getting this education would be France or Russia, more specifically ENS and l'École Polytechnique in Paris (I'm aware that going to the classes préparatoires aux grandes écoles is strongly advised, but how can I avoid going there if possible?) and the National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow (which teaches in Russian which I will vigorously try to learn).

Can I study in my original country for a little while then go there? How do each of them cost? How can I proceed to achieve this almost impossible goal?
If you know of any other good mathematical institution that accepts student from North africa, please suggest it.

The African Institute for Mathematics (http://www.aims.ac.za/) is an institution meant to help those in your situation. Essentially, it is supposed to offer talented budding mathematicians from Africa the fundamentals to be competitive to apply to the top places all over the world.


How to prepare for a meeting regarding a Ph.D. program I'm wait listed on? I am on the waiting list for a Ph.D. program I applied to. I sent an email indicating that the program in question is my top choice and that I am interested in discussing my qualifications.

In reply I received an email asking whom I see as potential advisors.

The reply also indicated that the department is looking in to some of the issues I discussed in my application, and that there are multiple things to consider including how well research interests match, funding and time constraints.

I've set up a meeting with the person to discuss these topics. I've already updated my list of potential advisors, but there was not sufficient time to contact them.

How should I prepare for this meeting?

For each faculty member you would be willing to accept as an advisor, know at the abstract level what their recent papers are about.  Search for grants they just received to determine what areas they may be hiring in.

In the meeting, express enthusiasm for all of these subjects and describe how your background prepares you to work on them.

It sounds like this department has space in only one or a few research groups.  You have no way of knowing which group(s) that is.  If you want to get in, you should market yourself as suitable for as many groups as you can.  It is normal for the openings available to vary by chance and for you to have no information about it; much is left to chance in graduate admissions.


Should I correct a single trivial typo in a submitted manuscript after they rejected the first submission for having too many typos? I sent a paper to a journal and they replied that there were many typos that needed to be corrected. I tried my best to fix these errors, and, after reading the paper numerous times, I resubmitted the paper. Now, however, I found a trivial typo in a comment. My question is : should I wait for their response or tell them about this typo now?

I'm assuming you sent it for another round of review. Wait for their comments. Provided that you really did remove most of the typos in your manuscript, and otherwise followed the reviewers' recommendations, I really doubt this will be an issue.

If, however, you sent the camera ready version to the journal, then you should consider contacting the editor and ask if you could re-submit a corrected version.


Am I allowed to share a final copy of my published paper privately? Suppose I published a paper in a journal with no open-access policy, but with the usual constraints regarding copyright.

A researcher that I do not know in person has asked me for a copy of a this paper I coauthored. Am I allowed to share the final-version PDF file with him/her (by e-mail)? I mean, does it make any difference with sharing it publicly (which I do know I am not allowed to)?

If not, what would be a polite way to tell him/her so?

I believe that it is a moral obligation of scientists to make their work available to colleagues, except when larger considerations such as safety intervene.  Most publication agreements allow for some form of sharing, even if only a preprint---you might or might not be able to post it for free online, but you can at least share via email.  There's a decent fair use argument for it as well, which is likely to cover ambiguous agreements.

I also believe that if you discover that a publication agreement explicitly prohibits sharing a pre-print via email, then it is appropriate and ethical to commit civil disobedience and share a pre-print of the article.  I believe this because I think that a publication agreement that prohibits individual exchange of pre-print scientific documents is itself unethical.  Don't share the final version, though: the moral obligation of scientific openness is served well enough by a pre-print, and the final version does often clearly incorporate real work and value added by the publisher, which you have no moral right to.

Do note, however, that if you choose to share when you are prohibited from doing so, that you should realize that you are committing civil disobedience and that there is a chance (however unlikely) that you may have to take the legal consequences for doing so.


What does "paper rejected provisionally" mean? I submitted a paper to a prestigious control journal. The editor provided the following review:

  The decision is that your contribution cannot be accepted for publication in [the journal] in its present form. It needs substantial revision in order to possibly become publishable. Overall the decision is paper rejected provisionally.

The editor has invited me to revise and resubmit.

Is "paper rejected provisionally" equivalent to "major revision" ?

Will you advise me to politely inquire the editor about it so that there is no confusion. I mean before revising I want to be sure that there is some chance that the paper can be accepted if I incorporate the reviewer's comments.

I've seen language like this before as well, and feel that it is unnecessarily confusing. Usually, what I have found is that it's effectively equivalent to "Major Revision."  Here is a good heuristic for distinguishing:

If they give you a date that they'd like to see the revised version by, then it's equivalent to "Major Revision."
If they don't give you a date, then you've been rejected, but they really are inviting you to submit a better version when you are ready.


Coauthor used large part from common paper almost verbatim in another paper Some time ago I was approached by a fellow researcher that had an idea on an earlier work of mine. We started a collaboration and as a result we submitted a manuscript in a prestigious journal. Recently, I stumbled on a publication of my coauthor in which he had used almost verbatim a large part of our common submission (a page long). These parts include results which were entirely mine. I am really disappointed and I am not sure how to proceed with this.

The submitted manuscript is proof enough that you also have worked on the results he published alone. You have authorship rights over all the content of the manuscript, do not worry searching for proofs that you have worked on those particular lines.

You should contact your collaborator and ask for a retraction of the article. If he disagree with that, you should contact the editor and send proofs that the results were submitted before in another journal, which breaks one of the rules your collaborator accepted when submitting to this journal: "The manuscript/results shall not be/were not submitted anywhere else.".

This is very serious because if the editor handling your manuscript find the other publication with the same results he will reject the manuscript and, worse, your co-author could be accused of self-plagiarism.


Is it normal to suddenly become clueless about your PhD topic and how to rediscover one? I am working towards a PhD. My supervisor and I decided upon a topic which interested both of us. I did an exhaustive literature survey, and found that there have been heavy work in this area in the past 2-3 years. The problem statement we started with seems to have been primarily solved, and now extensions to those are appearing in top journals and conferences.

Now, he feels that the work remaining in the area is not worth a PhD so we should look for something else, but he still asked me to explore the area. Now, I am clueless what exactly I am supposed to do and where to look for new problems (given that I have already invested my first year into this along with the course work).
Is it normal during the PhD that the problem that you expected to have not been mostly worked upon, already has so much work done ?

Now, in this case, how should one proceed to look for new problems or extensions of the problem that are worth a PhD ?

My area is Computer Science.

Don't consider your time reviewing the field necessarily wasted. You say that you've discovered that the research topic that you wished to pursue has already been thoroughly investigated. If this is true, then you are in the happy position of finding this out now before having invested more of your time.

Now, is it indeed true that the topic has been exhausted? Perhaps this is the basis of your supervisor's request that you continue reading around the topic. Is there a line of investigation still remaining that you can work on? Are you sure all the extensions to the primary findings have been looked at? Is there a way of extending into new and unexpected territory?

On this last point, talking to many other people in the field - or closely related fields - might spark off ideas in your head. Discuss with them whether they think all aspects of the topic have been considered. Find people who are not experts in the specific topic, but are conversant with it who might offer a difference perspective. These people might draw you toward research across two fields. Can the results of the research topic you were looking to work on be extended into other, surprising areas?


Difference between faculty position at a public university and state university Is there a difference between faculty position at a State university and between public university in terms of employment conditions, salaries, research funding and politics (e.g. faculty position at Alabama State University versus University of Alabama; Arizona State University versus University of Arizona)?. All universities that I am interested in are research universities.
Thanks.

State universities are public universities. The other main type of university would be private, non-profit (I'm assuming you are not looking at for-profit universities?). Public universities are often controlled by the state legislature, so they are sometimes vulnerable to political decisions, such as cuts in funding, determination if faculty get salaries, the number of courses required to teach, etc. For instance, during the recession, California had a budget crisis and there were constant talks of faculty lay-offs at state universities. The amount of salary offered to faculty vary based on your discipline and the university. Some private universities may offer higher salaries, some may not. You should look at the individual school. In many states, faculty salaries at public institutions are public record and you can see how much faculty earn, if that helps with your decision.

Since state governments control state universities, the university norms differ from state to state. I previously was at a state university in Florida and now I'm at a state university in Alabama. The University of Alabama has a lower research designation than my previous institution (I was at an R1), but there are fewer universities in Alabama and UA is the state's flagship school, so I am provided with a  better salary and more support for my research than I was before. Also consider the cost of living where individual universities are located, versus salary. The cost of living in Alabama is much lower than where my previous institution was, in Miami.

The take away? Find the faculty positions that are related to your work and compare institutions then. Hope this helps. Good luck!


Should a research proposal contain a discussion of my past experience and achievements? I'm used to "research proposals" being purely focused on future plans and specific research aims, and not a place to talk about myself. However, now I'm making an application for a postdoctoral fellowship which asks me to submit only three documents: my CV, a cover letter, and a 4-page research proposal. In my previous applications of this kind, there were additional documents that explicitly asked me to justify why I want to work there, what my previous accomplishments are, etc. but this one doesn't have any guideline.
Is the research proposal an appropriate place to try to sell myself and talk about my experience? Or should all of this be contained to the cover letter? I would appreciate any insight about what the typical expectations are regarding this.

If your next research steps are a continuation of your current line of research, then a quick summary of work you've already done on the topic is a great way to work it in naturally, provide context for where your research lies in the field's line of questioning, and explain why you think this research is worth pursuing (look how fruitful it was in the past! Self citation).
The etiquette is probably field dependent. Fancy grants and fellowships require specific tailoring, but for a normal postdoc in my field, even just submitting your research statement as a research proposal wouldn't be too rude or strange.


Can I drop the “Lond.” in “Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond.”? Background

I would like to cite journal articles published by the Royal Society, specifically in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.
Apparently, sometimes an of London is included in the name, and I have seen the journal’s name abbreviated as both:

  Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond.
  Philos. Trans. R. Soc.

Example

A prominent example is the Wikipedia page of the journal, citing amongst others:

  Maxwell, J. C. (1865). "A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. 155: 459.

  Hawking, S. W. (1983). "The Cosmological Constant [and Discussion]". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences. 310 (1512): 303.

Question

Should I simply remove the of London (resp. the Lond.) whenever I see it in order to be consistent? Or is there any specific reason to include of London in some cases?

Remark on standardized abbreviations

According to Wikipedia, the ISO 4 Abbreviation of the journals in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society series is

  Philos. Trans. Royal Soc.

This raises three sub-questions:

Why do I see Royal abbreviated to R. so often? Is it wrong?
What is the correct way of including the series names (such as B: Biological Sciences) in the abbreviation?
Was there another official abbreviation in the past, possibly including Lond.?

I wrote to the Royal Society out of curiosity, and received a very helpful answer, along with the permission to post quotes from it here.
So here is part 1, referring to Background in the question:

The answer to the first part of your question is easy. The “Lond” or “London” was dropped from the journal titles a long time ago. Although the Society’s official, legal title is “The Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge” we now call ourselves just “The Royal Society” and the journal titles reflect this.

And here is part 2, referring to the Question:

As to the abbreviations, there is a huge variety of these and no single standard has been adopted across all publishers for any journal abbreviation system. For example, "Royal" can be shortened to either R. or Roy.
[...]
Our preferred abbreviations are stated on our journal websites, for example.

And I was even provided with some additional hints:

Most science publishers use the National Library of Medicine (formerly Index Medicus) system. Some use ISO4.
Fortunately it no longer matters very much which abbreviation people use, as citations now use the DOI (which carries all the relevant information).

To complete this answer, I looked up the record entry of Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci in the National Library of Medicine Catalog. The record entry lists 18 alterntive names/abbreviations for the journal, and contains a note explicating when in the past some of the alternative names were in use.
Lastly, some relevant information could be found in the Fact Sheet:
Construction of the National Library of Medicine Title Abbreviations:

If a journal title undergoes minor changes that do not require a new bibliographic record, the existing title abbreviation continues to be used.
Once the title abbreviation has been assigned, NLM and the ISSN Centre do not go back and change a title abbreviation qualified by place name, even if the place of publication changes over time.

So the conclusion is: someone who decides to use the National Library of Medcine Title Abbreviations consistently will abbreviate

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

to

Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci

with a Lond reappearing from its misty past.


How to deal with extra points in exams? If a midterm exam was from 100 points with 5 points bonus(extra points). Then should the total grade be out of 100 or 105? How to deal with cases of students getting above 100? Should their points be used as bonus for the next exams or just throw them out since they don't need them? I feel that since some students would benefit of the 5 points, those who were above 100 should also do, but I am not sure how?

When I have dealt with extra credit in the past, it was simply retained in the records until the very final accounting of scores at the end of the course.  Thus, if the exam was out of 100 points, it was still considered to be out of 100 points, and some people simply had more than the maximum possible.

When grades were combined together in the final accounting at the end of the course, having a score above the maximum effectively ended up helping compensate for lower scores on other tests (though perhaps not one-to-one, depending on relative weighting).  If a particularly amazing student turned out to get more than the maximum in the class overall, then it wouldn't affect anybody at all: the curve wasn't shifted and they simply got top marks, as they would have if they'd gotten the maximum.


Missing Recommendation Letter I am applying to Grad School. I have indicated three references. However, one of them has not yet completed. He has stopped responding to mails and phone calls too. Would it be wise to change him with some other reference ?

If it is of any importance, the person in the question is my undergraduate thesis advisor.

Since I don't have commenting rights I will add some more info here.

@kostia I visited his office some days back -> he disagreed to write then. Then some days after I visited, he writes to me saying he can do 5. And so I indicated him in requests. That was the last I had heard from him. I write him reminder e-mails almost every day, he doesn't reply.

Adding to @Kostia's answer, a negative letter from the undergraduate thesis advisor will tank your application.

He is giving all the signs of not being able to write a positive letter. He disagreed when you first asked him, then he agreed to only writing a few, now he is avoiding you.

I would absolutely not use him for any letters if at all possible. Again, a bad letter from your advisor is worse than a missing letter. Try to find a third person and have them write to as many schools as will let you change the letter writers.


Is it unprofessional or a bad idea to use my department mailing address for personal mail? I will start a PhD in another city next month, and I need to update my address with the USPS, my bank, and so on. Since I'll be living in graduate housing and expect to move a few times during the program—say I take a summer internship, and graduate housing assigns me to a new room the next academic year—, I would like to make my permanent address my department address. Is this unprofessional or a bad idea? I would be receiving credit card statements, junk mail, and everything in between at my department address. Alternatively, I could just keep changing my address with the USPS every time I move.

Check with the department/school first.

In general for use of any work address:
For something like receiving a single package, it should be fine.
For something like receiving regular mail on a daily basis, no you should not do this.  Besides the issues of policy, there is an increased labor of the recipient to deliver your personal mail.  There may be delays.  And, normally these boxes are in a partially-public area and subject to theft.

I've been in situations like this, so I got a PO box once and a private mailbox company another time.


How to ask for rec letter for another program after verbal commitment to stay with my current advisor for PhD? I'm a senior undergrad, and I verbally committed to sticking around with my current research prof for a PhD at the beginning of the school year. However, I'm now really enticed by the graduate program of another school, and I'd like to at least apply to the other school.

However, I don't know how to ask my research prof--whose lab is the technically-juciest part of my CV--for a rec letter. He has already recommended me to 2 fellowships, so I know he has a letter ready for me.

Should I just not ask my advisor for a letter? How would a grad committee feel about the lack of input from the closest research adviser? I have a 3.8 and 3 years of hands-on experience in different labs (no publications) and student groups, so I feel like I have a decent shot at getting into the other school without my adviser's recommendation, but I'd like to get your thoughts.

More broadly speaking, is it okay for me to even apply to the other school? On one hand, I feel guilty about possibly reneging on my statement to work with him, especially since I've had some unproductive spats in his lab and I feel indebted to him for keeping me on. On the other hand, I don't feel guilty because he told me he doesn't have any long-term funding left for me (hence the fellowship applications). Moreover, one of the fellowship proposal's depended on the lack of progress in a certain field which my prof and I later discovered has been secretly progressed very rapidly by a government lab.

Absolutely you should apply to other programs, and your advisor should be encouraging you to do so.  If for no other reason, your advisor could be hit by a bus tomorrow, and then you'd be stuck without any back-up plans.

Your advisor should have no qualms about you applying to additional programs. He should be willing to submit his LOR for you. Moreover, if you secure some interviews, it is such a unique opportunity to meet some other PIs in your field as well as students who are in your field.

In sum, your professor should be totally open to doing this, just explain that you don't want to place all your eggs in one basket.  Good luck!


How to initiate an application of a research attachment fellowship directly with the potential advisor? I am currently trying to seek a summer research attachment in the US institutions. CalTech offers a really attractive program, SURF, to the undergraduates.

However, in order to apply for the attachment fellowship, CalTech requires the applicants to contact a faculty member first and proceed with other admin stuff only after receiving the endorsement from the faculty.

As a non-CalTech student, I have no academic network that spreads to any professor in CalTech. In such a situation, can I directly email the professors that I am interested in working with?

Of course, I can do it, but my concern is that a professor will normally ignore this type of email, especially when he/she is currently not short of people in the lab.

How to initiate such a research proposal effectively so that the professor will not overlook my email and actually think about taking me in?

If they expect you to get in touch with faculty first, and they widely accept students from beyond CalTech, then they're expecting you to reach out - no undergraduate has a particularly robust academic network beyond their institution (beyond a few edge cases).

Generally speaking, the best way to do this, in my view, is to email the professor, give them a brief introduction about yourself, your research interests, that you're applying for the SURF program, and that you'd like to work in their lab. Link this to the work they do.

I'd consider doing this for several professors, unless there's just one whose work matches your own. Worst case, they'll ignore it, but professors often at least read these, especially if they're from institutions they recognize, have concrete information, and are in coherent English.

For the record, this is how I got my first undergraduate research position, and ended up with a wonderful colleague I work with to this day.


Is it crazy to leave a tenured position for a non-tenured but tenure-tracked job? I recently obtained tenure, and lo and behold, my dream job comes up, but it is posted at a lower level. I would have to go through the process all over again, though potentially being posted further along the track rather than starting from scratch.

Do people do this?

It's not crazy. We've had people at my elite R1 give up tenured positions to come in as assistants or even lecturers. Usually they had good reason to leave their old institution (lack of intellectual stimulus; bullying; family; etc.).

The main thing is that you need to determine exactly what you will need for tenure at the new place. Will they start you off in year 5 as a "high assistant prof?" If so, do they expect new work to come out in that single year or can you use your old tenure file in its entirety?

An elite liberal arts college or regular R1 might hire at the high assistant (if not associate), the most elite R1s might suggest you reset your assistant prof clock to zero and decide when to come up for associate on your own volition when you feel your file is strong enough.

But this might be putting the horse before the cart. You have to apply and actually be offered a position before you should worry. It's only then - and after a few rounds of negotiation- that you can make a rational choice.

Until then, apply and dream fond dreams.


Is it better to have no publication than having you as second author? I am a post graduate engineering student(Computer Science). I have only one conference (not very good) publication in my name as a first author.
One of my seniors labmate, worked on a very good research project a few months ago and wrote a paper. I have been approached by him to generate a few more results for his paper and proof reading and extending his paper with literature survey and elaborative explaination of results. I have been offered co-authorship(2nd author) for this paper.
Now, though I can dedicate some time to do that work, but is accepting 2nd authorship worth.

I would like to ask in general as well, that is it worth to put effort in papers and get 2nd authorship given that the paper is not related to my primary area of research or rather work and dedicate time on one's own research and get papers as a first author ?

Note: I have seen that in academia (where I want to go), usually advertisements call for applications from people having at least X no of papers as first author.

If the paper is well-written, contributes non-trivial knowledge to a particular field, is peer-reviewed, and you contributed significantly enough to the paper to be listed as an author, you should put your name on it. In the case of fields where pre-prints are common (i.e., it won't be peer-reviewed, at least initially), it is also worthwhile.

What you don't want is to be an author on a poorly written paper. In other words, you should be proud to list a publication on your CV even if it isn't exactly in your primary research area. Especially at this stage in the game, having a few good papers will help your case, even as a second author (and keep in mind that some fields, such as theoretical computer science, should have the authors listed alphabetically and all authors are considered primary).


Are speeches by Heads of States academic sources? I'm uncertain whether speeches by Heads of State or other governmental figures are academic sources? Can someone please clarify?

A speech by a head of state is a primary source and can be used and cited as such:

  Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address begins "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation" [Lincoln, 1863]

It is not a peer reviewed scientific document, however, and should not be used in that way:

  The United States was founded in 1776 [Lincoln, 1863].

That's a very easy way to get things wrong, because speeches by heads of state are generally used for political effect, not for delivering factual information.  For example, if you used Lincoln as a citation, you'd be rather misled, because the United States per se did not exist until the adoption of the constitution in 1789.


Appropriate time to announce current research topics I am currently a Ph.D. candidate in the field of economics and I'm starting to make significant head way into my research and submitting articles to journals.  I get a really strong vibe in the academic community to protect my ideas and don't leak anything until it is appropriate.  My general sense of this comes from my experience with various individual's ideas getting "scooped."  While collaboration is obviously key to academic success, I also want to be wary of announcing any current research plans until it is appropriate.

My question is : When is it appropriate to discuss current research projects and update a CV or website?

When the paper has been accepted to a journal?  After the paper has been submitted to a journal? A proposal has been drafted?  After all preliminary research has been complete?

I appreciate  your responses.

In the field of economics, I believe you are safe to go out with your paper and discuss it after you have produced a working paper or presented it in a conference.


Rejecting graduate school offer while recommending classmate - can this be appropriate? I am an undergraduate at a U.S. university with a top-10 graduate program in mathematics. I applied to mathematics PhD programs this year, and was lucky enough to get quite a few offers at good places.
Because of the COVID-related cuts, many of my classmates were not so lucky. One of my classmates in particular has very similar interests and background to me, but hasn't heard back from any programs, which (to my understanding) means he is on the waitlist. In fact, we had a letter of recommendation in common, which was based on a document we wrote jointly (the professor who wrote it could not have made any real comparison between our contributions to the document, but he is very famous and the letter is likely very strong).
I know him very well, and I know that his background and competence in our field is equivalent to mine (and actually a lot better in some areas). I will have to reject many offers at places that he hasn't heard back from. When I do so, is it at all appropriate for me to politely indicate my opinion that my classmate would actually be a better fit than me for the program? Would this have any (however small) chance of changing the outcome in his favor? Or is it the case that admissions committees would find this annoying and actually be swayed in the opposite direction?
Maybe this sounds like a strange question, but the reason I ask is that both of us have been studying mathematics very seriously for our entire undergraduate education. We would both be really sad if one of us could not continue in math, so I want to do everything I can to help.

Typically around now in the US, graduate programs will be finalizing their lists for offers of admission and a waitlist. I know for the program I attended for grad school, they ordinarily offered about 50% more slots than they actually intended to admit, knowing that some would choose other offers. If fewer students matriculated than expected, offers would start to go to people on the waitlist.
Other programs, especially those with less funding flexibility, may only admit to the number of slots they have and then grab from the waitlist only when people reject the offer.
It seems very unlikely to me that your slot would go to this student if they have not already been informed they are on a waitlist. It is even less unlikely that your opinion will sway the decision, the admissions committee has already met and reviewed the background of all their applicants. I doubt it would cause any harm, either: the decisions are already made. Whoever read your request might find it a bit of a sweet gesture while being quite naïve, but that's it.
Probably the best thing you can do for your friend is to compare applications to help them prepare for next year's admissions cycle. Maybe there is something in your applications that stands out that they haven't touted as well.


Why do departments hire GTAs instead of more permanent faculty? I notice departments often hire graduate students as teaching assistants.

I'm curious why departments do this instead of hire a lecturer to do the teaching. I'm sure this is helpful for the GTAs, since they're 1) getting paid and 2) getting teaching experience, but if the department is hiring GTAs to give the students teaching experience, then why not require students to teach as part of their programme? If one is concerned about "free labor" being exploitative, then one can also just add the extra money that would've gone to the GTA's salary to the student's stipend.

The only other reason I can think of is cost, and full-time lecturers are more expensive than part-time GTAs. Is this the case?

Edit: In the arrangement I'm familiar with, the students (which can be undergraduate, Masters level, or PhD) are funded separately. They could, e.g., be funded by a department scholarship or by their professor's grant. They are then offered TA positions in the department, which they are free to accept or decline. If they accept, they are paid a salary, effectively making them employees of the university.

This question applies to any country in which this is practiced.

Yes, full time lecturers cost more than graduate teaching assistants.  In addition, if they are hired with permanent contracts, then it is a long term financial commitment, which is more risky financially than a short term contract.


Why is method so important for a thesis? Right now I am preparing a paper for my bachelor's degree thesis in computer science. I myself is an active programmer at work in my company and have created many programs till now.

I want to take some of my programs and take it for my thesis paper, my supervisor the program itself is good and I also can be promised a good grade too, but he still can't accept my paper because it does not have a Methodology in there. So my paper got rejected.

I wonder why the thesis really needs this methodology inside of the paper. But of course, I'm not that clueless to think that everything I make is always the original method I make myself. It just I always self-studying for programming for almost 5 years, so there might be someone method in my program but I just don't know what method I use or who make it.

But still, it kinda frustrating to get rejected just because there is no methodology mentioned... Why methodology is so important anyway?

Computer science, huh?

I think that the issue many forget with the name "computer science" (and that's why "informatics" as a word exists at all) is that it's not about computers. Well, that was harsh. It's not totally about those small silicon dies and such. It's about information processing. And it's about ideas.

Basically, "we wrote a program, hurdur" does not cut it. Even "we wrote a program, here is the github" does not cut it. "We got this cool result" is cool. But what most people would be interested in – on a large scale, in 10-20-100 years, – is not that you used an i7 chip. It's not that you wrote it in Python. It's the idea. The essence. The thing you write in methodology. Your very future readers would not care about your source code (even if it's available). They would be trying to implement your method in SuperCoolFunctionalNeuronQuantumSnake++#XXL that would be popular in 40 years. And what they'd read, is methodology.

tl;dr: Methods would persist, programming languages and even results would not.


How to get permission from Google to use Google Scholar Data, if needed? As you maybe aware, Google does not provide any API for Google Scholar product and despite lots of request still there is no interest from Google to provide API for it. So, I am currently working on a product that can utilize publicly available information from Google Scholar page and render them so researchers and academician can use the data and embed them in their own website.

However, while I am developing the system, it happens sometimes that Google blocks my request to fetch scholar page (I parse HTML page). So, I am thinking that there might be a mechanism in their side that blocks request from applications -rather than human. So, it may suggest to get approval from them.

Do you have any idea that:

Do people need approval/permission from Google to use its Google scholar information? The product I am building is probably donation based for basic version and paid for some other version (not yet confirmed).
If people need permission, how should they approach them? I searched the entire scholar page here and found nothing related to get permission. Also there is no forum for Google Scholar according to this place.

Thanks

Google Scholar, as you said, does not provide API, nor a complete documentation.
In the comment Davidmh cites this question, and I think that settles everything:

Google Scholar robot.txt disallows bots
Google service Terms of Service says

  Don’t misuse our Services. For example, don’t interfere with our Services or try to access them using a method other than the interface and the instructions that we provide.

  So, in the end, you don't have permission for a script that fetches multiple pages at a time.

Following this Quora question, I found scholar.py, that is not an answer to your question but could be of use (I have not tried it).

Furthermore, I also asked the developer of the H-Index GS Calculator, to get another opinion, but I'm sure the "one-click" nature of the plugin complies with the ToS. A bot does not. Maybe you can change your system in this direction.

UPDATE: the developer says the in the past he wrote the GS team the same questions, and they replied

  you can do stuff, respecting the ToS (so, no bot)
  they will not provide an API, for legal constraints with affiliated digital libraries (ex. Scopus, WoS, etc.).

Also, his calculator has a throttler that reduces the number of queries per minute, to mitigate the issue. There are few simple techniques to "cheat", but, we are at the boundaries of the ToS :-).


Should authors be required to report a paper is being resubmitted? This is probably more relevant to conference submissions than to journal submissions, but still.

Some CS conferences have recently started to employ a resubmission policy: if your paper got rejected from a prior (relevant) conference, and you are resubmitting,  you have the option of attaching your previous attempt’s reviews and a cover letter explaining how you addressed them.

You don’t have to do this. There are very good reasons to believe that doing so is beneficial. For the authors, it offers a chance to show improvement and a willingness to improve (thus deflecting potential repeats of prior criticism). For the community, it prevents p-hacking of the review process (resubmitting until you luck out and get your paper accepted).

What are the potential downsides of making this process mandatory?

The obvious downside is that you can't verify it. You could have a policy which says "if your paper has been rejected elsewhere, you must attach your previous review and a cover letter explaining how you addressed the issues". However if the authors don't do it anyway, how would you find out? The only chance is to invite either the editor or reviewer(s) who reviewed the previous submission. The odds of this is small, especially since you don't know who edited/reviewed for the other journals, or even which journal it was.

The other danger is that you open a potential path for fraud. Currently the most common form of fraud is for authors to suggest as reviewers people who are linked to them (or to themselves using obscure email addresses). With this policy, one could easily write the "previous review" oneself to give the paper a sheen of reputability. The new conference cannot verify these previous reviews are legitimate. In principle this should not fool the editor, but in practice it is all too easy. Example of the former ploy fooling journals; this is likely to manage as well (at least some of the time).


post doc research and problem with its progress In order to get postdoc in math I need to write a research statement. But I am thinking about some questions and appreciate your answers.

Is it possible to express several topics in research statement which some of them might be not related to each other?

What should I do when a research subject in my research statement for postdoc will not have any progress during doing postdoc?

Your question is very general and hard to answer. The answer also depends crucially on the kind of post you are applying for. Basically, some postdoc posts are created to support the research proposed by an applicant (i.e. you are a PI on their own project), but many posts are created to support an existing project (you professor is PI and you are Research Assistant/Fellow).

When you are a PI, you can propose any research project that interests you. However, remember to use SMART objectives. If you propose several disconnected research directions, think how realistic is to achieve them in a timeline of your post. Consult more experienced colleagues if needed.
When you are a RF on an existing project, make sure your application relates and reflects the topic and aims of this project. Check PI's bibliography and the information available about this project.

If you do not think you can make any progress for the chosen topic during the post, it is unlikely you will get any funding for it.


Can we add an acknowledgment to a paper after it has been published? Like it has been mentioned, I wanted to know if it is possible to add an acknowledgment after the paper has been accepted

We even attended the conferences a few days back

What stage is your paper at?

If your paper has been published: no, you cannot. It's too late. The electronic files have already been distributed and it's possible the hardcopy versions have been printed as well.

If your paper has been accepted but not published: you can, but hurry. Tell the editor/publisher you want to add an acknowledgements, and give them the exact text. Chances are they won't object. The earlier you do this the more convenient it'll be for the publisher. If you wait till after you've sent in author corrections, they might say it's too late.


Is it better for a mathematical paper to have a citation or a nice theorem + another coauthor? I'm publishing my first paper soon with three collaborators.  We made a conjecture towards the end of the paper and intended to publish with the question still open.  Another mathematician heard of the problem and found a solution to the conjecture.  Now we have two options:

publish our current paper on our own, with the conjecture open, after which our friend would publish their solution as a separate paper, or
include their work at the end of our paper and make them a co-author.

Though our paper is pretty good already, the new work is strong and would make a nice addition, so the first option seems nice.  On the other hand, I'm an undergraduate senior (entering graduate school this Fall) and so are two of the other collaborators.  Thus it seems like adding another professor as a co-author may make my contributions (which I have worked very hard on) appear less substantial.  Also in favor of option 2: if the other professor publishes separately, the citation may make our paper look good.

What do you think?

I think it is not important which option makes your paper look good, but the best question here is "what is the right thing to do?"
If you are such a talented and hardworking undergraduate student who can write a publishable paper, you will certainly have a very bright future in grad school and later as a researcher. So, don't worry how your first paper is going to be evaluated or cited. Hopefully you will write better papers and you can prove yourself in the future. Regarding publishing research papers, the right thing to do is that you publish your paper as perfect as it is possible for you at the moment, which means it is better you add the solution (and one more co-author) to your paper.


Will one 'C' grade due to health issues ruin my chances of admission into a top grad school? I am in the third year of my undergraduate degree now, and in the process of applying for Graduate schools and Med schools. I have a burning questions about a creepy "C" in my transcript.

To summarize my story: I was recovering from a biopsy operation back then. Though I was advised to take one semester off to rest physically and mentally (I was extremely paranoid waiting for the pathology report, and luckily it came back benign), I still decided to take all the courses and the heavy research that I had started before. I performed so badly that semester that I received a C. That is like the most embarrassing element in my transcript.

Some told me that such a bad grade is a disadvantage for admissions. Do I still have a chance to make it to top grad and med schools?  With extra effort (I have managed to pull up my GPA to 3.8 now, I have been on the Dean's list for some semesters, have 3 publications, and 2 poster presentations at symposium, my GRE and MCAT are good too), can I cover that ugly spot?

You have shown that you have overcome great adversity and still achieved great results - this says a lot of positives about your character - of resilience and perseverance - two attributes that are critical for any graduate studies.  You had a cancer scare and still passed the subject despite the medical tests and the very justified anxiety.

Maybe, it is not an "ugly spot", but that C, and subsequent successes are a reminder of how much strength and tenacity you have shown.


Are undergraduate classes ever used as a means to learning what a PhD candidate needs to learn to earn his PhD? I'm a philosophy major. I sometimes wonder how some professors and PhD candidates know as much as they know about subjects outside of their discipline. For instance, I read one philosophy paper by an author who proficiently used methods from other disciplines {agent-based modelling, computer programming, game theory, advanced set-theory} to argue his claim .

I know that a big part of earning a PhD is learning how to learn; the author of that paper evidently learned how to do that. When I imagined myself doing the same, I imagined being able to learn the concepts independently, but feeling unsure about how well I had learned them. So I wondered whether completing, or challenging, classes would be a viable strategy for learning about matters relevant, but not pertinent, to my graduate studies.

Are undergraduate classes ever used as a means to learning what a PhD candidate needs to learn to earn his PhD?

Short answer: sometimes...

Long answer: see below.

(Disclaimer: this describes a STEM-related experience. Not sure how this translates to other disciplines - like philosophy - where instructor interpretation plays a very large role)

I can only relate my personal experience. In grad school I did take a number of classes, but somehow, even though as an undergraduate I was able to juggle 5-6 courses effortlessly, I found it much more difficult to sit through lecture after lecture and do homeworks.

For certain kinds of material (let's say real analysis, or topology) the discipline of a full length course can be quite useful. But most often what you're looking for is some specific concept or set of concepts from a different area. As you "learn how to learn" better, you quickly realize that the most efficient way to do this is to find some lecture notes, or even find an expert who can explain the key ideas in an hour or so. At that point, if you're experienced enough, you know what to take away, which ideas are important, and which ideas you don't need to understand to get your job done.

Of course, the other factor is time: you're trying to master a body of work in your own research area, and you don't have a lot of time to spare mastering a whole other area as well. But it's surprising how much you can learn from late night paper binges and frantic googling.

And now of course there are MOOCs and other learning aids that help the self-directed learner. So you can pick up things at your own pace.


How do I get a DOI for a dataset? A DOI is a commonly used digital object identifier to refer to an electronic document. How do I secure a DOI for a research dataset, to help share and identify it?

There are a number of ways in which a DOI could be linked to a dataset:

Figshare will provide a DOI for any deposited work, which includes data.
Zenodo also provides DOIs for any kind of research output, including datasets
Dryad provides DOIs for data submissions linked to papers (for a fee, which includes storage, curation, archival, & checks for best-practice [HT @DaisieHuang for pointing out my lazy description of fee previously])

You might also look to see if a domain-specific repository provides a DOI for data. The journal Scientific Data maintains a good list of repositories you can look at.

Choosing a DOI provider will depend on particular circumstances. Both Figshare and Zenodo are both free to use services for example whereas Dryad charges for the service they offer to cover ongoing storage and archival costs.

Some points of comparison between Figshare, Dryad, and Zenodo, etc

Dryad accepts data relating to publications; if it isn't associated with a paper then they won't accept it. Figshare and Zenodo will accept any research output, whether linked to publication or not. In that sense Figshare and Zenodo are more broadly applicable to any research outputs.

Data may be more discoverable in Dryad or domain-specific repositories (DSRs) than in general purpose ones likes Figshare & Zenodo. Data is likely to be formatted in standard ways and more easily searched by online or other tools if they are archived in Dryad or DSRs. This is likely to encourage reuse.

Figshare is a for-profit commercial entity, Zenodo is run by CERN and was supported by the EU OpenAIRE project at one point, whilst Dryad is an not-for-profit entity supported by research grants and membership fees for organisations.


Reusing previous review for similar paper Some months ago, I reviewed a paper for a conference (with a joint submission to a journal). I rejected the paper with a list of points that were missing and suggestions for improving the manuscript.

Lately, I have been asked by the same journal to review a paper by the same group of authors. Note that this is not technically a re-submission, as the title is different. In the new paper (which is about the same topic as the previous one), the authors have added a substantial amount of new material and have taken into account some of my previous suggestions; yet, I believe that many of the main points I raised in the previous review are still valid.

Thus, I am tempted to repeat verbatim large parts of my previous observations. On the one hand, these are still valid, but on the other, I am not entirely comfortable with this form of self-plagiarism. It will be very obvious that I have simply reused my own previous work, also because the Associate Editor is still the same and because I have my own default format for reviews.

A related issue is that in this case the outcome could be different: given the quality of the material that has been added, I am tempted to ask for major revisions instead of voting to reject the paper.

What is the professional conduct in this case?

Open your review with something along the lines of:

I reviewed an earlier version of this work (entitled previous_title), which was submitted to conference_name. The authors have since added a substantial amount of new material and have taken into account some of my previous suggestions. However, many of the issues I previously raised have not been addressed. What follows repeats much of what appeared in my earlier review.

In addition (and if appropriate), you might like to add something along the following lines: If the authors address the issues that I have previously raised, then I'll consider the new material in more detail. As it stands, I consider the previously identified issues sufficient to recommend rejection.


Letter or recommendation of supervisor who gave you a bad project If your supervisor gave you an unviable project that was a dead end in honors or masters, do you think that they will write badly about you in a letter of recommendation to make themselves look good?

To be honest, if you intend to have this person write a letter of recommendation for you, I don't see any alternative but to talk to them about where you stand and how supportive they can be in a letter.
I doubt that anyone who wasn't a complete jerk would object to such a discussion. And having the discussion would give you valuable information about what you can expect. If they put you off or object to the question, then I'd suggest looking elsewhere for letters.
If the prof gave you an infeasible project (too easy or too hard) then they share in the outcome, though going back if it proves too easy is a good plan, though too late, now, to implement. My doctoral dissertation could have had a hundred proved theorems had I not warned my advisor that it was all trivial and signified nothing. It would have been nothing but "junk food" without substance.
Research is tricky since you are initially looking into the unknown void. For undergraduates it is especially tricky because of the time limitations on such things. The same may be true at the masters level if the degree is time limited. Some open questions in mathematics have remained so for a hundred years.


How to find out if a conference submission deadline is likely to be extended? I am writing a paper for a conference. I have finished the paper, but I must review some experimental results and this requires some additional days.

How can I find out the probability that the submission deadline will be extended?

Just look at past editions and see if there was indeed an extension. If they always do it, there will be another one; if they never extend, there is no reason to believe they will start this year.

If they don't, you could always give a shot to a polite email to the organizers and explain your situation. Perhaps you can submit a tentative proposal, with the uncertain data, and submit a refined version later (provided it doesn't change much).


How do you know the project you are working on is worthy of a PhD dissertation. How does it differ from MS dissertation I am speaking of project scope here.

So suppose my advisor is working with an industry .And you are asked to build a prediction model for small section of that industry? Does that qualify as a Phd Project or a Master's thesis project.

Or does a Phd project has to be generic model , in the sense all companies in that niche can use that model as basis for their analytics?

I am trying to understand the differences in scope for a PhD and MS Thesis project.

I've had this discussion recently—the major differences are in the scope and independence of the work.

There is no easy, absolute method to say "X is a master's thesis" and "Y is a PhD project" without knowing the amount of work involved in each approach, and how independent the student needs to be.

Ultimately, a master's thesis represents a body of effort designed to show that you have successfully completed the project to the satisfaction of your supervisor. A PhD thesis indicates that you have produced a sufficient intellectual contribution to your field, and that you have the capability to be an independent scientist.


Can a Mathematics Undergrad do a Ph.D. in Bioinformatics? I have a particular background, I studied biology and Chemistry in Highschool, some engineering in college, and I am now majoring in mathematics with a minor in computer science.
To some extent I feel like being able to do research is on my life goals bucket list. Diving into unexplored territory definitely excites me. So I somewhat feel I need to take advantage of the broad spectrum of fields I have knowledge of, although almost insignificant, it is still there. I thought maybe bioinformatics mixed with some data science algorithm research would be a good path to pursue. Would my prior experience in Biology give me an advantage? For example the ability to pick up technical biology concepts quicker?
Any insight and guidance on the topic would be appreciated.
Kind regards.

Sure. There are many people who transitioned to Bioinformatics from a math background. As one example, there is a lot of machine learning being applied to various aspects of biology, and that could be a good fit for you.
But I would just caution that when choosing a Ph.D. topic, you should really think about what you want to do in the future, rather than what you've done in high school, or even taken a couple classes on in college. In a Ph.D. you'll anyway have to learn a lot about some very narrow topics and also (possibly) take some broad classes, so the fact that you know a bit extra about some biological concepts is not that important; a student without that background could probably catch up by reading a couple of books or taking a Coursera class, and both of you will be way behind an actual Biochemistry major (but still OK in the end). Pick your topic and advisor based on what sort of problems you want to solve for the next five years, and where you really see yourself ten years from now.


Past collaborator submitted paper with my name (and others) without notifying named co-authors I worked briefly with Person A from a different university on a project in a competition. We were both PhD students. In this competition, our concept was based on combining mainly a system he developed before the competition and a device that I developed, also before the competition. Except for raising this combined concept, we didn’t do any actual testing or evaluation for this combined concept.
Since last year, I have also invited him to help analyze some data collected from a study of mine. I also invited two other researchers (Person B and Person C) from complementary backgrounds and who are more senior to help with the analysis. We have all agreed that all four of us will be co-authors for the final paper. We are coming to the final stage of our paper writing at this moment. Person A only knows Person B and Person C through my introduction in this case.
I have just received a notification email from a submission system that a paper was accepted to a conference. I entered the system to find the submitted version of the paper. It is a write-up of the concept of that competition. I would say 90% is based on Person A’s existing system. He has put me as a co-author. More strangely, he has also put Person B and Person C as co-authors. However, I doubt if Person B and Person C have ever heard of this project.
I found it very uncomfortable, as I am not comfortable to be associated with a concept and claim that haven’t been sufficiently evaluated. I know Person A cares greatly about the number of his publications. In fact, this is not the first time he did this. Last year, I came across a similar situation, and I successfully asked him to withdraw that paper (as that paper contains a large part of my work), which made him extremely upset. I hesitate this time, as the current paper of my study is very important for me and it has already been through several delays including serious illness of one co-author and COVID-19. I do not wish to upset him and negatively impact his work on the last stage of the current paper, which I have poured so much time and effort in. However, I felt it is unethical to include other people’s names without consent.
Note: This paper in question is mainly based on his system, which is a different discipline and it is beyond my capability to verify the system. However, where it combines the concept brought by my device, there is no evaluation at all, so it is an empty claim.
On the other hand, it could be that he includes me as a co-author as a courtesy though I feel I have only contributed conceptually.
I literaly don't know what to do.
Edit: I also realise that, if I accept that my name remain co-author, then as co-author, should I be responsible to inform Person B and Person C, or require Person A to remove their names?

Person A is not acting ethically by submitting a paper with multiple names on it, but without asking those people to assess the paper and agree to publish it. In normal circumstances, you'd expect person A to discuss with persons B and C as well as you. I think that it is beyond doubt that this person is in the wrong.
However, it is unclear to me what is to be done about the situation as it is. Mainly, my question to you would be: do you support the claims made in the submitted paper? If so, it might be socially prudent to just accept that the paper was submitted as is. After all, science is a social construct, and we get nowhere without our network. However, if person A submits a paper where you don't support the main conclusions and puts your name on it, that would be a reason to vigorously oppose what is happening here.


Will stating a theorem in two papers result in text overlap flag on arXiv? I have two preprints to be uploaded to arXiv. In one of the papers, I cite a theorem which is proved in the other one, so the statement of the theorem is the same in both papers. Will this result in a "text overlap" comment?

Edit: What if I split up a submitted paper into two, replace the old one by the first part of the two new ones, and upload the second part separately?

No. Source: personal experience.

The overlap thing is looking for significant amounts of overlap (many many papers will contain some overlap). I don't know what the cut-off is, but one theorem statement is below it.


How competitive will my profile be for Grad School I'm new to this site and this will be my first question. I am currently a Sophomore at Northern Kentucky University, I'm holding a 3.92 GPA (with no intention of it lowering,) I won the undergraduate research award this year at the University and in the process of getting one of my research papers published (History Major.) Prior to attending NKU, I was active duty Coast Guard for six years. I believe my time in the Coast Guard will help "round out" my academic profile (and can be spun as such). Given my GPA, which will hold above 3.9, my background, and published research papers (assuming I publish two for the sake of this question,) recieve good LOR's mixed with a solid SOP, what History Graduate Program rank/range should I apply for? Also for the sake of this post let's assume my GRE scores match my practice/simulation score of (V 163, Q 157 AWA 5.5)

I know this can be difficult to answer as numerous factors play into this. I'm not attempting to know if I can get into a specific University, but rather should I be applying for a top 100 Grad Pro., Top 50, Top 25 etc. Any advice or recommendations would be truly helpful. Also I can retake the GRE multiple times if any one has a target score for me.

Very Respectfully

I think your question should be reconsidered:
1. What specific area of history do you want to study?
2. What do you want to do with your grad degree?
Based on those two questions you could then consider what program is a best fit and be somewhat less concerned with whether it is a top 25 vs. top 50 vs. top 100 program.

Hope this helps a bit.


Should I include self-studied courses/topics in undergraduate resume? I'm preparing my resume for internship application.

I have already included courses that I emphasized more on (reading extra advanced material outside of the course's material scope).

I read lots of books. Should I include topics that I self-studied to my resume as extracurricular knowledge?

I am sure that there is a very wide range of opinion/reaction to what some people call "self-study". For me (grad admissions in mathematics in the U.S.), evidence of interest in reading things beyond what coursework demands is an extremely positive and unusual indicator. That is, so far as people seem to let on, no one reads any math book that's not a textbook for a course they've registered for, does not read ahead, and so on. I don't understand it, although I've seen it for decades.

Yes, it is not as easy to "document" reading things as it is to document "grades in courses"... but my own opinion is that even excellent grades in courses form only a limited positive, since it refers to compliance, obedience, etc., even if at a challending level/rate/whatever.

That is, for me, mathematics is not merely a school subject, nor merely a thing that one might get research funding for... :)


Do academicians consider Challenges on Kaggle to be research-worthy? I am a somewhat new-ish member of Kaggle competitions with 1 submission. Do academics research via Kaggle challenges/competitions? If so are there any prominent names?

If not why? They provide well annotated training data-sets, and typically do not put any publication restrictions as well.

Perhaps they consider such challenges trivial. Just a query on an academic's perspective on the challenges here.

The only thing I've heard about Kaggle from an academic's perspective is from Graduate School Students at Stanford, who need to participate in a challenge as a part of their coursework (which is pretty cool).

One of the other uses I've noticed (besides publishing papers on a competition itself) is academics using a competition to demonstrate the application of a particular algorithm that they have developed and published.  See Steffen Rendle's libFM (Factorization Machines) winning the Grockit Challenge, and the winning team of academics in the Merck Molecular Activity Challenge with their use of deep learning.


What to reply a PhD supervisor who says my chances of getting selected in this scholarship program are not very high? I sent an email to a professor and asked him if there's any PhD  position available in his group. I also told him that I want to apply for SINGA scholarship program if he agrees to supervise me.

The professor replied:

  My experience with the SINGA program is that it is very competitive.  Almost all successful applications have already published papers prior to application.  I do not believe your chances for getting accepted are too high.

I really want to give it a try. How should I reply to tell the professor politely to please support my application, and that I don't care if I get a rejection from SINGA scholarship program?

Also, I am writing a research article, and I am hopeful it will be complete within two weeks.

The professor is saying no. He is being polite about it, but he's saying he doesn't want you in his group. Arguing with him is not going to change that. (In fact it's more likely to solidify in his mind that you are a bad candidate, with poor social skills, who would be a poor fit in his program.)

Look for somewhere else to go.


Is it bad not to answer the "Tell me how you behaved in a situation of conflict with your previous supervisor" question in a PhD interview? I had an interview where I was asked to tell the committee about a situation where I had a conflict with one of my previous supervisors.
I told them the truth, which is "I have never had a conflict with any of my supervisor before". But they gave me a couple of minutes to think carefully so maybe I remember something. I could not come up with an idea.
Is it bad not to answer this question? In other words, should I have been not honest and make up a story?
How much of an effect can this question have on their final decision?

I think it would be worse to make up a story. I'm not particularly a fan of this sort of "trap" interview question (alongside other common ones like "what's your biggest weakness?") but presumably the interviewer is asking because they are hoping to elucidate something about how you handle conflict. If you brush the question off, well, that tells them something about how you handle conflict, doesn't it? Maybe they won't mind, maybe they will care deeply, but especially because they gave you extra time they are signaling that, to them, this was an important question, and yet you weren't able to answer a question that was important to them. That said, it's impossible to measure the effect this will have on the decision. It seems unlikely that the answer to this question would be literally the only thing between you and another candidate that was interviewed, but ultimately if it is a choice between you and someone else then anything could matter as the proverbial "last straw".
Instead, in the future I would consider interpreting a question like this much more broadly. A "conflict" doesn't have to mean you came to fisticuffs, it could be any level of disagreement. If you truly have never had a disagreement with a supervisor that may not be a good thing, either, it suggests you aren't bringing anything to the table of sufficient substance to disagree about or lack the confidence to support your own ideas when a supervisor suggests a different direction.


What is the difference between permanent faculty positions in the UK and tenured faculty positions in the US/Canada? Is there any technical as well as practical differences between the two academic positions, one being a permanent faculty position in the UK (or Australia/NZ and other similar systems) and the other being a tenured position in the US/Canadian universities?
I believe most things may come down to the instances when they can be fired. While this question (Would tenured professors who are charged with a crime generally be fired?) addresses this aspect for the US/Canadian system, I don't know a comparison among different systems.
Edit: My question is different than US statute of Higher Education System because that question refers to the authorities and rules in different countries that grant professorships. My question is regarding the actual (technical and practical) differences between 'permanent' and 'tenured' faculty members in different systems.

I think the most important difference relates to "redundancy" in terminations. In the UK, administration can decide to stop teaching a subject at a university, and faculty may become "redundant". There are various protections in the UK such as the need to try to find alternative employment for the staff member etc. but in the final analysis, if they want to stop teaching Vedic Epistemology, the Vedic Epistemologist could end up sacked. With a tenured position in the US, that would not be sufficient grounds for termination (following university rules that I am aware of -- rules are set by each institution, though there is considerable similarity). A correlated difference is that there is a huge tenure ordeal in the US (the "up or out" rule -- either you get tenure, or you get fired), which does not exist in the UK.


How is it in my best interest not to submit a paper to two journals simultaneously? The two journals I am considering for my paper each demand that the paper be submitted exclusively to their journal for consideration.

What do I win if I don’t keep this rule?

If I get rejected by both, I will have found out earlier that the paper is not worthy of publication.
If I get accepted by one of the journals, this is very good. I will have found out faster which of the two journals is willing to publish me.
If I get accepted by both, this is really a dream. I should probably find a reason (excuse) to withdraw the publication from one of them.

In any case how can submitting to two journals negatively impact my reputation more than the gain by being actually accepted? (More so considering I will probably leave academia after my PhD dissertation.)

What can I lose if I don’t adhere to this rule? What sanctions, if any, can I expect?

It is quite likely that there is an overlap in who gets asked to referee the two submissions, which would lead to the double submission being detected.
Double submission of papers is sufficient ground for retraction - even after the paper has been accepted for publication. As some journals publish submission dates with published papers, it is conceivable that your double submission is uncovered after publication - and that you end up with a retraction, ie no published paper.
Academic misconduct (and double submission is such) typically is sufficient for dismissal from a PhD program.


Referencing mistake in masters dissertation I handed in my masters dissertation a few weeks ago and I’ve now discovered a referencing mistake in my literature review. A medical publication I’d been citing has had a number of updates over the years and instead of citing the earlier year (2009) I’ve cited 2018. I could kick myself. I’m very anxious about this and not sure if I should just wait it out or speak to my advisor? I had mentioned to him that I couldn’t stop re reading it (before I realised about the year thing and he told me stop it and I wish I had listened. I realise that nothing can be done to rectify it and I’m willing to accept I’ll lose marks if found but I’m worried something more serious will happen. I’m so mortified and hoped to apply for a PhD next year ( I was on track for a first) I honestly can’t believe I’ve made such a careless mistake. Marks are due out at the end of Nov.

I don't have enough reputation to comment but we are all human and we make mistakes, you could ask your advisor about submitting an erratum but it is generally done only for peer-reviewed publications.
Personally, I wouldn't worry too much about a typo in my citations. Unless the entire conclusions of a section really depended on the results from this particular reference.


Someone copied my assignment without my knowledge but I am now accused of directly assisting them to copy my work Someone copied my solution to an assignment without my knowledge, and now I'm accused of directly assisting them by allowing them to copy my work. I was given a formal written warning.

How do I prove that I did not give permission to anyone to copy my work?

I do not know the person. My lecturer held separate interviews with me and the unknown person.

It is pretty hard (read impossible) to prove a negative. But it may be that you are really being accused of sharing the blame by being sloppy in keeping your own work private. Some places will treat that as cooperating, even if it is unintentional. If you were sloppy you probably have little recourse.

But one avenue may be open to you (among others). If the written warning is part of your permanent record you can ask to place a written rebuttal into the permanent record as well. If it isn't part of the permanent record, you can probably just move on. If you are questioned about it in the future, assure them that you really weren't at fault. But in most places, a single transgression is unlikely to end your career, especially if the official response was a warning.

Other options that might be open would be regular or ad-hoc judiciary panels that can adjudicate such things, though you aren't guaranteed success here.

And it is also just possible that the other person could take full responsibility for the act, leaving you in the clear.