Doing a math PhD with a great deal of student debt If you have undergrad / master's degree student loans, but are fortunate enough to get into good PhD programs (with funding), how do you practically manage your debt situation?

A few things to address. First, note that a Ph.D is not a good financial choice. There are plenty of articles you can Google for, I'll link one but there's plenty more. Another thing to note is that the academic job market isn't that great, there is a problem with many people getting stuck in postdoc and adjunct positions, though there is data to show it's not as bad for mathematicians. If you are choosing to do a Ph.D, make sure you understand that it will not help you increase your wealth, but you're choosing this because it's a career path you wish to pursue.

Keeping this in mind, you choose to do a Ph.D and it's hard to find money. Financial advice helps, but when your income is low, the best help is to find more income and spend less money. What can you do? One thing to note is that in many ways you have your hands tied. Many times fellowships and departmental funding will have a requirement that you cannot have other sources of income, so having a night job is usually not an option (speaking in terms of the US). Thus you have to make do finding small amounts of help every way possible (always check with the administration that it's okay!). Small savings add up. Here are some things I found:

Find free food. Find the seminars which have food, and go. You can also use this to network at the same time, and/or use this as your downtime.
Find extra teaching / tutoring jobs. If your funding is a fellowship, they may let you TA as well for a bit extra cash. If you are already a TA, you can tutor local K-12 students in math for quite good pay. Another good place to look is at on-campus workshops that could use your talent. You can tutor / help out with programming workshops and other on-campus initiatives. These normally will pay minimum wage, but it also adds to your CV and again, everything adds up.
At my university, there are some paid positions in the graduate student council. It's an interesting experience where you will have to take some time lobbying state governments and other outreach activities. Again, builds the resume and brings in some cash.
Live on-campus and don't have a car. Use the fact that you need rides as time to catch-up with people. You'll be doing math so often that it will be nice.
Try to get a living wage by doing something applied. This depends on your interests, but one thing that most mathematicians don't know is that salaries in different departments can be vastly different. At my university, students in the School of Biological Sciences get almost double the pay of math students. This is due to differences in salaries set by NIH vs NSF. Could you do the same kind of research in a Mathematical/Computational Biology program? Or find an adviser that could pay for you at a salary closer to bio students? This can make a huge difference. Even if you want to do something "pure", take a good look into this. There are applications for any math if you look hard enough, and so it's a balance between choosing to do what you want to do and what the general public thinks is more valuable (whether they are right or wrong...). It's at least something to think about.
Find award money. Many times there are monetary awards for best posters, best presentations, etc. Most of these are more "outreach" types of presentations, i.e. not for mathematicians, but some university-wide project partnered with industry. Look out for these and have a cool "my math for the general public" presentation ready.
Eat cheap. Get a big rice cooker and have that be the big part of each meal. It'll help cut down on costs.
Don't do it alone. Live with friends / family / significant other. Eat together. Buy in bulk from Costco with others and share the savings.
Plan ahead for summers. Plan to do extra teaching, or look into things like GRIPS which can give a supplemental summer income if you have a summer fellowship. You'd have to check with your adviser and the administrators that this is okay with the terms of your fellowship.
Understand your health benefits. Many universities give you health care as part of the funding. In addition to the standard health benefits, my university has extra goodies like an on-campus dental care where you can get a free dental cleaning every 6 months. Using these kinds of services will help you stay healthy without spending much.


Severe regrets because I lied in my PhD application I am an international Physics PhD student who is currently finishing his second year successfully, with one publication and others in preparation. However, I have a problem that has not let me sleep properly since day 1 and I need to vent it out with you.
When I applied, for some stupid reason I mentioned on my CV that I was a teaching assistant for two terms (in an area I am pretty good at) when in reality I was not. I won't go too much into details but I attribute this behavior to extreme low self-esteem and mental health issues that I have had since I was a teenager due to a very traumatic period in my life and more than lying with ill intentions to the admission committee in order to get an advantage I was lying to myself. I did not even realize what a horrendous mistake I had made at the time, and it also did not help that nobody from my former lab checked my CV before I sent it. As a result I have been in therapy since 1 year ago to understand the causes and threat my compulsive lying and me and my therapist believe that I have made important progress.

I don't think the lie was important for my acceptance (the PhD is 100% research based without coursework and teaching duties) and scholarship and every other part of my application was 100% truthful (1 publication at the time, top 5% of my cohort, outstanding letters of recommendation, internships, academic awards, etc) but I still can't get over what I did as I feel extremely bad as a person and also fear every day that I will somehow be caught and get expelled or get my degree revoked in the future. My supervisors are the most competent, intelligent but also the most kind and loving persons I have ever met, so while I have wanted to come clean for a long time I don't want to disappoint them. Besides, I have improved immensely as a person while living abroad in this beautiful country and have never been as happy in my life; I honestly think that getting expelled would have horrible consequences for my mental health, future dreams and finances and God knows how long it would take me to recover completely if ever.
What do you recommend me to do in this case?

I appreciate the question.

I think we can all agree that you should not have lied on your graduate application.  It is to your credit that you recognize this.  That said, as a frequent thesis advisor and the recent head of Graduate Studies in my department, I feel that the main victim of this lie is...you.  If a student of mine told me they had done that, I would thank them for telling me, confirm that they should not have done it, make sure they understand that they must never falsify any academic documents again...and then get on with business.

Cutting the funding of a successful student for this kind of indiscretion that occurred before their arrival is, for me, just not a reasonable thing to do.  It is an interesting thought experiment to wonder what percentage of the graduate students in my department had an undergraduate indiscretion as bad or worse than this.  Rough guess: somewhere between one third and one half?  It is all but impossible to know and also very subjective.

You have to deal with your bad behavior in the past.  An unfortunate fact of the matter is that it is often not possible or not optimal to directly fix past bad behavior.  That can be an unsettling thought -- for me too, by the way.  Based on the sleepless nights you describe, I am really glad that you are talking to a therapist about this and figuring out what you can do indirectly to move on with your life.

Here's an idea: you say you are doing very well in the program.  That's great.  Is there some optional service task you could take on in the program (or the department or the school or the profession)?  I think that could be beneficial, both in reality and in your own mind.  That way, when you think about the bad thing you did two years ago, you can also think "Yeah, I feel bad about that, but I feel good about X that I am doing now."  By the way, if you do it, you certainly should put it in your CV, but if (and only if) it seems helpful for you to be a bit modest/understated about it, you could pitch it that way.

Good luck.


How to efficiently proofread my own mathematical paper? The main purpose of this question is to collect some advices to efficiently proofread my own mathematical paper (when there are two authors or more, it is easier since one is supposed to read what the others write). When we write mathematics, there are a lot
of not so minor mistakes we can make:

We omit to introduce a notation.
Non-uniform notations.
A sum should stop at n+1, not at n but the last term is not important.
Etc...

Of course, we would like to limit the number of such mistakes in order to save the reader's (and referee's) time.

One possibility is to wait a long period of time in order to "forget"  and read what is written, and not what we have in mind. Although "hurry for publishing" is very bad, we cannot always wait a lot of time (thesis defense, applying for post-doc/permanent position) and we would like to make the process fast.
An other possibility is to send a draft of the paper to a colleague. But he may be busy and not read too much into details. Anyway, when we are alone to write a paper, we would like to send to the colleague a document without too much typos and mistakes mentioned in the beginning of the question.

A general technique, applicable not only to mathematical papers, is to list common mistakes, such as the one you noted. Then, you do a revision of your paper for each item on the list: reading only to look at uniformity, reading only to look if you introduce all notations, etc.
I've picked up this tip in the following book and it has worked well so far.
The book also suggest to reduce the familiarity with your text, so you might be able to read it as a "new" reader and thus find mistakes or parts that are not clear. You could do that by putting away the manuscript for a few days/weeks, printing it, changing the font, etc.


Travel reimbursement for interview after accepting another position I know a PhD student (X) who is soon to defend, reaching the end of his funding, and has thus been applying to PostDoc positions. He was applying to two positions in two different groups.

The first group (Y) invites him to present in person and suggests that he buy his own tickets, where expenses will be reimbursed upon arrival; he is very interested in the position and complies, buying the flight at considerable cost (15+ hours flying on two legs).

After buying the ticket, the second group (Z) requests an online talk and interview; he again is very interested in the position and complies, presenting the talk and doing the interview online. Shortly after, the second group offers him the position. Being very interested in the position and not wanting to appear unsure or ungrateful, he accepts a few hours after the offer is made, and a week before being due to travel to the first group.

Not wanting to be feel deceptive towards the first group, he tells them about accepting another position and offers to travel anyways in order to give the talk he has been preparing for their group. The first group tells him not to come and that they will not reimburse any costs.

Question: is it ethical/unethical for the first group to refuse to reimburse costs?

I'm also interested in anecdotes, similar experiences, etc., to get an idea of how common or uncommon the first group's behaviour in this situation is.

On the one hand, the original reason why the first group offered to reimburse costs is now off the table.

On the other hand, the student has acted perfectly honestly throughout (almost to a fault) but ends up out of pocket having bought tickets at the first group's request.

(Of course someone has to take a loss, but in my mind, it should be the group who takes the hit, not a PhD student soon to run out of funding, and who again was simply complying with the group's instructions to remain in their hiring process ... and is now getting screwed in the process.)

(There's a couple of related questions like this one, but I don't find a question that addresses the issue of the interviewee being out of pocket.)

Both parties are at fault for not communicating the terms of the reimbursement clearly.

It is reasonable for the university to want to reimburse only interviews that were actually attended, and to not want to bother interviewing applicants who have already declined.
It is also reasonable for the student to want to get reimbursed when they have personally expended funds in good faith.

It's a bit difficult to even say what the university's policy for such things should be:

Not paying these expenses encourages applicants to lie, go through with the interview, and waste everyone's time in addition to money.
Paying these expenses encourages people to get an interview, cancel, and then use the free tickets for a vacation (doubt this happens all that often, but it's possible, and can be a major source of scandal).

Regardless: in the real world, I think it's rather unusual for institutions to reimburse interview expenses for an interview that never happened. Given this reality, applicants are the ones that have the burden of establishing the reimbursement terms before shelling out their own money.


Can you present data on non-participants? Are you allowed to present data on those who declined to participate in your study?

The following is an excerpt from a study on whiplash-traumas where the authors clearly publish some basic statistics on people who declined to participate [1].

  Emergency departments identified 6952 eligible participants, of which 3851 (55%) agreed to provide follow-up data (figure). People who participated were older (mean age 37 years vs 32 years) and more likely to be female (2133 [55%] of 3851 vs 1435 [42%] 3430) than the patients who did not participate, but not different in whiplash associated disorder grade.

[1] Lamb SE, Gates S, Williams M a., Williamson EM, Mt-Isa S, Withers EJ, et al. Emergency department treatments and physiotherapy for acute whiplash: A pragmatic, two-step, randomised controlled trial. Lancet [Internet]. Elsevier Ltd; 2013;381(9866):546–56. Available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(12)61304-X

This is standard practice. And it is necessary in order to detect selection bias.

The CONSORT initiative (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials) provides a flow chart that includes entries for "declined to participate" and dropouts in various follow-ups.

The American Psychological Association, in its Ethical Principles for Psychologists and Code of Conduct, section 8.05 "Dispensing with Informed Consent for Research", writes:

  Psychologists may dispense with informed consent only (1) where
  research would not reasonably be assumed to create distress or harm
  and involves (a) the study of normal educational practices, curricula,
  or classroom management methods conducted in educational settings; (b)
  only anonymous questionnaires, naturalistic observations or archival
  research for which disclosure of responses would not place
  participants at risk of criminal or civil liability or damage their
  financial standing, employability or reputation, and confidentiality
  is protected; or (c) the study of factors related to job or
  organization effectiveness conducted in organizational settings for
  which there is no risk to participants' employability, and
  confidentiality is protected or (2) where otherwise permitted by law
  or federal or institutional regulations.

The kind of summary statistics you cite falls squarely under point 1b.

Of course, you do need to exercise some caution, in particular to ensure that confidentiality is maintained. Listing the names of non-participants, for instance, would certainly cross the line. As would giving out "too much" information from which one could reasonably deduce the identities of participants or non-participants (if you work with a small, easily identified population, say).


How to make sure that a conference is not a scam when you are invited as a speaker? I received an invitation from Neuroscience & Brain Disorders (NBD 2021) conference to present my work as an honorable speaker. My research interests are related to the topics of this conference and I have some interesting contributions, however, I am still a PhD student and I still don't have that strong background in research. I tend to think that this is a scam. What do you think?

[As per suggestion of user151413, comment converted into response]
A few sanity checks to run:

Ask them who else is in your session and with which topics, if possible.

Check the participant list or the confirmed speakers. I know established researchers that had been taken in by junk conferences. If a junk conference manages to get a lot of good speakers, though, it ceases to be a junk conference :-) Of course, they may lie, but that is usually less likely. If you know one of the other invitees, you could pop them a mail and ask them whether they go.

Check the topics. Does this look like there is a proper scientific agenda or just a jumble of buzzwords? Are the sessions organized by topic (more or less)?

Is there a program committee? Do you know anyone on this list (even just as an author, not personally)? How many?

If you know a person on the PC, 5a) ask them whether the conference is worthwhile (you may thereby find out on the fly whether they actually know that they are listed). 5b) If you don't, check whether the conference is listed on their CV if it is public.

Unfortunately, the often-cited killer criterion whether the conference is at an attractive place does not mean anything. Also good conferences like attractive locations. However, if the conference is running at a nice location while a pandemic situation is still going on, this is most definitely a red flag.

If they claim you are invited, find out whether they cover travel/accommodation and conference fees. If they tell you that you have to pay conference fees, this is a scam. If they say that the conference is free, but they do not cover the trip, it's an orange flag (but not necessarily a scam). Convince yourself that the expense of the trip would be worth your presence. Some high-tier conferences waive only the fees for "minor" invited speakers (e.g. speakers invited to special sessions or workshops, rather than all-out keynotes). For a keynote, you can expect to be fully reimbursed.

Note that sometimes sconferences (scam conferences) adopt names very similar to proper ones, sometimes even copying the precise abbreviation (which unfortunately is not protected, as a number of organisations share the same abbreviation). Some years ago, a sconference hijacked the abbreviation of a quite high-profile conference, located itself in a city in the same or nearby country (I forgot), showed similar-style entry page/photo and managed to convince the search engines for a period to put it on top of the search list. A colleague almost fell for it, but was wondering why all his usual colleagues would not appear.
So the list of invited speakers and PC is one of the best indicators of whether this is the real deal. Of course, if they outright lie, then it's just regular fraud, but usually sconferences live in the grey area of being formally legal, in that they do take place, but are worthless.
Good luck!
[List is extended as additional suggestions are floating in comments]


Career prospects in theoretical physics after nightmare PhD I will try to keep this as short and concise as possible.

I am a 3rd year PhD student in theoretical physics (condensed matter theory) in a US university. I worked for a certain professor for a year and things seemed to be going well, until he announced one day that he could not continue working with me because his grant application fell through. So I was forced to look for another advisor after I had already started my third year. Nobody else in the condensed matter group wanted to take me because they all claimed not to have funding (this turned out to be a lie, as I later found out). I was finally forced to work for a professor who is 76 years old and does not do research anymore. He has an incomplete project he hasn't worked on for 20 years and I am trying to complete it. I do NOT mind working on an old project. The problem is that whenever I ask him a question or ask for feedback, he ignores me. He does not have any ideas and when I ask for feedback and suggestions on my own ideas and work, he says he doesn't know and I can do whatever I want. I have tried approaching other professors in the department for help, but they refuse to meet/talk to me, saying that they are busy. I am worried that I will never be able to come up with a decent thesis without any sort of guidance, and will almost certainly not have any publications.

My question is: Is there any way I can minimize the damage to my career that this is causing? Is it possible to get a post-doc in theoretical physics without a publication/ with a sub-standard thesis? I am an international student and there are no physics jobs in my country, so any kind of advice on how to proceed would be welcome.

If anyone wants more detailed information, I am happy to provide it.

I think you should consider transferring to another grad school. Certainly prospects on the post-doc market won't be good without any publications, interesting work, or a strong letter of recommendation. On the other hand, your advisor's grant expiring and no one else being able to take you gives you a very good reason to want to change grad schools.

Your former advisor's letter will be crucial. If he confirms your story about the grant falling through and no one else being able to take you, you should be able to transfer no problem. If he hints that your conduct contributed to your situation, you could be in a pickle. Good luck!


Computer Science vs Computer Graphics Masters I am an undergraduate student who wants to do research in computer graphics field. I would like to know how a computer science masters degree and a computer graphics and Game Technology (goes with similar names at different universities) would affect my future Ph.D. applications and career, upon graduating from the masters program.

At this point I should also mention that some of the "Computer Graphics and ..." master programs are 1 year long. (No thesis I assume?)

Thank you

I'd look at this a little like a wager on where you want to go in the future.

If you'd like to do a PhD in the future, then focus on the fundamentals will pay off. I can't think of a single PhD that wouldn't benefit from stronger research and math skills. Especially if you want to go on to a PhD, ensure that you're getting the background in research --- typically this will mean a focus on thesis based programs.

If you're unsure of where you want to go afterwards, be aware, that a good master's program in Computer Science, is unlikely to close any doors for you, whereas a focus on Computer Graphics may mean that it's more difficult to make the transition into a different field later should you decide it's not for you.


In which section of a research paper is it best to justify the choice of methods? I'm currently writing the methodology section of my thesis and wondered if  I was including too much.

In the methodology section I have currently included:

Alternative approaches I considered
The pros/cons of those approaches/applicability to this project
Why I selected the approach I used

This information is needed somewhere but it is resulting in a very long methodology which is going a lot deeper into "Why I chose this approach" than "Here's how I did the research".

Does this "Why" discussion belong in the methodology section of a research paper or should it be placed somewhere else? If so, where?

edit

As an example: I can either survey people or perform an analysis of existing discussions on the topic. There are pros/cons to each approach (sample size, recruitment, etc) . The approach I choose will impact the research but I want to discuss the differences in the possible approaches and explain my reasoning for my choice.

Methodology section should focus on your own method (or algorithms or mathematical modeling) for the research.

Alternative approaches should also be discussed there in the same section precisely (if the alternatives are not highly different from the principal trunk).
The pros/cons of your approaches should be discussed in "Results and Discussion" or in the "Conclusion" section with points.
Why you selected the approach belongs to "Introduction" along with a small statement in "Methodology" itself.

Overall, methodology section tells the story of "HOW" rather than too much of "WHY". "WHY" should belong to introduction.


Is it unethical to accept extra time on exams when I still do well? I have ADHD (real, diagnosed ADHD, not just "I-say-I-have-ADHD-because-it's-trendy" ADHD). I have never taken the extended time exams that are offered for ADHD students, because I have never needed to, and it was diagnosed just a year ago. However, exams do stress me out and I am certain I would do better on them with some more time - but this is true for almost anyone, not just ADHD students. Thus, would it be unethical to make use of the ADHD services offered to me?

(Edit: You might ask - why would you want to / feel it is justified? Well, hypothetically say ADHD students only achieve 75% of their "non-ADHD" potential in a standard-time setting. Maybe, even though I am doing well, I would be doing even better if I did have the extended time or didn't have ADHD, i.e. due to my exhaustive preparation, even with the disadvantage of my ADHD I am still managing to get a high score. But, with a "level playing field" [extended time for me], I would be at the top of the class. However, I still don't know if this is logical / ethical.)

Absolutely not. If you meet the full requirements set up by your University, it is perfectly ethical to use all of the resources made available to you. ADHD is a real medical condition and medical experts and policy makers have decided that special test accommodations are the fairest solution. Accommodations like this are based on medical decisions, not whether you are doing well in the course. Take the extra time if you want it. There is no need to feel guilty about doing so.


how much benefit is there of working as a predoctoral research assistant I would like to do a PhD in a machine learning related topic and want to enhance my resume. I am considering looking for roles as volunteer research assistant and was wondering whether the experience would be beneficial if I do manage to find one. From what I've read online a lot of what predoctoral research assistants do involve menial tasks (cleaning up data) and wasn't sure if this would strengthen my application.
I'd hope to look for a research role in an area directly related to my interest. But an alternative I was considering was to just work at a job which may not have a direct connection to my interests but is slightly more financially beneficial.
I was hoping to get some advice on what would be better

In many circumstances, yes, predoctoral research experience is an asset, in particular if you can get a strong letter of support for your graduate application, and can contribute to some publications.
Financial aspects are a consideration also, but it's hard to judge given the available information in the question.


Is it possible for a high school student with no academic qualifications to publish a research paper? I am a bachelor student at the second year of studies (Physics), but I'm an independent programmer since many more years.

Now, I have some data about an algorithm I've done and I would like to present the results on a research paper - I have a high level of understanding of the theory behind, and some background of theoretical computer science. Is it "reasonable" to write a paper with no titles at all (high school) and without the name of my university maybe?
I don't know whether include it or not, since the topic is not related to what I study there.

You should definitely write it up. There are plenty of good reasons for doing so and no downside. Writing a paper is a good exercise for future paper and report writing, and while you are doing it you are likely to think of new ideas about your research. You will also have to search for similar work that might be suitable for references and you may find something useful there too.

You should also put the paper online somewhere so that it is preserved and available to others who may find it useful. If there is data and/or code that goes with the paper you can use figshare for example. It does not matter if there is not much response to your work, that is common when authors have no background and does not mean it is not good. Someone may pick up on it later when you don't expect it.

You might also want to try to publish in a peer-review journal if you think it is sufficiently original and useful. That might require you to write it up in a specific format such at LaTeX. Again that is all good experience. You will have a much better chance of acceptance in a journal if you can use your university affiliation but you will have to make it clear that you are an undergraduate there to avoid problems and it might be best to check with your tutor. If you search around you may find a suitable journal that is specifically set up to accept work from undergraduates. If you can get it accepted it would look good on your CV whatever you plan to do in the future.

The only circumstance that would make it unwise to publish your work would be if the algorithm is original and of high commercial value and/or patentable in which case you would have to follow a different route to protect your intellectual property. However that is a rare situation.


How to handle unprofessional negative reviews from a journal? My problem is similar to this this and this question, but still slightly different.

I am facing the problem that my paper was rejected form a journal (with the option to resubmit to the same journal again), where two reviews were provided.

The first review was well written, constructive and shows that the main parts of the paper were read and understood. Nevertheless, the first reviewer suggests to "Review Again After Major Changes".

The second review (who rejected the paper) on the other hand shows clearly that he neither read the paper nor the references listed in the related works section or any background material on that subject (as referenced in the paper or readily available online). Moreover, the review is filled with spelling mistakes, wrong references/citations and wrong claims. In essence, it gives the impression that it was written in a hurry without proper review of paper. But most importantly, the reviewer expects comparisons to concepts with are completely out of date and partly do not fit the discussed scenario.

I am currently preparing a resubmission to the same journal, which will most probably be handled by the same editor and reviewers. My questions is concerning the handling of the second review in the response letter in general and whether it is appropriate to contact the editor right now (few days after the receiving the rejection), shortly before or after the resubmission or not all regarding the review provided by the second reviewer.

It appears that the editor gave more weight to the first review, or at least gave you the "benefit of the doubt". Since you have the chance to re-submit, and you decided to do so, you should have to respond point-by-point to every comment that both reviewers made. Now "respond" is a deliciously diplomatic word that includes all the spectrum of reactions: from, say, "I did exactly what you asked" to, say, "go find a hole to hide and die, you stupid ignorant".

The main advise I have to give is : keep your judgements to yourself (about which review was helpful to you, whether the one appears sloppy etc), don't differentiate between the two reviews in your response, and don't be more aggressive in your writing style when you respond to the points made by the second.

For example, Don't defend not comparing your work to concept X because "it is completely out of date". Defend your choice because, say, "concept X, valuable indeed when it first appeared in the literature, has been succeeded by etc see reference 1, reference 2, reference 3". You get the spirit. If the "outofdateness" is your opinion and the field does not agree with you,then, you have another paper in the making, one where you will try to convince the other scholars of your field that concept X is indeed outdated.

If you do that correctly, the editor will certainly get the message (and well corroborated) about what you think of the quality of the two reviews, and why, even though nowhere in your response such an evaluation will explicitly appear.


How to deal with an unethical editor? How do you go about dealing with an editor that pretends to be ALL the reviewers and reject a paper based on his/her 'made-up' reviews?  Should I complain to the editor-in-chief or simply let it slide?  The editor is a big name in my field.

I am highly suspicious that a big name in a field would make up a bunch of one line reviews for a submission. You should have definite proof and should think long and hard about how irrefutable your proof is before proceeding further. Bringing this up will reflect extremely poorly upon you  and your co-authors if you turn out to be wrong.

That being said, if you believe that you have proof of foul play, you should raise the issue with the editor-in-chief or whoever is higher up the totem pole. If you turn out to be correct, someone should inform the editor's school or place of employment about the academic misconduct.

If you'd like to take a more cautious path, you can email the editor-in-chief and ask if there was a reason all of your reviews were so short and if they had any suggestions for avoiding this in the future. You'll side-step the direct accusation while bringing the reviews to their attention.


How can I do research mathematics without enrolling at a university? My goal is to find the general form for the asymptotic cardinality of a compound arithmetic progression.  I'm not affiliated with a university and I certainly don't have any obligation to continue my research.  However, it is very fulfilling to me.  I spend my time in the library; I study through the books on the shelves and I don't really have anyone to tell me that my efforts are not good enough.

The problem comes in when I realized that if I was stronger in Analytic Number Theory, then I could start to look for the general estimate for the asymptotic cardinality of any compound arithmetic progression, and I'm terribly curious about how it works out.  I am jealous of professional students with academic affiliations, access to reviewers, and journals; terribly.  I admit that and it's a big obstacle.  And I'm envious that they had the opportunity to enjoy more prestigious settings.  I wish I could get a foot hold like that too.  But at the same time I just don't think it's going to be possible for me to be published or be respected on the same level, no matter what I do.

Is it healthy for me to behave like this?  Or am I being too optimistic in thinking that I have something to contribute that could blossom into graduate level, age appropriate research and/or a funded project?

The point is that I've given up looking for a degree or trying to participate in the research projects of others; it places the burden on them to find a place for me in their work and I'd rather be sharpening my own offering instead of going on a wild goose chase.  Math doesn't require the same kind of budgetary overhead, or anywhere near the same level of oversight as the life sciences.  I don't need a lab.  I don't need dangerous chemicals or expensive equipment, and I don't need a workshop, either.

The other question (of which this was marked as a duplicate) was asked by a much more established individual that already finished a Master's degree and wanted to collaborate on somebody else's research; putting together a CV to apply for a research spot is much easier when there's something to anchor it.

If I understand you correctly, then you long for the access to journals and fellow researchers coming with a university affiliation, but the intensity and committment of being a graduate student has turned out to be bad for you.

It is uncommon, but not entirely unusual, for individuals to be associated with a research group at a university on such level. This might come in some formalized arrangement, eg with a title like "Honorary Research Fellow", or just be handeled by some informal arrangements. Common perks would include access to mathematical journals via the university and being on the mailing list for the local seminars. You may or may not be permitted to claim the university as affiliation when submitting papers, but I believe that this is a very minor aspect anyway.

If you can find a research group, ideally in your geographical area, that is interested in your kind of questions, then it would not be unreasonable to contact them and ask whether this is a possibility. Do brace for the potential of rejection (or being ignored) though.

Whether you personally have a change to produce publishable research in such an environment, or whether this would be benificial or detrimental to your mental health is something we cannot judge here.


FAFSA for US PhD (hard sciences — physics) students? I have a question regarding filling out the FAFSA or not as a incoming PhD student.
What is the benefit of filling out the FAFSA if you are a(n) (incoming) PhD student? In the US (at least in physics), PhDs are (to the best of my knowledge) fully funded — full tuition waiver + a "decent" TA stipend initially and then an RA later. And so I'm a bit confused if I should fill out the FAFSA at all.
Is it a case of "you might as well," since it could end up supplying me additional funds to supplement the TA stipend (which is usually less than RA stipend)? Could the additional funds go to unforeseen student fees and such? Or is it simply not needed as my tuition will be fully waived and I will be getting paid?
For reference, from a graduate school's website:

Types of Financial Aid
A variety of aid is available for all income levels, including various types of student educational loans (Graduate and Professional Student Loans, Short-Term and Emergency Loans), grants, and Work-Study funding. Contact your graduate program regarding the availability of work-study funding.
Apply for Financial Aid
All students interested in educational loans are required to apply for financial aid via the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) or the California Dream Act Application. Both applications are free. Whether or not students think they are eligible, we encourage you to apply for financial aid each year. You may apply for financial aid before you have been admitted.

First off, while many PhD students in many degree programs in the U.S. receive TA and RA positions, these are hardly universal. Many students, especially those who are foreign-born or in the humanities, are responsible for paying their own way.

You need to complete the FAFSA if you want to be eligible for student loans, which could help bridge the cost of your living expenses if your TA/RA stipend isn't large enough. For some universities, it can also unlock the door for scholarships or other funding that may cover things your TA/RA does not. It's not uncommon for TAs/RAs to still have to pay several hundred or even thousand dollars per semester in fees.

If you're a first-year PhD student, I'd suggest completing the FAFSA and see if it yields anything beneficial. After the first year, you can decide if you want to keep filing or skip it.


How to see how many times a document has been cited? I'm working on my thesis and I'd like to see if some documents that I'll use have been used before to see if the topic and focus I'm working on has been done before. At the moment it seems it hasn't, I looked for citations in Google scholar and it has only 1 citation, Academia.edu has around 2000, but I must have Academia Premium to see it. Is there any other way to look for citations? Is it worth to have Academia Premium?

I used a lot Web of Science. You can see who cited what (if it is indexed) and it usually has links to the full text. See its wiki page for more information, including links to other search engines.

Where I work, the administrative staff takes their bibliometrics from Web of Science.


What are these mathematical groups in U.S. universities? I have just finished my bachelor degree and I will be entering a PhD program in mathematics. On the home page at my schools (and others) I have seen that there are various groups, composed of teachers and students, who study a subfield of mathematics. For example, I have seen "Mathematical Logic" groups, "Mathematical Physics" groups, "Dynamical Systems" groups, etc. What are these groups for? My view of a PhD was like this:

1) You take a couple years of classes and pass your exams.

2) You find a professor and do a thesis.

How are these groups involved here? Are they just for students in the same field to hang out and talk in general about the field?

Mathematical research groups are, as you seem to have surmised, just groups of faculty members and students (i.e., graduate students, postdocs, tenure track and tenured professors) whose research interests all involve some common subfield of mathematics. Thus a number theory group will be composed of number theorists and perhaps faculty members whose main interest is in some other area of math (e.g., combinatorics) but involves number theory in a substantial way. Continuing with the example of a number theory group, at some schools all of the members of the group will be involved in the same flavor of number theory (e.g., the group might be biased towards arithmetic geometry), while at other schools the group might have people representing many different area of number theory (algebraic, analytic, arithmetic geometry, etc).

So what is the purposes of these groups? Well, they're just as much for the faculty members as they are for students. As you mentioned in your post, students in a research group are likely to hang out and talk math with one another. (You'll also be taking a lot of topics classes with the other students in your research group.) The same goes for faculty members. If you're a professor working on a project it's very nice to have someone who works down the hall from you that you can ask fairly technical questions to. (Or perhaps "stupid" questions whose answer you don't know but feel you should.)

Research groups will also generally have their own weekly seminars. Sometimes these seminars have a lot of talks by the faculty and students at that school, while other times the speakers are primarily visitors from other schools. This gives graduate students the opportunity to see what sort of problems people are working on at the moment and a bit of perspective about the nature of their research area that goes beyond the particular problems that the local professors are studying.


Can I get an office in a university as an independent scholar? I have a math-related PhD but currently work as a software developer. One day, when I retire from software development, is it possible to "join" a local university's math/cs department as an independent scholar?  All I need is a PhD student desk and access to the libraries. I can fund my own travel & overhead fees. Has this ever been done before? I just don't want to move around for a job and face the immense pressure of publish or perish.

If you know someone at the university, you can discuss getting an adjunct appointment, which is probably the closest thing to what you're looking for.


Software to use for creating posters for academic conferences? And how much time does it usually take? I'd like to create a poster without having to put too much time into formatting.

I would recommend Inkscape:

vector graphics
powerful
free
intuitive
cross platform


Choose journal before writing paper? I want to write three papers from my thesis. But actually I am stuck. What is the first step to do?

Do I first choose the journal (more precise scope) and then I move on to write the article according to this scope. (Of course the choice of journal is based on my research topic.)

Or do I start with writing the paper and then move to choose the journal and readjust the paper according to the template and ameliorate it?

This may be field-dependent; I am answering from the point of view of an HCI-related CS subfield that is frequently in touch with other fields (for different use cases etc.).

Always choose your venue (concrete journal or conference) first before writing the manuscript.

The underlying core information you want to convey will remain the same no matter what. Hence, you may prepare a very abstract outline first. However, writing the paper before choosing a venue does not make much sense:

Important if you are in a field where manuscripts are formatted with the final styleguide: Each venue will require a particular formatting styleguide. While you should largely keep contents and format separate in your document, there are still more than enough detail decisions that require changes in your document according to the styleguide.

For instance, if you use LaTeX, depending on the venue-specific document template used, usually only one out of three or so alternative existing packages for a specific feature (e.g. subfigures, special tables, ...) will be compatible with the template.-
Also, at least I frequently find myself in a situation where I fill a paper up to the very last line (and page restrictions are very strict in my field). While different styleguides and page restrictions are roughly equivalent across venues, switching from one venue to another can easily mean gaining space for an additional figure or subsection.

Different venues have different audiences:

Even when presenting the very same procedure and findings, you will have to add a different set of explanations, references, etc., depending on the primary audience of the target venue.
Likewise, depending on the audience, sometimes you are better off starting with formal definitions and then presenting a concrete use case, whereas other communities prefer starting with a concrete problem and a case-specific solution description, and then formalizing that to a generic model.


Accepting European math postdoc offers and leaving after a year I am a finishing Ph.D student in pure mathematics in the US.
In November, I received a 3 year postdoc offer in Europe on a PI's grant with a December reply deadline and accepted starting in 2015. Recently, I was offered an NSF MSPRF at an American school, starting in 2014. My plan is to use the NSF in 2014-2015 and 2016-2018 and go to Europe for 2015-2016--the NSF and my US host institution are OK with it.
However, when I accepted the European offer I did not specify that I would be staying for only a year (I had no other offers at that point).
A what point am I obligated to tell the European PI that I will stay for only a year? Now, before accepting the NSF? After starting the position in 2015?
More generally, in Europe is it considered normal or unethical/breach of contract to leave multi year (mathematics) postdoc positions after a year?
I know it's considered normal in the US but the postdoc hiring here is done at a departmental rather than individual level...

Going for one year would fulfill your obligations as I understand them, but I can't guarantee the PI will see things the same way.  You should discuss it as soon as possible, to settle the issue and so the PI can at least make realistic plans.  (I'd be a little offended if I discovered that someone visiting to work with me had dramatically changed their plans without telling me until much later, even if I thought the change was otherwise reasonable.)

There are several plausible outcomes:

The PI might insist that you have made a commitment to stay for more than a year.  I don't think this is reasonable or likely, but it's better to find out now than later, so you can figure out what to do about it.
The PI might be fine with one year.  Then you won't have to worry about this issue any further.
The PI might accept one year but seem unhappy about it.  In that case, you could explain that you would really like to come for a year if possible, but you would be willing to withdraw if the PI would prefer to hire someone else for the full three years.


Can I (should I) change the name of this distribution? I am nearly finished with a paper, as well as some accompanying open-source software. We are planning on submitting this to a prominent statistics journal. One of the more promising methods that we discuss in the paper deals with the normal-inverse Gaussian distribution, commonly referred to as the NIG distribution. This is usually pronounced “en-eye-gee”, but it’s understandable that some people say it phonetically (it’s a relatively obscure distribution).
In case it is not yet clear, my concern is that NIG is somewhat reminiscent of the “N word”. I had some reservations about writing NIG so many times in the paper and in the software (by convention, there would be many functions with NIG pre-fixes, e.g. nig_foo()). I thought maybe I was overthinking things, but I’ve had a few people (including a co-author) comment about the potentially inappropriate nature of this name.
Thus I feel like it might be worthwhile to refer to this distribution by a different name. It is not uncommon for distributions in statistics to have multiple names (e.g., normal vs. Gaussian), and we would make it clear that it is the same distribution. The problem is, I feel very unqualified to just change the name of distribution that has been around for 40 years.
If we do change the name, here’s a short list of some of the things I’ve considered.

The Normal-Wald Distribution (Wald is another name for inverse-Gaussian)
The Gauss-Wald Distribution (Same idea)
The Barndorff-Nielsen distribution (Ole Barndorff-Nielsen was one of the first researchers looking into this distribution)
The Barndorff distribution (Less wordy, but I don’t want to remove a surname without asking him)

Questions
Is it a bad idea to change the name? I’m slightly uncomfortable with it, but I might be overthinking it.
If I do change the name, what’s the most reasonable choice? (I realize this is very subjective, but feedback is welcome)
I don't think that the name of the distribution is intentionally or overtly "racist". The main point is that (i) this distribution is relatively obscure and (ii) many distributions have multiple names so it might make sense to have an alternative that has no chance of being problematic.

Actually changing the name because someone might be offended by a sound that comes from a completely different domain and is completely separate from the history of racism would be condescending, in my view.
And, as you say, the term is in common use. Changing it would also confuse some people.
Leave it be.
There was no intention to do harm and the acronym is natural. The language police are unlikely to chase you down. It would be different of course if the acronym were chosen for racist purpose, but that is clearly not the case here.


In what situations would it be appropriate to include one's photograph in a CV? I think I have only seen one CV where a photograph of the CV owner was included. I personally wouldn't want to put my photograph in my CV, but I was wondering, in what situations would including a photo if oneself within the CV be appropriate?

In the United States, you should never include a photo in an academic CV.  It comes across as somewhat inappropriate, like you are deliberately drawing attention to your appearance and hoping it will influence the decision.  (I know that's not actually the intent, but many people's gut reaction upon seeing the photo will be "Why is the applicant showing me this?  Do they think I should know what they look like before making a decision?  How is that supposed to be relevant?")  If you are from a country in which photos are often included, then that will be understood as a reasonable explanation, but it will stand out as foreign.  If you aren't from such a country, then it will look bad.


Bad postdoctoral advisor, help needed I have been involved in a postodoctoral program for 7 months and I progressively discovered that my advisor is really bad from a scientific standpoint. By working hard, I got to submit two papers which relate to his area of research but now it looks like he is unable to go on and to suggest me new meaningful directions to work on. Luckily I do have my reserch network and I keep working with other people and producing publications and I was also offered another position to which I will transit in a few months. However, my current advisor, who knows I'll be leaving soon, keeps pushing me to work on something with him without proposing anything worth. So my question is, how can I deal with that during the time left here? Thanks!

It sounds like you are having a hard time making the transition from knowledge consumer to knowledge producer. While it is nice to get additional training as a post-doc, by this time you are the expert and you should be driving your research efforts, not your post-doc supervisor. In fact, you may be on the post-doc precisely because your area of expertise is different than that of your supervisor, and he may be looking at you wondering why you aren't proposing research.

The fix is simple but not easy:

Change your mindset to that of an independent researcher. You are an expert and a professional now, and your research is your responsibility.
Take the work from your dissertation, and develop a plan to expand on and/or publish that research.
Discuss integrating your research into the remaining post-doc.

Like I said, simple but not easy. There are many people who may be able to help you in this, including your PhD advisor and your post-doc supervisor. The process is going to be highly individualized, but is critical to your progress as an independent scholar, so do not delay.


As a reviewer, is it inappropriate to make unsolicited comments on another reviewer's comments? I'm reviewing a paper after minor revisions, and can partially see another reviewer's comments in the response letter.

The other reviewer asks the authors to do X, but the authors argue that it's not worthwhile doing X.  I've done things like X myself, and have found it not worthwhile (for the precise reasons the authors state).  Thus, I strongly side with the authors on this matter, and I'm thinking about whether I should inform the editor.  I'm not sure if I'm meant to do this...

Question: As a reviewer, is it inappropriate to make unsolicited comments on another reviewer's comments?

A related question is In peer-review, is it common for a reviewer to be shown and asked to comment on other reviewers' reports?  However, I have not been asked to comment on the other reviewer's comments.

It is appropriate. You're acting in good faith after all, the editor is likely to be interested in what you say, and you're not harming anyone.

This is however the kind of thing to put in the confidential comments to editor box. The authors don't need to know of friction between reviewers.


Do teachers want students to add their attempts on solving their own question in an email? I think this question holds for any kind of class, but if it actually makes a difference, it's a graduate level class.

Today I was drafting an email asking about uncertainties in a paper I'm supposed to do a presentation on.
When posing the questions, I added what I think is the solution to the question.
However, I am not sure wether or not I should actually include the attempt of answering my question on my own.

Pros

It shows that I actually tried to find a solution before writing them
It could make answering the email easy because they maybe don't have to explain much if I'm correct
Just asking the questions without any extra text (e.g the solution) makes the email itself seem blatant
It could reveal even more misunderstandings on my part, increasing the value of their answer

Cons

It just bloats the email, maybe making it less appealing to read and answer
They might not care what I think because they "have to" write their own answer anyway
(If the answer is way off, it might throw a bad light on me)

Neutral

Might depend on the person I'm asking

If it depends on the person I'm asking, how would I actually recognize wether he/she wants me to add my thoughts or not?
Therefore, I am in confusion wether or not to add my attempts to the email or not.

Yes absolutely include it. That's the only way for the instructor to see where the gaps in your knowledge are. If you think it makes the email too long, then put a concise summary at the top and then the details below.

Edit: consider also that in the above post, you attempted to answer your own question. Look how much context that gave to the question. Imagine if you'd posted the title and the bolded statement only. We would not have understood your thought process. You might not have received many useful answers, just comments asking you to clarify what you were asking


Is a publication with co-authors worth less that a sole-author paper? Does this explain people's reluctance to include someone as a co-author? Is there a lower value to publishing with other co-authors instead of just oneself? Why are some people so reluctant to acknowledge your participation and contribution?

This is, in my (admittedly limited) experience, heavily dependent on your field.

In some fields, single-authorship is the norm; I believe a lot of highly-theoretical mathematics and some social sciences go this route. In other fields, such as astrophysics, this is almost never the case, as the work is often conducted among dozens of researchers working on multiple continents.

From what I can tell, publishing with co-authors tends to signify one or more of the following things:

The work is highly multidisciplinary (even within a single field) -- some research requires many experts in many different domains working together.
The work is "labor-intensive" -- some research requires a great deal of preparation that would be infeasible for a single researcher. For example, in my field of computer engineering, there's usually a significant amount of coding that goes into the research, which is most easily/quickly accomplished by many students and postdocs working together.
The work is large in scope -- larger, more ambitious projects require a higher level of support and more minds working together.
The work involves someone famous and everyone wants a piece of the pie -- okay, admittedly I made this one up.

That's not to say that single-author paper don't fit into one or more of these categories. These are just some rules of thumb that I've seen so far.

As for why some people are reluctant to "acknowledge your participation and contribution": well, this ranges the gamut of everything from the evils of:

Narcissism
Ego
Desire for fame/prestige

to the more mundane/less evil problems of:

Disagreements on what constitutes a large enough contribution to claim authorship
Misunderstandings as to what is being contributed (by one or both parties)
Traditions on what is deemed worthy of acknowledgement in publication.

In short: human nature.

If you're concerned that you aren't being credited for your work, you need to speak with the other party ASAP and set out clear guidelines moving forward as to where credit will be given and for what. Get this in writing -- timestamped and signed preferably, email is great for this.


Ordering of co-primary authors on website If a published paper had an author ordering [A,B] where A and B are primary authors and the ordering is alphabetical is it acceptable for B to list on his website the ordering [B,A] so his first-authorship would look more obvious to people skimming his website?

In Can co-first authors’ positions be swapped in a CV?, the answer with the most upvotes says

  No. The reference is the reference, changing it to move yourself higher could be misinterpreted as willful deceit.

I believe the same logic applies to a website.

However, in a website, you do have more freedom in style and formatting than you would in a CV (although you still don't have the freedom to change author order...) For example, if you want to call attention to first authorship, you could list first authors and co-first authors in a slightly different weight or different color than the other authors.


How can a Poli Sci undergrad with a CS minor improve their chances for a CS masters program? I'm a PS undergrad with a minor in CS that's 22 credit hours and covers most, if not all, masters pre-reqs that I've seen. The only issue I forsee is that I will only be taking one semester of calculus.

I'm only a sophomore, but I have a 3.78 GPA and I believe I will maintain it at minimum above a 3.5.

I go to a school with an incredibly strong engineering program (where CS is housed), and although I've realized I want to pursue research in CS and/or work as a programmer, it's incredibly difficult to switch into engineering at my school if you did not start in it.

So, with a major in PS and a 22 hour minor in CS covering most essential topics, what can I do to stand out from other non-CS applicants?

In my experience, those who come from non-CS undegraduates to CS grad studies are often missing some key things, and having those things will definitely help you succeed:

Know graphs back and forth. Make sure you're comfortable with the main terminology (edge, path, degree, connected-component, bfs, dfs, cycle, etc.) and the main operations on them. They are literally everywhere in CS. Other discrete math will help (especially sets and relations), but graphs really are key.
Make sure you're comfortable with induction. A discrete math class might help with this, but even if you don't know number theory or combinatorics or relations, induction pops up everywhere in CS, and knowing it will help.
Make sure you've taken a Systems class. Concurrency, threading, interrupts, caching, memory management, etc. These are hard concepts to wrap your head around, and they can pop up in many places. Knowing these could save you weeks of debugging slow or incorrect parallel code, and in this day and age you're probably going to have to do something in parallel.
Make sure you know basic software engineering. I've seen plenty of people who can write correct code, but it is terrible to read. Learn about functions, classes, modules, etc. Learn to document your code. Learn to separate your code into functions and modules, so that you can share it and maintain it.
Knowing a bunch of languages isn't the most important thing, but I'd make sure you know the basics of at least two languages from different programming paradigms. For me, the main paradigms are Typed Imperative (C, C++, Java, Go, C#), Untyped Imperative (Python, Ruby, JavaScript, PHP), Typed Functional (Haskell, ML, Elm, F#), Untyped Functional (LISP, Scheme, Racket, Clojure, Elixr), and Logic (Prolog, Datalog, Mercury, miniKanren). Basically, you want to avoid going into grad studies thinking there's only one way to program. Once you've got two significantly different languages, picking up more shouldn't be that hard.

More "practically oriented" classes are tempting, because they seem, well, practical. They have fun hands-on projects with flashy results. But knowing the fundamentals will make it possible for you to teach yourself things in graduate studies, and once you're into grad studies, you will be teaching yourself new things every single day.


Without accessing the code how can a reviewer confirm if the simulation results are correct? I have been reviewing the articles for various top-rank journals and conferences for the last few years.  After all these experiences, I can tell you there is no way to confirm the correctness of simulation results. Therefore, I usually make comments on design, procedure, mathematical and analytical analysis.

In the results section, I can ask some questions about why this or that is so, but how can I judge if the simulation was really performed or these are just fabricated graphs?

This question came in my mind because I observed on few occasions, during review process, a reviewer ask for including new results, which in my opinion required a lot of coding and effort to implement, but author responded within 7-10 days with new results and improved article.

Do you have reason to doubt their veracity or good faith? Are their claims somehow not believable or highly questionable based on your knowledge of the field? If it isn't standard in your field to release code I don't think a reviewer should necessarily demand it, regardless of your feelings about making code public.

The authors should describe their methodology sufficiently for someone else to replicate it; in that way, they are putting their reputations at risk that were someone to duplicate their approach they would find the same results. Fabricating results is a very serious accusation. There are some statistical approaches to test whether data are likely to be fabricated, but the efficacy of this approach depends on the sophistication of the fabrication, and that question is better suited to CrossValidated.

If their work is meaningful in the field, at some point someone will implement their approach again. There is necessarily a bit of trust in science that people do what they say they've done. A reviewer should check that a paper's conclusions follow logically from their results, and that their methodology is described and sound, but they need not verify or replicate the results. As David Thornley points out in a comment on another answer, even simply running code tells you very little about those key factors, it only tells you if there is a blatant lie or mistake.


Link which explains how to format a letter to Nature I need to write a letter to Nature and a friend of mine said that Nature wants the Author to follow a very precise format.

He said that the explanation of the structure of the format is an example of a letter in which: there were different colours for the different sections, it also explained what to write in each section and which words use/don't use etc

Does anybody know the link where I can find such information?

Such information is invariably posted on a journal's website, and Nature is no exception. Go to Nature's current issue website, click "For Authors" and "Manuscript Formatting Guide". Under "Letters" there is an "annotated example" which looks like what you are describing.


Is there advantage an for a student to know out of the course question in Ph.D. interview? I am an undergrad student with Physics Major, currently in my last year. I'm from India, and recently I have given my first interview for an integrated Ph.D. in Physics. And there are several interviews that are ahead of me.

What I need to know is this: suppose the interviewer asks a student a question, which is off-topic that is to say, rarely thought of at the undergraduate level in any of the universities. The  student might simply say, "I don't have a knowledge of the topic as we haven't learned this in our undergrad course." Or there are some students who go beyond their course and learn the topic by themselves. So suppose another student gives the answer to the same question because they learned it by themself. Can the interviewer judge the students based on this question? Is there any advantage for student B to read stuff that is out of the course?

Saying you don't know the answer to a question is poor interview technique regardless of the situation.
Of course, you can't be expected to know or study every possible topic you might be asked questions about, but that's generally not the aim of these more difficult or esoteric questions. Instead, the interviewer wants to find out how you think and whether you are able to understand the question and reason your way to an answer even if you're unfamiliar with the subject matter.
After all, that's what research is all about: finding answers to questions that no one's studied before. The ability to apply previous reasoning to a new question is particularly important in physics, as we believe the same physical laws should hold anywhere in the Universe. Therefore, a good answer to a such a question would be "I'm not sure, but I would expect from my knowledge of X that Y might happen." And then go into detail as to why. It's also ok to ask for a moment to think before answering.
For what it's worth, PhD interviews are not typically like an exam, and you probably won't be aggressively grilled on your knowledge of a specific topic. More likely, the interviewers will get you to explain any previous research projects you might have done, and discuss your ideas for the future. That's not to say you shouldn't study topics outside your course, if you're interested in them and they're relevant to your intended PhD topic.


How to cite a dataset, when my calculations relied on the data? Occasionally I need to present some figures that I calculated with custom scripts against a dataset, such as a dictionary, text corpus, or some form of lexical database. The calculations are my own, but the dataset was created by other researchers. When presenting my figures, how can I write an APA-style in-text citation in a manner which makes it clear that I relied on the dataset, but that I did not take the figures from somewhere explicitly stated in the dataset? I do not wish readers to blame that source I cited if my figures are wrong.

Here is a simple example:

  'E' is the most frequently occurring vowel in the Spanish language and appears most often after the letter 's' (Brown, E. K., 2014).

If you are computing something from a dataset, then you need to explain what you have computed and how.  This should resolve the question of citation fairly naturally.
For example, with the example you have given, you might say something like:

  Using the Spanish-language corpus in (Brown, E. K., 2014), n-gram frequency
  computation indicates that
  'E' is the most frequently occurring vowel in the Spanish language and
  appears most often after the letter 's'.

Because the computation is yours, you need to explain and attribute it correctly, as you may have made a mistake in your interpretation, or the dataset itself may be biased.  Thus, it is best to use a few more words and given the reader a clear explanation of the relationships.


How to protect my own ideas/solutions when another of my supervisor's students is studying the same thing? Edit: Since teamwork has come up in the answers, I think it would be useful that I add this. The other student has requested to team up with me, and the advisor has rejected this. Besides, I already have the solution to my research question. Not much left for teamwork on that section. I will have to share my solution with my supervisory panel, and then start the evaluation which I can't and rather not to do in secrecy.

A student recently moved from another area to study with my supervisor. Along with this change in supervisor, the student has also changed direction and has started working on the same problem as mine.

The change in subject is quite a sharp turn too. For example, think of a student with a background in microbiology(all the way up to masters and over one year work of their PhD), suddenly starts working on a machine learning model for aggression in dogs. While I have deidentified the subjects, the problem I have been working on is even more specific than the imaginary dog problem. It might be worth adding that the subject of my study was proposed by myself after over two months of literature review.

The change sounded weird to me at first, but I wasn't worried until I saw part of my study plan and one of my ideas in this student's review presentation.

I am sure that this has been my big mouth not keeping what I say in check, primarily because I usually think very positively of people. I can keep my mouth shut from now on, and the supervisors I have are quite good. However, I imagine they have quite a challenging task in remembering which idea/solution was shared by which one of their students, and not to talk about it to the other student unintentionally.

I am not sure why the hell someone would throw away years of background and start working on something that they have no background in and is already being studied under their nose. A tough challenge is that how do I exchange information without a worry that these ideas might leak out? One of my supervisors is a very busy person, I am sure that this person has a fantastic memory. However, is it possible that they forget which idea was shared by who? and unintentionally share it with the other student?
What should I do? Suggestions?

To my principal supervisor, if they happen to see this:
Please do not take offence, I have great respect for you and will always be grateful for all the incredible support I have received. This issue is part of my learning process, and I'd like to tap into all resources available to me so I can tackle and learn about it to the best of my capability.

/walloftext

Teamwork

It's rather common for teams to work on "the same thing" research wise - on a single project, shared research and (most importantly) collaborating and sharing ideas, not hiding them from each other. That is a good thing.

It may be dependent on the field, but I'd guess that having such teamwork is far more common than a "two person" team of a supervisor and a single student.

The attribution of a particular idea within a single team isn't that important - doing the work in implementing and verifying that idea is almost all of created value in a research project. Simply coming up with an idea for possible work and nothing else generally justifies a mention in acknowledgements, not even a co-authorship. Since there are more valid research ideas than time to work on them properly (and this is true even if a student needs two months of literature review to pick one suited for him/her), it is rather expected for advisors to spread interesting research ideas around - it often takes years and multiple attempts to do a particular idea properly, and treating it as "taboo" because someone else is working on it would be rather counterproductive.

If you have two or more people working on a single sufficiently large problem, that's great - you will inevitably specialize to certain parts of that problem and depending on how you (or your supervisor) organize the work, you can co-author the resulting publications or split the results in smaller pieces to publish separately; but you will go further beyond the other researchers in the same subfield than if you were struggling at it alone.


Data Collection in Academia: Insights? Data Collection is a primary objective in many academic fields and can be approached primarily through three different lenses - qualitative,quantitative and mixed methods.

With particular attention to computer science and HCI (human-computer interaction), what are some primary approaches to data collection? Specific references to primary, secondary and tertiary sources would be much appreciated.

The first introductory text I used is Survey Research Methods by Babbie. It gave (and still serves as a refreshment of) a pretty comprehensive look to the whole process, and the writing and layout are quite easy to understand.

I'd also consider a Google search on different syllabi using phrase like "research methods syllabus filetype:pdf" and see what most instructors recommend. You can modify the search phrase to make it closer to your field; you can also change the pdf to other extensions such as doc, docx, or even ppt if you desire other types of document.

I'm sorry to say that we can't be ready to run a study just by one book. Common methods such as interview, focus group, and questionnaire are their own field of research: For interview and focus group, you'd have to expand into the field of communication and qualitative analysis. For questionnaire design, you may have to further tap into some psychological manifestation of questions, measurement theory, and item response theory.

To build a better foundation, I'd also recommend flipping through Craft of Research by Booth et. al. and it will also pay off to befriend some statisticians or people major in statistics because you may need to learn something about probability-based sampling as well.


Which problems would a blind person have when applying for a professorship? One day, I spoke with one of my professors about if it were possible for a blind person to obtain a professorship in my university. This was motivated by thinking on the Russian and blind mathematician Lev Poyntriagin who made important work in topological groups and control theory.

So my question, which is hypothetical, is the following one: Suppose that we have a blind person such that is a very "good" researcher in his/her field in the sense that he/she has "good" articles in his/her field, which problems would this person have in applying for a professorship in a University due to his condition?

Ii is important to address the problem that this person would probably need an assistant for continuing doing his/her research and for giving lectures at some extent. So, will this be something that would could count negatively?

Here is a very interesting 2002 article on blind mathematicians from the Notices of the American Mathematical Society.  Some quick highlights:

1) Although Lev Pontrjagin is the best known blind mathematician -- and was a wonderful mathematician; "who made important work in topological groups and control theory" is quite true but may be an under-sell -- there have been others.  If we count mathematicians who were blind for a substantial portion of their professional career then even Pontrjagin gets outclassed: there is, after all, Leonhard Euler.  And there are more contemporary examples, such as Bernard Morin and Lawrence W. Baggett.  Both of the latter are still living but retired (on the other hand, the article is 12 years old).  It would be interesting to have even more contemporary examples.

2) Being a blind mathematician is rare but not singular.  In fact there are enough to notice that blind mathematicians tend to specialize in geometry and topology.  This is very surprising, as these fields are thought of as requiring visualization skills beyond the norm (I for instance have felt a little locked out of certain parts of geometry and topology because of my limited skills in this area....though my vision is fine).  The article really shines in the way it addresses this point: the insight it offers goes far beyond, um, sight.  At the same time there are blind mathematicians in other fields: e.g. Baggett is an analyst.

3) Blind mathematicians must in many ways work harder than sighted mathematicians.  But of course mathematics is hard for everyone, and much of being a successful mathematician is embracing the struggle and continually pushing yourself out of your comfort zone and beyond your current range.  This is a key point of Terry Tao's career advice.  For that matter, I am suddenly struck by Andrew Wiles's famous description of mathematical research as exploring the rooms of a dark house one by one: you spend almost all of your time in the darkness; when you find the light switch you flip it and go on to the next room.  (I don't mean to trivialize the challenges of literally living in the dark, just to indicate that the experience of dealing with and gradually surmounting challenges that to a static observer seem totally insurmountable is a somewhat familiar one.)  Reading this article made me wonder about the OP's assertion "this person would probably need an assistant for continuing doing his/her research and for giving lectures at some extent."  Some might need or want a formal assistant, but some might not and might be self-reliant and of course reliant on the informal assistance of colleagues, friends and family...as we all are.  The mathematicians featured in the article are much more independent than one might have assumed possible.

The question was not specifically about blind mathematicians, but that was the example given, and I am a mathematician, so I ran with that.  Off the top of my head I would suspect that blindness would be less of an issue in mathematics than most other academic fields...but as a sighted mathematician, how the heck could I possibly know that?!?  I would be very interested to hear about blind academics in other fields and what challenges they face.


What happens if no one wants to advise me? I was accepted to a PhD program. I am finished with quals and looking for an advisor. I'm having a difficult time finding one though. Everyone is not accepting students (or at least not me). It's a small department. I'm worried I won't find ANYONE to advise me. I finished my quals, I work hard, I try to be polite.

If no one wants to advise me, do I just have to drop out?

You have to have an advisor to continue in the program, and advising needs to be a mutually consensual relationship.  So if it really happens that absolutely nobody will advise you, then you'll need to leave the program (but you could probably transfer to another one).

But in practice, it should very rarely get to that point.  Your program should have a graduate chair or some similarly-titled faculty member who is in charge of the PhD program.  Talk to this person.  There are a couple of possibilities:

There are faculty who would be interested in working with you in principle, but they feel too busy.  The graduate chair can try to convince them, and exert pressure.  If the department is interested in having a good PhD program at all, they won't want to lose good students for no good reason; so eventually someone should be willing to take you on.  Maybe other workload bargaining will happen behind the scenes (e.g. Professor Smith says "I'll advise the student, but I want to be excused from serving on Committee A.")
There is something about your academic background or personal style that makes faculty reluctant to work with you.  This is less likely; if there were serious issues you probably wouldn't have made it this far in the program.  (In particular, you've passed quals, which is a very good sign.)  But if there is some issue like that, the graduate chair should be able to talk to you about it honestly; and then you can work on addressing it.
Least likely possibility: the program is totally dysfunctional, and faculty members don't really want to invest any effort in working with grad students, or are so completely overwhelmed with other duties that they cannot.  Hopefully this is not the case, but if after talking with enough people (including those at other institutions) you become sure that this is what is going on, then you should transfer to another program as soon as you can.


"Statement of purpose" vs "Research proposal" in the context of graduate studies? After consulting google, what I am able to understand is that a statement of purpose is a document that is used when applying for graduate studies and it mentions the aptitude and motivation for research in a particular field
Is my understanding correct? If yes, then what is a research proposal?

Yes, your understanding is correct. While the CV lists past accomplishments, your SoP is a statement about your future goals, both for graduate study and thereafter. It need not, in general, be specific about a research topic, just a fairly narrow area.
A Research Proposal, on the other hand, is a specific outline of a research project that you suggest you would want to carry out. An advisor might accept such a proposal unchanged, but might also want to modify it, perhaps drastically. But it shows that you have given serious thought to at least one problem and have done some background on it.
A really complete research proposal would include a statement of the problem to be studied and questions to be answered, a preliminary suggestion of how the question will be attacked, and even suggestions about sources for any needed funding.


FOIA request for full NSF awards proposal and report Related to this question on mathoverflow…

Indeed, I just found out that to see full proposal or later reports. One needs to file a FOIA request, as described here.

So I am curious if anyone has done so? And how is the process like?
In particular, can the requester remain confidential after the request (so other people will not know that I made the request)?

Additional follow up question: What kind of people can file FOIA request? Does it have to be US citizens? Or just anyone working in US? etc..

The name of the requester does not remain confidential.

A friend of mine was recently on the other end.  NSF contacted him to tell him that an FOIA request had been made for a copy of his proposal, told him the name of the requester, and asked whether the proposal contained any sensitive information that he wished to have redacted.

The general feeling was that making such a request, rather than contacting the PI directly, was unprofessional and borderline creepy.  I second JeffE's comment: Ask the PI first.


Is it possible for a student to TA their entire way through graduate school? Or is it usually not possible?

Does this also depend from department to department? I'm in a geoscience department, and I was recently advised that due to a limited number of positions, students can only expect to be TAs for 1/4 of their time here. Geoscience does tend to have significantly fewer courses than most other fields though, so I wonder if it varies from field to field?

Does it also vary depending on whether the school is public or private?

The ability of a department to fund TAs depends on the courses being taught, the number of students in a class, and the overall budget. Often, a department will use this number in combination with the amount of funding faculty are pulling in as well as other sources to decide how many students to admit and how much TA funding support to provide.

Independently, a department might make a determination of how long any one student might be guaranteed a TA position (this is often detailed on the admissions letter), with the expectation that students will look to be supported by research funding, or are expected to support themselves. Again, this depends from department to department and from university to university.

I don't think there's any area-wide standard. In computer science, I see all kinds of models, ranging from full support through the entire program to no funding at all (although this latter model is rare).

So to answer your question: maybe, it depends.


PhD thesis - Names of appendices I'm writing my PhD thesis (math) and struggling to find titles for the appendices. The thesis has three main chapters and for each one there is an appendix that contains some proofs that did not belong in the chapter itself (e.g. proofs of lemmas and technical details). What should I name the appendices? Currently I'm thinking about "Missing proofs for Chapter X" or "Omitted proofs of Chapter X". Any suggestions?

In a mathematics paper or thesis, the most common practice is simply to include all proofs in the body of the document, each one immediately following the statement of its corresponding theorem or lemma.  So you should seriously consider just doing that.

Placing proofs in an appendix might be appropriate if they are really ancillary to the main thrust of your thesis.  For instance, maybe there is a result that is not really relevant to the rest of the thesis, but you've included it simply because it is interesting.  Or you state a result that is well known, but you have written your own proof as an exercise.  Or you have multiple proofs of the same statement; you might want to place one of them in the body, and move the other(s) to the appendices.

But in any case, I would think there would not be more than a few proofs that would fit these criteria.  As such, it would be most natural to place each proof in its own appendix, rather than to group them by body chapter or any other criterion.

You could give the appendices names like "Appendix A.  Proof of Theorem 1.2.3".  Or better yet, something more descriptive like "Appendix A.  Proof of the Snargleberg–Veeblefester Theorem (Theorem 1.2.3)".  Of course, you will want to use LaTeX's \ref to produce the theorem number.

It would be a convenience to the reader if in each appendix, you repeat the statement of the relevant theorem before giving the proof.

If you feel the number of lettered appendices A, B, C, D, etc are becoming excessive, you could move down the hierarchy.  Most thesis templates are based on the book document class, in which the top-level text element is the chapter.  So if you want, you could write

\backmatter
\chapter{Additional Proofs}
\section{Proof of the Snargleberg--Veeblefester Theorem (Theorem \ref{snargleberg})}

Blah blah blah.

\section{Proof of the Dumbledore Lemma (Lemma \ref{dumbledore})}

Expecto Patronum.

Producing something like:

  A. Additional proofs.

  A.1.  Proof of the Snargleberg–Veeblefester Theorem (Theorem 1.2.3)

  Blah blah blah.

  A.2.  Proof of the Dumbledore Lemma (Lemma 2.3.4)

  Expecto Patronum.

I disagree with Pete L. Clark's suggestion to just leave the appendices with non-descriptive titles like "Appendix A".  Using descriptive appendix titles will help keep the reader from getting lost.


UG Research Advisor Not Willing to Write LOR to support my transfer application. How to proceed? This post is related to my situation Dropping Out And Applying Somewhere Else
. After explaining to my undergraduate research advisor that I withdrew from my PhD program (1 month in) and that I decided to apply to Thesis-master's program Which better fit my career goals, he told me he is not writing me a letter. I am not sure if this deems all my research work in undergrad useless. I have the work documented as a credit course on my transcript with a grade of pass and one grade of -A. So I am not sure if I should mention my work with him or just focus on work I have done in my courses.

It is fine to mention your undergraduate work. You did it and you received graded credit for it. Talk about it! (In a statement of purpose or something).

What did you do?
What did you learn?
How did it inspire you?

True, yes, your undergraduate advisor would not write you a letter of recommendation. There is no need to mention that. If you have other people who are willing to write you a strong letter, you should be fine. When I sit on admissions committees, there are a few things we take into account:

We are only seeing a portion of the student's profile. We don't know the whole story (either way).
Sometimes professors are hard to get along with in regards to grades, authorship, LORs, etc.
Students are going to school while life happens around them. This means that sometimes the circumstances of life will affect their decisions and opportunities relative to school.
We do not expect a masters student to come in on day one and have the skill set of a master's student at the end of his or her degree. We are looking for potential.

Overall, I am more interested in learning about what you, not an advisor, did. If you are competent in explaining your research, that is going to bode better for you than having a LOR from someone who grudgingly has been forced into writing you a LOR.  I would not spend too much time trying to make this donkey (the undergrad advisor) pull the cart (LOR) he does not want to pull.


How to improve my Analytical Writing skills for the GRE? I took the GRE for the first time recently and my Quantitative and Verbal Reasoning scores were somehow good. However, I've scored only 2.5 on the Analytical Writing section and I believe that would kill my application even to a small graduate program (I'm an international student applying to chemistry grad schools).
Now I am studying to retake the GRE and I've found plenty of materials for quantitative and verbal reasoning, but I am struggling to find (free) content on the internet on how to prepare for the AW part of the exam. Are there any resources online or books that can help leveling my writing skills in the short term? (I'm planning to retake it by october)

I don't have any specific sites or resources but I have some advice,

Write, write, write, and write some more

Get a notebook and set aside 40 minutes every day to write a sample essay. A list of topics can be found on the ETS.org website (so I guess I have one resource :) ).

Then analyze and grade your own essay. Compare to the template, to any available sample essays you find, etc.

The best way to improve writing is to write.


Do proofs count as post-prints for sharing purposes? Some journals allow post-prints to be shared, but not the publisher's version. In these cases, can I share those proofs that are generated before the paper is published? They are not the final version that will show up on the publisher's website, but are formatted.

I am pretty sure that Proofs of a paper are considered publisher's version. They are definitely not covered by the word "postprint", which excludes any action by the production team of the publisher (as opposed to the editorial team, including referees). Similar terms such as "Accepted Manuscript" (AM, used by e.g. CUP) have the same property: the AM is the paper as it as been accepted by the editors, thus before entering production (and thus proofs are not an AM).

So, unless specifically allowed beyond any ambiguity, you should expect green-OA compatible journals not to allow you to share the proofs on your web page or on repositories.


Including poor undergraduate research performance in a masters application During my undergraduate degree, in engineering, I took part in two 'undergraduate research assistantships'. Neither of them went well, from my point of view. Both were done during school terms, and were in my 2nd and 3rd years.

In the first assistantship, I chose to work in an area outside my field of study (and outside of my future interests), due to some interest from high school. The topic was too complicated and unfamiliar to me, however, and I was not able to make any contributions. I spent the entire term attempting to read papers on the subject (and not understanding most of them).

The second was more related to my field, and I was able to make some contributions. It was not at the quality that I would accept from myself now, however.

If a masters application form/site asks for a complete record of academic activities/jobs, I will be including information on these.

Would it be likely to help, or harm, and application if I included information on these voluntarily? I can see two possible views myself, but do not know if someone reading an application is likely to see them that way, or which would carry more weight:

Poor performance is the major factor that will be seen in the applications
Including these could show the ability to try and take on extra work (hopefully more successfully)

In either case, I would be able to speak about some lessons learned from the experience. Along the lines of 'Don't start a major project in an area you have zero knowledge in; get some foundational experience in it first'.

I don't know about your field specifically, but in my field, you can rarely make any serious progress on research working part time for part of a school year.  This is true for professors, postdocs, grad students and and especially true for undergrads.  The point of undergraduate research is (1) to give you some taste of research, (2) to learn a few things, and (3) maybe help contribute a small amount of insight to some problem.  At least in math, it's more common that undergrad research "only" results in a learning experience rather than a publishable paper.  In fact, many research projects for grad students and beyond never become papers, and of those that do, it generally takes more than half a year.  That's the nature of research.  It's not easy.

Moreover, as you advance and mature your point of view, it's natural that you view your earlier work as naive (again, this is true for professional researchers).  That's fine.  That doesn't mean there was something wrong with what you did earlier, but just that your understanding has advanced.

Anyway, to answer your question, I would probably include lines on my CV saying you were a research assistant, and at least briefly touch on them in your personal statements.  (You may also want a letter from someone involved in one of these, but that depends on your situation.)  You're not expected to have outstanding outcomes, so you don't need to focus on that outcomes.  But it shows motivation beyond the required coursework and that you have some experience with research.


Meaning of "reading law" In a book recently, I saw a reference to someone "reading law" at such and such a university in England.  But I thought "reading law" was a way to bypass law school and still enter the law profession (after passing the bar I presume).  Is that only in the United States?  Any other countries?

Does England have a similar way to become a lawyer without going to college?  Then what do they call it?

In the US, do persons who read law and then become lawyers get to put anything after their name?  Obviously they would not be permitted to put J.D.

Some rightpondian can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think "reading" in this context is British for "studying", and it does usually imply university study.  The person in question is most likely attending the equivalent of law school.

In the US, lawyers typically write "Esq." after their name, which doesn't really signify anything specific but is traditional.  This doesn't have anything to do with degrees they may or may not have.  (And even lawyers with a J.D. degree don't usually write J.D. after their names, nor use the title Dr.)