Timing a career switch from math to TCS Short version: Is it better to switch focus as a postdoc or wait until after tenure?

Details: I'm a PhD student in math (combinatorics) graduating next year. Let's suppose that I'm a strong candidate for research-oriented, tenure-track positions in math, but my long-term research program is interdisciplinary with TCS. If I have a really productive 1-2 years of postdoc in TCS, will I have a shot at being hired in a good CS department in the US?

I'd rather be in a CS department, but many people in my area don't share that enthusiasm (or are located in Europe). I'm worried that I'll end up with papers in both general math journals and STOC/FOCS and still be unhireable. Should I wait until after tenure?

Edit: Here's why I'm asking. I have postdoc offers in both math and CS departments - I want to take the CS one, but all of my publications are in math journals, and the CS postdoc won't make me a stronger candidate for math departments.

My 2 cents. I would say that getting hired in the theory area in CS departments, even in good times like now, is difficult and depends on many factors. Counting on getting hired even with a productive postdoc is not a good idea. You should try but keep the expectations reasonable and be prepared to be hired in math and enjoy doing the work you like at the interface. If things work out really nicely you can try moving later in your career as well.


Academic 'rehabilitation' after poor undergraduate results I'm an undergraduate studying Mathematics & Philosophy in the UK, about to sit my third-year exams. My course is structured as a three-year self-contained BA and a fourth year 'integrated masters' with its own exams, which I automatically progress to as long as I get a 2.i classification from my combined second- and third-year results.

I've not been a good student. My tutors consistently report that I'm clever and engaged but I've suffered real motivation and work ethic problems. My results in second year were poor, and while I'm reasonably confident I can get a 2.i in these exams I'm unlikely to achieve stellar results this year.

I'd like to have a shot at going on to further study. Obviously I would need to do well in my fourth year, and as well as is possible this year; that's a given. I'd like to know if anyone has any advice on other things I could do to 'rehabilitate' a potential application, both from the perspective of being a better candidate and with a view to getting reasonable references from tutors.

While I'd welcome general answers as well, for specificity the most likely further study I'd be applying to would be a masters programme (combination taught/research) in philosophy.

I can't speak to Philosophy programs so this may not be terribly useful to you, but in general, if your grades/marks are not stellar, and you exams are not either, then you should probably rely more on the power of recommendations from people who know your good traits well.

There are probably several ways to do this, and though I'm not sure about philosophy, in the sciences for example, a couple of years of volunteering in laboratory with one or two different researchers and making yourself invaluable to them can garner you major points.

I didn't do wonderfully in my studies either, and my exams were not fabulous, but I spent three years after graduating my undergraduate university volunteering in two different labs, and enrolling in evening courses to (a) try and do better in essential courses pertinent to my area and (b) demonstrate that I was serious about graduate studies because of my initiative in taking all these courses.

I ended up with three great letters and job opportunities, and later grad school (PhD) through working with these professors.

However, a word of caution: If your weaknesses really include motivation and work ethic, then post graduate study is not going to be fun for you. It's completely different than undergrad as there is way less structure, and you have to be very self-motivated, make your own deadlines, work all the time without people asking you to, and complete projects on your own. It's really hard. If you do decide that you can do it though, I suggest finding an advisor who will be more hands on.

Hope this helps a little!


Can someone apply for a Masters in Computer Science having two years Associate degree and professional experince in programing If someone has a associate's degree with relevant courses (math and physics) and more than 10 years of (verifiable) programming experience, is it generally possible to apply for graduate admission at a good international university?

Generally, in most places, you can apply to a program. But that doesn't mean that you will necessarily be admitted. In some places a bachelor's degree might be required for graduate study, but in those places, I assume that exceptions can be made but only for exceptional cases.

For any application, for an academic program or for a job, you will need to make your own case as to your suitability and likelihood of success. But even then, you can expect a lot of competition, most of it from people whose qualifications are easier to evaluate. So you need a strong case.

In particular, without an undergraduate degree, people will suspect that there are gaps in your education. Being a "programmer" doesn't, of itself, fill any of those gaps. So you will either need to demonstrate competence, or obtain it to be successful.


Are there any academic data sets that force users to release any source code written to analyse them? I am curious to know whether there exists any data set that forces users to publicly release any source code written to analyse it.

Open data licenses apparently do exist, for instance, Open Data Commons maintains the ODbL. I don't think that this has a restriction on code used for analysis, but it does put a share-alike restriction on any derivative datasets.

  If you publicly use any adapted version of this database, or works produced from an adapted database, you must also offer that adapted database under the ODbL.

This essentially ensures that the derived database (or steps used to create it) used for analysis must be shared, though not necessarily the analysis itself.

I imagine that you could modify this license to mandate that you share the steps used to create any work produced (i.e. the analysis code) as well under some kind of open license, but I am not a lawyer, and I did not find an existing license that does this in my (short) search. In particular, this could easily be troublesome if you use closed-source third-party software in your analysis (e.g. Stata, Matlab), though people have overcome similar issues with GPL licenses.


What are Proceedings-published posters? For me it's not clearly described what proceedings-published posters are. Here is a CFP...

I've not heard the term before, but the description seems clear enough from their website:

  Participants submitting proceedings-published posters/demos are required to submit a short paper of 2 pages describing the poster/demo content ... If accepted, this short paper will be published in the proceedings of the conference.

In other words, they will publish an associated short paper in the proceedings as well as displaying the poster. This is distinguished from the other option for a paper, which will be displayed, but not have anything published in the proceedings.


Getting a dump of arXiv metadata Prompted by discussion in this post on Meta.MathOverflow.net I got interested in comparing usage of tags from MathOverflow to submissions in the respective disciplines of arXiv. (Vide a similar idea of language popularity, GitHub vs StackOverflow (or one from 2015).) Moreover, as people often use their real names on MO, it may be interesting to check the overlap of mathematicians.

The question is, how to get such data?

There is arXiv API, but for bulk downloads of metadata they recommend Open Archives Initiative (OAI). Yet, as I see, it can query one article at a time, and one needs to know its id. So without knowing arXiv ids beforehand, it turns into a guessing game.

There are some plots in arXiv usage statistics, yet I don't see this exact data.

Also, one can get total submission to math from links in Mathematics -> Article statistics by year, but it misses the splitting into subdisciplines.

My main confusion was not realizing that The Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting is a separate protocol, not a subset of arXiv API.

In this case, the relevant queries are ListIdentifiers (10k items per query) and ListRecords (1k items per query). To get just identifiers we need to write:

http://export.arxiv.org/oai2?verb=ListIdentifiers&set=math&metadataPrefix=oai_dc

It results in 10k identifiers in the following form:

<OAI-PMH xmlns="http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/ http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/OAI-PMH.xsd">
  <responseDate>2015-02-16T19:28:22Z</responseDate>
  <request verb="ListIdentifiers" metadataPrefix="oai_dc" set="math">http://export.arxiv.org/oai2</request>
  <ListIdentifiers>
    <header>
      <identifier>oai:arXiv.org:0704.0002</identifier>
      <datestamp>2008-12-13</datestamp>
      <setSpec>math</setSpec>
    </header>
    ...
    <header>
      <identifier>oai:arXiv.org:0712.1769</identifier>
      <datestamp>2011-06-23</datestamp>
      <setSpec>math</setSpec>
    </header>
    <resumptionToken cursor="0" completeListSize="249546">760571|10001</resumptionToken>
  </ListIdentifiers>
</OAI-PMH>

As there are more results, to get next batch we need to specify resumptionToken, in this case:

http://export.arxiv.org/oai2?
   verb=ListIdentifiers&resumptionToken=760571|10001

and so on.

Other useful parameters are from and until, e.g. as in

http://export.arxiv.org/oai2?verb=ListIdentifiers&set=math&metadataPrefix=oai_dc&from=2015-01-14&until=2015-01-14

To directly get categories (bear in mind that set=math specifies mathematics, but there are no smaller subsets), one can write:

http://export.arxiv.org/oai2?verb=ListRecords&set=math&from=2015-01-01&until=2015-01-31&metadataPrefix=arXiv

It's important to set metadataPrefix=arXiv, so that subdisciplines will be listed:

<categories>
  math-ph cond-mat.other math.MP nlin.CD physics.class-ph
</categories>

EDIT:

I used delay as Nate Eldredge suggested, in my case - 25s. Yet, while trying to get all math (250k items so in 250 queries) it gave error at 70. I did continue it (with even higher delay) but sometime around 110 the query was not longer available.

So, the way to go is in getting smaller chunks - e.g. by month (or for mathematics - at most by year).


How to answer interview question what did you do undergrad dissertation (for phd interview) An undergrad dissertation doesn't consist of much originality, so I don't really know what to say except develop knowledge across this area, like a set of lecture notes.

but I don't think like a set of lecture note sounds too good, although nothing more is really usually expected at undergrad?

thanks

There are several ways to approach this. What your interviewers want to get from that question is how you present something that you (should) know well.

You could just tell them in a very dry manner the goal of the work and what your results were. That will only show them that you did some research and you probably know what you did.

What is probably more impressive is to tell them what kinds of problems you solved and what tools you used to do it (programming, cooperation with other people, trial and error, etc.). From that they will get a glimpse of your work ethics and how excited you are about your work.


Is there anything I can do about a teacher who is rumored to be unreasonably severe and whose class I am about to take? Background
Due to a change in schedule, I recently had to swap one course section (with a supposedly outstanding instructor) for another (with a different instructor).
Problem
Based on a number of reliable sources, I have come to learn that my new professor is an extremely unreasonable, unapproachable, and severe human being. Numerous people who have had the pleasure to attend his class all commonly reflect on the fact that he is 1) a poor teacher who makes his expectations unclear (and refuses to explain students' mistakes to them) and 2) insists that only 25% of the class will pass. It might be of benefit to mention that this is a required course.
If there is one thing that bothers me in a classroom setting, it is when teachers are vague about what they want from students whilst grading them harshly for things that they never explicitly stated. This is especially worrisome in this circumstance, where the quality of a piece of work is, to some extent, subjective. In addition, I am NOT one who merely seeks to pass classes. I work hard, and I expect my grades to reflect such. Admittedly, I am a very persistent, determined, and bold and I tend to become riled up when I feel like an injustice has been done.
Class starts on Monday, and I would like to know if there is anything that I can do to minimize my heartache. I have heard too many stories about student-professor drama and I wish to avoid it entirely.
Obviously, I can't do anything right now. But would it be okay to approach the prof after the first day of class? If yes, what should I say? If not, do I just bite my tongue and risk my GPA to suffer due to nothing save a teacher's poor attitude?
For those who will tell me to wait until class starts before thinking about any of this, I see no purpose as this instructor has a very long track record and I wish to strategize.

As a former college instructor myself, the number one thing that made me willing to work with students was a willingness on their part to form a mutual relationship of trust.

I was always much more willing and desirous to help a student out when they treated me respectfully and did not treat me like I was out to ruin their life.

Let me also add that it is always of benefit for the instructor to know who you are. This is especially true in a class that potentially could have 50+ students in it (like introductory English). Try to find a way to introduce yourself to the instructor by asking a meaningful and intelligent question after the first class. Even just introducing yourself can sometimes be of benefit.

In closing, may I also be generally blunt? College is an entirely different beast than high school. The standards are often much higher. The negative reviews of this teacher could be negative in part because he is handed a sloppy bunch of kids who just want an easy A. Not always is this the case, but it is sometimes the case.


Nature Communications and Nature subject journal differences from Nature The recent branching of Nature in Nature Communications and all the Nature subject journals is confusing.

What is the difference between Nature, Nature Communications, etc. The only clear difference I see is that the subject journals are specific while the other two are not and they all have their specific IF and metrics.

Does submission to one of them preclude the submission to the others? And is Nature still seen as the most prestigious of this group or has it lost some of its appeal/importance after the creation of all these new journals. It seems that this branching would lead to 'watering down' what Nature was like.

It's weird to me that this question has no answers even though it is a bit old now. I have a friend in STEM who talks about these journals in a way that seems fairly straightforward to me.

A publication in Nature itself is obviously the most prestigious and is roughly equivalent with publishing in the most respected journal in your field.
Nature subject journals are a tier below Nature, but are also extremely prestigious and can allow young PhD students and postdocs to break into permanent research positions.
Nature Communications is a respectable "megajournal" a tier below the subject journals. It accepts a larger number of publications.
Scientific Reports accepts a very large number of publications and most any good science can be published there. Its impact factor is half of Nature Communications.

Generally you only submit to one of these tiers, and if you are a student your advisor would be able to tell you which is the correct one to aim for.

Again, I don't do STEM research and this is based purely on the way my friend talks about these journals. If this is wrong or too judgmental please post a comment.


Is it appropriate to wear an honor stole/cord to my doctoral hooding and convocation? I didn't have the chance to wear my academic stole or honor cord during my undergraduate graduation.

Question:  Would it be appropriate to wear the academic stole and honor cord to my doctoral hooding and convocation?

EDIT I should mention that at least one of the items was earned during my graduate career, if that has any bearing.

I can't find any guidance from my university.

Formal regalia for convocations are highly stylised - even the side to which a tassel falls can have meaning. It would not normally be appropriate to wear representations of achievement that are unrelated to the degree you are about to receive.

If the honor stole/cord has particular significance to you, you can write to your university to explain your situation and to ask for permission to wear it at your convocation. You should then abide by their reply.


Is it okay to email the authors of a paper questions not directly for research? I read this paper:  http://citpsite.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/oldsite-htdocs/pub/coldboot.pdf

I have a very quick question about recreating the experiment, and this isn't for academic reasons, it's purely for personal reasons. This is a Princeton paper from 2008. Basically, the paper states that the experiment was performed after a computer component was made wet to reduce temperature. I want to ask if it's hazardous to the computer in any way to boot it while this component is still wet. Is it inappropriate to mail the paper's authors about this question?

Answering the more general question, sure. A polite email will never hurt you, the worst case scenario is that they are too busy to reply, or that their contact information is no longer valid. The best possible outcome, you get a nice explanation, an interesting conversation, and perhaps a couple of anecdotes about the research. Just make sure that question is:

Relevant to the research. Obviously, I don't email Linus Torvalds every time my linux computer doesn't boot.
The information is not easy or obvious to find.

Just liquid refrigeration of computer components doesn't really meet any criteria, but you could ask for the specifics. Just make sure to understand the basics first, if your question looks "dumb", it will probably get lower priority.

Reading a paper for my own research, I found a somewhat old paper (about 10 years) explaining the analysis of some data. One of the key points is setting the noise threshold, that they set as the maximum of the histogram. The thing is that in my data the maximum of the histogram was at 0, following a very good power law. In short: the procedure would be invalid for my data; but actually irrelevant for me.

I commented it with my advisor and he said that I should email the author about it, and that it will probably start an interesting conversation. (I haven't gotten to it yet, but my bet is that modern instruments are quite different).


Explaining undergrad transfer on application to grad school I'm applying to PhD programs in math.  The thing is: I went to a great school coming out of high school, but it didn't work out.  (No GPA problems thankfully; just personal stuff.)  I ended up going to an engineering program, where I eventually understood math was my calling, and everything has been going swimmingly since then.

The question is: do I need to explain myself?  Every program I apply to will be getting the transcript from my first institution.  It seems to me I should explain why I left and how I've gotten to where I am.  That said, only one school I'm applying to actually requires a statement about this kind of circumstance, which has left me a bit confused.  Presumably my having transferred will raise questions that I should strive to address in my application, rather than letting the admissions committees' imaginations fill in the gaps.  That said, I feel as though anything I can say to explain the situation will detract from the positive developments that transpired after I transferred, particularly given the prestige I chose to give up.

If there were no GPA problems at the first school, then there's nothing in that first transcript to look askance at; hence, no explanation needed.

However, the specific change you made, from engineering to pure math, might help your application.  Perhaps a small anecdote will help me explain why.

When I took my Calculus III (multivariate), it happened that my fellow students had no patience for proofs.  They were overwhelmingly engineering students. One of them became a self-appointed spokesman for the impatient majority, and would interrupt the instructor in the middle of a proof of a major theorem: "Excuse me, Ma'am, could you skip the proof, please, and go straight to the applications?"

Not all engineering students are like that; and to be fair, the large number of credit hours they are frequently expected to take per semester isn't conducive to stopping to smell the roses.

Conclusion: a brief mention in the essay or cover letter of your change of major from engineering to math might help your application.


Is there any relation between them like ESCI is less than SCIE and SCIE is less than SCI? I am having a hard time figuring out the difference between excellent,good,average and bad journals.

I checked this link http://mjl.clarivate.com/ from where I figured out about ESCI,SCI,SCIE journals in my field of Mathematics.

I read  ESCI Journals vs SCI/SCIE Journals and What is the difference between SCI and SCIE?.

But still cant figure out how does a journal categorise as being excellent,good,average and bad journals.

Can we make some sort of algorithms which helps us to answer this question?

Is there any  relation between them like ESCI is less than SCIE and SCIE is less than SCI?

Are all SCIE indexed journals of higher value than any ESCI journals?

I have noticed that there are many ESCI journals which have many leading mathematicians as their Editor-In-Chief and many SCIE journals whose editor in chiefs are not so well known.
Will still a SCIE indexed journal score more than a ESCI?

Kindly shed some light.

This is what Clarivate Analytics says, "The Science Citation Index (SCI) is a highly selective subset of journals found in the Science Citation Index Expanded. Journals in SCI are typically the most consistently high impact titles in many scientific disciplines."

"Emerging Sources Citation Index provides Web of Science Core Collection users with expanded options to discover new areas of research in evolving disciplines, as well as relevant interdisciplinary scholarly content across rapidly changing research fields... These titles are also being evaluated on a continual basis for inclusion in the SCIE, SSCI, and AHCI."

(http://mjl.clarivate.com/#journal_lists and http://info.clarivate.com/ESCI)

From these excerpts, it seems that with respect to the way they measure impact, Clarivate would probably put SCI journals at the top, SCIE journals that are not also in SCI in the middle, and ESCI journals in third place, although they don't say this directly. My own view based on my field (law) is that some of the journals in the ESCI are much more well-regarded (and more impactful) than some in the SSCI, so I would caution against using these indices as your sole criteria to determine quality. Nothing replaces reading the journals and asking your colleagues and experts in your field about them.


Where should I look to see if any funding is available for an industry-based research to attend and present at academic conference? I am an industry-based researcher, which means that that I am not attached to any university or school. The research I do is basic and sector-based and some of them (as pointed out to me in this forum) is not even research per se (e.g. manuals and codes).

Notwithstanding this, I am always keen to engage in 'formal' research and I submit abstracts/proposals occasionally to conferences organised by universities/others where I can present my work. This is, of course, from a practical point of view which has certain advantages because it tells what works and what doesn't in the real world.

I have been accepted to present at a few conferences but I am discovering (to my surprise) that there is no financial assistance available to speakers (travel, accommodation and even registration). These expenses amount to thousands of dollars and are beyond my reach. It is also outside the scope of my profession so cannot be covered by my employer.

I am wondering what forms of assistance (if any) are available to assist non-academic researchers present their work to a wider audience?

Note: I checked with the conference organisers and they said there is no financial assistance available.

Unless you are invited to present as a keynote speaker, you're probably out of luck for getting sponsorship from conferences to present.  The expected cash-flow is generally in the other direction: conferences ask industry to donate money that supports the travel of academics.

Many companies, however, have internal "professional development" programs that allow employees to apply to use internal money to attend conferences, even if it is not directly connected with their current job responsibilities.  Check and see if your employer has an option of that sort: most large high-tech companies have some sort of formal program, and many small companies have informal options.

Another option is to see if you can convince your employer to run a marketing or recruitment booth, if the conference is within the company's general scope of interests (or public relations outreach).  Then, even if it's not within the scope of your current duties, you may be able to "pay your way" on the trip by organizing and spending part of your time manning the booth.


On areas of overlap between Computer Science and Economics For those who want to be involved in both disciplines throughout academia (BS to MS to PhD) as well as in the workplace/career, what are some places of overlap between Economics and Computer Science?

Take, as an example, statistical computing using R as a programming language in econometrics.

There is a large and thriving community studying what is commonly known as Economics and Computation. This includes

Algorithmic Game Theory: the study of computational strategic agents. A good reference for this is the seminal Algorithmic Game Theory book. This subfield includes routing games (how selfish agents behave in network routing), mechanism design (auctions, such as spectrum auctions or Google ad auctions) and more.
Computational Fair Division: fair allocation of divisible/indivisible goods. This includes matching markets (college admissions, kidney exchanges) and assignment problems (course allocation, public housing assignment)
Computational Social Choice: efficient aggregation of opinions. This includes standard voting analysis as well as multi winner elections, opinion dynamics and more.


Citing Ramanujan's notebooks I am citing a specific entry in Ramanujan's Notebooks and have a question: should I cite Berndt (the author of the aforementioned text) and Ramanujan directly (to each their own citation) even though I did not consult Ramanujan's actual notebooks?

I am asking because I saw this done in this article published in the Proceedings of the AMS, who cite Berndt's Ramanujan's Notebooks as well as Ramanujan himself (see the first sentence of the article for the relevant citations.)

There is some inconsistency in how different sources list Ramanujan's Notebooks and the two people deserving credit for it:

The Library of Congress catalog entry lists Ramanujan a bit ambiguously under "Personal name", but describes the work as "edited by" Berndt.
The British Library catalog entry lists Ramanujan under "Author" and Bruce Berndt under "Contributor" with the notation "Ed." (again implying that Berndt's role is that of editor).
Google Books lists Bruce Berndt as "Editor" and has the convoluted string "Srinivasa Ramanujan Aiyangar Bruce C. Berndt, Bruce C. Berndt, Ramanujan" under "Author".

It sounds like these three sources pretty much agree that Ramanujan is an author and Berndt is an editor. I don't know if there's an authoritative answer to the question of whether Bruce Berndt is also a co-author. I can only assume that either one of the famous national libraries I linked to above would be regarded as authoritative enough that no one will fault you for relying on their listings.

From a more philosophical point of view, whether Bruce Berndt is considered an editor or author is immaterial. His compilation and editing of Ramanujan's original notebooks was a monumental achievement, and that is what really matters.


Is it acceptable to take some exercises directly from the text book when preparing exercise sheets? I want to prepare some exercise sheets for a course. I am wondering whether or not it is OK to take some exercises directly from the textbook.

From a practical point of view, taking a few exercises for internal classroom use will probably not cause copyright problems, depending on the local laws. Teaching is one of the fair use possibilities in the US, but I am no expert in law, and I don't know how far it goes.

Assuming US law applies, here are a few rules for fair use, and I believe you fulfil them all: non profit, for educational purposes, on content more factual than artistic, extracting small parts, and no net effect on the market. Some other sources also add restricted access to the student as a point in favour. It is always safer and more ethical to add a reference to the original book.


How strict are listed minimum requirements for admission to a graduate degree program? I'm a rising senior at a Chinese university. I'm really interested in pursuing a master degree (as a stepping-stone to a PhD) in the US.

I do not know what "Minimum Requirements" for admission really mean. For example,

  Applicants should have at least a B average (3.0 on a 4.0 scale) in an undergraduate curriculum which includes a strong emphasis on mathematics.

My undergraduate school applies a mixture of the British and Chinese grading systems. While 4.0 represents a perfect average, less than 5% of students have an average above 3.5, and only about 25% of students achieve a 3.0 (I do not know exact number).

Do minimum requirements like the one above mean "if you get grade lower than 3.0 in any grade system, do not waste your money on applying," or something else?

No direct conversion of grades is possible between various systems. So, you will have to argue your way into their program, by presenting your results in the best light possible and making a convincing case that you would fulfill their requirements if you were in their system. Because in the end, your application will be judged by people, not computer. At least if you make it clear that your system is quite different.

One of the ways to do it is, as you started to do, by comparing percentiles: figure out what their grade requirement equals to in terms of quantile, and start from there. “I am in the top 25% of my school, which is equivalent to a grade of XX (based on these official statistics)”. That sort of reasoning.


Popular science magazine for a scientist Background:
A month ago I successfully defended my PhD in computational fluid mechanics (yay!). As a present, my parents want to give me a subscription to a science magazine of my choice. I'm an avid reader, so I very much appreciate the gift, but I am not sure about what magazine I should choose. I used to subscribe to a local pop-sci magazine in the past, but as I progressed from high-school student to PhD student I found it to be very lacking (no proper references to the "recent science", generally poor/clickbaity reporting, History Channel-like focus).

Question:
What general-coverage science magazines  are appropriate for the working scientist?

From some googling around, Scientific American is currently at the top of my list. What I would like is:

Something printed on dead trees, monthly (or even less frequent) issues.
Balanced reporting, not breathless praise for the latest hype that will solve all problems, not simple reprints of university PR office stuff.
Broad coverage, at least all of STEM, a bit of medicine and social science stuff is also interesting.
Reporting that doesn't shy away from technical/advanced topics, and which assumes the reader is intelligent enough to learn something.
Proper references to the actual studies mentioned, and preferrably also conflicting viewpoints highlighted.

A few examples of science reporting that I like include APS's "Physics" magazine (online only, narrow coverage), Derek Lowe's blog "In the pipeline" over at Science Translational Medicine (same "cons" as above), Scott Aaronson's blog, the "Fuck Yeah Fluid Dynamics" blog (if you'll pardon my French). I also subscribe to Foreign Policy, and generally like their reporting.

"Science" from AAAS. If you're a student/post-doc, $95. Otherwise, $160 (for personal subscription). Strong medicine component.

Nature, $119 for student/post-doc, $199 otherwise. Significant discount for a 2-year subscription.


As a new faculty member, how do I avoid the Peter Principle? Quoth the Wikipedia:

"The Peter Principle is a proposition that states that the members of an organization where promotion is based on achievement, success, and merit will eventually be promoted beyond their level of ability. The principle is commonly phrased, 'Employees tend to rise to their level of incompetence.'"

In academia, we have a tendency to promote brilliant and productive young researchers (e.g., grad students and postdocs) into positions with a large management component (i.e., assistant professors who must run a research group).  God willing, I will get promoted.  But during my PhD,

I was not trained as a manager!

The conventional wisdom is: it doesn't matter!  No professor ever took management training, and, hey, everything "works out" in the end.  The main problem I have with that statement are the quotes around "works out."  I have seen friends suffer through horrible, painful, sad grad school experiences as a result of having advisors who are brilliant researchers and terrible managers.  Likewise, the advisor suffers because she/he is investing time/energy/money in a student that doesn't produce anything.  So my question is

Q: How do I avoid becoming a terrible manager?

In particular, what kinds of activities have you seen successful leaders of large-ish research groups engage in?  Did they take training specifically targeted at managing groups?  Read certain books?  Talk about it a lot with senior colleagues?  Make lots of posts on academia.stackexchange?  Or did they really all just fly by the seat of their pants, and let natural selection take its course?

Thanks!

Based on my experience with faculty, if you care about managing well, and don't want to be a bad manager, you are already doing better than many people. Again, in my experience, the worst offenders along these lines are those who think they are God's gift to their graduate students and postdocs, and cannot bear to hear any criticism.

So, if you want to do a good job managing:

Keep caring about doing a good job and encourage constructive
criticism/suggestions.
In particular, talk to the people you are managing, and find out
what they think. Lots of junior people are scared to even give
constructive advice to their seniors, because they don't know if it
will adversely affect them. It is obvious to say that you can often
learn a great deal from the people around you, but people sometimes
forget that this is very much true of the junior people you work
with as well.

This is only tangentially relevant, but this blog post by Matt Zimmerman is quite good.


Is a good PhD student or researcher expected to spend some part of their day/week regularly reading new research papers/pre-prints? Or alternatively do good PhD students and researchers spend some part of their day, regularly, reading new research papers and pre-prints?
Please give some reasoning of why and why not, if possible.
Background for those who are interested:
I am a physics student. I am new to publishing research papers and research in general. Just around a week back my summer intern work was submitted to a journal and a pre-print was made public in arXiv (I am the corresponding author). This was my first experience with publishing a paper, so I didn't know what to expect (except for corrections, major/minor revision notification from the journal ;[ )
However, within 12 hours of being public in arXiv, I received a mail from a PhD student and the next day I received a mail from another PhD student. One of the mails was about how his research paper (published a month back) disproved a popular notion which we had mentioned in our discussion and the second one about his research paper and possibility of matching both our results.
Both of these PhD students were from two very very prestigious universities, so I was quite surprised. While I expected people asking for clarification or pointing out mistakes I did not expect such a practice.
Is it common for all PhD students to do this? Or do good researchers do this on their own? (Which might explain why these two are in top schools). But the topic of this research is very hot with lots of new papers being published every week. So I can't imagine how one would achieve it. Also, until now, I always thought that we will have a specific problem for our PhD, so I am not sure in what way this'll be useful. (I know one has to do literature study before starting.)
Since I would be applying for graduate schools next year I though this might be something I should practice, if it helps me as a researcher.

There are pages like http://www.arxiv-sanity.com/ to filter the mass of papers on arXiv and give you the chance to read what interests you most. Furthermore, you can also go through all recent papers on your phone (instead of browsing instagram, reddit or whatever), read the abstract and mark everything that might be interesting to later read. I'm not sure if it is expected, that might strongly depend on your institute, group or advisor, but it is surely possible to do it in nicer ways than by simply clicking through arXiv directly.

I know good researchers who check arXiv daily, I know other just as good ones that haven't looked at it in months, so there also is no general rule there for after the PhD it seems.

Btw, if anyone knows of other nice ways to filter the arXiv feed, feel free to share/add, I'm not yet 100% happy with the ones mentioned that I currently know.


Workshop submission by a first year student, does it count? I have asked earlier this question in that post Submitting Workshop Proposal by A first Year PhD student

I asked my supervisor and he is okay, but I was astonished that he told me that I have to take permission from the head of the department, in general, he didn't give me a bit of useful advice.

To have a paper it requires time since I am working with collaborative groups, I cannot publish yet and I want to be engaged more in scientific activities.

My question now: Does it count to a first-year Ph.D. student to submit a workshop proposal ( I am going to have other professors, however, I will be in charge of all the logistics)

I don't know whether it could be wise to invest time in submitting a workshop proposal.

Does it count as having a paper

That depends on the workshop.  Your submission counts as a (peer-reviewed, published) paper if and only if

The submission is an actual manuscript, and not just a short (few-paragraph) abstract, AND
Your submission is accepted by the committee after significant review by your peers (the workshop committee)
After some revision, the manuscript will be made available to the public in some persistent form, either paper or electronic, that can be found many years in the future by someone who did not attend the workshop.

Many workshops fail all three of these conditions—submissions consist of only few-paragraph abstracts, which are lightly reviewed by the committee (to eliminate obvious garbage), and which are printed verbatim onto paper handouts that are distributed at the conference, but never made public elsewhere.

This may be a language issue, but a "workshop proposal" doesn't sound like a paper describing your own research, but rather a proposal for a workshop that you want to organize, either for other people to present their research, or to collaborate on new research, or both.  Organizing a workshop could be valuable experience and a positive point on your CV, but it does not count as a "paper".


Which tense to use when presenting my master thesis? In a couple of weeks, I have to present my master thesis to both my professors (supervisors) and family and friends. After the title page, I immediately present the main novelty of my thesis (instead of first presenting a lot of "blablabla" about the literature and stuff).

What would be a suitable tense to do this?

For instance:

  I found/ have found/find that [description of findings]

or

  This thesis shows/has shown/showed that [description of findings]

I think you'll get the point. It is basically whether to use the present simple/ present perfect or past simple.

EDIT: My thesis is about the effects of unconventional monetary policy announcements by the Fed on European government bond markets. So w.r.t. to the comment of C26 below, it is something happened in the past. However, I also examined through which channels these announcements influence government bond markets in the eurozone. So this is more like a process; something that is most likely also true in the future (i.e. when these announcements will occur again).

I think it really depends on what the research shows. If the research demonstrates a process that is ongoing, or straddles multiple timelines/periods, you can go with "the research shows that". However, if it is related to something that happened squarely in the past, you can use the past only.

I personally tend not to use the first person when discussing results of undertaken research, though I have seen it done in all the ways you describe. Really it comes down to what feels most natural and right to you as the author.


Should I publish in a journal that appears on Beall’s list? I have written an article in the field of Information Systems and I would like to publish it in a journal. I downloaded the Scimago journal rank, and decided to publish in a journal called Journal of Theoretical and Applied Information Technology. This journal appears to be in the quartile Q3 of Scimago, but one thing that caught my attention is that they publish three volumes per month. Each accepted submission must pay a cost of 300 USD.

When I was searching for the reputation of this journal, I found that it is listed in the famous or infamous Beall’s list. My questions are:

Why does this journal appear on Scimago if it is a predatory one?
Would it be a good idea to publish in it?

Beall's list is grounds for high suspicion, not a ban.  In the case of this particular journal, it looks like not a very good journal, but not an obvious scam.  Google Scholar finds a number of articles with moderate citations, and on first inspection they don't look like metric gaming, so it looks like it wouldn't be a black mark on one's record.

Bottom line: probably legit, but if you've done good work isn't there somewhere better than you can publish it?


How important is the grade for a course I took, if I want to pursue graduate studies in that field? I recently made the decision to pursue graduate studies and apply for an MS in computer science program during next year's application process. More specifically, the field that I want to study is machine learning. However, there is something that's been concerning me a lot for the past few days.

I'm actually taking a machine learning course this semester, and I don't believe I did too well. I think I'll end up with either a C+ or at best a B or - if the professor feels very generous - a B+. If I were to give an excuse for the result, I'm not too familiar with many of the tools we used in class (Python, Sci-kit Learn, etc.) and the professor, TA's, and fellow students all gave me the same answer of "it's your job to learn on your own" when I would ask questions (which is true to an extent). It was a disheartening semester, to say the least. But excuses aren't important, and the result is that I didn't perform well.

Now the actual question is: Would this affect my graduate studies application? My GRE scores are satisfactory (163V/169Q/5.5AW) and my TOEFL scores are also good (118/120). Upon graduation I will have around a 3.2-3.4/4.0 GPA.

I've heard stories of professors rejecting applicants because they performed poorly for relevant courses despite showing positive traits in other ways, and I guess that's been concerning me.

Much of this will come down to what types of schools you want to apply to and what type of funding you hope to receive for graduate school.

In the case of the graduate students we review at my school, GRE is an initial filter for classifying applicants as "acceptable" or "not acceptable." After that we do not look at GRE scores much. This means that a high GRE score gets you in the door and essentially nothing more. Letters of recommendation and grades in relevant classes are much more important to us. Your GRE scores are quite high. Unfortunately, graduate school success usually has little to do with how well you can perform on a single 4 hour test. Grades are a better reflection in my experience. (Especially subject-specific grades).

I will be blunt: A C+ in a highly relevant course is not a good sign. There is no magic formula to overcome this. Admission committees will not really look highly upon a candidate who gets a C+ in a machine learning class because they could not learn Python. If you couldn't do it as an undergrad, what indicators are there that you will suddenly be blessed with the gift to learn Python and SK-Learn as a graduate student?

Understand that I'm not trying to be overly harsh on this. I am conveying the questions that an admissions committee must ask.

I will add that sometimes we will admit an MS student who pays his/her own way. This is usually done in the case where we see a person who has potential, but not a lot to show for it. If their grade issues persist as a graduate student, it's not really a huge issue for us. They usually self-select to drop out of the program.


Concerted efforts to digitalize MS and PhD theses? Some universities digitize their masters and doctoral theses already and some of them even share them for free online. However, there are enough that are not digitized that inter-library loan remains often necessary for literature searches. Obviously this is just a matter of time until the librarians catch up with the modern era. However, government funding is often involved and could be leveraged towards progress in those instances. Has this been proposed already? Have similar mechanisms been proposed?

Has this been proposed already? Have similar mechanisms been proposed?

Yes, it was proposed, this was even implemented, partially or at a whole country level. In Russia, for example, all PhD theses' copies are centrally stored, scanned and recognized (if there wasn't already a digital copy) as a part of the degree awarding process. From 2005 the process needed a digital copy submitting, also, most of the old theses(~1.5M total) from 1951 were scanned.


Can the communicating author remove some of the authors (4 out of 6) when submitting the second revision of a paper describing a database? Our paper was due submission for second revision at a BMC journal. The communicating author, as I understand is responsible for handling all the communications between all authors and the journal, while also making suitable arrangement to cover any open access charges.

However, the communicating author in our case, without informing any author, removed 4 out of the total 6 authors while submitting the second revision. How should we deal with this? isn't it a academic fraud by the communicating author? Can't we, as students do anything to stop this?

This sounds like an unpleasant situation.

If this happened to me, I think my starting point would be to ensure I had copies of anything that might be useful as evidence. Then, I would write (formally) to the person concerned, asking for an explanation of why they thought it appropriate to remove you all from the author list. I think this has to be the first step: it is always possible that there is a rational explanation (although it's difficult to imagine what it might be). You might choose to copy the letter to the head of the relevant university department, and perhaps to the editor of the journal - particularly if the paper has not yet been published, and so can be put 'on hold' pending resolution of the authorship dispute.

Of course, you will have to weigh up the benefits of asserting your rights to authorship against any potential cost arising from 'causing trouble'. You are completely within your rights to create a major fuss here, and your department should be entirely supportive. I think you should do something. However, there is a risk that some of the people involved will seek revenge, if they have any power over you (e.g. if you are still a student at the university). I am absolutely not condoning such behaviour - it is quite clearly bullying, and an abuse of power. However, it would be irresponsible to advocate taking action without encouraging you to also consider whether there are any potential adverse consequences.


Should a student keep asking questions to a faculty even if the faculty is unsure of the answer? I am taking an advance course in Computer Science so the class size is pretty limited (8 to be exact). The faculty is very senior and well respected in the field. For past few lectures, I have been asking questions that make the faculty a little uncomfortable which I can guess from the way the answers are given (I am also on a psychology class :-) )

For example, to understand a concept, I say "why X has been used ?". He tries his best to answer "because of A,B,C reasons". During this explanation, occasionally I can sense high level of uncomfort in him and the answers are ambiguous. So, now I have doubt that "if X, then why A ? " and so on. Should one continue with these kind of questions when you know that the faculty won't be able to answer the questions perfectly or isn't comfortable enough to satisfy your inquisitiveness. I do not doubt his competence at all and respect him very much. But how does a faculty feel in this kind of continuous poking (if it is so) or should one resort to personal interaction so that he may feel more comfortable ?

Does that hold negatively for the student that student is trying to humiliate the faculty ?

Note: Questions are not non-sense but are somewhat basic and supported by logic.

You're studying psychology. That doesn't make you telepathic.

There's a wide variety of possible reasons for what's going on:

you are mistaken, your lecturer is not uncomfortable. Crazy, I know, but you just might be wrong.
your lecturer has indigestion, or piles, or tight shoes
your questions indicate you're missing basic knowledge
the questions take the group away from the core material that the lecturer has to get through, and answering them will slow the teaching down
your lecturer doesn't know the answer, and can't bring themselves to say as much, and doesn't have the nous to turn it around and ask you or the rest of the class to find the answer. That's quite a failing in an academic, to be unable to say "I don't know".

Note that repeatedly asking "why A?" "So why B?" "So why C? ..." is something that toddlers do, it's often just time-wasting and attention-seeking and is likely to annoy a lot of people; even if those aren't your motives, be aware that it could come across as that. So instead of just asking questions, look for some answers yourself. You are doing a higher degree, after all, so you should be looking for answers yourself, as well as seeking help from staff and other students.


Can my university revoke my degree after it was granted due to (corporate) data having changed? I did my thesis using corporate data (I used to work there, they don't give their information freely or sell it), data is from 2009 to 2018.

I collect the data, analyze it, everything normal. However, after my thesis was approved and submitted, I saw that the company has modified some of their data from 2009 to 2018, historical data from the past was changed (they have valid reasons) but I am worried that if someone tries to verify the source of my information, they will find different data and think that I commit fraud or data manipulation.

My supervisor and many people told me that nothing wrong will happen because my research was in a specified period of time when data was presented like that, they also told me that after a thesis approval, no one verifies data source. They also told me that the verification of data source is done before thesis approval.

However I am still worried, because it is not common for a company to modify data from the past.

My thesis wont be published because the used data is privated, so they are allowing me to not publish it.

Any ideas of what should I do?

Revoking a degree is rarely done and, then, only for the most extreme reasons such as explicit dishonesty and such. Any results in any thesis are subject to revision as new information becomes available that was not present in the past. It doesn't mean that the work was wrongly done, but only that what is known has advanced.

Since you re-did the experiment and came to the same conclusion, you may be able to publish something based on the new results and, when citing your unpublished theses, mention that the conclusions there were verified with new data.


University is not issuing me my convocation certificate I completed my bachelors in Engineering in Aug '16. It's been more than 2 years I haven't received my convocation certificate. Every time I go to university to ask about my convocation certificate the department head says they sent it to college. College says they didn't receive it.

Not sure what I can do more about it. Everyone is rude and they don't have any answers when i question about proof or written statement about my convocation certificate.

I am out of options and thinking of filing formal police complaint. If anyone has any other suggestions regarding this please let me know. And I am sorry for my earlier offensive post.

Assuming that it is a lack of communication that is causing your problem, you need a way to create the needed conversation to get the problem resolved.

I'd suggest sending an email to both the department head and the college office explaining the difficulty and asking for a resolution. This should be one mail, addressed to both offices so that you put them in direct communication with each other.

You may learn something from whatever response you get from either or both parties. If the problem goes beyond communication, you need to know that in order to figure out what else might be done.

But you need, also, to phrase things respectfully, even if you don't feel it. Calling names such as you used in an earlier question here will only get you ignored.


Referring to the candidate in a recommendation letter I'm writing a recommendation letter for a candidate that wants to pursue MSc program abroad. I've known the candidate since his first year of undergraduate studies and also I included him in some personal projects of mine. However, I wonder how should I address him in the letter. These are the options:

Address him by last name only:

  Mr. Doe was...

Address him as 'the candidate':

  The candidate's motivation...

Any opinions on which one is preferred?

You are writing on behalf of the applicant, and are supposed to be providing information that shows how well you know the applicant's strengths and weaknesses. That knowledge is more convincingly implied if you refer to the candidate by her name, rather than as "the candidate" or "the applicant."

Also, most good letters of recommendation I've seen actually refer to the candidate by her first name, rather than as "Ms. Doe."


Should I use only SI units of measurements in review papers? I am writing a review paper and I came across a literature in which measurement of force is given in pounds and likewise for other quantities. In all the other papers, only the SI system of units is followed. Should I use the units used by the author or should I convert the measurement values to SI units?

To avoid confusion and to ensure the comparability of the results, you should use uniform and consistent units throughout the paper. You can write a note explaining that in the original paper the authors used pounds, furlong per fortnight etc.

And of course, yes, use the SI units. Nowadays all non-SI units are defined in terms of SI units. However, don't trust random sources for the conversion factors: an up-to-date and recommended source for conversion factors is the NIST Guide to the SI, Appendix B: Conversion Factors.


Potential Impact of Pass/Fail vs. Letter Grade in Elective Courses The current grading system of my university allows graduate students to either receive a letter grade (A through F) or receive a Pass/Fail grade (where A-C is Pass) in any course offered. Each student must indicate his/her grading preference for each course within the first 2 weeks of the term. Most departments have a strict requirement that all "required" courses must be taken for a letter grade; however, elective courses can either be taken for a letter grade or Pass/Fail. Many of these elective courses are advanced versions of "required" courses, or they might be intermediate to advanced courses in other departments that are still related to one's research area.

When it comes time to apply for postdoc or junior faculty positions, could choosing to take elective courses Pass/Fail negatively impact hiring or funding decisions? For example, suppose a postdoc advertisement states that the position requires knowledge of a technique or area covered in an elective course. Would the fact that an applicant received a "Pass" in the course be considered the same as if the grade was instead an A or B? Alternatively, is it better to risk getting a B (or C) in a hard elective course instead of "playing it safe" by electing to Pass/Fail the course (where A, B, and C all get the same grade)? Are there any situations where the choice between letter grade vs. Pass/Fail can impact anything negatively or positively?

I've often heard that grades don't matter as much in graduate school compared to things like research output and networking, which may make this question a bit irrelevant. Still, I would be curious what others think.

Unless you're applying for a post-doctoral position at a corporation or somewhere else where HR personnel will be screening your materials before forwarding them to the person doing the hiring (where GPA might be scrutinized), I don't think it frankly makes much difference. Your work as a researcher matters much more than your performance in an elective course taken in graduate school that may have little to do with your proposed research area for the postdoc.


How to deal with advisor who wants me to submit dissertation on time even though there's a major problem? I'm on my last month before the deadline to hand in my dissertation.

I found a severe problem with the work that renders it pretty much pointless and I pointed out to my advisor that I would need some extra time to fix the problem and at least achieve the objective of the work. He basically told me to keep writing the dissertation in order to meet the deadline, without trying to fix the problem. My advisor is also going on a sabbatical, so it feels like he's pushing me towards handing in my dissertation regardless if the work is complete or not. This would pretty much guarantee that I'd have to provide bleak explanations to the committee that will discuss the work with me (because telling them that my advisor rushed me isn't an option).

I really don't want to create a conflict with my advisor. Plus, I'm having a terrible time trying to meet the deadline and my motivation is pretty much gone. I'm considering quitting the program without handing in my dissertation and pursue other career options.

Should I hand in the dissertation even though there's this problem that renders it useless? Or should I try to convince my advisor to get me more time to fix the problem (even though he seems reluctant)? Should I not do any of this and just simply quit the program?

The following is based on my experience in neuroscience. Not sure if this generalizes to other fields.

I think you have two ways to work here, and each is equally "right".

First, you can do exactly as your advisor suggests, working towards completing the thesis even though there's a major flaw. This happens probably more often than you think; I learned halfway through my own thesis that the work I was doing was not generalizable at all due to bad design, and overall was pretty bad science. Oops. The thing is, it's a dissertation, not a peer-reviewed publication. The goal of your dissertation is for you to demonstrate to your committee that you know how to perform research, not for you to contribute overall to science. Your advisor's pushing you to complete your thesis may be him espousing this very idea; namely, your fixing everything up should be saved for your peer-reviewed publications, not for your thesis. Given that (in neuroscience) it is a pretty rare event for someone to refer back to a dissertation thesis when performing a literature search, the fact that your thesis document may be rendered moot isn't such a big deal; mention it in the introduction, results, and conclusion sections and just publish as is. Fix the problem in the journal articles.

The second approach is that, if it has your name on it, it should be publication-worth, and dang if you're going to let something with this obvious an error be in the public record.

Honestly, I don't think either one is wrong. The first one can save you valuable time and advance your career by months/years, and if you're in a field where your thesis doesn't mean much then it's probably the right choice. The second one may make you look better overall, and may be a requirement if your field places more weight on the thesis document itself.

Not sure if that helps, but it may give you some perspective.


Why do we cite books with publisher and city? Or just city in some formats? I mean, I could maybe guess why it was marginally helpful a century ago, but why now? What use is it for my reader to know that a book I'm citing was published in Berlin, Boston, and Fresno, or more to the point, that the nearest city to me where a certain book was printed years ago happens to be Fresno? If the point is to look up the book, wouldn't the ISBN be far more useful?

Versions published in different countries can differ - it's not uncommon for books to be published in one version in the US/Canada, and slightly differently elsewhere. Even a minor difference like binding could conceivably affect page references, so it's important to be clear in that sense. There's also a wider principle of redundancy; if the author does get some part of the citation wrong (say, misspells the author's surname) the more information included in the rest of the citation the better the reader has a chance of recovering the actual item.

With regard to why we use human-meaningful information rather than details like an ISBN, I would venture that dense information like an ISBN is actually quite difficult to read for a human; it's easy for the author to mistype the number when producing the bibliography, and then easy for the reader to mistype it when looking up the reference. It's comparatively harder to get details like publisher name and city wrong. If I'm looking through a bibliography or list of references I much prefer to see information I understand than a collection of opaque numbers.

Having said the above, I'm sure to a large extent it's an historical tradition that has persisted. Certainly before the development of international reference standards like the ISBN system the above arguments held even more weight, and in the days of much less extreme globalisation the various global offices of major publishing houses were much more autonomous. It might conceivably have been quite a different undertaking to be published by, say, Oxford University Press in Oxford rather than Oxford University Press in New York.


How to improve as undergraduate student doing research? I am currently working for a Computer Science researcher as an undergraduate. I worked for them last semester and have continued into the semester. However, I am having a bit of trouble lately because I feel like I haven't been as helpful as I could be and at times feel like a burden when I ask too many questions or am unsure how to do something. Do advisors get annoyed by undergraduates when they ask too many questions? Is there a way that I can improve? Or any general practices that are good to follow?

Being a burden is the sine qua non of undergraduate researchers! That's not a dis, it reflects the truth that the professor isn't having you in their lab for your abundant research output, but for your own education (and possibly so they can lure you in to joining them as a graduate student). After all (it's easy to forget sometimes) a professor's main job is education.
Therefore, don't worry about asking too many questions. Those are natural because you're in a situation where nearly every step of your work is new to you. The key thing you want to focus on is how to make it so the question frequency decreases with time. The gradual transition from undergraduate newbie to postdoctoral rock star of course has something to do with gaining additional domain knowledge, but it's just as much about learning how to learn, and learning how to work.
So part of your learning now should be a bit meta. In addition to "how do I write a python script to do X?", your questions should also take the form of "how can I solve this myself?" "before I go to Prof. X, have I googled? did I ask their other students?" "is this related to my previous experience, and, if so, how did I solve it last time?"
I think as long as you are going to Prof. X with novel questions (and getting clarification counts as novelty), then you are doing your job just fine, and answering those questions (or helping you to answer them yourself) is them doing their job.
And to +1 what Buffy said, keeping a good notebook where you record not only your conversations with Prof. X and other members of their group, but also your own learning (like summaries of papers, results of experiments, key techniques you picked up) is a key skill to learn.


Can my supervisor steal my theoretical achievements, and publish a paper without me We have solved an important mathematic problem that has not been solved over 10 years. I want to publish a paper about this topic soon, but my supervisor impede me, and he is reasoning that the quality of paper is not good enough. I am concerned that he may publish a paper about the mathematic solution,  without mentioning me as an author, to claim that he is the first person to solve the mathematic problem. Is this action legal?

Collaborating with someone you don't trust is no fun.  I do not speak from direct experience -- I have certainly trusted and remained on positive terms with all of my collaborators.  Yet even under these favorable conditions there are (most) often some conflicts with one's collaborators: e.g. (i) they are dragging their feet / pushing you forward impatiently, (ii) including sloppy and inaccurate / pedantically correct and overly lengthy text, (iii) pushing for publication of a modest partial result / never being satisfied with what has already been obtained, (iv) shooting way too low / way too high in the choice of journal...and so forth.  If I thought that my collaborators truly did not have my best interests at heart...yikes.  This goes doubly when there is a significant differential of power / seniority among collaborators: there can be a fine line between giving your junior collaborator the benefit of your additional experience and insisting that they do things your way.

I'm very sorry to hear that you are worried that your advisor may try to steal your joint work.  If your question is really whether it is in any way ethically acceptable or appropriate for him to do so, the answer is easy: of course not.  However, that you ask shows either great inexperience / mild paranoia on your part or is a sign that the collaboration is dangerously in the "no fun" range.  I looked at your profile and saw that you are a PhD student at a quite reputable research university in the US.  Moreover based on your username I suspect that you are either one of two students with that name in a certain department (not the math department) at that university, each with the same advisor, a young faculty member with an impressive CV.  Obviously I can't promise anything, but in all of my experience a faculty member with a CAREER grant is not someone who would want or need to steal their student's work: not even close, and not on their worst day.  (As an aside, the fact that I suspect that I have identified your advisor whom you are one step away from accusing of stealing your joint work is not great, and you should think about being a bit more circumspect.)

I advise you to concentrate on improving the interpersonal aspects of your collaboration: try to understand your advisor better and vice versa, and try to shore up trust.  If you really can't do that, it's time to find a new advisor.  Though I don't know the situation, based on the fact that you've given no convincing evidence for your suspicions and some other clues, my guess is that you are rather new to research (at least of this kind or at this level) and that as you "learn the ropes" your suspicions will be assuaged.  If you have made a significant mathematical (note: not "mathematic"!) breakthrough, then indeed you should proceed carefully and patiently and not rush into publication.  If the paper is not well written -- according to standards that are difficult to meet or even fully grasp for most graduate students -- that can affect its reception and jeopardize its suitability for publication in a top journal.

Good luck.


Asking a foreign professor to be your thesis co-advisor I am a master's student and I started searching for someone to be my thesis advisor. I went to ask a well-known professor from my university, that I wanted to work with, and he was happy to help.
However, he said that his and my area of interest at the moment don't align. But, he did say that he has a good friend in the US who does exactly what I am interested in and has set up a meeting between us two.
My professor said that I should ask him whether he would be willing to co-advise my master's thesis however, I am not sure whats the best way to ask this question.

Since you clarified that the "official topic" is research and career progression, I would just let it come up naturally. After you have clarified your general interest in the topic and in doing a PhD., there is an ideal spot for something like:

"But of course, before I can do that, I need to finish my master's here by writing a thesis. I think it would be useful if that already was in the same area. Professor X told me that he might be willing to be the official supervisor of this thesis as long as I can find a co-supervisor that matches the specific field better. He suggested asking you, so would you be interested?"

You could do this in the meeting or already in the email setting up the date, though for the latter you should take care that it doesn't get to long, the details are what the meeting is for.


Why might a paper published in a good journal no longer be available anywhere? I came across a paper with an interesting title/abstract which was published in a rank-A journal. However, the article is missing from all online listings (Project Euclid, ScienceDirect, etc.) and is also missing from the journal's website. The article has volume, issue, and page numbers x–y (listed as such on arxiv). The journal website and other online listings have the previous articles (up to page number x–1) and the following articles (from page number y+1), with the article in question just being omitted.

I contacted the journal about accessing the article a couple of weeks ago¹, but still haven't received a reply.

¹ A formal version of "Hey, I tried to access [this paper], but it wasn't available [here] or on your website. Is it possible to access this paper electronically?"

The article itself is posted on arxiv and is listed as a publication on the authors's professional websites.

I am very much interested in the result, but I am not familiar enough with the methods in the paper and it would take me a lot of time reading and working through the details of the paper. Time that would be better spent if the paper was withdrawn for containing errors. I don't quite feel comfortable contacting the authors blindly, asking if their paper contains an error. I can't really use "Please send me a version of your paper" as an excuse, because the paper is published on the arxiv.

What should one do in such a situation? In particular,

Are papers sometimes withdrawn "without comment"?
Do publishers usually reply to requests by email?

After forwarding my email to the director of the publishing company, he put the paper online, so it appears that this was an administrative issue. I thank everyone for their input and apologise for the noise.


Is it normal for US PhD programs to require students to pay tuition for extra credits beyond 9 credits/semester? Last semester I chose 12 credits, but the department said it can only pay for 9 credits, i.e. I have to pay for the extra 3 credits by myself.

No one ever told me about such rules before. I thought the tuition fees for phd students are just a fiction/imaginary/symbolic number. Is there anyone who have heard things like this?

I think it is ridiculous to ask a phd student to pay. Because phd is kind of a job, I have heard employees getting very low salary, but never heard of an employee PAYING her company.

Yes, this doesn't sound too unusual.  It's certainly pretty common to have restrictions on the number of courses that grad students can take.  Some schools might make you pay for any extras, and at others they might not let you do it at all.

This may be a result of the university's internal budgeting: tuition is charged by the credit, and the student's tuition waiver is limited to a certain dollar amount.  This helps the institution keep some control over the "cost" of supporting a graduate student.  The tuition fees may be fictitious to the student (up to a point), but I assure you that to the departments within the university whose budgets are affected, those dollar amounts are very real.

I'd also interpret this as a warning that you are taking more classes than the standard load, which may not be a good idea.  It's very common for PhD students to take on more work than they end up being able to handle, and the results are often not pretty; sometimes this sort of thing starts a spiral that ends with the student dropping out of the program.  So I'd suggest caution before trying to push through the restriction: it might be a blessing in disguise.

Note that PhD students generally exist in sort of a gray area between "student" and "employee", and so your analogy of an employee paying her company is not really apt. Some academic cultures put them closer to one side than the other, but as you're finding, it's often necessary to balance aspects of both.


Rediscovery of calculus in 1994: what should have happened to that paper? There's a well-known paper in academic circles that features a rediscovery of the trapezoidal rule for numerical integration by a medical researcher:

  “A Mathematical Model for the Determination of Total Area Under Glucose Tolerance and Other Metabolic Curves”, Mary M. Tai, Diabetes Care, 1994, 17, 152–154.

I think the paper's only figure says it all:

You can find comments on many blogs about it, most of them along the lines of “turns out calculus was invented in 1994”. I think it truly is a bit sad that the paper made it past the researcher, her immediate colleagues and friends, a Yale professor of electrical engineering who is thanked for “his expert review”, and most importantly reviewers, without someone giving the author a hint.

In my opinion, the most optimistic view is to see it as an educational paper: the method is not new, but that particular medical community didn't know about it, so it was worth publishing. However, that is not what the paper states: the author clearly presents the method as new and names it after her.

Okay, I think I have explained the context. My question is: after that peer-review failure was exposed, what should have happened to the paper? What happened is that the same journal published a series of comments on the paper, and a reply by the author to the comments. Was that the correct/ethical way of handling the issue, as an editor? Or should the paper have been retracted?

Online publishing, at the face of it, should be giving editors some room for maneuver. In this case, they could append the online version of the paper with an editorial note like

  EDITORIAL NOTE: Citing this paper as "Tai's method" is strongly discouraged, as the method is actually known under the name of trapezoidal rule. See also Comments for further explanations.

The academic community affected by this rediscovery should have taken actions accordingly, and editors in other journals should have made sure that citations to the paper are only given if something other than the trapezoidal rule is being discussed.

John Paul II apologized for a number of misdoings by the Catholic Church. The editors should've apologized to their research community for committing this peer review failure. It's OK to be wrong from time to time; science moves by rectifying things that come into contradiction with other bits of knowledge. However it's not OK to withhold knowing that you are wrong and insisting on it.


Is it common for Chinese nationals to turn down review requests? I am an associate editor for some international scientific journals. Unsurprisingly, I receive a number of submissions from Chinese scholars (working in China), which go through the standard peer review process and publication. However, when I ask Chinese researchers, working in China, to perform reviews they either never reply or turn down any invitation based on not being able to access files or external systems. This is not the case with Chinese scholars working in other countries.
This may well be just my own unlucky personal experience, but it seems to be a consistent phenomenon throughout several years already.
Are there any ethical implications of this? This is, publishing but never refereeing? Or is it that I have been unlucky for several years?

Your experience does not match mine - Chinese researchers accept reviewer invitations just like everyone else.
Statistics also indicate that Chinese researchers do perform peer review. As a group, they submit more articles than they review for (along with Indian & Iranian researchers) but they also perform more peer review than any other country's researchers except the US (albeit not on a per capita basis).
See source.


Handling a case of reviewer reporting a result he read in a paper he had rejected Long ago, as a new researcher to an established field, I submitted a paper to the leading journal, with the first time experimental observation of a weak but theoretically predicted quantum transition. The paper was rejected by the reviewer, a professor and leading specialist in the field, claiming my observation was impossible.  I did not resubmit the paper elsewhere.  I have discovered that this same reviewer and his group published a later paper claiming to have observed the same transition first, which I had submitted.

What are my options for handling this situation?

Did the supposed reviewer really copy your result/idea?

Double check the paper in question to see if it does match your result exactly. Many papers tend to appear similar but would've obtained with different approach and methods. This is a perfectly acceptable scientific conduct. So make sure your claim can be justified.

If your manuscript was copied, do you have proof?

If you are absolutely sure that the manuscript was copied by the reviewer, you may file a plagiarism report to the publisher of the concerned paper. But, the chances of you winning is slim. You may have your submission report from your mail or submission repository, but it wouldn't help much. From your post, it doesn't seem like you have a preprint in arXiv either. Sadly, you couldn't do much at this point.

To avoid this in future it would be better to make a preprint available in arXiv. Just make sure you confirm if it is allowed by the publisher's guidelines. You may consult with the editor if this is unclear.


How can I best use my time as a Mathematical sciences PhD student in the UK I would like some useful advice regarding pursuing a PhD in mathematical sciences in the UK. I've just started my PhD in mathematical modelling and would like to know as much as possible about how to make the most of the entire journey. I have some ideas here and there but I want to know what things to do and things to avoid, planning ahead, useful websites etc.

Topic/Question have been edited to broaden scope of question.

As a recently-started science PhD student myself, I can recommend:

The Research Student’s Guide To Success
Pat Cryer
Pub Open University Press, 2006
ISBN: 0 335 22117 3


What is the difference between the various documents that are part of an application? I am applying to serveral undergraduate research programs this summer. Each of them ask for certain documents including:

CV
personal statement
statement of interest
cover form
cover letter
research statement
statement of purpose

I understand what a CV is now, but is a cover form the same thing as a cover letter? Can these documents be generic? Is there a difference between statement of interest and statement of purpose? Is there somewhere I can find examples of these so I know what the difference is?

I thought I would come back and answer my own question. The cover form was a special form that that program wanted me to fill out, while a cover letter was just that.

The difference between the personal statement, statement of interest, and research statement was miniscule. I just cut out some of my life from the research statement.


Conference registration fees by sketchy means? Most conferences have registration fees that can be paid online.  However, some conferences (such as IBIMA) don't offer Web-based payment processing and instead require that fees be paid by (a) wire transfer or (b) by sending all credit card details (including card number, expiration date, CVV, cardholder name, signature) in a scanned attachment over standard e-mail.

Is this common practice, or should it be raising red flags?

(Not an answer but a long comment)

Sending credit card numbers via e-mail is a violation of the security standards of the credit card industry. See, for instance:

Does sending credit card info over email violate PCI-DSS?
Is storing CVV complaint with PCI standards?.

If you report the conference to your credit card issuer, they will risk a fine. The conference will then have to switch to another means of communicating credit card numbers that complies with these directives, such as an electronic payment form, fax or snail mail (sigh).

Note that these are indeed arguably more secure than e-mail, because they are much less vulnerable to remote hacking.


Teaching high school before PhD I'm considering doing a 1-yr MST program and teaching high school for a few years before I do a PhD. Setting aside the cost of the program, is this a bad idea? Reasons I'm considering it are

to solidify my interest in doing a PhD (I hope to use weekends to read widely and try to get a better picture of exactly what research topic I'd pursue in a PhD)
to leverage teaching skills for when I apply to PhD programs, as well as for when I apply to academic positions
in the event I can't get an academic job, I can fall back on high school teaching and will have the credential, since what I ultimately want to do is teach in some capacity (ideally college)

Reasons I'm worried are:

my resume will appear "stale" or lacking in direction if I apply to grad school 3-4 years out of undergrad, with a master's already
rec. letter writers will forget who I am (I hope to keep in touch)

Is this path common or feasible?

You have reason to be concerned about the reasons you give. It is possible to keep in touch. It is also possible to publish some things while you are otherwise working, but it is very difficult.
I doubt that teaching secondary school will give you any advantage in a doctoral program unless it is in a school of Education or in a program that is otherwise focused on producing teachers. Such exist, of course.
You can "fall back" to secondary teaching even without the prior experience, so that doesn't seem to be an advantage.
If your long term goals include a doctorate and you have the means to do so, then I think it is a (big) mistake to put it off unless there are other considerations not raised here.
Most places (not all) the cost of a doctorate is paid in some way. In the US, most students are TAs. In other places there are other arrangements. Also, in the US, you have some time at the start of a program to decide on a specialty.
You lose noting by applying and exploring the options directly, even if you do so in parallel with other possibilities.
But if your goal is really teaching secondary school, then an MST (Master of Science in Teaching) is a good choice.


Can a professor grade students based on what she "remembers" with no proper record? I was graded unfairly in a communication class. I participated more than some students yet the professor said she couldn't remember me speaking out in class. I asked her if she has any record on that and she said it would be hard for her to record if everyone speaks out

Some of the students who were less active were given better marks than those who were more active, it was inconsistent.
There were 23 students in the class and 13 classes in total. By the end of the class, she could not even remember the names and faces of each and everyone.
How should I approach this?

Check if your school has a grade appeal process.

Many schools in the US have one. It will bring in some other administrators (e.g., chair of the department or dean) to review your argument and assess the professor's rationale for giving you the grade.

You might have a good chance with this since she has no written justification for your grade or other student's grades and relies only on her memory. Additionally, if you can remember what you spoke about during the class on specific days (and the students who spoke immediately before/after you), you might want to go ahead and write that down so that you can bring it up with your appeal.


Lab Rotation Placement I'm starting in a phD program in September, and am in the process of finalizing my three lab rotations. The two PIs I'm really interested in working with are not available for the first rotation, so I'm going to do my second and third rotations in their labs. In our program, we hand in a list of lab preferences for the first rotation, and are placed in a lab on that list. However, none of the PIs I listed have agreed to take me on as a rotation student, and I've only talked with one of them (my first choice), as I was hoping that I could do my first rotation in his lab. I just got my rotation placement though, and was placed into another lab where I've had no communication with the PI.

This lab does research in an area I'm interested in and I'm looking forward to the rotation, however, I'm really kicking myself for never having reached out to this PI before. I think this really makes me look unprepared and not that interested in his lab, which is not a great start to graduate school. I now need to email this PI for the first time to ask for reading material, rotation projects... and I'm at a loss for how to set up this email. Ideally, this sort of introductory email should have been sent before this point. So I'm really interested in hearing from any professors whether you would reflect negatively on an incoming student who has never contacted you. As well, how would you phrase the first introductory email at this point? Obviously, I'm going to first introduce myself and attach my CV, but should I request a meeting with him to then talk about rotation projects? The problem is that I live about three hours away from the school, and so it would be a little difficult for me to go in for just one meeting (but I will do it if that is the best way going forward). Alternatively, should I request a skype meeting, or simply ask questions in the email? Also, should I apologize for having never reached out to him before this point, or just not mention it at all? Thanks!

Assuming the department has been using rotations for a bit, I can't imagine this is such an unusual situation for the professor. Simply based on my own experience, I imagine that that most students don't reach out to the professor they're paired with prior to assignment. (I very well may be wrong here, but that's definitely my experience.)

Within that framework, I would read up on the professor's research and simply send an introductory email with an offer to meet at his or her convenience. They'll probably be able to walk you through expectations and requirements when you first meet.

If you're really nervous about violating social norms specific to this department, I would consult with the head of the graduate program and ask for their advice. They can guide you better than we would be able to in any event.


Advice on reusing images/illustrations from an AIMS paper I'm working on a chemistry paper about the Belousov-Zhabotinsky-reaction (a chemical oscillator).

On of my sources is this paper from the AIMS. In the paper the authors have a few figures, especially figure 2 (you can view it on the website). If permitted by the copyright, I would like to include the figure.

I've no idea how the copyright is regulated with such papers. The AIMS website provides even an option to download the full-size figure.

What is the copyright for DOI-papers (by the AIMS)? And how can I determine such a thing the next time (if it has an DOI)?

For this specific case, is it allowed to include the figure, on the condition of correct reference?

In general the authors will have assigned all copyright for figures to the journal upon submission/publication. I'm not familiar with the journal in question but it does not look to be any different from any I've ever seen (it has a title, volume, page number etc so is 'normally' citeable). If you wish to reproduce figures from any journal or other source then you need to contact the publisher. This is usually just a formality.

In this case the contact page for the AIMS (https://www.aimsciences.org/common_news/column/contact) indicates you should get in touch with the Editorial Manager - editorial@aimsciences.org "Regarding the book/journal editorial process, book orders, Printed version claims, copyrights" (emphasis mine)


Should one apply for tenure track positions below current rank? Should a full professor apply for an associate professor position if it's the only way s/he might be able to continue his or her career?

The situation in question involves a person recently promoted to full professor (after 5 years as associate prof. and 5 years as assistant before that, all at the same institution). At the time of application for the assistant/associate level position, the person will have held the rank of full professor for 1 year. The person's current position entails living 2500 miles apart from spouse and elderly parents for 8-9 months each year.

Contact the department/institution. If a department is hiring an "Assistant Professor", they have been granted a tenure-track slot (by the Dean or Provost depending on institution). In some cases they may be willing to hire at a higher rank than advertised if the applicant already has tenure elsewhere. Some advertisements are explicit in this offer, but the possibility may be there even if it is not explicitly mentioned.

Otherwise, the person needs to do what makes them happier. If moving closer to family is more important, then the person should apply. If the option to be hired at higher rank is not possible, then the person should probably indicate that he or she is willing to be hired at a lower rank/salary for personal reasons (however, it is unethical for the potential employer to ask what these might be).


How to cite a source that has vanished due to link rot? My colleague is writing a manuscript about a subject that is rarely reported in the mainstream literature (predation events). A few years ago on a fishing forum she found a photograph that demonstrated this phenomenon pretty well and saved it to her computer, but unfortunately between then and now the original source has vanished: Google Reverse Image Search can't locate it, the website is no longer running and is also unavailable in the Internet Archive. The original URL to the photo was also not retained.

What's the proper way to cite this source? It's not critical to include but it would definitely improve the final manuscript.

Before worrying about the citation your colleague needs to gain permission to use the image in her work. She needs to contact the owner of the image and ask them for permission. The image could then be used and the citation could be a "personal communication" or the URL of where the image was taken from with the access date.

Finding the contact details of the image owner will undoubtedly be difficult, especially given that the image is not actually on the forum anymore. But if the forum is still active perhaps a question could be posted on there (with the image) asking if anyone knows who took the photo / how they can be contacted and perhaps she'll get lucky.

Edit: As pointed out by StrongBad if your colleague is not planning on actually reproducing the image in the document then seeking permission for its use is not required. If she just wants to describe the image, I guess the only option would be to cite it using the URL where it was, with the access date. However, given that the reader could not then actually find the image themself and look at what your colleague was describing, it probably wouldn't provide that much useful information to the manuscript.


What to say when a first year PhD student can't handle basic courses? One of my first-year PhD students wrote to me saying that she is desperate as she is not handling her course load well (she is in the middle of her first semester), and she is afraid she will fail the courses.

There is no possibility of dropping the courses anymore and her funding is strictly dependent on scoring well on these courses.

Do you have any suggestions of what are good responses to this?

Edit: Thank you for your feedback. I think it's probably the case that she is not used to this level of intensity of the courses. I gave her a word of incentive, saying that me and the hiring comittee believed in her potential, so she should also. We also scheduled a face to face meeting.

I suggest having a discussion with the student to see if you can determine together what the issues are and figure out how to address them.  There are many reasons why the student may not be handling her courses well: personal issues, poor preparation, poor study habits, culture shock, etc.  It is also possible that she's not doing worse than other students, but her impression is negative because the courses/material is harder than her undergrad courses.  From what you have said, it's impossible to say whether she'll be able to do fine in the PhD program or not, or how much help she may need, but it certainly sounds like she could use at least some emotional support, if not tactical advice as well.

In addition, as Nate suggest in the comments, it may be helpful to diagnose the issue (for you and/or her) to talk to her instructors to get their impression of her in the courses.  If you have/know some reliable senior grad students, you might also suggest her to talk to them.