About forwarding email to professors I have two advisors for phd from differnt countries. I recieved an email  from first professor. I just forwarded his email to second professor for his information. I used the native language of the second professor when I forwarded the email including one  general statement. Is forwarding with the native of second person is mistake?

tl;dr Agree with your advisors on how you communicate

You've certainly not made a "mistake". But what you're realizing is that your assumptions about:

Which language to use?
What information should be shared?
How verbose should you be?
Whose responsibility is it, and who has permission, to update the 3rd person of the triangle about communication between the other two?

and so on. In your place I would talk to both my advisors, separately or together if you ever meet, about your "email routine" - what they expect and what, and what you expect and want. Then none of you will surprise/annoy the others with undersirable email practices.

And this is basically true about most kinds of collaborations in groups of people which don't all communicate together in a common forum.


Citing (and correcting) an example with incorrect glossing and translation I want to cite an example from a published paper. However, there is a mistake in the glossing as well as in the translation of the example. Imagine something like this (mistakes in bold):

Ich sehe ihn.
I see.2SG he.ACC
'We see him.' (SomeAuthor 2018: 1)

So, I know that [sic] or [sic] is used to indicate mistakes found in the original source. In this case, however, I'd rather just use a corrected version of the example - without citing the mistakes, as they are not relevant and could cause confusion.

Is there a common way to do this?

I was considering something like this:

Ich sehe ihn.
I see.1SG he.ACC
'I see him.' (SomeAuthor 2018: 1, corrected)

If the mistakes are indeed as obvious as this (i.e., there cannot be a difference of interpretation), I would just use the corrected version and add a footnote to the citation in which you explain the differences.

If there could be a debate over which is the correct gloss or translation, list your own version but cite with something like "cf. SomeAuthor", and again add a footnote, this time with discussion as well.


Is it appropriate to send the abstract to the editor and ask him if my paper is a good fit with the journal? There is a very good journal in my area, but I have never submitted any paper there. Now I have a new study, which I think might be a fit with the journal but I'm not sure. So I want to send the abstract to the editor and ask him whether it's a good fit. If he thinks it's not, I wouldn't waste my time submitting it there. But is it appropriate to ask the editor to do this? What would an editor usually do if he/she receives such a request?

Sure.  The benefit is really not to get wrapped up with a long review cycle for something that doesn't make it in anyways when you could have gone elsewhere.

That said, I think the very top journals (in science at least) like Science, Nature, PRL are pretty up front about weeding out stuff that is not notable and also committed to some speed in publishing.  So you might just get a fast answer on notability, regardless by running through the regular submissions process.  "We just don't publish cuprates that don't superconduct" was an actual editor communication from one of those magazines.


How to approach a research group for potential PhD advisorship Here is the situation: I am looking for a PhD in a field somewhat different from the field of my previous studies. I have several research groups in this area in mind and they have a very large number of researchers each.

Being kind of an "outsider" to the field, I don't really have a basis to know which ones of the Professors in the groups are going to be better advisors for me, since reading the publications of each professor (among more than 100 of them) would take me an immense amount of time.

I had previously read (I think it was some answer in this forum, but I couldn't find it again) that in those situations a good approach would be to send an email to the director of the group, state your main interests and see if he can point you to maybe one or two professors who might be willing to advise you. The problem with this approach is that these research groups are huge and really important, so I'm anticipating that the director of the group isn't even going to read my email!

What would be the best approach here?

Thank you in advance.

Time to get started reading!  Look at the group members' bios and descriptions of research interests, and pick a few that intrigue you.  Then write to one, wait a couple days, write to another, and so on.


A student forgot to answer an exam question A student in an undergrad class seems to have forgotten to answer the last few questions on a written essay.

This student has achieved an average of A+ so far (over the term)

The last few questions are not worth much, but is the difference between receiving an A and an A+

This student has also submitted a draft of this essay earlier in the term to get feedback (all students are allowed to do this once).

Should I give 0 because this student did not answer it, or part marks because this student knows how to answer it (as evidenced by the draft) but simply forgot?

You should give zero for the answers in question. You are grading what the student handed in, not what s/he potentially could have handed in. The logistics are just as much part of fulfilling an assignment as the knowledge. It would be unfair to the other students to be more lenient on this particular student than others.

If you wish, you may give the student another chance to answer these questions, but then you should do the same for all students.

(I once failed to notice in an exam that the question sheet was printed front and back, and only answered the questions on the front. I duly accepted my C+, along with the two others who had made the same mistake...)


Unsatisfactory research subject enforced by the advisor For quite some time I'm doing research in a topic chosen by my advisor. The problem we are studying is difficult and important, with no good solutions available so far. I am currently unhappy about doing that. There are several issues here:

I feel that we are not making any real progress. Still, our advisor wants to continue with the project and write papers.
I think that the approach we are pursuing (invented by my advisor) is not useful at all. So far it has produced numerous difficulties, but no solutions in any nontrivial cases.
At the moment I'm writing a thesis about the subject. I am to describe my contributions to develop further the earlier work by my advisor. Due to lack of real progress, it will only contain complicated solutions to trivial problems. I think it's worthless. To be honest I'm embarassed by it and don't want to show it to anyone.
I feel bad about the fact that I never had any say in choosing the research and thesis topic.

I think these points make strong case for changing the research team after having finished the thesis. However

In general I do want to stay in the field in which my advisor is working in.
I feel changing would have a negative impact on my career.
I already changed once (after finishing bachelor's). I feel that doing it again after finishing master's would look unprofessional. I fear the impact on my status in the department would be negative.
Moving to different city seems like the best choice profesionally, but it is impossible due to family reasons.

Do you have any advice what should I do in this situation?

First there are two possibilities arising from your question that are worth entertaining:

Your supervisor, with greater experience, sees some hidden value that you miss in the work. You acknowledge that the problem is important and such research problems are not typically solved within the context of a Masters. So perhaps your supervisor views your topic as a stepping stone towards some other result, or perhaps they view it more as exploratory and something for you to "cut your teeth" on.
You are correct and the topic is not going to (even indirectly) produce useful results and, furthermore, should not have been given to you as a Masters topic.

If (1) is even a slight possibility still, talk to your supervisor and express your concerns as strongly as you consider appropriate given your relationship. Having such concerns should be taken as you caring about your topic and the impact of your work and your supervisor should work to address them, even if only to tell you that the topic was a long shot and it is becoming clear now that the results are negative.

Aside from this, assuming your masters topic is a bit worthless and you are quite sure that (2) is more the case: what to do? Look to the longer term. Since you are a masters student, this is not the end of the world. If you wish to do a PhD and are accepted for the program, my advice would be to put your focus into that. Working on a masters topic you are embarrassed by is a difficult pill to swallow, and in an ideal world one you would not have to swallow. But doing PhD's is rife with such difficulties for all but a lucky few. And it is worth noting that your professor is also human and one of the hardest challenges of academia is to come up with new, worthwhile research topics; furthermore, the nature of research is such that there are no guarantees that a topic that seems initially promising will fulfil that promise.

In summary, my advice is: Do what you need to do to complete your Masters thesis and then look to get the best start/topic/supervisor possible for your PhD.

Regarding embarrassment about the Masters topic, again assuming the topic really is worthless, there are three things to note:

Anyone whose opinion has value will understand in the context of a Masters thesis that probably the topic came from the professor, not you, and will understand the difficulties you faced.
If you continue to do a PhD and progress further onwards into academia, in a few years time, nobody is all that likely to read about or care your Masters thesis (unless, perhaps, the results were published as a research paper).
The standard expected for a Masters thesis varies wildly from institution to institution, but solving an important research problem is certainly not to be expected. (I mention this because perhaps you have set very high standards for your thesis.)

Aside from all that, even though your Masters topic has not been great, probably you have learned at lot from pursuing it (about the problem itself, the other work done in the area, how it could be done better, how to conduct and describe research, how to avoid a similar dead-end topic in future, etc.). The main result of yours Masters is you (and what you learnt), not your Masters. Your Masters is one or two years of research; it is a gateway to potentially decades more research on the topics of your own chosing.


How should English reference be cited in a non-English work? According to the Chicago Manual Style 16 edition, section 14.194 Translated Article Titles, non-English article cited in an English work follows this formula:

Authors, "Original title," [English-translated title] Journal Date

However, how should English article be handled in a non-English work, considering that English is the language of science? I see no guidance in the style book. I think how it is formulated might be different, depending on the readership:
Academians
Typically, articles are cited as how they are cited in English work, with or without translation. Based on my observation, trivial words (date, and, issue, et al., etc) will be in English. This is to withstand the academic consistency, and let the software chooses how to process for simplicity.

Authors, "Original title," [Translated title] Journal Date

Popular audience
Since their main interest is to understand what it says and become accustomed to academic norms, I think the references should be treated as if they are regular text. Trivial words will be translated. Translated titles will be put first, original ones will be in brackets.

Authors, "Translated title," [Original title] Journal Date

Is this thinking reasonable? How should the journal names be treated? Would this break any consistency that a reference should follow? I haven't seen any precedent on this, especially with books for kid.

For what concerns citations there is a general international standard, the ISO 690, but at the moment I don't have access to it. Therefore, I'll give you an answer based on an Italian style guide and on a number of Italian and French popular science books, from different publishers, that I have on my bookshelf (e.g., [1-7], but I can find many others).
All books report English, German and French references in the format

Authors, "Original title," Journal Date

No translation of the title is provided. The translated title is reported only for books which have an Italian edition too.
Il nuovo manuale di stile (The new manual of style), edizione 2.0, by Roberto Lesina, §15.4, explicitly says

I titoli di scritti in lingua straniera vengono sempre espressi nella lingua originale.
Titles of writings in foreign languages should be always expressed in the original language.

There's no distinction between academic and popular science books.
Books [1-6] are written by Italian and French authors; [7], instead, is a translation of the original Russian edition, and there are Russian references. These are not translated either, but the Cyrillic letters have been transliterated. This is in agreement with the recommendation of the cited style guide for titles in non-Latin alphabets (§5.4.3).
To sum up: I think that there is some, possibly strong, evidence, from at least two countries, that references in popular science books should be treated exactly as references in academic works.
[1] G. C. Ghirardi, Un'occhiata alle carte di Dio, Il Saggiatore, Milano, 2003.
[2] M. Ageno, Le origini dell'irreversibilità, Bollati Boringhieri, 1992.
[3] R. Lamouline, Du Thermomètre à la temperature, Éditions Ellipses, Paris, 2005.
[4] J.-P. Parisot, F. Suagher, Calendriers et chronologie, Masson, Paris, 1996.
[5] G. Lolli, La crisalide e la farfalla. Donne e matematica, Bollati Boringhieri, 2000.
[6] A. Guerraggio, P. Nastasi, Matematica in camicia nera. Il regime e gli scienziati, Bruno Mondadori, 2005.
[7] V. I. Arnol'd, Huygens & Barrow. Newton & Hooke, Bollati Boringhieri, 1996.


Attending a conference with self funding and no publication I am a PhD student and got a workshop poster (only poster based on abstract, no paper, at one of the workshops co-located with the major CS conference) accepted at the top-most conference in my field (NIPS, Computer Science).

Since I am not a full-time student, I am supposed to fund my own travel, accommodation and other expenses. The conference venue is in Canada while I am located in Asia, so the expenses are quite large. The deadline for student travel grants for the main conference has already passed and the funding for workshop student travel grant has not been yet announced.

I have the following questions with regard to this:

Is it worth it to attend such tier-1 conferences only to present a poster which won’t be published/indexed/not included in proceedings?
I would need to attempt to publish in such conferences at least once during PhD and since I am self sponsored, expense for that too would be upon me.
My advisor says: “Go and have some exposure, meet and network with new people.” But he is aware that I am self-sponsored so he is not too pushy but has asked me to go. Does such networking really happens when I would be only an attendee for first five days of the conference and having a poster demo during the last day of the conference.

If my questions seems too vague, please let me know. I would try to be more clear and concise.

Firstly, congratulations on getting your poster accepted. If you don't go, I hope you are able to find someone to present the poster on your behalf (this is actually quite common).

In terms of deciding whether or not to go: it depends on your situation.

Some things you should consider:

Your financial situation and how much the cost will be. On top of the flights, you need to pay for registration, accommodation, meals, a travel visa (if applicable), and local transportation (e.g. to and from the airport).
Your career stage and future goals. Are you planning to stay in the field? Will you have future opportunities to attend similar conferences? This affects how valuable going would be to you.
How much networking you will be able to do. Do you know other people attending the conference? If you don't know anyone, it can be difficult to network. But if you know someone there (e.g. your advisor) who can introduce you to people, that can make things much easier. You should also have some idea of who you want to network with. I will sometimes decide whether to go to a conference based on knowing who will be attending and who I want to network with.

Your advisor will know your situation better than I do and can give more specific advice. So, if you are uncertain, you should talk to him more about it.


PhD student funding from another professor? I'm a PhD student in the (probably) final third of my work, and I'm in the comfortable position that I have two options to continue my doctoral efforts for the next two years.

The problem is: the job offered by my supervisor is probably related to project work that has nothing to do with my dissertation. The other position is in another department of the university with another professor but fits very well thematically to my doctoral thesis.

What option could I choose here so that
  my supervisor is not embarrassed if I refuse his offer and
  my doctoral thesis is finished successfully and in time?

This might be highly dependent on your personal situation and there might be more implications. Please note that the other professor might have additional requirements or wants to see additional topics in your thesis.

I would try to address this issue openly and talk to your supervisor. Express clearly that you have the goal of finishing your dissertation in the next two years and discuss whether this is possible with his offer. Ask him whether this project is really not related to your dissertation and how much effort and time it will take. If you realize that this is not a viable option for you and if there is no other acceptable solution, explain in a friendly manner that you consider alternatives.

Trying to hide everything from your supervisor and suddenly vanishing is definitely not the way to go as this might burn bridges.


Second phd in top rank university but online. Folks,
I have received my phd from a university ranked 60 in usnews and had one year of post doc work after. Right now I am a non tenure track teaching professor at a wellknown university. Eversince I was student I had a dream of being in MIT, Stanford, Caltech or UC berkley. However, since I was neither genius nor rich, I was not able to do this. I even had a phd admission from USC but since it was partially funded I was not able to attend. Anyways, now that I am done with everything, I am still thinking of doing another phd in the above mentioned universities. But, I do not want to leave my current position since I really enjoy teaching and do not want to risk my future for just a dream. A solution I come up is to get a phd while I am working and this is only possible if the above universities are offering online phds. My field is civil engineering and due to my research area I am also interested in applied math. So far I was not able to find any top rank university that offers civil eng. or math completely online. I can get a phd in math from the university that I am teaching with a tuition waver but it is not really what i want. The best university for online math is University of Washington. But university of Washington is not a top rank university and I do not know if it is worth my time and money.

Any suggestions highly appreciated. And please do not call me a loser for trying to get a second phd. :D

Regards,
Jason Ray

Eversince I was student I had a dream of being in MIT, Stanford,
  Caltech or UC berkley. However, since I was neither genius nor rich, I
  was not able to do this. I even had a phd admission from USC but since
  it was partially funded I was not able to attend.

I do not agree that you need to be genius or rich to attend the mentioned schools. The brain functions exactly like muscles; the more you use it, the better it gets in learning. Please never try to divide human beings into dump ones and smart ones. Those people made it to the top ranked school because they tried/studied very hard and never gave up. Let's admit that you did not try/study as hard as they did. Honestly, people who go to MIT, Stanford, ... are humans just like us; let's not try to say that they come from another world.

You said that you did your Phd at a good university and you also work at a good university. If I were you, I would not go to those schools for a second Phd but instead I would try very hard to succeed in my research/teaching so that I would be better than those who went to the top ranked schools. After all, once you are a successful researcher in your field, no one cares where you did your Phd and once you are in that position, then the top schools want you to work for them.


Limits on one student using all of one's office hours? I generally don't have a lot of business in my dedicated office hours, but then sometimes I get a needy student who wants to use all of them -- every minute, of every day, in which I hold them. It gets physically tiring for me, and emotionally draining that they apparently have no capacity or confidence to follow along in class, read the book, or make connections on their own.

Granted that we have, say, 3 hours of office time per week (required at my institution), is it acceptable to set per-student limits on usage of that time, such as: 20 minutes per student per day?

Additionally, is it advisable to be forthright and tell the student that their behavior is unusual/a bad sign/an abuse of the office hours; that is, that they should be mostly responsible for the material on their own? (Often this same type of student will praise themselves aloud for being so proactive/smart with the office hours when others aren't using them.)

This is in the U.S., and I'm at a large urban community college. Assume that most of the time no other students are showing up to the office hour.

(This was mentioned in this question and comments therein; I'd like to see a canonical answer on just this aspect of the situation.)

I will argue that setting limits for a particular student is acceptable and in some cases necessary. It really is an abuse of office hours if one student is taking up all of them, every day. Let's say that proper usage is around 10-15 min for a particular question or issue. For a particularly weak student like this I may assert, "Let's say we have 20 minutes for this." Require that she ask about a particular homework exercise that she can show prior work for. Do not just regurgitate the lecture wholesale.

By default, students should be able to master the material via lectures, study, and homework, without constant additional hand-holding by the instructor. Part of the unfairness here arises from the fact that the student is effectively getting double face-time with the instructor, relative to other students; so the one student's success does not really represent the same level of proficiency as shown by other students. Some other students may possibly take note of this, and either avoid office-hours interactions (which would be more fruitful) because of the always-present student, or silently resent the double-attention.

If the instructor (like me) is becoming physically and emotionally drained by these constant interactions, then we should learn to be sensitive to that, and take that as a signal that some change or boundary needs to get set, lest we become burned out. There is, in addition, a possibility that the student thinks they are socially flattering or flirting with the professor for a better grade. It's probably a good idea to document these interactions, in case the needy student (or anyone else) is prone to complain later about their grade or some other matter.

Under the "honesty is the best policy" principle, it's probably good in theory to have a frank discussion of expectations for the course with the student around the second or third time this happens. (But: I don't think I've successfully executed that to date.)

The real tough case for me is a student who officially meets all the prerequisites to the course and points to the first day's lecture notes and says something like, "I have no idea what any of these words mean." Perhaps they got through all their prior courses in a state of acclimation to exactly this level of double-hand-holding.

(This answer largely restates my answer and comments on that issue from this question. Thanks to the commentators there for refining my thinking on the issue, and thanks to @scaaahu for suggesting I write them up as an answer here.)


What are A and A* conference ranks? Following this question, what does A and A* mean for conference rank? Is there a site where can I get information for conference rank?

In computer science, the most important ranking is the one maintained by CORE, the Computing Research and Education Association of Australasia. It uses ranks such as A* (=exceptional), A (=excellent), B (=good to very good), and C (=sound and satisfactory).

They make the criteria for the different ranks explicit in a formal ranking description document.

Also, they have an online database with their rankings.


In American universities, why are academics placed in managerial and administrative functions? I'm a new hire at an R1 university in the United States. My position focuses on the administration of research. Before coming here, I worked in private industry and government agencies - but this is my first time working within a university setting.

Here it is common for many management functions to be staffed by faculty members (either current faculty, or people who held faculty positions before moving to administrative roles).

This has become difficult, as I've come to understand that many of peers don't have any background in the areas they are expected to be successful at. For example, academic department chairs are responsible for the financial management of their department, but most of the ones I have met with aren't currently capable of reading basic financial statements. Similarly, they may be in charge of large and costly projects, but have no established project management structure.

These lead to poor outcomes (departments that spend far more than they should, projects that run over time and over budget, etc.). I can't understand why they would be placed in these positions where it is clear they don't have the skills to succeed.

In the management of an American university, why would academics be placed these kinds of roles rather than professionals with those skill-sets?

I'm not sure this is limited to the US as it is a fairly traditional view of what a Faculty should be. Traditionally a group of scholars shared administration as needed. When things were small, not much was needed. Some universities today, though probably mostly small ones, take this idea of Shared Governance very seriously.

In some highly regarded colleges. department heads, and possibly even deans, are elected by the faculty from among their members and likely serve for fixed terms, possibly renewable or not.

Such administration duties usually come with a reduced teaching load.

Some older professors may find that the teaching and research responsibilities are becoming burdensome and want to participate in a different way. Sometimes an especially active researcher with a national or international reputation is imposed upon to take on such duties to add to the "stature" of the institution. It can be questioned, of course, whether that is a good plan. If there is sufficient clerical and professional staff this can work, but as you note it can also break down.

In general, though, such places are willing to accept lower perceived efficiency for hoped increased collegiality.

Some such places, but I don't have wide enough experience to say all, are also more "professor oriented" with rules and regulations more favorable to professors - teaching and advising loads, for example. This can be a good thing (or not). It can also be a good thing for students as it may also mean fewer regulations to have to deal with and a more personal relationship with the faculty. If you apply to a professor, rather than to the institution, you have the beginning, possibly of a long lived relationship.


Masters in math, bland PhD in CS, want to go back to math All of the following is in Italy.

I have a master's degree in mathematics and at the moment I'm in the final months of funding in a PhD in Computer Science (not sure if I'll be able to finish my thesis in these months).

I'm in this PhD due to a series of unfortunate circumstances and mistakes on my part, fact is that I am totally unhappy with where I am and I'd like to plan on the best way to go back to doing mathematics.

The reasons that I'm unhappy with my PhD are:

lack of interest in the subject (basically a very out-of-trend subfield of Natural Language Processing, more like a one-man project that my advisor started a few years ago and keep pushing it but never took off, which I instead thinks is a dead-end and the community seems to go in other directions);
the fact that my PhD is totally unstructured, by this I mean that there was never a clear plan of action, no courses to take, no real training at all, and no real topic for the thesis, just relatively uncorrelated publications that now I find difficult to unite in a thesis; for the same reason there was no possibility of changing advisor mid-term, nor there was any help like a career center or similar structures (I actually discovered the existence of such things on this site). also there is no formal recording of my experiences (for example as a teaching assistant) so there is not much I can show for this three years;
last, I plain and simple find out that I like mathematics way more and I miss it a lot.

So I would like to ask opinion about what is my best course of action given that:

I have a rather uninteresting CV: master's grades are not bad but most are in courses not pertinent to what I'd like to do; moreover my master thesis was not strictly mathematics, but was done with the professor that later became my PhD advisor, and I fear that not having done any mathematical research is a serious problem;
As mentioned before there is not much I can show for the three years of my PhD: no transcript of courses, no formal review of my work, just a few publications and the word of my advisor, with whom I don't even have a great relationship;
I never spent time to create a network, I don't know any other professors to which I could ask for letters of recommendation;
by the time I'll have finished my PhD I'll be 30.

The main thing you will have to show for the three years is your thesis, so the first objective should be to finish it on time. If you feel the project is at a dead end, maybe you can target making your thesis the capstone that closes it out. Turn your papers into sections each of which resolves a loose end. That way, it does not matter if they don't relate to each other.

Meanwhile, can you audit courses in the mathematics department? Get to know some of the mathematics professors, and get their advice on how to transition.

Don't feel too old - I was 60 when I finished my PhD, and I'm still learning new stuff. You have decades of research in front of you.


Paper accepted for poster presentation in IEEE, what are the chances of it being published? I had recently submitted a paper to an IEEE conference and got accepted, but for poster presentation. This is the very first time I have written a paper. Although it is a great achievement for me given my inexperience in the field, my goal is to get it published.

Does IEEE publish papers accepted for posters presentations?
Should I pass on the poster presentation and send my paper to a journal?

It depends on the particular conference and the field.  In computer science (where the main publication venue is conferences), many conferences divide the published papers into "talks" and "posters" (eg NIPS, AISTATS, ...), and there's no difference in terms of publication.

In most other fields, however, acceptance at a conference means nothing, and you have to get published in a journal.

TL;DR: ask your advisor.


How to encourage students to seek alternate citations for an assignment? I am teaching at a relatively large, public institution in the United States. I have assigned my students a research paper related to the thermodynamics of human biology. I have asked the students for a project summary including several anticipated citations, and one student has included a paper from the journal "Creation Research Society Quarterly" as an anticipated citation.

As far as I can tell, this is a reputable journal in the sense that it is not predatory. However, I'm concerned that the perspective of the journal, including "Fresh perspectives on science and society as impacted by origins" will not be compatible with accepted scientific theories (and here I use theory in the rigorous, scientific sense that means established according to all scientific evidence, rather than in the colloquial sense that means hypotheses). Moreover, the "Statement of Belief" published by the Creation Research Society explicitly states the religious motivations of the organization, whose viewpoints are generally considered incompatible with accepted scientific theory.

I have not read the article that the student intends to cite, so I do not know the information contained within that article and its perspective on the subject required for the assignment. Nevertheless, my general questions are:

Should I encourage this student to seek out alternate sources for this assignment? Before doing this in my specific case, I should obviously read the paper the student will cite, but consider the case that I have read the paper and I am concerned about the scientific validity of the article.
If so, how can I do that without encroaching on his freedom of religious expression?
Finally, how can I fairly grade the scientific content of an assignment that presents a viewpoint opposed to established theories, such as the Theory of Evolution?

(It is not my intention here to begin a discussion on the merits of various hypotheses/theories related to religion and science, and I would note that this question could very easily be posed from the other direction. This is obviously a very complicated and fraught area, and I hope I have not caused offense in my presentation.)

A good way to think about this is to de-charge the religious aspect of the question by considering a parallel situation involving an equally dubious published paper with no religious aspects, such as this one.  What would you do if a student wanted to cite such a piece of nonsense as support for their claims in a paper?

Rather than simply prohibiting the citation, you can treat this as a teaching opportunity to talk about how to determine the credibility of a scientific paper.  It is, of course, certain that the paper that the student wishes to cite will fail any reasonable test, given the notoriety of the journal involved and its complete disconnect from the rest of the scientific literature.  This is also an excellent opportunity to talk about how in science publication is not the end, but the start of the real conversation.

Perhaps rather than immediately talking to the individual student, you can take a few minutes in class to talk about how to evaluate a paper and its place within the scientific community.  Compare a nice strong peer-reviewed paper to a lunatic one like that linked above, both of which are completely secular in nature.  Then explain that part of what students will be graded on in their assignment is their ability to evaluate references.  This gives you good grounds to warn the student that their citation is a problem without even having to bring religion into the picture, as well as teaching the whole class some valuable information.

Let the creationist citation fail on its scientific (lack of) merits, rather than making this an argument about authority and belief. The beauty of science is that, in the long run, authority and belief are simply irrelevant.  Eppur si muove.


How should I address other people in languages with a tu/vous distinction? For some context:

  In sociolinguistics, a T–V distinction (from the Latin pronouns tu and vos) is a contrast, within one language, between second-person pronouns that are specialized for varying levels of politeness, social distance, courtesy, familiarity, age or insult toward the addressee.

So for example in French there is "tu" and "vous", in Spanish there is "tú" and "usted", etc.

In general one uses "tu" (I'm going to use French as an example throughout) for peers or friends, and "vous" for strictly less or more senior people (so for example a professor would use "vous" with their students and vice versa). As a general rule of thumb, if you would call someone "madam/sir", you would use "vous".

In academia however, interactions are usually more relaxed: it's not unusual to call everyone by their first names, even as a PhD student addressing a professor. Similarly, I would expect that use of "tu" would be more prevalent in academia.

But as a new PhD student, it would have been unthinkable to use "tu" with a senior professor just three months ago, for example. And using someone's first name doesn't necessarily imply that I should use "tu" with them.

Should I use "tu" or "vous" to address more senior people? I guess it's probably safe to use "tu" with other grad students, postdocs or young faculty, but what about other people?
Does the answer change depending on if you see the person face-to-face or if you write them a letter/email?

PS: This is all probably language-dependent. I'm mostly interested for the answer in French, if it can prevent this question as being closed for being "too broad", but if it's possible to answer it in generality that would be great too.

Unfortunately, there is no general rule covering every situation (or every language).

However, a good rule of thumb is to just use the "vous" when you are not sure which one to use and then imitate the other person.

If you are more senior you probably can also offer using "tu", especially at the university, but with the rule from above you can be sure that you are not being considered rude.

The generally accepted way to address professors unfortunately differs from university to university (in my experience more than from country to country), so I suggest you use the rule from above.

With fellow graduate students and postdocs, you are right, you can in general use "tu".

  Does the answer change depending on if you see the person face-to-face
  or if you write them a letter/email?

No.

(This might be specific to Germany and France, but I guess at least in Spain this behavior would also be fine.)

Addition: If you are on a first-name basis that usually means that you are allowed to use "tu" (at least in Germany this is generally accepted and from my observations this is also true in France).


Stack Overflow reputation in CV Should I mention my Stack Overflow (and other Stack Exchange sites) reputation in my CV while applying for a post-graduate position?

No, you shouldn't. Not yet, anyway

In general, I think it's perfectly fine to list that information on a CV for an academic position. Depending on the profile of the position itself, I would feature it more or less prominently. Say, if you apply for a scientific programming position (or a position with heavy coding), you could list it under a “Skills” section where you would say:

  C/C++/Fortran with a focus on shared-memory and distributed memory parallelism (OpenMP/MPI)
  Received formal training at XXX National Lab, taught parallelism course at University of YYY, involved in StackOverflow (username: zzz) on this topic.

(if the format allows it, like a PDF, consider including a hyperlink)

If the position is not one heavily involving code-writing, you could tone it down, or even list it in a “Hobbies” or “Personal” section. Many people like to list hiking or book reading or civil war reënactments, so why not list Stack Overflow!

But… in all cases, only do it if your account is of the wow! type. You don't have to be Jon Skeet (it may take years of therapy to accept that, but that's the sad truth), but you don't want someone to look up your profile and think “meh”.


Getting a funding position as a foreign MSc student in Finland I got an admission for a master’s programme in data science at the University of Helsinki, Finland. However, because I am from Asia, I don’t get a tuition-fee remission. Is it possible for an international MSc student to find a funding position as a teaching assistant or research assistant in the beginning?

My experience is from Jyväskylä, not Helsinki, and in pure mathematics. Things might work differently, but maybe this is still useful.

Teaching assistants

These were typically recruited among the better students. Much of teaching happened in Finnish, especially at the lower level courses, and as such, knowledge of Finnish was assumed.

Getting such a position right at the beginning might be difficult, but if you are skilled, and have good command of English (or even better, know or start learning Finnish), it might be possible. I doubt Swedish would help quite as much.

Research assistants

Research assistants were recruited among promising students and often involved writing their master's thesis, but might also involve research. Often these were summer jobs.

Connections

If you, or someone at your university, has connections to the faculty, you should try to ask via them. In particular, if someone can recommend you as an excellent student and a potential PhD student, the chances that someone will arrange a position for you will vastly increase.

Ask

It never hurts to ask. Contact information: https://www.helsinki.fi/en/programmes/master/data-science/contact

Scholarships

If you have not looked at it, the scholarship webpages of the university might be helpful: https://www.helsinki.fi/en/admissions/scholarship-programme


Job Prospects 4 years post-PhD I graduated in Psychology quite a few years ago now, and for personal/mental-health related reasons, I didn't pursue a postdoctorate career. Instead, I focussed on trying to get better (partially successful) while also tutoring various Psych subjects (quite well, according to many students). I'm also enrolled in a Masters of Biostatistics.

I was pretty successful in my PhD. I already had one publication from my Honours year, and I had three more multi-experiment papers (two behavioural, one neuroimaging) published in good journals in the course of my PhD. My supervisor was very happy with the end result, and my thesis was accepted without much kerfuffle.

I'm finally in a position where I have a mindset I might charitably call 'prepared' for an academic career, and I'm wondering if I should even try. It's far from hopeless if I don't; I'm studying a Masters in a high-demand field and a career outside of academia is still possible even if I don't continue the Masters, but some opinions/answers from people within academia on my academic prospects in Psychology would be welcome.

To fully answer a career path question will be very long. There are several questions need to be clarified first:

what do you value most in a job? Money, location, growth opportunity in the job, work-life balance, company/university culture...
why do you study biostatistics after a Ph.D.? If you want to get better pay, definitely go to industry, simply because academia is non-for-profit.
Do you have some specific research topics you want to explores? If not, it is likely you are not ready for an academic career.

I had a similar experience. I got my Ph.D. 3 years ago and did a career change due to funding and personal reasons. I quite enjoy my current job because I am doing research in a company and don't need to worry about the funding issues.


Professor moving group project member in the middle of the quarter. What to do? So I'm faced with an ethical dilemma and want some second opinions on how to approach this situation with a poorly calculated decision that my professor made.
So we have groups of 4 people for group projects which were created randomly by the professor. A new student joined the late (1-2 weeks after) and my team member volunteered to have her join our group when every group already had 4 members. However, it's been 3 weeks already since the group projects started and the professor decided to ask our main team member who has been our unofficial team lead to change groups because a student from another group is dropping the class at the last minute so that she can balance out the teams I'm guessing. She spoke to the team member whom she wanted to move privately before the weekend after class and then decided to inform the rest of the group that he's moving to another group. The person moving was the person who volunteered to add the new person into the group.
So naturally, I was infuriated in the manner in which she decided to supposedly balance out the head counts and that too a month into the quarter and also for choosing the group member who has been our primary facilitator.
I replied to her email saying that I wished she had talked over this with the whole group and suggested that she move the member who joined our team late since she invested less time and effort into the project than the rest of us. She replies to that email saying:

  I am disappointed to hear you call out another person in the group, asking her to be excused, without giving her an opportunity as well. Please see me after class next lecture.

Clearly I didn't want any member to leave, but I thought it made more sense to move the newer member to a different group as she would leave behind a lot less of her efforts and thus would be the least disruptive way to do it. I spoke with the rest of the group after this reply. 1 other member said that it should either be nobody leaving preferably, but if 1 must leave it should be the newer member which I agreed to 100%. Even the newer member was understanding of the situation and said that she's willing to let the professor know that she doesn't mind volunteering to leave, but hesitated when her reply said that her decision was final.

So I don't want a target on my back, but this professor is making my remarks seem more controversial than they really are. What would be the best way to further communicate about this with the professor?

The professor went behind the group's back by speaking to that individual privately and then announcing the move. This looses the moral high ground from the start...

The "best" manner to have approached this would have been for the professor to have met with the whole group and say "One group is now short and you are plus 1, so could you agree on one person to move". I have had to do this with many groups for projects and, if you show the position and let them work it out, it goes much easier.

Perhaps the professor is "new" to dealing with groups, but IMHO this was handled incorrectly and is difficult to sort now.

Meeting her with the whole group may be best, but whatever the final result (ie who gets moved) she may "target" you for showing her up... As an adult and teacher she should recognize her own fault though... But good luck with that -  it does come with experience... I have been dealing with 30+ plus groups of 5 for 20 odd semesters...


To submit or not to submit GRE Scores for PhD programs in the United States With the GREs being phased out of so many PhD applications in the sciences, I think this question is reasonably fresh.

I have taken the GRE and scored in the 70 percentiles for verbal and math. I scored a 6/6 on the essay. This score is fine, but not "great" for top biomedical science Ph.D. programs that I am applying to (e.g. Duke, that wants 90+ percentiles).

Do you think it would be worth it to send my GRE report to show that I have taken the GRE and did attain a "reasonable" score? I have a strong application when looking at other factors (e.g. research experience since freshman year, 2 summer research internships at a hospital and in Amgen Scholar program, strong GPA, 3 letters of rec. from my 3 research PIs). Thus, I feel that my GRE score is the one component that does not equally compare to the rest of my application.

This may be irrational of me, but I am somewhat worried that the programs will wonder why I am not submitting a score given that it's clear I have not experienced major financial problems throughout my undergraduate career (nor do I come from an underrepresented/underprivileged background, which is a large reason to why the GRE has become an "optional" test now).

Thank you for your opinions.

If the institution requires them they must be sent, of course. But, as you say, that is becoming more rare.

But if they are not required I would only recommend sending them if they were truly superlative, which yours don't seem to be. I doubt that anyone would consider that you were hiding anything if they aren't required.

Your application need to contain (only) reasons why you are well qualified for the position and highly likely to be a success. Don't include things that point in other directions unless required.


"This is very interesting as a project" What is the next step to obtain PhD position? I am submitting to several schools for PhD position in CS. I am following the advices about how to contact professors.

One professor I sent to suggesting some idea about her previous research and asking that I want to indicate my desire to work under her supervision. She replied "This is very interesting as a project. Please apply for the next deadline". It is very encouraging response. However, the admission decision is at the department level. So I will have to apply and there are several other requirements which I am not completely sure if I entirely meet.

I feel like I must focus on this positive side in order to increase my chances, but I do not know how. Should I keep in touch with the professor although she can do nothing now until the decision is made? Should I send more details about the suggested idea in order to show how motivated I am (I am not sure if she's part of the admission committee). What is the second step to increase my chances to get admission?

Do you think sending more emails to the professor is annoying or does show my enthusiasm? Any thing I can do to support more application at this time?

Update for who may concern
The application has not been accepted.

The second step is to submit a strong application: Good grades from a good department, a compelling statement of purpose (which reiterates your interest in your target advisor), and strong letters of recommendation that address your research potential in personal, specific, technical, and credible detail. And then write the professor to tell her you've applied and reiterate your interest.

As long as you're building a strong application, you should send it to several other schools as well (minus your interest in that particular advisor, of course).
There is absolutely nothing you can do to guarantee admission to  your first-choice program, so you need to cultivate other options as well.


Applying to grad school where I've been on exchange I know that many universities in the US and an increasing number in the EU are against taking on their own graduates. Does the same apply to exchange students? I'm wondering if I didn't make a strategic mistake by going there. On the other hand, I did everything to go on exchange to that school because I think they do great research.

I know that many universities in the US and an increasing number in
  the EU are against taking on their own graduates

I assume you mean for grad-school ? This is the first I've heard of it. We encourage our undergrads to search widely, but I'd love to take my own undergrads for grad school if I could persuade them to stay.

The sentiment you're referring to is more prevalent at the faculty hiring level: namely, universities are less likely to hire their own Ph.D students as faculty (at least not without some time spent elsewhere first)


Applying to grad school for mathematics with low GPA, but reluctant to bring up the health issues that caused it I'm currently a 3rd year undergrad majoring in math/physics. I was admitted to my university through an honors program due to outstanding high school achievement (my university is a large public one, moderately well known in the US) with several scholarships.

But after my first semester, I fell back into a recurring bout of severe depression, and did not get help. My grades ended up tanking that next semester (C average). I thought I had overcome it by my second year, but soon developed psychosis and could no longer focus on studying; I neglected my health and hygiene, and I couldn't even get up some mornings to get to class. None of my professors are aware of my situation.

I finally sought help last spring and I've been doing better (keeping up with work, getting better grades, etc), but I feel like nothing will ever make up for those two years of mediocre grades. My overall GPA right now is sitting around a 2.5. I feel like while this is possible to explain away, I'm reluctant to divulge information about my severe mental illness to admissions because there is still a lot of stigma associated with it. I've seen mixed answers as to whether or not it's a good idea to do.

My question is, is there still a way for me to pursue applied mathematics in graduate school? Is graduate school aiming too high? And if so, do I talk about my limitations as far as my health is concerned?

I love math, and love learning. I've done a few practice Math Subject GRE exams, and they were fairly easy (as long as I study for the parts I'm not 100% on, of course). I've also done a few small math projects with grad students and I've worked in a lab since I was a freshman; I feel like I'm passionate enough about the subject to succeed but I'm afraid admission committees will not look past my GPA to see that and wouldn't risk having someone like me in their program.

You certainly have no obligation to mention your depression when applying.  You can say nothing about the subject and let your recently improved work stand for itself, or you can allude to personal issues and reassure the committee that they are no longer troubling you.  If you do well in your last two years of college, then difficulties in your first two will matter far less.

On the other hand, I think it could be worth mentioning.  In mathematics there's less stigma surrounding depression than you might expect (at least in the U.S.).  Compared with the rest of society, the mathematical community is unusually tolerant of various forms of psychological variation, provided that you can do good mathematics.  A number of famous mathematicians have suffered from depression, so it would be foolish to dismiss an applicant for that reason, and many mathematicians know colleagues who have been depressed.  The key question is whether you have found treatment that keeps it under control.  If you leave your situation vague, then you leave open the possibility that whatever was causing the bad grades might return.  If you explain that you sought treatment for depression and found it successful, then that will reassure the committee that your recent improvements are likely to be long lasting.

If you do mention this issue, I'd keep it brief.  A single sentence in your personal statement would be enough (the committee doesn't need or want any details about your health or treatment).  And, as I said above, there's no need to say anything at all if you aren't comfortable with it.  However, I don't believe doing so could hurt your application, and it might help explain your grades.


Undergrad seeking information about PhD/Masters in Economics math requirements I am currently a Senior undergrad at a small school in the US.  I have pretty good grades and have yet to take the GRE. I am a double major in Accounting and Business Management. I love economics (all parts I have encountered) but I am not sure if economics programs are for me.

I have heard that PhD/Masters Economics programs are very math intense, and without the proper courses you will be lost. I am not that great at math maybe because I never was that interested in it (I do like numbers if that makes sense). I did take Econometrics this past semester and really loved it and understood it. I do like behavioral economics; I find the psychology side very interesting.

Summary: I am not great at math. I love how economists think. I love being able to explain things with data. And I like how psychology can explain irrational acts. I want to further my education.

Questions:
What program(s) should I be looking into based on my interests and capabilities?
How math heavy are economics programs (PhD & Masters)?
Is it mostly econometric math?
Is there a similar field without the crazy math but with econometrics?
Is the US the best place for me (where I am now)?

Before you make any decisions, ask yourself very seriously: What do I want from a PhD/Masters in Economics?

If you want to qualify for a certain type of job, then this will inform your strategy.  If you want to master certain skills, or to explore what interests you, then you may have a different strategy.  If you want an academic job in Economics, then you'll have another strategy, different from the first two.

I suggest you consider three things:

First, you should understand that PhD and Masters in Economics are very different.  Basically, a Masters in Economics will qualify you do to certain types of empirical data analysis.  (I've never heard of a Masters that involves theoretical economics.)

Second, I believe its true that nearly all top or upper-echelon graduate programs in Economics require strong proficiency in mathematics before the will admit you.  This is true even for programs that are no explicitly quantitative (e.g. Austrian).  The math you need is Calculus, Probability and Statistics (based on Calculus), and preferably Ordinary Differential Equations.  You'll need a high GRE math score.  It's very hard to read most Econ papers with out significant math proficiency.

In my opinion, if you really want a PhD in Economics, then you'll bite the bullet and do what it takes to learn this math.  It doesn't require a "gift" or special aptitude. If it doesn't come easy to you, it does require dogged persistence and diligence.

Third, given your interests, I'd strongly suggest that you investigate PhD programs that have a specialty in Experimental Economics.  My University, George Mason, is one of them.  There's very interesting and fruitful work going on in this area, including links to neuroscience and cognitive science, but it requires very strong skills in statistics and behavioral sciences.


Should I mention that I refereed a paper in my CV/SOP? The journal I published in invited me to referee a paper and I would like to know if such experience can can be mentioned in my CV/SOP when I apply for masters/PhD degree?

Yes, it can be mentioned. I would put a category on your CV titled "service to the profession." In that section, mention the year and the name of the journal that asked you to referee. It's not a major point, but it shows that you're willing to be a team player and help out the journal. That speaks both to your professionalism and to the fact that the editor trusted your judgment.


Will uploading a half completed paper to Arxiv hurt my chances of getting admitted to a grad school? I worked on a independent research project during my free time in college. Nobody guided me and nobody assisted me. I developed a algorithm for a problem and I tried it out on few data-sets and compared it with some leading algorithms(Papers for which I could find implementation online) on the same data-sets and the results were great. I didn't get enough time to finish the paper and now I am working in a job.

I wish to apply to US colleges for spring for MS. As I don't have time currently, I am thinking of just uploading the unfinished paper that I prepared in college to Arxiv. The paper will just lists my results on 4 ~ 5 data-sets and nothing else as I don't have the comparison data with me anymore.

Will uploading a half completed paper to Arxiv and mentioning it in my SOP give me any advantage or will it hurt my chances of getting admitted?

Also what should my affiliation be in that paper?

I don't think the arxiv is the right place to upload unfinished work, no matter what you hope to gain from it.  It would be worth reading what the arxiv says about what should be submitted as well as talking to others and seeing what is done in practice in your field.  My own understanding is that the arxiv is an "e-print server", i.e., an electronic preprint server.  A preprint is a completed paper which has not yet been published.  (Though one can still upload published papers to the arxiv in many cases...)

It is only fair to mention that a small but non-negligible percentage of arxiv papers are not intended for submission to journals in their current forms.  For instance, I currently have 27 arxiv papers; a few of them have not been submitted yet, and one of them is not intended for journal submission in its current form.  I was asked to upload it to the arxiv because a colleague of mine wanted to cite it in his accepted journal article and the journal had asked for something a little more formal and stable than my own homepage.  In retrospect, I think this was a good idea on their part.  But all of my arxiv submissions are "complete".

Concerning incomplete submissions, here is a sentence from the webpage linked to above:

  Please note that we do not accept submissions with omitted figures, tables or sections. We also do not accept "abstract only" submissions. Such submissions are unhelpful to readers and of very limited archival value.

Based on what you describe, I am concerned that your putative arxiv submission would violate either the letter or the spirit of this requirement.  You certainly do not want to submit to the arxiv in this case, because the arxiv is moderated, and low quality submissions can cause you to lose future privileges (as well as giving you a very poor reputation with at least the arxiv moderators, who presumably have some stature and influence in the academic community).

On the other hand, in many cases whether a paper is "unfinished" is known only to the author, and it would probably be possible for you to prepare a version of your paper which meets the above requirements.  In my opinion, as an undergraduate you should not upload (or widely distribute in any e-forum) work that you know to be seriously incomplete.  Work that you upload to the arxiv stays there forever.  (Truly: even if you withdraw a paper, the record of it remains and people can still access all the earlier versions.  I don't know about anyone else, but when I see a withdrawn paper it makes me curious and thus more likely to look at earlier versions.)  Outsiders are not going to judge your work by undergraduate standards; in many cases they will not know that the work was written by an undergraduate.  They'll look at a paper that has the level of an incomplete undergraduate project: that is not making a good name for yourself.

If you want to include your unfinished manuscript in your application, that's a different story: definitely do so if you spent a lot of time on the work and are proud of it.  (Even mature academics list unfinished manuscripts on their CV and sometimes even post them on their webpage.  I do this, although less often as time goes on.)  I may as well say the obvious thing though: it would be better if you finished it.  Couldn't a hard-nosed faculty evaluator say that if you were really passionate, serious and competent, then you would have finished your project?  As above, having the submitted version be formally complete as a document though you yourself know that you'd like to do more with it seems like a good idea.


Is it possible to ask for reviewing the corrected Galley proof in Taylor & Francis journal I recently received the Galley proof from the journal. I sent my correction, but there are more than 50. All of them are minor. Part of them are caused in the copy-editing process, and the editor changed some words incorrectly. Part of them are caused by my own mistake on factual information, like missing a word in a citation, or giving wrong page number for a reference.

The publisher mentioned they would not expect to receive more than 30 corrections. I was wondering whether they would correct everything I mentioned (given these corrections do not change the content)? Is it possible to ask to review the corrected proof before they send it for publication? (Just to check they correct everything right, rather than suggesting new correction).

I am very nervous now, so any comment and suggestion would be great!

It's impossible to tell from the outside since this is going to be specific to the journal's production staff.

It's possible that the 30-changes limit is just to dissuade authors from submitting hundreds of changes and/or requesting a fresh typeset from the original source files. It is also possible that this is a hard limit and the the typesetters will go "this author wants 50 corrections?? I refuse to do it!". It's possible that if the typesetters say this, the desk editor will persuade them to do it anyway. There really is no way to tell, even for the same publisher, since the typesetters/desk editors for each journal will vary, and this is a decision at the individual level.

The same goes for requesting a 2nd reading. You can certainly ask, but the desk editor might not oblige. It's a juggling act here because if they don't send you a corrected galley proofs and publish anyway, and the published paper turns out to be poor, they'd have to deal with an angry author (which nobody wants to). On the other hand if they do show you the proofs, then you might make even more corrections, and ask for a 3rd reading followed by 4th reading etc, and that is also not ideal for them.

That said, since it's only the 2nd reading, I would likely oblige if I were handling your paper. If you want to see the 2nd reading, you should let them know quickly, for their convenience.


Are one journal editor able to see decision of other journal editor in same publisher? My manuscript rejected by the editor of Journal A (MDPI publisher). Then I submit my manuscript to Journal B (MDPI publisher), it rejected again by the editor of Journal B. My question is editor of Journal B is able to see Journal A editor`s decision? Simply different journal editors in the same publisher are able to see each other`s decision?

No. You can see the decisions of papers submitted to your journal, but not to other journals, even if they are by the same publisher. An employee of the publisher with access to both journals might be able to, but not the members of the editorial board.


Telling supervisor we need to wait before publishing I am a PhD student and my supervisor absolutely wants me to publish an article with results from my master's thesis (done 2 years ago). I started writing the paper, but the more I write, the more I feel that it is not that good, results are hard if not impossible to replicate, methodology is a bit "hacky" (parameters were chosen at random, do not work in every case, etc.). Well, in short, I consider it unfinished and think that we could do better and need extra work on it before publishing. I also want to point out that this paper is not related to my PhD thesis. My question is, should I pursue this paper, and if not, how to communicate this to my supervisor without being rude and/or arrogant (after all, I'm a student and he's the supervisor).

Most research is never finished - it can always be further improved. At some point you have to say "this is enough to write about".
If it's not to do with your PhD then the chances are that you aren't going to go back and work on it more, so the choice isn't whether to do some more work on it, it's "is this good enough to publish as is?"
Of course we can't comment on whether your masters thesis is "finished enough" - but your supervisor is likely to have a better idea than you do.
I would recommend expressing your concerns to your supervisor and seeing what they say.


Do UK's 1-year taught MSc programmes provide any scope for research roles either in the industry (R&D positions) or in academia (through PhD)? Context - need to understand the 1-year taught MSc programmes offered by universities in the UK, in order to make a choice regarding higher studies (masters level) in Computer Science.
Specific confusion - Generally, an MS degree elsewhere will be of 2-years duration with enough time for lectures, electives and projects/thesis, thus equipping students for both jobs and research in the future.
How does a 1-year taught MSc programme in the UK differ? Are they only for students who have no interest in research? Do they not cover the subjects in depth? (I am aware of the MRes programmes but they seemed apt for students who're 100% sure of pursuing a PhD.)
Basically, I am confused if pursuing a 1-year taught MSc programme in the UK will add no value at all. I mainly want to learn specific subjects in much more depth and want to keep open options for research roles / PhD in the future.
Any guidance will be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

You will need to enquire specifically about the particular MSc. Because MScs are short, they tend to serve very particular purposes.
They might provide the opportunity for someone who did one subject, to gain enough knowledge in another subject to work or do research in that subject (e.g. someone with a Mathematics undergrad to do a computer science job).
They might provide specialist training in a very narrow part of a subject. E.g. we do a degree called Human Molecular Genetics, which is basically training to work in an NHS genetic diagnostic lab, or my friend runs an MSc in Mammalian Zooarchology, which will train people who did a general archology degree, and now want to either get a job as a animal bone specialist on a commercial archology unit, or do a PhD in Mammalian Zooarch.
Or they might be for people who's undergrad degree wasn't good enough. Say you only got a 2:2, or you went to a university that isn't very well regarded, but want to do a PhD... they give you a second chance. We offer one of these. The students combine taking a selection of our final year undergrad courses with special lab skills course, an extended literature review and a lab research project.
I should add that all our MScs provide an extended research project (3 months, full time in the lab), but I don't think that's the case for all MScs.
I always advise student thinking of doing an MSc in the UK to know exactly what it is they want out of it, and to know that the particular MSc they are thinking about will provide that.


Transferring PhD programs after leaving a PhD due to medical issues Let's say that I was given unacceptable conditions for returning from medical leave; basically I had to self-fund at least the following year of a physics PhD. Knowing that doing so would result in a financial disaster, I am definitely withdrawing from the program, with the understanding that, if I still wanted to earn a PhD at some point, I would have to transfer.

I could always mention, in an addendum (if there is space for one), medical problems, going to medical services, such as a physician (on-campus and later off-campus) on a regular basis for 75% of the only semester I ended up attending, and leaving school to take better care of myself. (I feel I did what was right from a medical standpoint) But when there is no space for an addendum in an application, I was advised to just drop a line about "personal problems" or "extenuating circumstances" (now resolved) and I am excited to do research again.

And also, I have two publications on file by now, whereas I had none when I applied to PhD programs the first time around (2015 cycle). Because I do not feel my GRE scores were an issue, I do not feel the need to re-take the GRE, general or physics, since they are still valid. But TOEFL, on the other hand, I would have to retake because the scores are no longer valid.

P.S.: I never had Ws before that particular semester, but still somehow ended up with 3.80 for what coursework I still managed to complete. If you need more information about my file or anything else, please, let me know.

How will an early departure from a PhD program (in its early stages) due to medical reasons affect future PhD applications?

In the public and private R1 universities that I have been in, we do not accept transfers for doctoral students. If you're previously pursued a Master's or taken some graduate courses in the field as part of a doctorate at another institution, you can petition the department / graduate school for a partial waiver of some of the requirements after you've been accepted and matriculated into the doctoral program.

For example, you might be able to petition out of some of the breadth or depth core course requirements; or request that your years-in-residency be reduced.

Note that because many programs run students in cohort-years, there may be good reasons why you may elect to run the standard pattern even if you've had a waiver of some requirements.


What are the advantages and disadvantages of doing a postdoc in Singapore and UK? I am end of my PhD. I would like to do a postdoc. In UK the average postdoc salary is around 30K (per year). But in UK the tax is very high, after taxes I may get around 1800 pounds (per month). I heard in Singapore the salaries for postdoc are a bit high and the taxes are also very low.

I have my wife and two children, In that case I would like to know the advantages and disadvantages of doing a postdoc in UK or Singapore.

My answer will focus on entirely non-academic aspects of a post-doc in UK as you seem to have those "sorted".

I think you have been slightly mislead:

~£30K will not result to ~£18K after taxes. I was taking ~£31K and ending up with ~£24K. Maybe you are in a different tax-category or something but from ~£30K to end up <£20K is quite unrealistic. Finally, ~£30K with 0 years of experience is pretty decent. One more point: spend an hour or two and check the HM Revenue & Customs. Do not rely on word of mouth on something so vital.
You need to factor council taxes and these will dependent where you live. Council taxes can be quite hefty (£100+ per month in Cambridge for example).
As @John mentioned, you need to base your decision on where are you going to live; ~£30K in central London, Oxford or Cambridge with 2 kids? No way. ~£30K in Manchester or (even cheaper) Coventry? Probably tight but doable.
London allowance have not saved anyone. Sure you will get probably ~12% more than your equivalent post-doc outside London but that's about it. In some cases you can get the same salary outside London. Lesser known universities try to give more monetary incentives to candidates.

I recommend you do some very good research about where exactly you are going, what is the cost of living, what are schools/nurseries are there, etc. Also do maybe a quick online search for houses to see what is available. If the going rate of a two bedroom flat +£1100 well... you need to consider things seriously. And do the same search for Singapore too afterwards!

Post-doc is a stepping stone. Realistically you will not get a salary that will allow you to live a luxurious life. Also take into account that the chances of tenure in an institution after a post-doc while usually better than being a complete outsider are all but guaranteed. Therefore consider that relocation might be something you will have to re-examine. You do not tell us if your wife will be able to contribute to your family income. Even a part-time job might make a significant difference.

(Reading back my answer I think I sound a bit grim... I do not mean to dishearten you or anything, just I do not want to be mislead on taxation or living costs issues.)


How to learn something by reading a textbook? I have a huge issue with learning via books. I try to make notes, but I get bugged down copying everything in books. I try to understand sentence by sentence, I fail to do so. And at last, I give up reading books and go and study some handwritten notes of that subject. How are books actually meant to be read.  I am talking about textbook. I have hard time remembering what I read as well. I am talking about computer science textbooks here for reference. Additionally, I can at least learn sth by watching videos, even though I am not really great at it.

The first thing you need to do is to create a sechdule for your reading. You also need to study your cognitive domain but since you love to watch videos, focus on watching video lectures of the topics in the text book and take notes of important key points which can be easily read and remembered anytime anyday.


Do most postdoc offers include travel funding? My mathematics department (a research-oriented department at a non-top school in the United States) has recently made a postdoctoral offer to a strong candidate, and I very much hope the candidate comes.

I have learned that the offer doesn't include any money for travel. Since his eventual success on the job market would presumably depend on how widely his work is known (among other factors), I believe that he (and essentially any other postdoc) should travel extensively to conferences. At least, he should have the opportunity to do so.

Some conferences have funding for attendees, but many don't. Unfortunately, none of us have much grant money we could spare for this purpose, and in any case my feeling is that this should come from my university.

Is it typical that postdoctoral offers are made without any travel funding? And if yes, is it typical that candidates are able to successfully negotiate for some funding?

None of my postdoctoral positions had travel funding in them, nor have I heard of anyone getting such funding.  There are several factors to mitigate this, not all of which may be available in all situations.

The postdoc can learn how to apply for grants and other things, which can provide the necessary funds for travel or other research needs.
If he is invited to give talks, then the inviting institution/department/professor will often cover travel expenses and offer a per diem.
He is likely coming there to research with specific people.  These people, being experienced, established professors who can attract promising postdocs, likely have grant money of their own, some of which could be allocated to the postdoc's travel costs.  This is often what pays for the previous point: professors can often use grant funds to cover the costs to bring in speakers.
Exceptional postdoc candidates are likely to be offered exceptional postdoc positions, with fancy names like The Harry Smith Postdoctoral Fellowship in Dynamical Systems.  These often come with bigger paychecks, making it easier for the postdoc to afford such outside costs.


How often do professors accept new graduate students? I know it has a lot to do with who is graduating and how many students the professor has already, but I just want to get a feel of how this process works. Do professors take in 1-2 students each year until they don't have any more room? and then wait for some to graduate before taking in more?

Someone I want to work with isn't taking new graduate students next year, and I'm wondering whether that means I need to wait one year or more.

Also, It would be nice if someone had an estimate of what the chances a professor isn't taking new graduate students for any given year.

Thinking about PhD for cognitive psychology/science.

There is no way to guess how many students an unknown professor is likely to accept, because professors vary wildly in the number of graduate students that they accept each year.  Reasons for this variation include, among others:

Amount of funding varies, from professors who are totally broke to professors who need lots of warm bodies to feed into their research machine.
Personal taste and scholarly style vary, from some professors who love to be in charge of a big lab with lots of things happening, all the way to others who would prefer to have just an occasional disciple or two.
Career and life events vary: a professor about to go on sabbatical may not want to take any new students, while one in the fresh excitement of an opening line of research may want many.
Program structure varies, from some programs that admit students almost entirely without reference to professors and the students don't even link up with professors for their first year, all the way to others where the individual professor is almost entirely in charge of admission.

The best way to guess how many students a particular professor is likely to be hiring is to look at the web pages of their students and see when they started their programs.  Even that, however, only gives you some indicators about the past, and not the likely near future, given all the sources of variability.


My first authorship is being turned into co-first authorship, what can I do? I am currently submitting a paper for Nature Structural & Molecular Biology. I worked on this project for the last four years and was the only one working on this project. I had everything going very well. In order to get the crystallization, I gave the plasmid construct to another laboratory which has expertise in crystallization. Fortunately, they got the crystals.
After the crystallization got successful, one researcher (say, A) from their lab came to my lab and my professor told me to teach him all the methods. I happily agreed to do so. After A went back to his lab, I got the draft of the paper from my professor, where, my name appeared as first co-author! I almost fainted. There were 20 figures in the paper. 13 were contributed by me, 4 by A and rest by 2 other people. The paper was mostly about my work. But in the contribution section, my prof and the prof of A  mentioned that I and A had equal contribution. In fact it is mentioned that A was solely contributor of crystals and he equally contributed in all other results.
I discussed this issue with my prof, but he tells that he is getting pressure from A's prof to make A the first author. And my prof does not want to estrange relationship with A's prof. I am heart-broken and I don't know what to do.
Please suggest me what to do.
Edit 2021: It has been quite some time since I posted this question. I accepted the authorship as recommended by my advisor. Now I feel mature and realize that maintaining a cordial relationship with one's advisor and colleagues is more important than anything else. If one is capable enough, s/he will get more opportunities to prove their worth.

First, try to calm down and don't react hastily.

Your situation is very frustrating, but it is not horrible. Let's say that the current author ordering would be the final one. You would be what's known as a co-first author. While it would be slightly more advantageous to be the sole first author, in my experience being co-first practically will not have a significant negative effect on your CV (BTW - are you a grad student or postdoc?). This is important for you to realize - the worst-case scenario that you mention is upsetting, but definitely not a disaster.

Some additional points:

You can try explaining your perspective to your professor. If you originally decided that you would be the sole first author, you should definitely remind him/her of that. Do this politely, of course, but show your professor this is a big deal for you. This could cause the professor to reconsider, depending on his/her personality.
Instead of being the sole first author, you can consider being co-first but listed first. This doesn't make a big difference, but people might associate you with the paper more easily (Whatshername et al.).
Consider that regardless of the number of figures, the other author might deserve being co-first. For example, in many papers an experimentalist produces the data and a computational person analyzes the data and produces most of the figures - and they would often be equal co-first authors (even though each of them could think of themselves doing "most of the work"). So I do not know all the details of who did what, but it does not sound completely implausible that the other person did work which justifies being co-first.
Regardless of what happens, I suggest you talk with your professor about how to get a more satisfactory outcome next time (if this is relevant for you). Discuss authorship in advance and what happens when things change.

Good luck!


My supervisor won't accept that I won't stay in the lab for a PhD I have recently graduated a M.Sc. I have agreed with my supervisor that I will complete the work required in order to make my project publishable (we have agreed that this does not entail any additional analysis, only revisions of the manuscript, polishing some figures etc.) and another small project.
Despite the fact that I have made it clear to my supervisor that I am not interested in any further projects, he keeps offering my to stay in the lab for various projects.
Last week I have informed my supervisor that I have decided to take up a job unrelated to the lab.
The day after I received from him a text message offering me to stay in the lab and work on extension of my project in collaboration with another PI
I replied to him that I thank him for the offer but I that I prefer the job I have taken for personal reasons.
Today I have received an email from our collaborator, most probably written at the behest of my supervisor offering me a joint position with him and my supervisor on some expansion of my masters' project.

While this offer is legitimate in itself, I find it disturbing that my supervisor won't respect my will not do any further work with him.
I have to emphasize that what I have described above was just the latest in a long series of such attempts to persuade me to stay. Typically I say something along the line of "I don't want to stay in the lab because I won't to focus on X (X being some topic/method outside our group's speciality)" to which my supervisor will reply by either trying to persuade me that focusing on X is a bad idea or how can stay with him and still do X.

I also think I have good reasons not to want further work with my supervisor. Namely:

Our areas of interest are fairly different. Based on my experience during my masters' I don't think my supervisor has neither the will nor the required background to guide me in the approaches and methods I am interested in and is unlikely to to allow me to pursue these directions on my own.
We appear to have differences in our basic approach to what constitutes a good scientific work.
We do not have a good inter-personal communication which means that our differences leads to a constant conflict between us.
All of the above causes me considerable emotional distress. In fact, I feel that I have extended as much energy during my masters' on dealing with these emotional issues then on tackling the scientific problem at hand.
Since I know that other students of my supervisor have a much better communication with him, and since I had a very good experience with another PI I am working with, I think that problem doesn't lie squarely with neither of us.

I have started attending psychological consultation a few months ago and am trying to work out my emotions from my side, but I do not think staying in an environment that causes me this kind of distress is a good idea.

My goal is to find a way to convey to my supervisor the message that I am not willing to accept any more offers of this kind from him. I do not want to discuss my reasons with him because he will again attempt to persuade me why I'm wrong, and I definitely don't want to discuss my emotional issue with him.

Any advice on how to do that will be most appreciated.

"I am happy to polish the paper for publication as agreed; however, unfortunately, I cannot accept your generous offer. I have already accepted the other job and committed to it." - repeat and rinse. You agreed to the publication, which is fair enough. It is not your job to satisfy your supervisor's wishes outside of that.

You are perfectly entitled to choose your future. Don't feel bad about that. You have your reasons to leave. Trust your gut feeling and accept you won't change your opinion. Once you accept that you won't change your opinion, it will be easier for you also radiate to your (former) supervisor that you won't change it.

Do not budge. Repeat your formulation. Only when they realise that you are not going to change your tune, they will relent.


Convention for excerpting from the middle of a paragraph in another work? A project of mine involves meticulously tracing the source material for a work of literature constructed from an author's unpublished notes. I have established a system for referencing the notes themselves, but to precisely trace the material that constitutes the finished work, I'm following the format:

[ Note # ] [ Page(s) ]
[ Headwords of first paragraph ]
"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet..."
[ Footwords of paragraph, either the same one or the end of the last if the passage spans multiple paragraphs ]
"...fermentum eu velit quis iaculis."

However, there are some instances where the material was taken from the middle of a paragraph, continues unbroken through several subsequent paragraphs, and stops in the middle of another paragraph. In order to proceed with my work, I've been using this format:

If the source begins in the middle of a paragraph, include the headwords to that paragraph then include the beginning of the actual excerpt:
"Lorem ipsum dolor [...] Maecenas mattis erat in metus..."

If the source ends in the middle, include headwords in addition to the conclusion of the excerpt itself:
"Lorem ipsum dolor [...] tincidunt dui urna nec diam."

This example supposes material is taken from a single paragraph, so another example spanning multiple paragraphs might look like:
"Lorem ipsum dolor [...] Maecenas mattis erat in metus..."
"Vivamus nec sodales neque [...] quis lobortis nibh porttitor."

Essentially I'm wondering if this system is too confusing, or if there is an existing standard already in use that I can adopt. Including the headwords serves as a way to navigate through the material using paragraphs as an easy visual reference. I've considered assigning each paragraph a section number and referencing them by section marks (§) which would serve as an alternative to including the headwords ("§52 Lorem ipsum dolor..." through "§55 ...nunc sollicitudin lectus."), but I'd like to avoid that if possible.

Any suggestions are appreciated!

I don't do this sort of research, so I can't answer if there is a 'standard approach'.  I have read analytic works on the writings people such as Charles Sanders Peirce, who was notorious for having both a vast and an unorganized body of writing, including personal letters.  Yours might be similar, though in your case it seems even more important to be very precise about what source material you are referencing and quoting.  To my eye, it resembles Biblical analysis in this way.

I like the idea of assigning paragraph numbers to all your source material, but I would suggest using them differently.  In your quotes, I suggest quoting only the relevant words, using ellipses as appropriate to indicate omitted text, and also new lines or paragraph marks to indicate a break in paragraph. But at the end of each quote, in square brackets, you could add the paragraph numbers of the sources, plus any qualifying remarks, such as "spanning both paragraphs" or what ever.

Using your example:

  "... Maecenas mattis erat in metus ..." [citation, starting mid-pargraph in §52 "Lorem ipsum dolor..." and ending mid-pargraph in §55 "...nunc sollicitudin lectus."]

This approach has two advantages. First, your quote includes only the text relevant to your exposition and analysis.  This will make it easier to read and understand.  Second, exact and detailed context information is given in the square brackets following, including the citation if needed.  This will serve you as researcher or a reader who needs to follow along in the source documents.


Is it reasonable to not publish data from research for fear of undermining previous work? I am a postdoc working in a lab where we are finishing a large project with multiple measures (psychological, behavioral, etc). Some of the measures didn't turn out to have significant results (primarily for methodological reasons I believe). I suggested to the Lead Investigator that we write up some of these as "we tried these measures and didn't get the results we expected for various reasons: here are some lessons we have learned". The reply was:

  My immediate response is not all that positive – especially if it undermined our published papers ... if you’ve published a result then further publications shouldn’t raise more limitations that should have been mentioned in the original publication.

I don't believe the results will undermine anything but, that aside, is his reasoning for not publishing results valid? Also, to be clear, we haven't yet published anything from this work.

I understand him to mean that he doesn't want the results published because they might go against previous work and completely object to such a thought. Have I possibly misinterpreted his words?

The statement you quote sounds terrible. It points in a direction where things approach the unethical. Publication of negative results are less common that positive although, I suspect, negative results ARE more common than positive. Since I am in an experimental field, I have never obtained the perfect results and always end up describing what went wrong; and I am not alone. Anyway, I think your idea of writing up your experience is good. Naturally, I cannot judge the merits of the experiences in terms of publicability.

So I think your intention is very sound and the reaction of the lead investigator suspect (or at best narrow-minded).

To me " further publications shouldn’t raise more limitations that should have been mentioned in the original publication" (if verbatim from the lead investigator and with my emphasis) sounds as if limitations were not included on purpose in the original study. So, if that is true then I can understand the nervousness. It sounds almost fraudulent.


Should we use the rest of a grant that we have achieved its goal to make further research not very useful in the direction of proposal? Imagine that we have achieved the goal of a grant before the money runs out. Should we use the rest of money to make the research more advanced even though it won't be useful in the direction of the proposal?

For example the grand is for computer science research with a specific application to medicine. Should we use the rest of the medical grant money in advancing the research in computer science even though it would not be much needed in that specific medical application?

Different funding agencies (and programs within agencies) have different relationships with the specificity that they want in results.  Some are much more comfortable with their investigators "following where the science leads," while others really care about the exact pre-specified goals of the project.

Without further information about the funder and the type of grant, it's impossible to say what degree of flexibility there is likely to be in how the money gets used.  The definitive source for this information is generally the program manager for the grant, and your supervisor should have been having periodic interactions with the program manager that could provide guidance on this decision.  If they haven't, that's a warning sign, but that may be difficult for you to know since students are rarely included in such interactions in any case.

Taking actions that go against the funder regulations or program manager guidance can cause big trouble. The risk is primarily for your supervisor, but you might get tarnished by association, particularly if you knew an action was dubious and didn't talk to anybody.  If there are other professors that you know and trust (or a university ombudsperson or ethics office), you might talk to them to be able to share more details and get a more informed opinion---as well as to shield yourself from possible negative consequences if your misgivings prove well founded.