Is creating your own "experiment" considered cheating during a physics exam? Consider a qualitative question on a physics exam such as, draw the path of an object's center of mass as it is dropped. I have included a graphic here:

Would it be considered cheating in practical terms if I were to make a mark in my pencil and drop it on my desk to observe its path? This is just one example of something that could be helpful on a mechanics exam.

In general, would a professor consider the act of carrying out a small physical experiment during an exam as cheating as long as it is with reason and does not interfere with other students? By experiment, I mean something of the nature of what I mentioned earlier; I am talking about something that can be done with the instruments you are allowed to have during the exam. I do not mean using lab equipment.

To clarify, I something like this would be to gain a physical intuition of a solution. For the example listed above, simply dropping your pencil can give you an intuition as to the path its center of mass takes. This isn't intended as a substitute for work for a more complicated solution.

I ask because I doubt and am currently unaware of any rule that prohibits this.

No, this is perfectly fine. In physics, it is common to see students making odd motions as they think through the problem or apply rules like the right hand rule. The usual caveats apply: you must not be distracting or obnoxious, must not broadcast data that other students could use to cheat, and must follow all announced regulations.

Yes, like with anything else, there are a million corner cases and caveats and unreasonable proctors that we could have fun trying to anticipate -- but I suggest we find more productive ways to spend our mental energies.


Can I include the schematic and layout I designed on Altium CircuitMaker in my thesis? I’m currently seeking my masters degree. Part of what I do is testing the design on a PCB. My institute doesn’t have OrCad or Altium Designer licenses, so I opted for the free Altium CircuitMaker. However, one of my colleagues has pointed out that its results can’t be accepted in an official thesis. So I want to make sure, is he right? Should I halt it and start looking for a way to get a fund for one of the commercial programs?

Your colleague is plainly wrong: You put on your thesis the outcome of your work with the tools you have used, regardless of whether they are applications worth thousands of euros or free ones (that are worth thousands of euros anyway).


sharing preprint using the journal's template? Publishers such as Elsevier and SAGE provide LaTeX templates for manuscripts to be submitted to their journals. Can one post that version of the paper in our websites if the paper has been accepted to such journals? I am referring to a manuscript that only I have modified and has not been modified by the journal.

If a journal allows authors to post their pre-prints, the general rule—although it is by no means absolute—is that you may use the manuscript in the form in which it was submitted to the journal, but you cannot use the version created by the journal's production staff.

However, you should consult the specific policies of the journal to see exactly what is or is not allowed, as not all journals allow preprints.


Decline for and reapply next year? I applied to a professional program that I had been striving for in my undergrad, at a top school, but I've since felt overwhelmed with how to pay for it and incurring so much debt. I think I should wait a year so get into a better place financially. I've become so anxious, thinking I've ruined my opportunity with this school if I don't go.

I am considering withdrawing my application, but I'm very worried about how it might hurt me in the future when I reapply. Or I may wait but need to decline if I am accepted, and reapply the following year. I feel like both will hurt my chances in the future. How will admissions consider me the second time?

I would wait until you know the outcome first. It is possible (and not that usual from what I hear) to defer an offer of admission, which means you may be able to take up an offered position in the following academic year.

Since you do not know that you have been admitted yet, I would wait until you get a response. If you are rejected, there is no harm in re-applying next year. If you are offered a place, a request for deferral will not be looked upon badly.


How to ask for a recommendation letter? The recommendation letters seem to be one of the most important aspects of the application.

First of, how will I manage to ask a professor to write a recommendation letter for 5 colleges I am intending to apply to?
Does it make a difference for the professor what school I am
applying to (ivy league or not)?
What criteria should I use when picking the professors that will write a good recommendation?
I live in a different country at the moment. Should I go and meet them in person to ask for this?
I burned a few bridges, but how can I influence their opinion at this point and show them how much I have grown after college and how
much better I have become and it is partially thanks to them?

I am really scared of asking them. Any tips or advice is greatly appreciated it.

I have no knowledge of you, your university or the staff that taught you; however, despite what most students believe most academic staff are extremely professional. Their position requires it of them.

When I and my colleagues provide a reference (our equivalent of a letter of recommendation) we base  it on the facts checked from the student records. We would check the transcripts look at the attendance records and other material on file (such as disciplines, warnings), we would note late submissions of work and other statistical details. From that we would build up a picture of the student as a scholar and use that as the basis for a recommendation.

It would be unprofessional to just base such a recommendation on a memory of a previous meeting, and incident in class. Actually, with so many students passing through over the years individuals rarely remain in the memory unless they were remarkably outstanding in a positive or negative sense (i.e. one in a million).

We aim to write accurate and factual references to our sister institutions in a manner that we would expect to receive them for our own applicants. We would expect the references supplies to us similarly written in a detached and professional manner.

All you can do is ask. You need letters of recommendation. The only way to get them is to ask. Although you might have matured and learned a professional approach, don't forget they had to also do this to gain their own position, and will continue to do so.

Your mileage may vary, but I can only give my opinion from my experiences of supporting students every year in their quests for future success.


Do short journal papers ("brief reports") count less than regular papers in psychology? Many journals in psychology feature articles of different lengths, often labelled as "brief report" (4000 words) vs. "regular article" (12000 words). Are shorter articles generally considered as equally valuable and important as long articles, i.e., do they count as a "full" publication in the field of psychology?

I think this will depend completely on who's doing the "counting".  For purposes of faculty evaluation, tenure, promotion, etc, different departments may have different rules, so there won't be any general answer.

One would like to think that each article would be evaluated on its signficance, rather than length, and that decisions would be made based on overall contribution to the field, rather than a number of papers.  Of course, this doesn't always happen.


Become researcher after PhD at 40 How real is it to become a "formal" researcher (that is someone holding some research position) after earning a PhD at the age of 40? Sometimes it so happens that people discover their true interest only later in life. But because society is used to follow certain established patterns, it may be difficult for such people to readjust their lives. I believe there exist certain biases or prejudices about what people are supposed to do at a certain age, which may hinder one's path socially, emotionally, as well as professionally.

It depends a lot on the field you are in. In some fields, almost everyone who ends up being a professor has had a previous career outside academia. An example is education where your previous background will be considered a plus and there is no stigma attached to being older.

But there are also fields where yours would be a very uncommon career trajectory and where people have the perception that researchers' best contributions come when they are still young. Mathematics would be an example. In these fields, you will probably have a harder time finding a career as a researcher in academia, though I suspect that it makes little difference if you are going for an industrial research position.


Is using another methodology for the same question I proposed plagiarism? I am not sure if the following course of actions can be considered research misconduct.

My colleagues reviewed my research plan/concept containing unpublished papers and plans in a form of written documents. They took my scientific concept, changed methodology, published a scientific paper and attracted funding. Is this misconduct considering that they took my scientific concept and employed different methodology and they did this after reviewing my written plans, not before?

From what you've written, it seems plausible that your colleagues were also working on the scientific concept (or something similar), developed their own (similar) methodology, published a scientific paper, and attracted funding, which isn't misconduct. Establishing whether their review of your plans had any influence on their work will be difficult.


What can I do if one of my referees falsifies information in a Letter of Recommendation? I am in a difficult situation in regards to letters of recommendation and I would like to ask for a bit of advice from all of you.

This past June, I applied to several different medical schools across the country and each one required me to submit at least 3 letters of recommendations (1 from a non-science professor and 2 from science professors). All of the faculty members that I asked were happy to write me letters of recommendation. However, one of the faculty members delayed writing the letter of recommendation for a very long time (almost 5 months) despite several reminders. One of the medical schools had a strict deadline by which they wanted their application to be completed and because of the delay from this one letter writer, I was automatically rejected from the school. At this point, I decided to return to my university (I already graduated) and speak with my letter writer in person.

From the discussion with my letter writer, I found out some very disturbing things about his intentions. He was very displeased with my in-person visit to his office (even though I did email him several times beforehand without him bothering to respond). It was at this point that he began accusing me of things that were 100% false and was threatening to include this false information in his letter of recommendation. He eventually submitted his letter of recommendation, and, at this point, I could not stop him from doing so.

Now I know that many of you will say that I should have been able to see this coming and avoid asking this faculty member for a letter of recommendation. But, with all honesty, I was completely under the impression that this professor will write me a strong letter of evaluation. I viewed this person as someone that was a true mentor to me throughout college, and this situation is very disheartening. In my honest evaluation of the situation, I believe that writing a negative letter of recommendation that includes false information about a student out of spite is completely unethical. I also believe that I should have the opportunity to defend myself.

There is no way that I can see what he wrote in his letter of recommendation. If anybody here has any sort advice in regards to this situation, please I would greatly appreciate it. I would hate to see a letter of recommendation that contains false information ruin my chances of pursuing my academic goals. Is it possible to take legal action in this matter?

This is a most unusual situation. It's extremely rare for there to be such a large discrepancy between what a student thinks a professor thinks about them and what the professor actually thinks about them. Considering also that in this case the professor's opinion is wrong (as I will assume for the purposes of the answer, though I know nothing of the details of course), this scenario falls right through the cracks of the whole system of letters of recommendation, which was simply not designed with such situations in mind.

With that said, I think that somewhat ironically, the very strangeness of the situation offers a glimmer of hope, since it means that you can consider unusual steps that would not be acceptable in a more normal situation. Specifically, two such steps that I can think of are:

You could write a letter to the schools to which you applied (specifically, email it to the admissions committee, and make sure to cc a staff member and ask for an acknowledgement) in which you explain the situation. If your letter is well-written and the explanation that you offer is credible, this may counter the effect of the hypothetical damaging letter from the professor. You may want to line up another letter writer in advance of sending your letter to substitute for the bad one.
You could complain about the professor's behavior to the department chair or another professor you trust at your university, explain the details of the story, and ask them to write to the schools you applied to. This would not be a normal letter of recommendation. It should be an email sent directly to the admissions committee (rather than uploaded via some kind of automated system for LORs), again explaining the situation. Having the explanation come from the chair or another faculty member, if they agree to do it, will be more credible and increase the chances of success. In fact, the chair may very well know of similar stories of odd behavior involving your professor that you were not aware of, which he could mention or hint at in his/her letter, further strengthening the credibility of your claims.

Note that in both of these suggestions you will have to disclose all the information about what took place between you and your professor to make the explanation credible and have a realistic hope that the professor's false accusations will be ignored. If some of what took place is embarrassing or damaging to you due to real rather than imagined reasons, I'm afraid that's just a risk you'll have to take. Good luck!


Salutation for a letter of recommendation to be uploaded to mathjobs What is a standard opening salutation for a letter of recommendation to be posted on mathjobs?

One possibility might be, "Dear hiring committee", or "Dear search committee".

Most of my math recommendation letters do not have an opening salutation.  They have the date at the top right, and the first sentence orients the reader with something like "I write to recommend Dr. X to you for..." If I recall correctly, this is fairly typical for such letters.  I am more confident in saying it doesn't matter: in general, the format for these letters is all over the place, and no one cares.


Are there many countries in which universities pay PhD students a wage comparable to a basic job in industry? I should soon complete my masters degree in engineering and have decided to apply for a PhD after I finish.

An issue I face is that I cannot afford to not receive a wage that I could for example get by going into industry. So far I have been very fortunate to study for free in Scotland and Switzerland - and during my time in Switzerland it became apparent that the PhD students not only didn't have to pay fees but in fact were employed as staff of the University and received a good wage. As a comparison in Scotland you would normally have your doctorate fees covered by the project funding but would only receive a modest stipend on which it would be a real struggle to get by upon fully depending on circumstance. Further, in other countries, I know it is normal to pay your fees for doing the PhD and receive no stipend whatsoever.

My question is: are there many other countries in which, as you do in Switzerland, you receive a staff wage comparable to a wage you would receive from going straight into a job in industry? The only other countries I'm aware of in which this is the culture are Denmark and Sweden.

I'm not sure how much Scotland is different from the rest of the UK, but from my experience of UK PhD funding, I'm not sure why you're worried.

A standard PhD stipend is a little over £14,000 per year, paid quarterly. Fees are covered, and additional money can often be earned by taking on teaching or marking duties, up to about £1500 per year. Taking into account that students do not pay tax this is approximately equivalent to a salary of £17 or £18 thousand per year.

While I appreciate that circumstances may vary for different people, I wouldn't really call that

  a real struggle to get by upon

Outside of London, that is enough to rent a decent sized one bedroom flat or share a nice house, pay your bills, take a nice holiday and still have the weekly cash to go out for dinner or drinks. In London, the stipend is increased but I don't have personal experience of the living expenses there, so it may be different.

As I said, circumstances may be difficult for some people, but most universities will have support for childcare or special needs, so unless you are trying to support a family as the sole earner, I don't think it's really a worry.


How to find articles containing specific keywords such as "cosmology" in several scientific databases? I need to check articles containing specific keywords such as "cosmology" daily. It takes long time to search one by one search engines and databases such as ScienceDirect, GoogleScholar, arxiv, and similar ones.
Is there a service or application to search in all of these websites?

ScienceDirect, Google Scholar, and other publisher or database services allow you to save a search and have any new items matching that be emailed to you (though it may not always be within a day - I vaguely recall that I usually knew about PLOS or ScienceDirect papers before I got the email - often via the Google Scholar alert! Still fairly timely, though.)

arXiv allows you to get a daily email with all new papers in a specific subject category. I don't believe it supports keyword searching for alerts - however, one of those categories is cosmology, so it may work fine for you.


How can someone with a large and unique data set, but limited time to write articles, find experienced researchers to co-author papers with? I have a very significant number of publishable projects and have a  very large data set that can be used to publish dozens of articles. I have published a number of top peer reviewed journal papers but do not have the time and resources to do this myself and am looking for research collaborators who are experienced in writing Computer Science or Social Science journal articles to co-author these research papers with me.

How can I find such researchers? Are there any online resources that might guide me in this process?

How good is your data?  If you truly have amazing unpublished data that could readily form the basis for multiple top tier publications, then with some persistence you should be able to find academics who are interested in writing publications based on that data.

However, are you able to truly judge the suitability of your data for academic publications? In general, if you are not in academia, you are likely to have a poor to modest understanding of what makes a great dataset. For example, I sometimes work with industry datasets that look at the characteristics of workers (traits, job performance and so on). There are all sorts of academic reasons why a given dataset (that the consultant may think is interesting) will not yield a good publication: e.g., the sample size is too small; there were issues with data collection; the measures used are insufficiently reliable or valid; the measures used do not map onto the theoretical constructs in the literature; the questions that can answered by the dataset have been examined many times already in the literature; the meta data is incomplete.

Even if you have a dataset that could be used for a publication, there is still the issue of whether the dataset is good enough to persuade an academic to work on it. In general, more established academics have a large collection of studies and datasets sitting around waiting to be potentially written up. In this case, the academic is likely to strategically prioritise their publications in terms of some sort of effort-reward trade-off. So, your dataset needs to not only be publishable but sufficiently aligned and interesting to an academic to persuade them to work on it.

Thus, my advice would be to start to connect with a few academics in order to assess how suitable the datasets are for publication.

How to find a suitable academic? There are many strategies for finding a  academic who might be interested in analysing your data for publication. Ideally, you'd have a sense of the kinds of publications that could be obtained from the data, and therefore which academics are working on these topics. A targeted email to some of these people explaining the data you have and your interests in sharing for publication should help to start a conversation. You can then have skype chat or face to face chats (with people in your city). If you're lucky you might have existing social networks with existing academics (e.g., where you did your studies, or in your town).

As you interact with these academics, you can get a better understanding of whether the data is suitable for publication. Also, if you have good data, but the first few academics are not interested in it, such academics may be able to refer you to other academics who are interested.

You also mention that you want "experienced researchers" to write the papers. In this regard, there is a trade-off. More high-profile researchers are more capable of getting quality work published. However, they also have many more opportunities. So there is a trade-off. For example, early career researchers may be more interested in your data, if they've had less time to obtain a broad range of research options. Your dataset might also be useful to form part of a PhD project.

How to negotiate co-authorship? Based on respected criteria for co-authorship (E.g., here), merely providing data is not sufficient to warrant co-authorship. You generally need to contribute to some degree to the writing and conception of the paper. That said, if you make co-authorship a condition of sharing your data, then academics are free to take or leave your proposal. If collecting the data in itself involved some degree of academic contribution and you also agree to contribute to the writing and analysis process (even if not leading), then such a proposal is likely to be more palatable to academics.


Course Requirements for Mathematics and Applied Mathematics Phd admission I am a student from Sri Lanka, and I have just finished my degree. Because of the rules of my University ( My program was a direct intake for Mathematical Finance specialization, and despite this I have followed mathematics subjects the most) I was not allowed to take any abstract algebra courses. I have completed the other courses which Pure Mathematics Special students undertake such as in Analysis and have good results. I will be undertaking a reading course for Algebra with the senior lecturer at the University at whilst he said he will give a letter as evidence as possibly at best a letter from the faculty it won't be officially recognized in the transcript

So my main question is that would such a letter be recognized, even if it is signed by the dean of the faculty when apply for a phd? I hope I will be able to cover the usual algebra syllabus and maybe even more.

I would also like to know if its possible what kind of undergraduate
  requirements does an Applied Maths program usually look into? Would I
  be correct in assuming that they won't be looking in to algebra that
  much?

Not having had an undergraduate course in abstract algebra wouldn't be much of problem for admission to the graduate program at my institution (which focuses on applied and industrial mathematics.)  Background in analysis, differential equations, modeling, probability, and numerical analysis is much more important.  Significant background (such as a minor) in some area of science or engineering is also helpful.


Switch fields from Physics to Electrical Engineering in US: MSc vs BSc? My brother wants to switch to Electrical Engineering and possibly do a Master's degree (with thesis). He also has a BSc and MSc degree in physics but not much formal training in EE (except some basic electronics, solid-state physics and advanced electromagnetism courses).

Since the most important factor in grad school applications is research, he has tried to contact professors and labs so many times for even non-paid internships, with no results. The other option is to apply to BSc degree or just about any MSc degrees in order to take the prerequisite courses.

How should he proceed? What are some advantages or disadvantages of getting a BSc in EE (using some credits from the previous degree) vs doing a Master's program in EE with thesis that accept him and take the prerequisites courses?

It depends on his goals.  Since he wants to do research, it doesn't matter that much whether he has a BSc or a master's as long as he can convince the department he applies to for his PhD that he has the necessary knowledge.  A master's might be slightly better since he will naturally get more research experience, but it is possible to get research experience as an undergrad by volunteering in your professors' labs.  The disadvantage of going straight to a master's is that he won't have the same background as the other students.  This means that either (a) the department will ask him to take prerequisite courses, at which point the master's program will take almost as long to finish as the BSc, or (b) he will be expected to catch up with the other students on his own time, which will be a lot of work.

If he thinks he might want to work in industry at some point, I would recommend doing the BSc.  Engineering is a professional designation in the US, so without the BSc, he can't call himself an engineer.  This doesn't mean he can't get hired, but it means he will get hired under some other job title ("technician", say) and may get paid less than he would if he were hired as an engineer.  Considering that this would affect his whole career, I would recommend investing the extra time up front, especially if he can shorten the BSc by reusing some credits from the physics degree.


Should conference papers be counted as publications? Is there a consensus as to whether or not conference papers are counted as publications?

I know that if something is a journal paper then that thing is tacitly understood as a publication, but is the converse true?

If the conference paper was refereed before been accepted for the conference, that counts as a refereed publication. If it was not, it is a non-refereed publication, and should be counted as such.

Different fields have different rules for how publications are accounted for, specially in how multi-author publications are handled, so you should at least state which field you are talking about.


Do Universities have a right to stop students from talking about questions on tests? This case in Canada was between students who were complaining about a professor and the school who claimed doing so was misconduct. The school lost because the punishment infringed on students' freedom of speech.

By this logic, does freedom of speech protect students from punishment if they were to release details of a test question while complaining about it in a similar manner? What legal right do universities have to mandate confidentiality of such things? (I hope this doesn't sound facetious)

From your link:

  Where a government-funded or affiliated entity such as a University attempts to limit the freedom of expression of its students it must carefully consider the students’ Charter right to freedom of expression, and ensure that any limitation is reasonable, justified and compliant with the Charter.

It seems like the difference between punishing people for sharing test questions and punishing them for criticizing professors is that one of these is "reasonable and justified," while the other isn't.


How do I replicate simulations on a research paper? I am a student and I have to replicate the simulations of a research paper about electrical engineering using Matlab, but I have seen that often the research papers don't say much about how the various plots of the simulations are obtained.

Is there any strategy I can follow to replicate the results on a research paper?

If you don't have the original code, you need to use the experiment descriptions (the methodology) to create your own code, and perhaps data. This is much harder, of course, than if you had the code. But it is much more valuable for science as a whole. If you come to the same results (statistically speaking) then you have evidence that the original hypotheses stand up. But if you get different results you have to question why. Either the original result was false or your own work misses something. Both cases lead to advances in science.

And, running the same code on the same data is a bit boring, actually. Hardly something that can be published.

But point your own efforts at the hypothesis in the original paper, not at the results specifically. Then, you have something publishable whether you confirm or refute the original results.


do you know anyone who is over 30 years old, but got admission from top math grad school? I am going to apply math grad schools this year.
But, the problem is now I'm 30 years old.

Do you know anyone who is 30 or over 30, but got admission from top math grad school?

Knowing an answer to this question won't help you. What will help you is making a good application to a school you'd like to attend showing your skills and potential. No one will say, "Well, this is the greatest mathematician since Riemann, but, alas, he's 30". Age won't play any part at all in an application, not even competitively. Your suitability will be evaluated on what you have done and what can be expected of you.

But in any top school, the competition for a position is fierce and you will have a lot of other applicants that show near perfect records on most criteria. Make sure that you can stand up to the competition, not only in what you write on the application, but what you can say in an interview.

But if you don't apply, you don't get accepted. That rule is almost universal.

If there are gaps in your record, be sure you have an acceptable explanation.


Why would my former colleagues acknowledge me for a nonexistent contribution? I spent a postdoctoral period in China, where I faced number of issues with the administration and supervisor. In short, I felt exploited in many ways, from payment and funding restrictions to being constantly asked to provide unfair “favours” and contributions.

During my stay, I was constantly asked to revise manuscripts for language and suggestions. I am a critical person, and the local culture is refractory to open criticism. Still, whilst my suggestions seemed to be typically ignored and made others uneasy, my lab mates would continuously ask for my opinion on manuscripts under preparation. They usually acknowledged my contributions in the acknowledgments section. Exactly why they would ask me for suggestions when they didn’t seem to appreciate them had always puzzled me.

However, since my departure they have published three papers I have never seen whilst acknowledging me for suggestions. For example, this is the latest of these papers they wrote:

  We thank Dr. [other researcher], United States; and Dr. [Scientist], ZZZ, China, for critical reviews of this manuscript.

Awkwardly enough, these are papers directly within my area of expertise, which were surely under preparation during my presence, and first-authored by close colleagues. (Meaning they certainly refrained from mentioning these projects around me, at least in English).

Why would someone acknowledge a nonexistent contribution from a close colleague? Especially on a project that was apparently kept secret? It feels very awkward.

I see two possible reasons for their behaviour. Others options are possible.

They are using your name to reduce the chances of desk-rejection. I have heard that a well-known expert in the acknowledgements can be seen as a positive point for some editors.
They copy-paste the acknowledgements of a previous manuscript and forgot to delete you.


How to apply for a PhD scholarship in USA if I'm European? I'm Italian, I have a Master's degree, I'm going to prepare for the TOEFL exam. At the moment, my English is not at the level, but I'm studying for it.
In fact, I'm considering applying, maybe next year, for a PhD in the USA with a (funding) scholarship. I have a lot of doubts and I would like to know how to do it in the better way.

Can you tell me how to apply for these PhDs (step by step)?
Are there reserved positions for ethnic minorities?
Do all universities offer this opportunity or just some?

In general, the process is to apply for admission to PhD program at a particular university and ask for financial support in the application.  In most STEM fields in the US, nearly all PhD students do receive financial support in the form of a 20 hour per week teaching or research assistant job.

To answer your specific questions:

Application procedures vary from department to department, so you'll have to check out the web sites of programs that you're interested in to learn about the application process.
No, there aren't spots reserved for ethnic minorities.  In any case, as a foreign student, not a citizen or permament resident of the US, you wouldn't be classified as a minority student for most purposes.
Financial aid in the form of teaching and research assistantships is nearly universal for PhD students in the US.


What are RTD-b positions in Italy? I recently saw in an ad that an Italian university invites applications to "Senior researchers (RTD-b, tenure track)." What are RTD-b positions? Since they are said to be tenure track, I guess they correspond to assistant professors in the US system? Are RTD-b position holders expected to do independent research and advise PhD students as assistant professors do? How much teaching load do they usually have? What is their career path after getting tenured?

Exactly, they are tenure-track assistant positions. After 3 years, if you pass a successful evaluation based on your research activity (abilitazione scientifica nazionale), you become an associate professor. The guidelines for this evaluation include an indicative target number of papers and citations, which is field-dependent. This is only indicative, there is a national committee in charge of the evaluation, and they are supposed to always check case-by-case.

The teaching load is quite low: 60-80 hours of frontal teaching per year, plus exams (warning: there is a lot of exams in the Italian system). As far as I know there aren't other obligations, apart from maintaining a good research output to get the abilitazione. Supervising PhD students is not required.

(The teaching load becomes 120 hours after you become an associate professor.)

The system for the final evaluation is still provisional and has to undergo a new reform in the next months. These positions were introduced in 2010, and things are still new and bleeding-edge. But in any case they are worth pursuing, there are not many other chances to get a permanent associate professor position in Italy.

To be eligible, you need at least 3 years of post-doctoral experience (comparable to an Italian "rtd-a" position).


Possible to accept GRE score and view it, but not report it to a university? From what I've read from the ETS and other sources, after finishing a GRE exam the system will give you the option to keep your scores, before you actually know the score.

If you decide to accept the score and then view it and realize it's bad, do you still have the option to not send it to any school, or is the step in which you select the schools to send it to before the step in which you view your score?

I'm wondering if I will be in either of the following situations:

I think I did well, but I have to select the universities before I actually see my score. I select the universities, and then see my actual score and see I didn't do so well.
I think I did poorly so I choose to not send my scores, but then I see my actual scores and find I did well, but now I have to pay extra to send my scores.

Ideally:

I accept my scores, then I'm able to view them. If I did well, I select my universities. If I did poorly, I don't select any university and just redo the GRE on a later date.

Thanks!

Yes.

You get to see your unofficial test scores on test day. Then you have the option to send these scores or not.

Also, you can always change your mind by sending additional score reports after the test day for a fee. If you provide the schools the day of the test, they are free.


how do supervisors determine that a phd student is not doing great? This question contains this:

  After months of work as an RA in a research group, at the end of the semester, my adviser informed me that he was not satisfied with my research and would not continue to fund me.

I am just curious, how do supervisors determine that a phd student is not doing great? What factors do they consider?

As a postdoc, I have supervised only Master's students. To determine how they are doing, I typically pay attention to three different aspects:

Ability to learn. Can students learn new skills (experimental or computational techniques)? The more advanced a student is, the more independence I'd expect here.
Understanding of subject matter. Does the student understand how their research fits in the broader research field, and why they are using the techniques they are using? Can the student come up with better ways of answering their research question/come up with a better question to answer/find the good question to ask?
Ability to prioritise. How easily does the student identify and work on the most important sub-question to answer? As a project comes close to being finished, can the student keep up a strong pace to deliver final results as quickly as possible?

I don't have a rule to determine when someone isn't doing good enough - I have never had to make that decision. Probably that decision would come when I find that, despite feedback, someone isn't improving on these aspects as I think they should.


How to look for a master's program? I am looking to join a masters program for next year. Unfortunately, I've found that comparing masters programs is difficult since the information is not displayed the same way in every university page. My question is: what is the best method to search masters, gather their information and analyze so as to make the best choice?

Other questions about searching masters is the following one, which is directly relates to the previous one: does exist any webpage, document or reference sorting masters and giving unified information about them?

You can also find search tools specific to regions, such as MastersPortal.eu. If you just need the same sort of general information that you will find on a program's Web site, all in one place, this will be useful.

If you know of a specific major that you want to study, many professional associations or organizations will put a long list of programs on their Web sites, see for example this list of linguistics programs at the LINGUIST list or this database of schools from the TESOL International Association. Sometimes these lists include detailed overviews of the programs, courses offered, and estimated costs, but usually not enough information to know about the quality of instruction.

For thorough student reviews and comparisons of schools, see StudentsReview. This Web site has various tools for searching for and comparing the various details of schools, based on your personal requirements, such as the University Comparison and the UltraSearch.


Counting PhD years for Tvöd salary in Germany I know about the calculation for the "Entgeltgruppe" and the following "stufe". My question is: if someone had a contract for, let's say, 3 years then this person needs 2 more years (non paid) to finish the PhD, this 2 extra years can be counted as working experience for the "stufe" calculation?

Probably not. "Work experience" assumes that the person is employed on a position relevant for the position that the "Stufe" is calculated for. From my experience, there is basically no flexibility in bending the interpretation of the TV-L/TV-H (I assume you mean either of them, since they are the relevant "Tarifverträge" for scientific employees).


What, if anything, is accomplished by formal assessment? As a faculty member teaching freshman calculus, I was recently asked to participate in an assessment program. The aim of the program is to "design assessment procedures to measure student learning". This year's program is a pilot and they are asking for volunteers; in the future, participation will apparently become required.

To make a long story short, the instructions are intended to be simple and involve a minimal amount of hassle, but for my course would not be. (In particular, we were told to accept a homework assignment over Blackboard, which is not easy as my students work in pencil and paper and may not have ready access to scanners.)

The drawbacks of this assessment program are obvious to me: they create hurdles for me and, even more significantly, for my students. I would rather spend time on my research and on helping students. And certainly my students would rather do something other than try to find a scanner.

What are the benefits? I can think of a cynical answer: it gives paper-pushers fodder for reports, and allows them the warm glow of feeling that they are accomplishing something. Are there less cynical answers? In particular, is this type of information frequently used to identify and make constructive improvements to undergraduate curricula?

People who promote quantitative education assessments believe that "educational achievement" is a valid research construct  (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_assessment)  With the proper instruments (a.k.a. tests and scoring systems), and with proper analysis (norms, scales, etc.), they believe it is possible and useful to draw inferences about the education system as a whole, or in part.

Broadly speaking, the advocates of standardized testing strongly believe that the only way to improve the education as a whole is to have "objective" measures of "reality" across teachers, across departments, across schools, across geographies. This "ground truth" data provides the basis for deciding what works and what does not, and for determining who is effective as educators and who is not.


If during revision process an author discovers and corrects errors not detected by reviewers, should the author inform the editor of these changes? I recently submitted my manuscript to Journal of optics (IOP Publishing). A couple of days ago, I received an email regarding initial decision on my paper. Thankfully, it is a "moderate revision". Referees also have made some comments about typos and grammar and a point or two about the core material of the paper which is only to clarify more. So far, it seems a possible acceptance for my paper. doesn't it?.

The thing is, when I was making the amendments based on the referees' comments, I found that four of the formulas used in the paper are incomplete and I wrote them wrongly. But it does not affect the rest of the paper in any way.  The reviewers did not notice these errors.

This is my first paper. I am a worried that they might reject the manuscript because there were some errors in the original submission that I have now corrected.

I am obliged to make a point-by-point response to the reviewers' comments and make a list of the changes made to the paper.

So, my questions are

Is it common for an author to detect additional errors in a paper during the process of making revisions?
Should I just correct them and make no mention of them in my report to the editor?

This is a straightforward question with a simple answer: correct whatever you find is wrong, even if it has not been raised by the reviewers.

I have an experience of more than 600 publications (see Google Scholar for instance) and have reviewed even more manuscripts as peer reviewer, editorial board member or editor, and it is commonplace to have the need and opportunity for improvements in a manuscript during the revision process.

Be candid, disclose the correction. Possibly don't say it was a mistake in the first place, but present it in a positive fashion, saying it is a correction or improvement in the paper.

In most cases reviewers and editors will be pleased by your self-reviewing effort.


the date of PhD award in France When a person is awarded PhD there is a date the Phd is awarded. This date is later used as an eligibility criteria for fellowship applications (i.e., time passed since the Phd was awarded). In France, there is a PhD defense. Assuming that the defense was successful, is the date of PhD defense becomes a date of PhD award? Or there are additional procedures and the date of PhD award is usually later?

Thanks.

The date the PhD is awarded is almost always the date of the defense in France (and it is usually the date of the defense that counts for France-specific deadlines, such as qualification, post-doctoral scholarships or PhD awards). The only exception I am aware of is
if the PhD is not awarded on the day of the defense (very rare, but it can of course happen!).

Note that the diploma is not typically issued on that day (and, indeed, may take months to be issued), but that it is possible to get a certificate the day itself or in the next few days. Graduate schools are aware of typical deadlines and typically help the student obtain this certificate by these deadlines.


What repercussions do I risk if I exclude my postdoc advisor from list of co-authors against his will? I am a postdoc in computer science. At the end of my first year I have submitted a paper to a reputable conference, co-authored by me, a PhD student and my adviser. It was recently rejected. Reason: it was a rushed submission at the insistence of my adviser, the project simply needed more time. Our submission was published as technical report on which he is a co-author.

At the beginning of 2nd year we have agreed that I will continue my work on this project and will turn it into a strong submission. Now, midway this project he gives me an "offer I cannot refuse": either I produce 2 papers or he fires me and expects me to finish the paper on my own.

To be short, he believes I cost him too much and is desperate to do some salami slicing. He wants to cut our planned strong paper into 2 weak halves. This could work, but could also lead to another round of rejects and wasted effort. In addition, the pace at which he expects me to work is unsustainable. Poor judgement and abuse, if you ask me. In addition, I quite disagree with his style of editing which emphasizes overstatements and "selling" over accurate technical contributions.

I expect to be fired any day now. His participation in this work, at least from my side, was financing me, supervising and editing the draft. By supervising I mean weekly meetings, listening, asking questions, mostly agreeing.

The research design and implementation is entirely mine. The original idea was proposed by some external collaborators who didn't wish to participate in this research.

My plan at this point is to remove the work of the PhD student (because it doesn't fit well the rest of the paper), add all the work I have done so far, re-write the whole paper and publish as sole author. According to ACM policy he won't have any substantial contributions left. As you can see from above, I question the quality of his contributions at all levels and am quite confident I can finish this work on my own.

He insists he still qualifies for co-authorship because he financed most of the research. However he is unwilling to finance me until the submission and expects me to finish the work on my own.

Question: What repercussions do I risk if I exclude him from co-authors?

I don't expect to get any good recommendation letters from him anyway, so this is not an issue.

His participation in this work [...] was financing me, supervising and editing the draft. The research design and implementation is entirely mine. The original idea was proposed by some external collaborators.

From what I see, I think that your supervisor deserves an authorship of this paper. I think that you also should at least offer the external collaborator a chance to contribute to the paper and become a co-author, too.

Your supervisor (PI) was working on a particular topic and presumably is an expert in this field.
Your PI has an established network of connections, and was able to realise that the idea of external collaborator can work for the problem you are working on. The decision to apply a particular idea to a particular problem is a risky decision, and (in case of success) a significant contribution.
Your PI hired you. This is a risky decision, which itself is a part of a wider research process. The choice of people working on the research project is itself a part of "research design".
Your PI listened to your ideas (at least during the interview) and
approved them. This is a part of "research design".
Presumably, you had a few research meetings with your PI, in which he listened to your ideas, corrected them and approved them. This is a part of "research design" (which is a continuous process).

The fact that your original manuscript was rejected (for which you are the principal author, I assume) can indicate that you are not yet prepared to write to a standard of independent academic researcher. That's why an advice your PI gives you is important and valuable. For this supervision process, and also formal editing on the manuscript, he (or she) deserves to be included as an author.

Now, to answer your question. If at this stage you decide not to follow your PI's lead, you will not benefit from his advice and support any more. Based on what you've said, it looks like this decision can significantly reduce your chance of becoming a successful academic researcher. A particular repercussion take a form of bad recommendation letters, cut off funding, lack of support in internal promotion process, cut off access to your PI's network of collaborators. But most importantly, it is lack of his personal support and advice. Academia is a complicated world, and many early career researchers (including some young professors) can not navigate themselves through it efficiently without a help of their mentor/supervisor/PI. The lack of this help is the most serious repercussion. Do not underestimate it.


What can cause the date of submission status to change without a change of status "under review" for Elsevier editorial systems? I have a paper submitted to a journal of Elsevier.

From "Manuscript Submitted" to "with editor" took one day; then it was  "with editor" for five days, and then "under review". One and a half months later, the status of the paper was still "under review", but the date of status has changed.

What can cause the date in the submission system to change in the absence of a change in status?

When a paper is assigned to a reviewer, the reviewer may decline or fail to review the paper.  In this case the editor will assign the paper to a new reviewer.  The status date will change at the day the new review was assigned, but the status will remain the same.


I have 3 months to submit my PhD thesis. What should be my strategy be like? I am going to write a manuscript based thesis. It will be having 4 manuscripts as chapters 3,4,5,6.
Chapters 1 and 2 will be introduction and literature review. While 7 will be on conclusions. Now, I still have 50% work left for chapter 6, which I will complete withinn two weeks max. And will write the chapter as I go about doing the simulations to get the results.

My question is, I have to submit my thesis by June end. Extension is not an option. I am freaking out about deadline approaching so fast.

So, what should be my strategy be to complete the thesis on time? I know this is a vague question. But any advice would be most helpful!!

Make an output schedule that will let you finish.  By "output" I mean completed material, e.g. a page a day.  For each day, work at least as long as necessary to stay with the schedule.

If you can do that, you'll finish on time.


Are faculty applicants hired at a level based on their current position? When a university appoints a faculty applicant, the rank is based on his/her current position or the university will judge about the academic rank independently?

I understand that each university has its own regulations for academic rank/promotion, but how much they consider the current position of an applicant?

This should be a serious issue when an applicant comes from another country with a different academic system.

Is it (even rarely) possible to appoint a currently full professor as assistant professor or vice versa?

Details may vary but in essence the following applies (assuming it is a research/teaching university):

Scientific publications. The list is judged on quality, usually determined by h-index, number of citations and publications per year in some combination.
Funding. The ability of the applicant to attract funds.
Academic experience. This could be anything from teaching through administrative tasks, within  a university or in international circles. the latter may be important since the person brings in a network of contacts.

Clearly, it is possible that a department may look for a younger promising scientists to build a new environment and many positions may be strategic to expand a department or to strengthen it uncertain ways. Hence the current position may have very little influence on the appointment. It all boils down to what the department is looking for.

Whether it is possible to employ a full professor as assistant or vice versa, is difficult to answer. generally, yes, but the meaning of full, associate, assistant professor varies and does not exist everywhere. So the picture is more complex here and I believe the search criteria is what is looked at. I can imagine, that being full professor may be a disadvantage if the position is looking for someone to be assistant but then it is up to the applicant to accept (or not) the conditions.


Why conferences are the main venue for CS research? Based on @JeffE's suggestion here, I see many CS researchers care mostly about conferences deadlines. Even when they want to read papers, usually they check the recent proceedings of different conferences.

Having a paper in IJCAI or AAAI for example, worth more than publishing in many ISI indexed journals with good reputation. I have no hard evidence for this but being in touch with CS research, I see little discussion about journal publications. why is that? is it good for the spirit of research in the CS field?

There's a reason CS folks cite when we obsess about conferences. The claim is that the field moves so quickly that conferences are more effective than journal for fast turn-around, and so better reflect the speed of developments.

I think this statement is partly true (conferences do have faster turnaround than CS journals) but misses the point entirely (there's no reason journals CAN'T have faster turn around time).

The real reason is the usual one. We got used to having conferences be the primary source of dissemination, and have no pressing reason to change. Having said that, the arxiv is more and more becoming the first choice of reading material and "hot off the presses" material, so I suspect that your question will become more and more moot as time goes on.


Quitting research halfway -- how unprofessional/irresponsible? for background: I am a second year Master's student in computer science. I had gone to the same university for undergrad. For my undergrad honors thesis (during last two semesters), I worked with a Professor on a paper which I had designed and implemented, and eventually wrote the manuscript for. The Professor was pleased with the work and the paper was submitted to the top journal in the field. This was over half a year ago. I stopped/withdrew from officially doing research 4 months ago, and two weeks ago the journal got back to us and said the paper can be accepted with major revisions.

The professor is excited of course, and I had told him that I would be available if further work is needed on this, but I honestly, honestly do not want to do research anymore. I am also in the processes of interviewing/finding a job among some other things, so I have a lot of things on my mind. But it would be leaving unfinished work that I started, and this seems very unprofessional. Since I worked on the manuscript/project alone, I feel like it would be a burden to him and others for me to just drop the paper because I'm "busy". It would also be going back on my word that I would be "available".

Basically, I feel bad. I'm not taking research for credit/graduation requirements, but I just feel bad. I have had trouble concentrating on anything for the past two weeks because this is constantly on my mind.

Question: How can I go about telling the Professor I don't want to work on this paper anymore? It is winter break right now, so I would be telling him over email. The professor is expecting me to begin working on the paper the second week of January.

Any advice or criticism is appreciated, thank you in advance. (Sorry that this is a child-like/emotion-based question, I'm not very good these types of things)

From a mathematician's point of view (I think the situation is fairly similar in CS): It should suffice to leave your research in a state where others can pick it up. For example:

Any preprints that are sufficiently presentable (if not necessarily polished enough for a referee's tastes) can be posted on a preprint repository, if necessary with comments about what parts need changes. If a refereeing process is already underway, and if you really want it out of your eyes, you can ask your coauthors or perhaps even other colleagues familiar with the project to take over the necessary correspondence and editing (although the latter arrangement is unusual). Otherwise, I suggest that you handle communication with referees for all papers you have already submitted.
Any work that hasn't progressed far enough to have presentable results can be handed over to some academics you trust, with explicit guidance as to what can be done with it (e.g., can they assign it to students? finish it on their own? send it to others?) and what sort of attribution you expect (e.g., coauthorship or acknowledgments).

People won't mind you stopping to do research (at least not in math and CS; it's different in other disciplines where you have labs and collaborators heavily relying on one another); but they will mind if you leave a mess of unfinished work behind that they can neither use nor redo, like leaving your clothes in a shared dryer for hours.


How common is flipped classroom type teaching? Flipped classroom teaching has become gradually more popular and studies show that the effectiveness of learning is better than in traditional lecture type courses. I've tried to give feedback to my own university after courses that this should be pursued, but so far there has been no changes here.

I'd like to know what percentage of courses are using flipped classrooms and how it varies between geographical location and subject/field. I would assume that fields with complex systems to learn would have greater benefits using flipped type compared to traditional lectures.

The question explicitly asked is not that suitable for this forum. There is a answerable question hidden however: How to encourage a specific teaching style in a university?

Just "giving feedback to the university" will achieve exactly nothing. Universities are huge bureaucratic monsters with immense inertia build in. What you can do depends on your role in the university:

If you are teaching, then lead by example. In the universities I have been at there always was a department aimed at improving the quality of university teaching, and these are your natural allies. Contact them. Maybe they can broker contact with other teachers who want to do this or are already doing this. If you reach a critical mass, beautiful things can happen.

If you are a student then your options are fairly limited.


How thoroughly do referees review papers submitted to theoretical computer science conferences? Theoretical computer science conferences usually have a review period of about two months. Programming committee members have potentially dozens of papers to review, alongside their regular day jobs. How thoroughly are papers usually reviewed? What kind of heuristics are often employed to review papers faster? Does correctness of every proof get verified in detail, or do reviewers put some trust into the authors getting it right?

It varies.  As a first year PhD student I was asked to review a theory paper, even though I had almost no background in the field.  The professor explicitly said I only had to read the first half of the paper, and I only had to tell him if it looked interesting and correct.

At the same time I'm sure many reviewers do a diligent job and don't outsource their reviewing to inexperienced graduate students.

Related: http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1760


Being sure of date of publication of a book I am practicing making citations of quotes and I am currently stuck on
publication dates.

To illustrate my issue, let’s use this this book:

The front pages state the copyright date as three separate years, which I have no idea how to interpret (see image below).
I checked on Google, and I found this on Amazon stating the publication date of Aug 10, 2010.
Checking the official site of publisher, I see "© 2011".

Do I need to make assumptions when taking the date, e.g., taking the first date from copyright without being certain that it is the correct publication date? I know I can contact the publisher and ask, but that seems like (a) a lot of work and (b) it’s pretty unlikely I’ll get a reply. I want to know if there are any tips on making sure that the publication date of the book is correct.

The three dates you see are the years the copyright was renewed. You probably just want the most recent of those dates, as that's the edition of the book you're working with.

Note that it can get more complex than that—edition and copyright date are not always the same—but its definitely good enough for citations.


Handling "contraband" tattoos in closed-book exams I'm wondering how a proctor of a closed-book exam should approach the case where a student has a tattoo that would double as a cheat sheet. Maybe they think the math looks cool, or they got a nice calligraphy of a textbook passage, or they are just that desperate to cheat.

Now, on one hand, that tattoo is pretty much a permanent fixture. On the other hand, that is a cheat sheet written on your forearm. In fact, it might be a particularly brazen attempt at cheating. And on the gripping hand, the fact that a resource is available for easy reference whenever needed doesn't carry much weight in the context of a closed-book exam.

At least in my university, the general rule for exams is "No written material unless expressly permitted", and most of the exams that permit bringing a "cheat sheet" have had a restriction on the sheet size (e.g. one-sided hand-written A4 paper). Therefore, a situation may well arise that a student shows up for an exam with the maximum-sized cheat sheet, and some related math (purportedly) tattooed on their forearm. If I find myself proctoring an exam and this happens, how should I approach the situation?

This is an entirely hypothetical question so far, so I'm unable to provide details of a real-life example.

"Cover it up" seems the only realistic solution if it appears to be a tattoo.

However, since we're discussing this in the hypothetical, writing a theorem on your arm may serve as a nice reminder of a basis from which to work on problems, but it can't really answer something useful for you. Just as younger students tend to look at their fingers when counting, they still have to put in the work of translating an abstract numerical problem to their fingers, then "read" the information from their hand, and finally write their answer down. We don't restrict their fingers as counting tools. Advanced students make more elaborate associations between concepts they're learning and something concrete -- this is usually encouraged by instructors when we explain things in plain language or metaphors. So, your question makes me think about what questions I'm asking my students. If it's just "Write down this definition from memory", then maybe I'm not going deep enough in the topic. Suppose instead that I said something like "Here's a definition of a key term you can look up anywhere, or tattoo it on your arm if you really like it! Now, which of the following things matches this description?"


What's the standard text that I should put at the bottom of a handout containing unpublished data, asking people not to cite it? I'm giving a handout out at an upcoming lecture. It contains unpublished data that will soon (within the next year anyway, if accepted) be published. I trust the people at the conference to respect my wishes. What's a polite footer to include at the bottom of the handout to these ends?

This is not a situation that calls for subtlety.  I recommend adding large bold capital letters across the top of the first page:

  PRELIMINARY VERSION — DO NOT CITE OR DISTRIBUTE

I would also include a footnote at the bottom of the title page indicating where the final version will be made available.


Can a thesis not answer the research question and still be good? I have written a thesis about applying some AI techniques to a simulation that my professor introduced. To make this happen, I had to implement a very large amount of software, because the simulation works in another language, follows different principles etc.

After 6 months of hard work, I did not reach my goal. I was not able to actually implement the AI technique I wished to apply to the problem. I created a lot of reusable components that future developers (and in fact other students as I was told) will want to use. But the actual question and also the title of the thesis (which both had to be fixed ahead of time and cannot be changed once it has been started) don't match the main body of my work.

Can a thesis still be considered good even if the question was not answered because it was not "reached"? If not, why? If yes, why? I can imagine this going either way but I'd like to hear opinions and experiences.

Basically I would require another 1-2 months and maybe someone to work on the problem as a team to get new ideas. I believe I still worked in a scientific manor (I prioritized reusability and usefullness over just reaching the question but without it being easily reusable) and no one ever said science is only good if it never misses a deadline. But I can also imagine an argument that simply states an unanswered research question is a bad work.

My original intention was to apply this AI technique to the common example research problems (like Atari games or locomotion) but my professor insisted I apply it to his field of work (energy market simulation). I had to agree if I wanted him to take my thesis and I didn't know how complex the mapping of his problem to the commonly used tools would be. The argument "a good researcher is also capable of creating a reasonable problem scope" therefore is a little unfair as he sort of forced me to extend it.

Alternative B I write a preface / authors comment at the beginning, stating that the title/research question won't be matched but due to university regulations may not be changed retrospectively.

Alternative C: A fellow researcher recommended me to just change the question and content but ignore the title. I hand in my thesis under the forced title but publish it under a more suitable title. That seems a little "fake" as I don't want to lie about my original goal and me missing the final goal.

Edit: Most suggestions go along the lines of "depends on your professor or institution". While I fear this is probably the only right answer that helps me personally, it doesn't seem right that it depends on the professors attitude or personal opinion. From an abstract perspective, is it OK to rate a scientific work as a bad work if it fails to reach a previously defined target when new information came to light along the way? Probably not. But is it common practice to change the research question at the end to better match / suit the line of argumentation? It seems to me the question should reflect what the researcher asked him/herself when he/she started the inquiry. If the results are not what was expected, that doesn't mean it's bad results.

The short answer to your question is yes, you can have a good result even if you don't (completely) answer the original question. However, the advice you really need is from your professor. Don't express negative feelings about how he "forced" you or anything like that. Ask him for his analysis of your work and how to best position it.

Many research questions take a long time to resolve. Don't be discouraged by that.

But the work isn't a failure, and you, especially, shouldn't think of it that way. You want to ask yourself, however, "What, exactly, did I demonstrate in this work". Your wording of the rest should revolve around answering that question and showing how you did a good job of it.

You can have a final section that discusses how this work is part of a larger work and briefly describe the problem you started out to solve.

However, some of your statements confuse me. You seem to be saying that at some earlier point you gave a title to the university that makes a claim of success to the earlier question, and that that can't be revised. Such a policy would surprise me and I would make doubly certain that you are correct. But advice from your professor would also be valuable here.

When it comes time to publish your work, there is no rule anywhere that I know of that restricts you in the title of the paper(s) that get produced. So even if you are sort of "stuck" with an inappropriate title, you can just treat it long term as an anomaly. You then have a little joke you can share with future students if you stay in academia.


How to cope with life changes and burnout after PhD thesis submission? The last year has been ridiculously difficult. I can easily say it has been 90h weeks 12 months in a row, with the hours taken of rest being vastly overshadowed by intense guilt (over not using that time to work) and inadequacy. I produced a lot of research, published 5 new papers, and produced a thesis which is now submitted for evaluation. On the day I submitted it (about a month ago), I couldn't even read a single sentence and maintain focus - that's how severe my burnout was. My sense of not being good enough permeated every aspect of my being.

I'm finding myself now getting better, slowly and surely. But the brain fog is ridiculously severe. I don't think I have lost intelligence, but the lack of care I feel for my current position as a research assistant eclipses all output I know I'm otherwise capable of producing (or used to be, anyway). On top of that, I feel more tired than usual. I easily need 1-2 more sleep in a day. Normally, I'd be exceptionally motivated to work out, and now I really could not care less. I adopted this "You don't have to do anything you don't want to do." attitude, in hopes to be kinder and gentler to myself as opposed to the whoo-tshh (whipping sounds) dictator I had employed to stay on track in my madness PhD.

I cannot fathom a job in this field anymore, I cannot stand the endless thinking up of made-up projects to pursue research grants. I want out of academia, and this both excites and terrifies me. I feel largely inadequate as a computer scientist joining industry post-PhD because I just spent 3 years of my life not getting industry experience.

I feel lost. Like there's a daily existential crisis. I don't know what to do with my life, and what's worse, I don't even know if I'll recover from this. I mean, what even is this? PTSD? Burnout? Needing a break after excruciating intense labour and emotional distress?

How can I deal with the life changes and the drop in motivation after having submitted my PhD? How do I deal with the remaining burnout?

The first thing to do is to get rid of the 90 hour weeks, and resolve never to get back into that trap. There is a lot of experience suggesting that the maximum weekly output for intellectual jobs is produced at around 40 hours a week. Going beyond that reduces actual production, because of more mistakes and less creative thought. Your mileage may vary, but it would be very unusual for 90 hours to be optimal.

You need to accept that sleep, exercise, relaxation, and social life are all essential to achieving maximum productivity when working, and to general mental and physical health. If you feel intense guilt when not working, and cannot change that by yourself, you may need some sort of counseling to help you get a healthier attitude.

The mental issues you describe could just be because you got into a bad habit of working too long and relaxing too little. On the other hand, there could be an underlying problem that needs a professional. I am not qualified to evaluate that, and agree with the suggestion in comments that you should consider counseling.


Dress Code for Online MBA Bi-Annual Residency Requirement? I'm a new student in the inaugural class of an online MBA program at at large public university (25k undergrad, 8k graduate students). There is a bi-annual in person residency requirement and the dress code communicated to us is business casual. I work in operations management in the space industry and my daily dress code is jeans and t-shirt; some even rock shorts but I think thats a bit bold. I previously worked in a suit and tie everyday office and I'll take the jeans any day.

My question is should I bend the knee and wear khakis and a long-sleeve button up? Or should I wear what is comfortable ans representative of the industry I come from? Is jeans and a polo slumming it too much?

The good news: you don't need to wear a tie.

I doubt shorts will ever fly for this residency component; as to whether new-looking jeans will work -- you won't know until you have a chance to see what the Romans are wearing.  If you ever get to the point of experimenting by wearing jeans one day -- try it on a Friday the first time and see what happens.

If you get tired of wearing a tailored shirt, you can probably get away with a new-looking polo shirt (i.e. not stretched out, no grease spots).  In warm weather, I see nothing wrong with using short sleeves.  Shirts cut straight across and worn untucked are probably fine too.  But your T-shirts are temporarily going to have to be relegated to after-work and weekend wear.

I do recommend a tucked-in shirt and a jacket for at least the first couple of days.  Your goal is to start out the program with no personality -- without sticking out and looking like someone who has wandered into the wrong picnic or the wrong classroom.

In short, bite the bullet and enjoy the fact that you don't need to wear a tie.


What are the academic career prospects for someone in their late 30's starting a PhD? I'm in my late 30's and started a Ph.D. program and am wondering what my academic career prospects are. From my understanding, after the Ph.D., there are 2-3 years of postdoc, then 4-6 years of tenure-track before becoming a Prof. Is that correct?

My field is machine learning (or artificial intelligence) and I'm in the US.

I think the answer here is that it depends on a lot of factors, but that you'll generally do better in the Machine Learning field than you would in many of the older, more established fields.

For starters, there's just not that many people out there with PhDs in Machine Learning.  I'm an economist, but I've spent a lot of time working around the edges of machine learning and data science.  Many of the faculty in that area have degrees in different but related fields.  Econ, stats, math, and computer science are common.

Machine learning is also an incredibly hot field right now.  Before I went back to academia I worked in applied research, and finding an experienced person with a "data scientist" title in their job history was a nightmare.  Private sector jobs are common, and the salaries are high, which pulls people away from academia.

So while being an older graduate hitting the job market may be a challenge in academia, I think the shortage of talent available in this field will offset it.  Especially if you have relevant work experience in data science, research, and/or machine learning from before now.

On a side note, unless your goal is specifically to do PhD research (i.e. are you interested in applying ML in teaching or research, or are you interested in working on the mathematical underpinnings?) in the field and earn tenure, you can accomplish a lot, even in academia, with a master's degree in this field.  Might be something to explore if you decide not to go the whole way.


The Formality and Informality Relationship in Academia To the point, I think I am suffering from the lack of the interpersonal skills and especially while working with supervisors. My character is quite good, I can make good connections and etc, however, I looks dumb while dealing with supervisor and I think this would leave a negative impression.

My new supervisor asked me to call him with Dr.X, and I felt so much shy to call his name directly, he didnot comment later, but I do think their actions said I am boring, dull, and maybe end hating me as happened in my previous PhD, my ex-supervisor commented once time, that he didnot like that I am using " kindly" in email,  in the end , I feel I am not likeable even if I did a good work.

Another issue is my tone of voice shows that I am arrogant person, and this happened today, another senior professor had a facial expression which wasnot good, although I would like to deliver the idea, but I fail apparently.

I am so afraid to commit another inadvertent mistake and it seems academia policy is harsh. I dont know whether with my personality I can keep in academic world, I dont want to be an ordinary lecturer, I want to be a leading researcher in my research field, but given the facts, I am way off.

The question:Is there coaching techniques that could help me, I am very sensational, kind, but supervisors apparently see me dull, boring, and arrogant which hinder me to deliver my ideas and suggestions.

I do think that interpersonal skills are important in academia. A few ideas:

1) Tell your supervisor you would like to improve at this. Ask for suggestions on improving your verbal communication and email communication. Consider asking if there is a particular person who is effective at this that you could learn from.

2) Ask your friends to read over your email and have “practice conversation” with you while you are working on improving this. In important situations I always have friends read my emails before sending (common among my group of Asst Professors who are trying to climb the ladder).

3) Keep examples of effective correspondence. I have a coauthor who is loved by everyone and who is a master at asking for things in a polite yet firm way. I often refer to his emails to get ideas for my own.

4) For the arrogance problem, be careful how you state your facts. I have a student who will often state his opinion as a fact. Or will state something I taught him the day before as a fact he is explaining to me without acknowledging that I was the one who taught it to him! I know this is a cultural difference, so I try to be patient with this, but it is difficult because really dislike it. Consider using phrases like “As you know,...” “As you explained to me...” “I recently read in X journal that...” “To the best of my knowledge,...”

5) It also seems that your supervisors don't respond well to your disagreements. First, you are right to "pick your battles" as you have stated. In some cases you might decide not to disagree. My old boss used to say, "This will become self-revealing," by which he meant that the incorrect party will eventually realize the problem without a direct disagreement (it will become clear in the data, from other sources better positioned to disagree, etc.). Second, you need to learn to disagree diplomatically and tactfully. One approach is to distance yourself from the disagreement. Instead of saying, "I think this approach is wrong." you might say, "I understand that many people use this approach. I have also read some papers recently that argue that another approach is an improvement on that method in certain cases." You might also try to lead them in the direction you want to go by making it their idea. This usually comes down to asking questions. "Are there any extensions of that method in the recent literature? Are there any cases where that method is less preferred? What feedback about that method have you received from reviewers?" Basically, you want to disagree without being disagreeable and always allow the other party to save face.


I am confused if this professor will fund me or not, I feel it is rude to ask directly Recently I applied for a summer research internship in a lab in South Korea.
This was the reply from the prof.

  Dear Student,

  Thank you for contacting me for internship.
  You have worked with an excellent scientist, Dr. Manhattan, which draws my attention.
  With his recommendation letter, I am willing to host your internship in my lab.
  What you shall study, unless you have something else particularly in mind, will be numerical calculation similar to what is in the attached paper.

  Best regards,

  Professor X

What does he mean by "host"? Does it mean funding? How do I go on about asking him politely about it?

What does he mean by "host"?

Host means (at a minimum) that you can work in the lab - the professor will provide space for you during the internship.

  Does it mean funding?

It is ambiguous. This partially depends on what you asked for in your original letter asking for an internship.

  How do I go on about asking him politely about it?

Being hired is still contingent on a good recommendation letter from Prof XXXX. Assuming you can wait for that letter, I would ask about the terms of the internship after the letter is delivered when you confirm that the professor has received it and is still interested in hiring you for the internship. You still need to confirm that you are interested in working on the topic in the provided paper.

Asking about a list of different things can take off some of the stress around asking about funding directly. You can, for instance, ask about dates of employment, expected hours, whether there is a travel or housing allowance, and whether there is a stipend. You might also ask about whether you'd work with others in the lab and expectations for publishing.


Can a research publication have a bad impact on your career? When I was starting out in my Masters degree, I had an idea of a publication that could be completed in a small amount of time. I was starting out and I felt it would get me at ease with research after publishing this idea.

My idea was like a comparison between two different techniques of solving a problem and the paper could be completed in a week. However, My supervisor told me that I could get a publication for this idea but he recommended me not to waste my efforts on a low quality publication and focus on a long term high to medium quality publication.

So my question is would it have badly affected my research career if I had published that paper?

First, regarding your comment that “if [the paper] was so bad it would not have been published”: in my experience, pretty much anything is publishable, it all depends on the journal. Don't overestimate the field: there are journals out there that publish absolute crap. And that is not only my opinion, e.g.

  in many cases, Bentham Open journals publish articles that no legitimate peer-review journal would accept

Now, the initial question is: how bad can it be? Well, it can be bad. As a researcher (or wannabe researcher), your publications list is like an artist's portfolio. When you look for a job, apply for a grant or try to recruit new team members, this is what they will judge you on.

Now, for a young student (say undergrad or MSc level), one weird paper would not completely freak me out. It would mostly speak to me about the quality of the tutor/advisor/program director: a newbie can sure get a wrong idea at some point, but how come noöne was there to tell him it was a wrong idea? On the other hand, if he was told and did not listen, it might speak to his character!


Can a department revoke a degree, once granted by the university? I’ve just completed a graduate degree at a university in the UK, as an older student.

The department, IMO, is a mess of politics, fickle actions, and backstabbing. Whilst here, I have been pushed, abused, called names, intentionally failed and ignored.

A few others have suffered the same fate and it has dealt more than a few low blows, so much so that it has made me severely depressed.

I finally got my course completed, received notification of passing and confirmation of my degree award.

Recently, I learnt that I may be facing yet another confusion with my department (regarding my choosing to publish dissertation findings with a certain professor (dissertation supervisor) and not including the department head).

Please can you let me know if my degree can be taken away, i.e, revoked, from now to graduation ceremony? (No plagiarism or fraud)

My question specifically is, can a whimsical and angry department head revoke a degree once granted by the university?

Absent plagiarism, fraud, or other academic sanction, it would be difficult to revoke an awarded degree. There would have to be strong evidence for doing so, and it’s not often attempted, in part because of the likelihood of legal action.

So, I would normally say don’t worry about it. However, in a dysfunctional department, anything could happen, and you should be prepared to act in that unlikely event.


Governance Committee and Full Faculty Part of my function is to head the committee that ultimately oversees the system of rules used in faculty governance.  I was wondering if anyone had experienced a governance system that was particularly effective in giving faculty time to consider upcoming issues and in amending or altering committee driven work in an effective manner?  I am wanting to increase the amount of deliberation external to committees, without slowing the process down significantly.  Still, I am looking for someone who has experienced a very effective rules structure or communication structure and who could share it.  We are a small private institution, but we are surprisingly formal in governance.

We had some luck in using a Wiki to do this, provided someone has the technical chops to set one up. The benefit is multiple people can comment and provide feedback and everyone can see who's said what. The only drawback we had to this system was that everyone commented at the last minute.

The most important and perhaps hardest part is making sure everyone knows what a wiki is and how to use it.  The specific problems we had were things like people printing things out and marking them up, people writing their own pages instead of working collaboratively, and the inevitable whole nuking of pages of work to make a minor change.  Just required being very clear and explicit, with examples.


Ad hoc work detracting from PhD project Setting
I am a graduate student in a quant/informatics group (size = 2 people: my advisor and I) housed within a larger academic group that do wet laboratory/bench research. I have my own project independent of those in the larger bench research group.

Problem
We often get requests from the bench researchers for some data analysis. My advisor has been passing all these ad hoc requests to me and I do duly comply.

Anticipated consequence
If the current pace of requests continues, I think that my PhD project will suffer.

What actions should I take and why?

Step 1: Gather data. For an appropriate period of time, keep a record of who asks for what task and how long each task takes to do. If you have comparable control data from before the requests started flooding in, track progress on your own project also, so that you can demonstrate the damage to your own work.

Step 2: Bring the problem to your advisor. Show your advisor the data. Explain what you need in terms of time: X amount of time for your own work per Y work period. Ask your advisor how best to make that happen (do bring ideas if you have them, but be open to things you haven't thought of).

Step 3: With your advisor's support, bring the problem to the rest of the research group. You should do this with proposed solution(s) in hand (one common Organization Hack is to bring two or three possible solutions, any of which would content you, in order to limit the apparent options to wins for you).

Derailment is possible here, especially if your advisor is unsympathetic, but a calm and data-driven approach is likeliest to achieve your aim.


Multiple accounts of plagiarism (?) during literature study: are my standards too high or should I take action? I'm currently doing my literature review in preparation for my graduation (masters degree) thesis work at a Dutch university. The past semester I worked as a student assistent on a first-year project, that had quite a heavy focus on learning to properly cite and refer to source material. Together with the project supervisor, we'd run all student reports through plagiarism checking software. If we found anything wrong or suspicious, we confronted the students and explained them that their current practice was not the way to go. For example, when a group failed to put quotation marks if they'd literally copied something, we gave them a warning, even though they did include a reference. We upheld high standards.

Fast forward to my current work doing my literature research, in which I'm trying to figure out and document the exact workings of a number of software programs - in order to make a detailed comparison supporting selection of a subset of these programs for inclusion in my thesis research. Some of these codes are well-known and open source, others are quite obscure. Especially for the less-known ones, I'm coming close to the point of having read (or at least: knowing about the existence of) all sources there are on that program, and where I'm able to basically guess what paper a numerical reference points to - simply based on content.

Today, I've come across a PhD-thesis in which a full paragraph was directly copied (not formatted as a blockquote or similar) from a journal publication, not written by the PhD-candidate or supervisors. That paper is mentioned (on a previous page), but quotation marks are absent from the copied paragraph. This is not the first time I've seen something like this (also noted a few conference papers doing this) and it leaves me quite confused.

If this is acceptable, aren't the standards I used to teach to my student groups ridiculously high? I'm also adhering to these standards, which not always comes easy. For example, I'm sometimes going through hell and back again to find the original source of something and/or including secondary references, other times including lengthy footnotes on how I think contradictory information might have been mangled up in a chain of citations and pointing out potential errors in peer-reviewed publications. Similarly, I feel I'm walking the line when putting "The information in this section is obtained from reference X, unless indicated otherwise", rather than including a reference after every individual sentence in that section.
If this is not acceptable (and the 'high' standards are indeed the standards), what should I do about the plagiarised texts I have come across - and might come across in the remainder of my review? Accept it, shrug it off and do better myself, or take this up with somebody from university?

I realise there might not be an absolute, factual answer to this question - but I'm hoping it is 'allowed'. Other knowledgeable sources that I know are employed at this university and I'd rather first get some external advice/ideas - before becoming the whistle-blower or wrongly accuse people.

Edited the first and second paragraphs (italicized parts) for clarity.

It's also worth noting that conventions on citing and quoting are not universal, and can vary between academic communities.  For example, in mathematics, it is quite common to copy definitions or statements of theorems verbatim, or nearly verbatim, from other papers.  The precise wording and notation can be critical, so wholesale paraphrasing is risky.  However, the convention in this field is that quotation marks are not used in such cases, though a citation should usually appear.  Likewise, if a definition or statement is "common knowledge", it might be that every paper discussing it uses almost identical wording (maybe without citations), even though they have not consciously copied from each other.

(I don't really know how this practice arose, but one point is that it often happens that you want to state a theorem almost verbatim, but modify the notation to match what you're using in the present paper.  Now it's not an exact quote anymore, so you can't strictly use quote marks, and noting your amendments with brackets could be very confusing when mathematical notation is involved.)

This can add up to several paragraphs or pages of "copied" text over the course of a paper.  A newcomer to the field might see this and be horrified by the blatant "plagiarism", but within the field it's regarded as perfectly proper.

Additionally, it's completely normal in mathematics to write things like "The material in this section comes mainly from [3]" without adding [3] to every other line.  It's more about common sense than following rules.

So, the moral is to make sure you're calibrating your standards properly to the specific discipline in which you're working.


Letter writer snapped at my reminder email. What can I do in the future to prevent this, and should I still accept his letter? I sent a reminder email one day before the due date for a couple of my applications to grad school. It said something along the lines of

  This is just a reminder that first due dates are tomorrow: [list of a
  couple of schools]. Hope you aren't too busy to write still. If you
  haven't received an email from these schools on instructions let me
  know.

I also sent "resends" to this professor's email via the schools' application portals. The professor responded with something like

  You've already sent a list of deadlines [I did, but this was about a
  month ago]. It is NOT helpful to send repeated reminders.

I thought it was standard to send reminders before deadlines, especially if due dates are tomorrow with no letter sent. I feel that I have said or done something wrong. How can I prevent this from happening in the future?

I am now not only reluctant to send reminders for January schools, but I am now worried about the strength of this professor's letter. I have four letter writers, and I am tempted to drop his letter on some January schools. The reason for this is that this is not the only time he has been a bit snappy with me, although never like this. But I did tell him a while ago that I did not want his letter if it would not be strong, and yet he still agreed to write for me. So assuming he is honest about that, I feel I should maybe keep his letter.

This is all a little confusing and stressful. Thanks for your time to read.

How can I prevent this from happening in the future?

Well, you can always go live on a desert island, or join an order of silent monks (and even living among monks would not guarantee that you will escape such foibles of human nature).

More seriously: you can’t prevent it, and you shouldn’t try either. You did absolutely nothing wrong by sending a reminder email. For every professor who responds irritably to your emails there are at least ten others who would appreciate your reminder email, and for some of them the reminder would even be needed to get them to upload their letter. Thus, you stand to lose much more than you will gain by changing your behavior because of the professor’s response. Just accept that working with other people necessitates occasionally having some strange and perhaps unpleasant interactions (trust me, you will have many more), and move on.

By the way, I also think it’s highly unlikely that the professor will modify his recommendation because of your email — that would be an extremely unprofessional and unethical thing to do, much more so than replying irritably to an email. Anyway, good luck with your applications.


Forgot to finish final paper submission in a conference I just realised that I forgot to submit the final version of a paper for a conference, and the deadline just passed last week. What should I do in this case? I contacted the publishing office but they said they are not accepting paper submissions.

You're probably out of luck here. You can try to email one of the conference chairs or whoever might be higher up the chain than the publishing office, but that's a bit of a long shot, especially a week after.

I'm so sorry this happened to you. I've come close to missing a deadline once or twice and I now set days worth of reminders just to be sure I don't mess anything up.