What PhD programs (Business-Marketing) are open to older applicants? I'm 46, 20+ years of industry experience, some teaching experience, decent MBA and strong undergrad scores. GRE is okay, working on improving my quantitative score. I'm open to going anywhere in the world (English as a primary language at the school), but I need full time funding. My goal for a PhD is research, publication, and teaching. (I have several research ideas that I've started over the years, and I love teaching.) Are there any schools/regions/countries that are known to be open to older candidates with possibly lower GRE scores? (AACSB accredited preferred)

As far as I know, there is no PhD program in the United States for which it is legal to discriminate based on age.  Nor is it just a matter of legality: at least in the circles I run in (I have done graduate admissions for the PhD program in my department at a state university) this is not just a technicality: holding a candidate's age against them would be viewed as grossly inappropriate behavior.  I have never seen even a hint of it.  My field -- mathematics -- is different from yours, but it is also one in which there is little a candidate could do in between their undergraduate and graduate degrees that would be viewed as clearly advantageous by the admissions committee.  From what I know, this is not true of the business community.  There are very few 22 year-olds enrolled in MBA programs; some prior real-world business experience is preferred, and there are prestigious "executive MBA programs" for older candidates who are already successful in the business world.  So I would guess that many applicants for a PhD in business/marketing are over 30.  Professionally speaking, what's the difference between 30 and 46?  Not much.  I honestly don't see why anyone would care.

The bit about low GRE scores is a different matter.  You should check to see which GRE scores are taken seriously by admissions committees in your area.  Assuming that any of them are (a reasonable guess if they require them), I strongly recommend that you take the time to improve your scores substantially rather than try to look for programs that will take inferior students.  Remember that most US PhD programs take at least five years to complete.  It is really worth it to spend a year or two making sure you get into the best possible one.


How to get a research paper all together The "research portion" of my paper is mostly done, but I'm having trouble putting together my research. (Keep in mind this is at the undergraduate level). It's not so much that I don't know how to organize my thoughts; in fact, I've written a very detailed outline. I seem to have a two questions I'm wrestling with (I apologize if this is a tad long-winded)

The monotonous proof-theorem-proof-theorem style that essentially consists of a list of facts with no exposition seems to be most accepted. But will this really make my paper stand out? When I think about texts with proof-theorem-proof-theorem, I think of the color gray. If I try to be clever and witty, it could certainly backfire on me, but such papers are the most memorable papers I've ever read!

  So what should the tone/style of my paper be?

I'm struggling very much with how detailed my paper should be. By no means am I writing a textbook, but I need to show the audience (namely admission committees) that I know what I'm talking about.  On the other hand, I have a deadline! There's always this looming thought in the back of my head that says "But you can't leave that out!" when I debate if I should skip something just to speed up the process -- it's as if I have a hoarder living in my head. I have this same issue with considering how much background/prerequisite math I should include for the reader -- it is confusing, to say the least,  writing to an audience that is more knowledgeable than the author. This is certainly very difficult for me to figure out.

  So how detailed should my paper be?

I'd really like to hear feedback from professors and/or admission committees members. But, of course, feedback from anyone with research experience is appreciated!

Apologies for stealing scaaahu's comment into this answer, but I wanted to stress that it is really the only possible answer to this question: ask your advisor!

Getting a hang for the appropriate level of detail is a very tricky thing, and only comes with experience. Also with being clever and witty; if you can pull it off, great, but if you can't, then it distracts from the content of your article. There are no general rules for this, you need advice from a more experienced mentor.

If I were you, I would write up a quick draft without stressing too much over these issues, and go over it carefully with your advisor; they would be able to tell you whether your humour is working, or where you need more or less detail.

That said, a few general tips:

Look at the papers you cite; if they all treat some theory as standard or well-known ("By class field theory....") then you probably can too. Same goes for tone.
Often you can save space and omit details by rephrasing your results in a way that suggests how the proof should go. For example, let's say I have a lemma about a linear operator that gets proven by choosing a basis and then something straightforward; I might then state the lemma in terms of the matrix, so it would be more obvious to the reader how to complete the proof.
(and the most important, imo) Engaging papers are not engaging because of witty one-liners, they are typically engaging because a great deal of effort went into organizing them well. The key is to ensure the reader always knows where they are, where they are going, and how they're getting there. This is not at all easy to do, but if you practice writing with this in mind early on, it will serve dividends later.


Sending the same proposal to multiple funding agencies I am planning to submit a proposal for possible funding. There are three sources of funding I can apply for, and unfortunately the evaluation periods all three overlap. Typically there exists an option to state this while submitting. I am wondering if such a statement has any impact on the chances of being funded (of the three grants, I much prefer a specific one). Moreover, two of the agencies uses external reviewers and since my proposed work builds heavily on the previous efforts of three persons (one of them a prolific reviewer), there is a risk in reviewer overlap. I wonder how a reviewer would perceive this. In particular, would a reviewer be less inclined to recommend a second proposal for funding if they have already recommended a first on the same topic? PS I was advised not to make any statement of overlap. Is this an  unofficial custom?

It really is better to not do it. At least simultaneously (might be ok if the proposal was rejected).
If you absolutely have to go ahead, try to fine-tune and change the proposal as much as possible according to the agency requirements.


Repeating abbreviation in body text if already in chapter/section title This is a follow-on question to Is it reasonable to use full word and abbreviation in parenthesis in a chapter title?

One answer to that question indicates that in some cases, using an abbreviation in a chapter/section title is acceptable, other times not.

In the cases when it is acceptable, should you redefine the abbreviation before its first use in the chapter/section?  Here is an example:

  Chapter 4 - Results of Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC)

  The apparent crystallographic phase transition of the sample material suggested that Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) was warranted to determine the phase transition temperature and heat capacity.  The results of the DSC measurements follow.

Just my opinion, but normally I wouldn't include the abbreviation in a title or chapter heading. Instead, I would introduce the abbreviation in "normal" text. So in your example, I would change the heading to

  Chapter 4 - Results of Differential Scanning Calorimetry

but leave the rest as you have it.

An exception would be if this is a well-known abbreviation, so common that people tend to forget what it stands for. In this case, not including it might actually be confusing. For example, if a heading mentions "Internet protocol address", it might take me a split second to realise you're talking about an IP address!


I received an F32, how do I ask for more money? The F32 pays for my salary, and my benefits.  This is going to be more than 58,500 dollars that my boss saves per year, for the next 3 years.  That is a lot of money.

I think it is only right that I ask my boss for more money on top.  She has 1 large non federal grant.  And since she is relatively new, she still has start-up funds.  NIH stipulates that the F32 can be supplemented with more money, given the money is not from a federal grant.

To start, i want to ask for an additional $15,000 per year.

Have any tips for me?

Thank you!

Update: I talked to my boss a 2nd time.   She said supplemental funds were really rare and that she could not justify it.  But she said she would give me retirement benefits starting July 1, 2019 (start of fiscal year).   At this university, that amounts to 14%.  I am relatively happy.   My salary is going from 47.5k to 50.3k thanks to the NIH, and I do not have to pay FICA.  This is an increase of almost 6,000 dollars from 2018 to 2019, not including retirement benefits.   With retirement benefits,  that is another 7,000 per year, approx.

I won't be able to get another car,  but I'll be able to repair my clunker when it breaks down!

Thank you.

I have worked as a research administrator in the Boston area for 8 years, and thus have seen all postdoc salaries in the areas I work (natural sciences, engineering, and computer science).  This is not how salary works for postdocs.

It is set by location.  Boston pays higher than other areas due to cost of living.  They have to set a rate that is sustainable to meet future commitments as well.
It is set by funding source.  NIH has minimums that must be adhered to.  If you don't receive NIH funding, you can pay less unless your institution says no.
It is set by field.  I work in a top research university, known for having high salaries in research positions, including graduate students.  Within the same building, there is a $30k disparity in pay between postdocs.  Econ CS folks pay $80k because the faculty have to compete with both finance and Silicon Valley stealing their postdocs.  Bio-engineering postdocs get the NIH minimum.  It's not personal--it has to do with the fields they are in and the competition for postdocs.

Of the hundreds of postdoc salaries I have personally managed, I have only seen PIs supplement if the fellowship pays below the department standard or NIH minimum.  If that's not the case here, I would not approach the PI.

The point of you getting an F32 is three-fold:

You learn how to write a grant on your own.
You can spend time on your own project, promoting independence in research.
You relieve the stress of procuring funding for the PI.

[Clarification on the compliance involved with this funding source:  F32s are highly regulated; the grants policy statement defines supplementation and additional compensation differently, and it's important to make sure we are explicit about which words we are using.

A supplement, is additional stipend funding that provides no benefit to the PI.  Because additional stipend funding must be consistent across the institution, frequently the policy is to use a department standard or NIH minimum as the policy to which a trainee is supplemented.  This is paid out as a stipend and is not certifiable effort.

Additional compensation, is essentially a part-time job which allows the postdoc to work on other projects up to a total of 10 hrs/week.  This is paid out as salary, and if on a federal grant is certifiable effort.

Unless they provide a part-time job for you (see policy statement), this leads to the conundrum of the PI spending more money on a postdoc who will not work on their grant.  Furthermore, you can't work on a grant that overlaps with your own.  This is probably why this method is less common than expected; if you request the raise of $15k, these additional funds (stipend, not salary) by definition must be of no benefit to the PI, because F32 Postdocs fall under the "trainee" definition of the Department of Labor.  If your salary is $58,500 and you received $15k in salary instead of stipend at the same hourly rate; NIH could cite your institution for non-compliance, because it's technically above the 25% figure that they allow for additional compensation.  The funding source is irrelevant.  Your institution should have guidance on how they handle F32s.  Here's one for UCSF.]

You are currently considered a bonus to the PI and a great relief. Startups don't last forever.  They are great for bridging funding when data and results are difficult to procure; funding new research that sponsors won't fund; paying for expenses that cannot be allocated to a grant (e.g., general lab supplies or travel).  She's not rich--there is plenty in her future to spend this money on, some of which could be on you (e.g., professional dues or travel).

Research funding is a rough game, so be supportive of her too.  There is some risk for her as well, as her future funding is not guaranteed.  Funding cliffs can be seriously painful for a PI, as they don't have personnel to procure data, do initial analysis, etc.  Everything comes to a crawl, and it's hard to get published or funded when you can't pay students or postdocs. Should this happen, she may become a ward of the department, which will cause her reputation to take a hit with her peers.

If you are still going to approach her, definitely consider how tough her situation is, even if she wants to give you everything you ask for.  In the end, you are both at the mercy of limited funds, and her responsibility is to make sure she has the funds to support everyone in her lab that she is committed to.


Is it acceptable if an advisor does not include me as a co-author on presentation? I apologize if this question is redundant in some way but I was unable to find a question similar to this.

I am a MS student (with thesis) and have an advisor who received a grant with myself as a collaborator to do a particular project. He has a hands off approach (or is just extremely busy) so I have planned, executed, analyzed the entire project. I am currently writing a manuscript that he will be a coauthor on (as the PI).

Recently he went to a meeting put on by the group that funds the project, with a presentation about my project. However, he left my name off the title slide and had me last on the acknowledgements (with my name spelled incorrectly) and a small picture of me next to people who only made smaller (albeit important) contributions. I feel like this is wrong, but he said it's normal to only have his name and another PI (not an author) on the title slide when I brought this up. To boot, he asked me to prepare the presentation, which I did, and he took my name off deliberately.

Am I crazy/egomaniacal? This seems wrong...

I was hoping for some opinions outside our lab group. Any thoughts would be appreciated!

There are basically two schools of thought on who should be on the title slide of a presentation: (i) everyone who has contributed, (ii) the name of the person who is actually standing in front of the audience and giving the presentation.

There is no accepted standard for which is the "correct approach". I tend to think that fields where projects only comprise 2 or 3 people use method (i), whereas more collaborative fields use method (ii) -- and I tend to think that that makes sense, because otherwise one would have to list a dozen or more people on the title slide, which is simply not very practical, and also not useful to the audience.

So I don't think that taking your name off the title slide is unprofessional or unethical in itself, even if you were the one who prepared the slides -- your adviser was, after all, the one who presented the talk and the project.

That said, if the adviser had been me, I would have made sure that you would have been prominently mentioned in the talk (and made sure that your name is spelled correctly!) but in the beginning ("Before I go through the details, I do want to mention that most of the work I am presenting here today was actually done by my student rapidCascade, and I do want to make sure that he gets the credit he deserves!") and at the end ("Before I end, let me acknowledge that many people have contributed to the work I just presented. In particular, I'd like to single out rapidCascade who has done more than any of the others.") These words may not be reflected in any of the slides, and unless you were there in person, you'd never know that this much credit was given, but it is possible to highlight someone's contributions without making this explicit in the slides.


For most journals, do peer reviewers expect common notions such as arithmetic mean to be formally defined? If making use of standard statistical notions such as arithmetic mean, do peer reviewers still expect to see a formal definition such as μ = ( Σ Xi ) / N, or is the notion so common that it'd be redundant to define it this way?

You do not need to define common "notions" such as the mean.
You do need to define common symbols, such as "μ", because they are common symbols for more than one thing.
These are just broad guidelines.  Each research community has its own practices.  If unsure, avoid ambiguity.


Confusion in field after CS undergraduate degree Thank you for hearing me out.

I'm currently enrolled in a CS Undergrad course and will be coming out of it next year. ( 2018 ). One thing straight is I love mathematics. Anyways let's proceed with the actual confusion. I'll be coming out next year. Then what?

These are my options and I'm oscillating between them from a week. ( ..no sleep )

Go forward and get a Master degree on Computer Science specializing on computational neuroscience and vision. ( perceiving systems ). Then a PhD in Computer Vision or Computational Neuroscience, squeezing academic and industry internships. Later on join academia, research.
Go forward and get a Masters in Mathematics, PhD follows. ( in differential topology ). Post Doc work for some years and then join a top University as a faculty, teach, research.
Go forward and with Masters in Mathematics and Physics and then a PhD in String theory, ( as string theory requires a lot of math in particular group theory, category theory, differential and algebraic topology and gauge theory which I'm into and had brief exposure with particle physics as in internship( mostly was writing code and analysis in ROOT (with CERN, remotely) ( C++ ) ). Then join CERN or an University, teach, research.

Alright. Now my skills and knowledge.

Mathematics. I am proficient in engineering math ( linear algebra, calculus I, II, III, ODE, PDE, discrete math, basic statistics and probability ). Also I I have a solid grasp on introductory group theory, algebraic and differential topology, real analysis. Software side, I know Matlab well.
Physics. I know high school physics well. I also had gained knowledge of particle physics during the internship but on an introductory level. That's it.
Computer Science. : I have taken these fundamental courses during my undergrad. ( OS, compiler design, Database, C++/Java/C, Algorithms, Data Structures, basics of automata theory, optimization, computer graphics, electronics ). I am proficient in C/C++, I can manage Java.
Biology/Neuroscience: I know high school biology well. I have taken the Harvardx, MOOC ( Fundamentals of Neuroscience )
Projects and other stuff: Computer Vision: I have worked on AR UI interfaces ( and currently writing a paper on this with my classmates) and currently working on eye tracking. Computer Graphics: I have worked on fluid simulations, multigrid solvers and image synthesis techniques ( PBR ), raytracing. Apart from this I used to code competitively and had gone to zonal ACM-ICPC level but now I have sort of lost the touch of it.

I want to go into academia. ( maybe research R&D departments of companies for a short time just a have a dip into the industry. ) Thank you.

You've mentioned postgraduate degrees in Computer Science, Mathematics, and Mathematics & Physics, and PhDs in Computer Vision, Computational Neuroscience, Mathematics, and Mathematics & Physics. I recommend that you study a postgraduate degree which maximises your options onto a PhD. Since you already have an undergraduate degree in Computer Science, that probably means that a postgraduate degree in Mathematics or Mathematics & Physics is the best fit.


Can a PhD supervisor take unpublished ideas from a student's dissertation? Rephrased question: Can a PhD supervisor take unpublished ideas from a student's dissertation and work on them hence denying the student the opportunity to work on her ideas herself?

I completed a PhD and took on a short postdoc immediately afterwards with the same supervisor. The idea was to be doing something while I apply for bursaries or funds to continue research on the ideas I proposed in my thesis. Throughout my PhD I had minimal supervision and minimal input of any sort from him. In fact, in 5 years, he never proposed or even simply put me on track to an idea or a solution. I know for a fact that my supervisor barely read a fourth of my dissertation; however, I had spoken to him about my ideas several times and they are mentioned in my dissertation as my own. I know he is aware of that because I sent him the acknowledgement part by email before putting it in my thesis.

Now he decided to take my ideas for himself and got a new student to work on them with the contacts I developed myself because he was incapable of doing that himself. I supervised the new student who is working on my ideas for a particular application and got him going etc and I will be on the eventual paper. However, my supervisor has now decided to apply my idea to another application which I proposed myself in my thesis as well and given that I am leaving soon, I’ve been told that I will not be on that paper because I haven’t contributed directly. Beside the fact that this is still an application of my idea and one that I suggested myself in my thesis, the supervision I’ve given to the student is perfectly applicable to this idea as well because they are related.

Can my supervisor do this even though he knows I want to work on them myself? Can I stop him from doing this? Frankly, I’m gutted and totally demoralised. There is no way for me to compete with him and get a paper out before him.

A PhD dissertation is published work, not a private document. It is publicly available to anyone with a library access (via interlibrary loan or via an appropriate dissertation vendor).

Of course, if anyone (including your former PhD supervisor) uses results from the dissertation, they must include an appropriate citation. That way you get a credit for your contribution.

If your contribution is considered valuable by the standards of your field, you can write it up and publish it in a refereed journal for better visibility (compared to the dissertation). You can also upload your thesis on an institutional repository or arXiv.

My advice: do not waste time arguing about ownership of ideas. It will not help your career. You had one idea that was good enough to interest people; make more!


Supervisor's feelings toward publishing prior work without him Before starting my Ph.D at university X, I had a research stay in university Y. I submitted a paper related to my work done at university Y and it took 2 years to be published. At the time of publication I was a Ph.D student at university X, but I did not tell my supervisor about the submitted paper, because it was related to my previous work which was not related to my Ph.D. I am afraid about my supervisor's feelings. Will this publication make him upset?

Any work you did at a prior institution—particularly something you did before starting a PhD in a different field—before joining your present institution is not really any of your current advisor's concern, unless working on it involved a significant distraction from your assigned work. (That is, he was paying you to work on project A, and you spent all your time working for project B.) It doesn't sound like this is the case, so I wouldn't lose any sleep over this.


Guidelines to follow if my adviser suggests that I work on dead-end projects I generally chase after whatever my adviser/supervisor tells me to do, although I know that it's sometimes a project that they don't want to spend their time on. I know that I can learn a lot even when I go after such "wild goose chases".

I recently talked to a PhD student though, and he advised me that I should learn when to say "no" to an adviser, to recognize that sometimes those suggestions can lead to "wild goose chases" that aren't worth the time.

What are some guidelines when an adviser wants you to chase a problem that might not be worth its time investment?

This is a difficult issue to deal with. You are correct in stating that (in some disciplines) this can be a significant problem, but as a graduate student, it may be hard for you to argue your case that the project will lead to a dead end.

I see two possible solutions:

If you have a good relationship with your advisor, speak with him about your concerns. He may admit that he's not sure where the project will lead, but he will likely be willing to give you the background as to why he's interested in the project, and where it will lead you. These types of projects are also good opportunities to ask your advisor to introduce you to collaborators with whom you can complete the project, as he's only tangentially interested.
If your advisor likely won't listen to you, then put in the month or three to do the necessary background research to prove your case. Look up the references, research previous findings, contact others who have worked in the field. One of two things will happen: (1) you will change your mind, or (2) you'll build a strong case to present to your advisor as to why this research is not worth yours or his time. If at that point he still wants you to work on the project, then either he has political motivations or he's just being unreasonable, both of which are indicative of larger problems which you should deal with.


Difference between “notes” and “original contributions” in journals I noticed that many, if not all, journals have two main type of papers:

A short self-contained original research article of 10 pages or less, focusing on a particular result that does not provide enough material for a full-length contribution.
Full-length original research article of more than 10 pages.

What is the actual difference between the two? What does does not provide enough material for a full-length contribution mean?
In particular, I have a paper which is (or can be easily made) 10 pages. How should I know if it qualifies as a note or an original article?

Note that in most journals there are original contributions with less pages than some papers appearing as notes.

There are few other related questions, but none really answers (as far as I have checked) these issues. I am talking about applied maths,TCS.

I think this is one of those things that "you know it when you see it".

Very roughly, the distinction in my mind is that a full paper ("original contribution") should actually advance the state of the art in a specific, intentional way.  A note is more along of the lines of "I noticed this thing, it seems interesting and I think the community might like to know about it too."  Maybe it doesn't fit neatly into a larger research program, or its implications aren't immediately clear, but you think it is worth having in the permanent literature.

As you've observed, an original contribution can be short, if you have made a significant advance that just doesn't take that much space to write.  So the distinction isn't really about length per se.  Notes do tend to be short, mostly because the author may not want to spend a lot of time writing something massive (thus distracting from their real research program), and also because the simplicity or brevity of the result may be part of its appeal.

I think the distinction becomes more clear with experience.  So if you are not sure about your paper, try showing it to someone more senior in your subfield and asking their opinion.


Curving grades without creating competition among students I've recently taken a new position within a math department at a large university. The department has an official policy that in most lower-level undergraduate classes (let's say anything in the calculus sequence and below), roughly half of the students should receive A's and B's, and the other half should receive C's and below.
I tend to disagree with this policy, but being new to the department and rather inexperienced with the student population, I'd like to honor the policy for the time being. So for the first time in my teaching career, I plan to curve my class to achieve a desired distribution.
One tenet of my teaching philosophy is that I try to be as transparent with students as possible about how they will be assessed, and how their performance will translate into a letter grade. This means that if I am to institute a curve next semester, I want to be able to tell students exactly how the curve will work. Of course, I'm very worried that telling them only half of them can get A's and B's will create a very competitive environment, so students will not want to study with and help each other, so learning will suffer (in fact, I'm almost certain this will happen). This leads to my question:

How can I simultaneously

tell the students how I will assign grades,
achieve the distribution desired by the department, and
still get students to buy into working together?

Seems impossible to me - maybe it is...
One quasi-solution (which potentially strays a bit from condition 2) is to have guaranteed grade cutoffs. For example, if a student achieves an 80% in the class, she is guaranteed at least a B-, even if 75% of the class scored higher. In this scenario, the perceived effect of any curve is that it "can only help and not harm." This could give students at least some sense of being in control of their own destiny and that they are not only being assessed in comparison to their peers.
The problem with this solution is that determining those grade cutoffs can be tricky at the outset. If I make them too high, then at some point in the semester it will become clear that the curve will supersede the cutoffs, and competition is likely to creep back in. If the cutoffs are too low, then I could be locked into awarding an overly generous distribution that would be frowned upon by my department.
What can I do?

I think you're onto the right approach with the idea of a curve that only helps.
Based on your description, it sounds like you are in the United States. If so, the simplest way to do this would be to compute twice:

Use the standard US metric of A=90%-100%, B=80-89%, C=70-79%, D=60-69%, F<60%.
Apply the curve.
Give the student the maximum of the two grades.

If you put together examinations that are far too difficult, then you may still have a problem. No matter what, however, a curve can only do so much to save you from this mistake, however, since overly difficult exams will also tend to increase the arbitrariness of assessment.
One other thing that may help in setting the curve is a trick I learned from the professor that I TAed for while in graduate school. When determining the curve, he also included all of the students who dropped the course. In a big undergraduate course, there were always a decent number of these, and they would generally be doing worse than the students who at least stuck it out to the end. The dropping student thus generally absorbed the failing grades at the bottom of the scale (except for a few deserving cases) and took the sting out of the curve for the students working hard but struggling in the class.


Improve learning skills I want to improve my learning skills. Is there any advice or a good method for that? For example, I want to read an article or book and retain as much information possible. But sometimes I read and lose focus, or when I read I can't remember everything as well as I'd like to.

Short answer

Practice!

Long answer Practice (smart)! The more time you spend being a student (studying, reading, summarizing, asking questions, taking notes, and pursuing answers) the better you will become at being a student. For more specific tips, check out this article by Scott Young. He focuses on methods that allow you to study smarter rather than harder. The key to this is to recognize that all knowledge is interrelated; everything connects to everything else,  and therefore no learning is wasted. I find his tips and hints to be useful, though I cannot learn quite as efficiently as Young claims one should be able to.


Question on whether I have committed plagiarism (modifying paragraphs from an unpublished document sent as email attachment for PhD thesis) Background

My colleague and I are both PhD students (My colleague started about 8 months after me) from the same research group (and share the same PhD supervisor) in a UK university. We were collaborating on a research project with a Prof. 'X' from another university in the EU.

Early on in the project (March 2017), over a phone call, Prof 'X' requested my colleague to provide them with a 1-page project summary to support a small grant application. My colleague and I worked on this at my colleagues work desk for a single afternoon (about 2 hours) to produce this document. Both of us thought out aloud, iterated the words & phrases a few times to write and polish this document. Since we were working on the colleague's computer, after writing we just opened the email client on that machine and sent the 1-page doc as an email attachment to Prof 'X'.

The document itself contains only 5 paragraphs of pure text. It does not contain any title/authorship or any other information whatsoever (such as header/footer). My colleague signed the email as "Best Regards, A & B". where "A" is me and "B" is my colleague. Later on, the colleague forwarded the same email (with the attachment) to our common PhD supervisor (as an FYI).

As we proceeded further into the project, the involvement of my colleague and mine became intricately interwoven. It soon very became hard for our common PhD supervisor to separate out individual contributions. There was a huge authorship dispute of the resulting paper (manuscript) which lasted 8 months but eventually got resolved, nevertheless leaving my colleague and me in not good terms.

Since this project was important to our respective PhD theses, it became crucial to clearly identify who contributed what. As part of this forensic examination, both of us gave our evidences to our common PhD supervisor, who apportioned the contributions suitably on a high-level basis. It was decided that both our theses shall have a suitably detailed "attribution of content" section for this relevant chapter, and the contents of the scientific reporting shall be minutely scrutinised by our common supervisor to prevent any allegations in the future.

Present Situation

I recently passed my PhD viva. Examiners were happy and the outcome was to submit minor corrections in 90 days time which were to be checked and approved by them. However, just before leaving for Christmas holidays, my PhD supervisor ran my submitted version of thesis in turnitin (against all relevant docs for this project) and found that I had large chunks of text (2 lightly modified paragraphs) copied verbatim from the email attachment.  Our PhD advisor then inquired with my colleague about this, who insisted that the document was entirely written by him albeit with intellectual inputs from me . Therefore, our PhD supervisor asked me to re-write these 2 paragraphs and said they had no choice but to inform the internal examiner about this.

I am really worried. I copied and modified the 2 paragraphs because I thought I was entitled to reuse these words from that email attachment. Did I do something egregious? Am I in deep trouble? I am happy to re-write these 2 paragraphs from scratch, but I cannot afford to lose a degree I worked for 4 years for something little like this.  What are my options if I am accused of plagiarism?

Not knowing the policies of your university, nor of your advisor, it is hard to be definitive in an answer here. However, I'll suggest that you do two things. One is to re-write the paragraphs as you seem willing to do, but also contest the characterization that the original wasn't joint work with you as an equal contributor. If necessary (and possible) make your claim formally, in writing. You don't need to accuse the other student of misconduct, but you need to be clear that you worked jointly. The other student may just misremember the interaction, of course. Best if you have preserved some evidence of course.

I would also try to get the professor to stand up for you with the internal examiner.

If you are reporting accurately, then nothing you did was wrong unless the attachment was somehow published and you failed to cite it. That would be self plagiarism and is in a different category than ordinary plagiarism.

My personal opinion about self plagiarism is that you can copy and include your own unpublished work without citation, but need to cite earlier work of your own rather than just copying. That is to permit readers to trace back and find the complete context of a work.

However, there is one aspect I'm unclear about. If the attachment wasn't ever published, how did turnitin even find it for analysis? If it was published, perhaps without your knowledge, that raises other issues.


Teaching for the first time: is reaching out to each student acceptable? I work as a programmer as a full time job. Since I'm an experienced programmer and have some teaching aptitude, I've been asked to give a 40-hour course in C# programming to a computer science group of 70 students.

I've given two lessons so far (4 hours total), mixing lecture and practice sessions. I think I'm doing just fine but I'd like to reduce the number of students I'll lose along the way.
I thought I would make each student more engaged if I established a conversation with them, even if that might prove to be time consuming. I already have an ongoing conversation with (roughly) a fourth of them, since they reached out to me to ask questions and be advised on practical matters. Plus, they did the excercises I assigned to them.

How should I act with the rest of the students? Today I thought I would be sending a message to each of them (we're in a Slack team) just to check if they've understood the lessons and be helpful in giving advice in case they were stumped by simple matters they might be too shy/afraid to report.
On the other hand, I understand they are adults and that I should not babysit them. What would you do?

Thank you in advance.

Establishing cordial relations with students is almost always beneficial in education. By making connections with them you are providing a form OF social support that helps with retention and academic performance.
Your concern with babysitting relates more to.the students expertise in the subject matter rather than their age. Novice students normally require much more support than advanced students regardless of their age.


What questions can be put into a survey to prevent low-quality responses? I'm designing a survey and I heard that there's a technique that sets up some questions in the middle of the survey to see if people are actually reading these questions.
Could anyone provide me the name of these kinds of studies, and examples of what kind of questions could be set up to prevent people from just submitting questionnaires without reading.

I know it under the term attention check questions. There are many methods, depending on if you're doing the survey online, want to/can use visual ones etc. I think this article might give a good overview, it gives examples and critiques them https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272696317300402?casa_token=yZkLxSP9zGMAAAAA:gziLCRo_Feod6eXaoF7MwpAMiPjadDVvqRq4jgeqL4ed92qiMn7pJtm-_OogTEcB2YJKheEppdM


What kind of content should one avoid when publishing (math) notes online? I am a math undergrad doing an independent study course this semester, and I want to practice my math exposition skills by publishing some reading notes online.

I'm guessing I shouldn't publish my solutions to problems (or examples) from textbooks, and the notes I publish should be made from more than one text to avoid ethical and copyright concerns, respectively. I'm assuming coming up with similar but distinct problems and examples will at least address the first issue.

That is my situation, but to make this a broader question, what things in general should one avoid including when publishing notes online? By "notes", I'm also referring to lecture notes as well as other expository articles published for free access online.

Copyright protects published texts and images, not the underlying ideas. A concept such as a "Fourier transform" cannot be copyrighted, no matter how it's written or described. However, what you cannot do is republish the material that's been put under copyright without obtaining permission, or demonstrating a clear fair-use case. For instance, one or two short, relevant quotations that are properly cited in a 50-page manuscript will not get you into trouble. Reprinting larger amounts or more complicated material (tables, graphics, etc.), however, should be done via a copyright request to the publisher.

You cannot reprint the text of problems that have been published elsewhere (unless, of course, it's sufficiently generic that it could be found in multiple books. For instance, the following text would not likely be copyrightable:

  Prove that a connected open subset of R^n is pathwise connected.

for the reason that there is no "unique" or "original" content here; literally any book in the field could pose the same problem in exactly the same way. However, a longer, more detailed statement of the problem, guiding you through specific steps, would probably not be publishable.

On the other hand, the solution of such problems, so long as they represent independent scholarly work, need not be "suppressed." Again, copyright applies to the authors' wording of the solutions of the problems; the method for solving them cannot be copyrighted! If you solve them yourself, and publish your own solutions, that's not violating copyright. (There is the issue of making the lives of future students easier, because you're publishing solutions online that they could plagiarize from, but that's a separate issue from if you're allowed to publish such material.)


Should we chair a session in which we present? In a prestigious conference in my field, I am asked to chair a session. However,  in the same session, I have my own paper, should I chair this session?

If the conference has asked you, there is no reason not to. Of course, chairing can mean different things depending on the conference. It may be just introducing speakers or keeping them to a schedule, or it may be actually chairing a discussion. There are other possibilities, I suppose.

I don't foresee any conflicts in such a situation, though you may want to accept or defer any responsibility for it depending on your comfort level.


What is the typical Legal Structure of a modern College? I'm very perplexed as to how the terms College and University are archaically used to denote associations of people, but are in modern times being used to denote buildings or realty.

What are standard organizational structures in a legal sense for different Colleges in a US-based Research University??

For example, if the corporation of the University Trustees makes the policies providing for faculty appointments in a College of Arts and also in a College of Education, will these different Colleges typically be like departments in the same corporation, or do they have separate Legal Personalities?

Are the Colleges associations or corporations, or merely administrative units defined by the internal policy of the Trustees to distinguish different collections of offices?

Do the Colleges have members, and if so who are the members? Are all the matriculated members, or just current students? Are the faculty members of the College?

As I understand it, in a typical private U.S. research university the different colleges or schools that make up the university have no legal independence, and they are simply administrative units within the university.  (On the other hand, part of the endowment generally consists of restricted gifts, which can only be used in certain ways or by certain departments.  This can give the corresponding parts of the university more power or independence in practice than one might otherwise suppose.)

  Do the Colleges have members, and if so who are the members? Are all the matriculated members, or just current students? Are the faculty members of the College?

This is entirely a matter of university policy.  Current students, staff, and faculty would usually be considered members of their corresponding colleges, but this can vary (and some universities just aren't organized this way in the first place).  In practice, this generally doesn't mean very much: it may determine some requirements for students in addition to departmental requirements, it could be listed as an affiliation on your publications (although departments are more common), it might give a few privileges such as building or library access, and it tells you how to fill out university forms, but it's otherwise not a big deal.


Chances of getting a postdoc with low number of papers I'm a Ph.D. graduate in biotechnology/molecular biology, who is actively seeking a post-doctoral position at a US or Europe-based institute. I'm neither from US, nor from Europe. Thus, I believe, my chances of getting a postdoc position is slightly harder, compared to some others.

My Ph.D. supervisor was very strict in allowing Ph.D. students graduate, only after at least 3 different projects have been completed. My first project was completed long time ago and its paper was published at a high-impact journal. However, my second paper was rejected by an editor, thus we recently divided it into 2 sections and submitted them to average-impact journals. They are under review right now.

The 3rd project's paper will be submitted in 2 weeks.

I've contacted many well-known professors in my field, and they do respond to my e-mail, mostly saying they are interested in accepting me in their group, only if I can secure my own funding. Or, they say they are waiting for a grant to come up.

But, every e-mail I get from them sounds very familiar to each other. They either have no new grant, or would like me to have my own funding.

A PI I know recently told me, my chances were extremely low if I did't have at least 4 published papers. I've got 1 published, but 2 "under review" articles, and I'm the first-author of all.

Do you agree with this PI? Should I wait until I get to reach to the level of having 4 published papers, which might happen after 6 months or something. Or, do you think papers "under review" are nearly as impactful as papers "published"?

In the UK and Scandinavia at least, provided you show that those papers are in review you should be ok except for very highly competitive labs. The 'well-known professors' are most likely to be running those kinds of labs BUT you may well still get in if you are experienced in a topic or technique they are looking for.

I honestly doubt the professors are lying or trying to brush you off; nearly all postdoc positions only come up when project funding comes through. Bear in mind that the professors are probably answering several such emails a week so they do indeed keep a 'stock' reply and that is fair enough.

So don't wait for your publications to happen but look for advertised positions in your specialism and/or with your skillset named. Good websites are jobs.ac.uk and Euraxess.

Side note: I am aware that candidates from not-USA-or-Europe often get a harder time which is regrettable. My answer stands but I wanted to acknowledge that you do have it tough.


Question regarding papers under review After submitting a paper to a journal, the paper will be sent to a reviewer by editor in such a way the name of authors will be hidden for referee.
In some cases in the list of references, sometimes there exists papers belong to authors which cite them by authors in the paper. In other words, it is not difficult to extract the name of authors from the reference list, isn't it? How can this issue be managed (in the case of importance of not-knowing the name of authors for referee)?

Many review processes are single-blind rather than double-blind (that is often the reviewer knows the identity of the authors but the authors don't know the identity of the reviewer).

One of the arguments in favor of single-blind review is precisely the one you outline: its almost impossible to hide the identity of authors, particularly if the field isn't so large, even if the names in the author list are blanked out (and how can you review a paper properly if you can see the references).

Single vs Double blind review is a topic of some controversy, with much written about the pros and cons of each. But I think its fairly clear that there is no good solution to the problem you outline.


Should I agree to my supervisor's request to place him as first author of my paper? I published 3 papers as first author. Now, my supervisor requested me to place him as first author in my 4th paper. Should I agree to my supervisor's request to place him as first author of my paper? Is this ethically fair and legitimate? Is this only in my country?

He has the contribution of proofreading the paper, advising me how to organize the paper and results, suggesting co-authors for the paper. He does not know the paper technically, however.

This is hard to give good advice about without a lot of context. What is ethical and what is done (in some fields) don't necessarily match up well. In some fields, an advisor is often a co-author - even first author.

If the other person has made no contribution to the paper then, ethically, the request is wrong. But you may need to accede to it just out of personal protection. If the advisor has some influence or control over your future then you may be stuck, no matter the ethics. And you may have no effective way to counter it while preserving your future career.

It isn't really a question of which country, though this sort of thing does vary by field. In situations in which the advisor funds a lab in which work is done it is pretty common.

But, think about why he is asking. Think about whether it is really valid. But think most about how your long term career will be affected if you go along and if you resist.

And note that having another paper on your CV is still a good thing, even if he is first author. And even if it isn't right.


Year abroad in a country with low coursework standards: Am I sabotaging my future career? I am an Economics student, with an interest in Statistics and Data analysis. I recently started my graduate studies, attending a M.Sc. in Economic and Social Sciences at Bocconi University (Milan). The program offers the chance to spend a year at the Graduate School of Economics of Keio University (Tokyo), obtaining a Double Degree (i.e., a Master's Degree in Economics from both universities).

Last year (at the end of my Bachelor), I attended an exchange semester in Korea and I loved the experience. I was challenged by courses that I liked (mainly in Statistics) and enjoyed the exchange student life in East-Asia, with all that comes with it. After coming back to Italy, I am dreaming of moving to Asia for a longer period of time. I am currently studying Chinese and, if I have the chance, I would love to at least spend part of my future career in this part of the world. So I decided to apply for the Double Degree mentioned above.

Now, here comes my dilemma. Talking with my classmates (including those who studied at Keio in previous years), I have heard that attending a year in Japan would not be recommended for someone who wants to pursue a Ph.D. afterwards. The reason is, in short, that Japanese classes are easy compared to the school I currently attend. Apparently, Japanese students have an easy life during their uni years, and so spending a whole year there would disadvantage me when applying for a Ph.D. program in the future.

Although I am not sure about how I want to continue my studies, I also don't want to sabotage any potential application to a good Ph.D. program. Also because, I suppose, my area of specialization (namely, Statistics and Machine Learning) would require such a program for better future career prospects. I have thought of ways in which I could "keep up" with my classmates, e.g. self-studying anything that I would "miss out on" by going to Japan (making use of the good amount of free time I would have there). But would this convince an admission board?

Finally, this choice clashes with personal life as well, since my girlfriend lives in Korea and, by staying in Japan for a year, we would be able to see each other more frequently (we have talked about this). I feel like I am required to make a choice between my personal future goals (i.e. living in Asia) and my career ambitions (i.e. keeping doors open for the future).

I would like to know the advice of more experienced people on this.

I'm an assistant professor data mining in another EU country.

Suppose that you choose to do this exchange semester at Keio University, and then apply for a PhD position in my lab. What your resume would tell me, is not that you elected to go to a university with relatively simple courses*. Instead, what it would tell me, is that you elected to acquire a double degree, with exchange semesters in two countries on this planet that are both vastly different from your home country and vastly different from each other. That is far from taking the easy road. Instead, you show me that you are willing to go the extra mile, in order to develop your skills more broadly.

This broad development is very important for a prospective PhD student. During your PhD, technical mastery of statistics and data analysis is only part of the required skills: you will need to collaborate with others in the group, clearly communicate your results in written papers and oral presentations, and manage your own professional and personal responsibilities. Going on exchange semesters gives you an advantage on your application. My data mining group encompasses about 50 people, from 18 distinct nationalities; an interest in and experience with a rich variety of cultures is worth much more to me than a perceived relative difficulty of the exact courses that you follow.

Good candidates for PhD positions are scarce. A broad development sets you apart from other candidates, if you choose to apply for a PhD position.  If I were you, I would take the experience of going to Japan for a semester. That this aligns well with your personal life is a nice bonus.

*assuming that this simplicity is actually the case, of which I have no knowledge.


Approaches to finding potential collaborators and co-authors Based on my recent question on simultaneous working papers strategy and relevant insights by Stephan Kolassa, I would like to solicit the community's thoughts, advice and best practices on the topic of finding potential collaborators and co-authors (especially from a beginner's perspective).

Initially, I thought that it is a rather simple question with a most likely and obvious answer to it is simply to intensively network, interact with relevant people and publicize your own ideas, thoughts and projects (in other words, build your academic "brand"). However, while the core idea is most likely to follow the above-mentioned common sense, on second thought, there might be much more to it, such as various important strategic and tactical considerations that I could have missed.

Here are a few key observations I've made about the process of starting collaborations:

Most people one would like to work with are already quite busy, and have many random people come to them looking for collaboration.  If you want to be taken seriously, you need to have a specific and detailed idea of a way that their work can make a difference to your goals or your work can make a difference to their goals.  Once you start discussing, you might end up somewhere totally different, but clear and specific thinking is key to getting things started: I suggest Heilmeier's Catechism as a useful framework for your thinking.
Most collaborations thus start with a discussion with between PIs, but are only fully realized if a graduate student or postdoc becomes involved to do a lot of the work.  Early career researchers may play the role of both PI and postdoc themselves.  Be careful, however, to keep acting as a collaborator rather than turning yourself into a free postdoc.
Almost no interactions turn into collaborations.  A good rule of thumb is that for every 10 people you meet, 1 will become a potential collaboration; for every 10 potential collaborations, with 1 there will be meaningful follow-through on the possibility, for every 10 with meaningful follow-through, 1 will actually turn into a significant collaboration.  Don't get discouraged, but also don't waste time pursuing people who indicate they aren't interested beyond the point you are at.


Significance of senior author in China While the issue of being the first or the corresponding author is China has been discussed in this forum, the significance of the senior author, or final author has not been addressed. We are working on an abstract, and determining the author order. As I am in the USA where senior authorship is an honor, determining if this would be win-win, Chinese senior author as corresponding author, and the US author as senior/last author. Anyone out there know about this topic?

I have worked in China as a postdoc for two years, recently. I have come to know a lot about Chinese academic culture. Thus, I will try to answer your question.

As someone mentioned in comments, we don't know anything about your field. In my field, a [conference] abstract is usually not important per se, but provides a thermometer about potential authorship conflicts when it comes to the actual paper publication. So, bear this in mind while you see my points below.

Chinese culture is very conscious about hierarchy status. They take that seriously, so mind to make sure they understand you're striving to honor the Chinese senior author in your decision. In principle, granting corresponding authorship status is desirable for a Chinese PI. I should remark that multiple corresponding authors are common among papers coming from China. This enables the "humble first author" to honor all senior PIs included in the authors list. (Honorary authorship is exceedingly common in China.)

Coming out as the last author is also seen with good eyes, but not as important as being corresponding author. This way, I think your plan is good.

Finally, a word on publication awards in China. As you may have heard, researchers in China are paid cash awards over published papers. Cash is also an honor in China. Different institutions have slightly different rules about awarding cash prizes. Perhaps you'd like to ask them whether "the authorship status & position are fine with their university rules" or something to that effect, referring to such $$ award rules without asking directly.


Making friends in academia and building connections I started a new faculty position this past fall, which also entailed moving to a new city where I don't know anyone. When I first moved here, I was excited about getting to know my colleagues, as they were pretty friendly at my campus visit (pre-pandemic). But since my arrival, I haven't gotten to know anyone really. I have regular meetings with my department colleagues, but everything is so transactional. I know it's harder to have those organic, friendly chats on Zoom, and everyone was already exhausted from this pandemic when I first joined in the fall. But I'm really struggling with loneliness in this new work environment. I moved here alone, and am dealing with family health issues that have been emotionally draining (and some of my colleagues are aware of both of those facts). I've recently started seeing a therapist, so I'm trying to get the help I need, but more than anything I just really wish I had even one friend at work so every dept. meeting wouldn't have to feel like a meeting with strangers every single time.
I'm rather stuck, however, with what to do. I guess I expected that when I first joined, they would be the ones to welcome me and make an effort to get to know me a little (it's what I've done when I've had new colleagues). But now all this time has passed, and it's starting to feel like that window is closing. I don't know if I should just give up and accept that they're not social (or at least not with me), or make some attempts on my part. I've made some efforts here and there, but nothing has worked so far, and that has shaken my confidence, and makes me feel like maybe they don't care to know me.
I know that socializing and developing friendships at work might seem very secondary. This is an otherwise good job and I'm grateful to have been hired, but I just feel like such an outsider and very lonely because of it (I'm also the only one in my field at this university, so even the classes I teach don't even seem to fit in with my department's curriculum). I'm not about to quit my job over it or anything, but being in a perpetual state of outsider-ness is really getting to me and I don't know how to address it. It doesn't help that academia is often such an isolated work environment and many professors just aren't very social even in the best of times (hence why I'm posting here specifically).
EDIT: Just wanted to comment here that I'm very grateful for all of the responses. I feel a little less freak-ish, and a bit more motivated to stay patient and keep the efforts going in the meantime.
I'll also add that I think one of the reasons I feel so bothered by my department's current dynamic is that it makes me feel like I need to conform and be as transactional and subdued as the rest of them, which is very contrary to my own personality. Anyway, I think that trying to connect with people - but not at all on my own terms - is contributing to the stress of it all, so I'm glad to have had that realization too.
Thanks so much for the advice and words of encouragement!

I don't know if this is much of an answer, but it's become more than will fit in a comment.
If you just joined in Fall 2020, it's not unusual that you haven't made the kind of connections you're looking for yet, especially given the challenges of the pandemic. I'm a PhD student, and I'm sure it's very different for faculty than for students, but I'm not fresh out of undergrad and have been through a couple career transitions prior to grad school. In my experience it takes a year minimum—even in the best of conditions—to organically develop relationships with coworkers/colleagues. (It took me longer than that to build close friendships with folks in my cohort, and we had weekly, in-person classes together for a year.) Genuine connections with coworkers tend to accrue in small increments over that time, and almost always in the interstices between "official" work demands. It sounds like you're fully aware of all this, but an occasional reminder doesn't hurt.
As you mention, everyone is exhausted these days. Perhaps your colleagues are all on the introverted side, but it doesn't sound like this situation has much to do with their feelings about you specifically. If they'd all been actively avoiding you or unfriendly, that would be a different story (and this is not the story you imply, at least, when you say your efforts "haven't worked so far"). Your colleagues may also be trying to give you space to address (or not feel close enough to engage with you about) your family health issues.
In any case, the window is far from closed. I'm still friends, a decade later, with some former colleagues who barely even spoke to me for the first few years at my previous workplace. And although I'm obviously not a super outgoing make-friends-easily type of person, my sense is that that sort of experience isn't unusual.


Are author names typically visible to reviewers for paper award decisions? I wonder whether author names are typically visible to reviewers when they decide paper award recipients. (i.e. non-anonymous process)

I am mostly interested in the field of computer science (especially machine learning and natural language processing), and English-speaking venues.

Ideally, I would like to have a list of awards labeled with anonymous / non-anonymous.

In my experience with computer science conferences, I have encountered two general classes of award processes:

Reviewers nominate for an award, and then the organizers consider and choose between the nominees.
After reviews have been submitted, the organizers consider the top N papers by rating and choose between them.

Sometimes the decision is made entirely from the paper and reviews, while in other cases presentation at the conference is taken into account as well.  In all of these cases, however, notice that it is the organizers and not the reviewers who actually decide the award, and the authors are generally not blinded to the organizers.  If the first procedure is followed and the conference happens to be double-blind, then nominations will be made blind, but the decision is still typically made with knowledge of the authors.


How do you cite an internal report? In the field of numerical modeling, Researchers often times find conference papers or journal articles which cites an internal report as the core of the paper. The main authors may have access to the internal report but what about the others? How does one cite an internal report in doing further research based on the main article?

As an example, This paper and this paper cite both of the papers below -

M. Saeedvafa and R. J. Asaro, “Transformation Induced Plasticity,” (LAUR-95-482, Los Alamos National Laboratory, 1995)
Saeedvafa, M, “A Constitutive Model for Shape Memory Alloys”, Internal MSC Report, (January 2002).

When you cite any source, you should give enough that the reader can, at least in principle, read that source for themselves.  This information is especially important when you cite something as a source for further information, as it is in your example paper.

  This paper presents the framework of such a complete phenomenological model outlined by Sayeedvafa (2002) that provides a description of a wide range of the observed behavior, which are both tractable from analytical as well as computational viewpoint.

For example, citations of technical reports (like your first example) should uniquely identify both the institution and the report, so that the reader knows who and how to ask for a copy.  In particular, if the report is available on the web at a stable location, the citation should include a stable URL.

If a source is likely to be inaccessible to most readers (like your second example), you should also cite an accessible secondary source that describes the relevant content in detail.  (If you really want to be helpful, the primary source citation should include a pointer like "Cited in [xxx].")  Otherwise, you're just asking for the reader's blind trust that the source has the missing details you claim, or proves the result that you claim, or is as important as you claim, or even exists at all.


How common are self-funded PhDs in the STEM fields in U.S. universities? I met a PhD student that is completely self-funded at our engineering college .  Our university is notorious for being one of the most expensive schools to attend; I can't imagine someone funding his own graduate studies for five/six years, right after paying for an undergrad education.

He did land an important internship at a large hedge fund, though, so I'm guessing in the long run, if he lands in finance, it could be all worth it.

My question is: are self-funded PhDs in the STEM fields at U.S. universities pretty common?

From the Survey of Earned Doctorates, a large-scale survey of students who earn doctoral degrees from U.S. institutions,

In the life sciences, 9% report "own resources" as primary source of support.
In the physical sciences, 3.8% report "own resources" as primary source of support.
In the social sciences, 25.3% report "own resources" as primary source of support.
In engineering, 3.8% report "own resources" as primary source of support.

See TABLE 35. Doctorate recipients' primary source of financial support, by broad field of study, sex, citizenship status, ethnicity, and race: 2014.


Helping spouse adjust when relocating for an academic position? I am moving to a new place to take a new academic position.  Now that we have committed to it, what can I do to help my spouse adjust to or enjoy the new location?  We are both academics.

Edit: Several considerations were made in wording the question.  1.  Questions that are specific to a particular situation are discouraged here.  2.  I am past the negotiation stage so I do not want negotiation advice. (Yes, my spouse had many chances to change our plans.)  3.  Presumably this situation will occur to dual-career couples at most career stages.  Therefore I am thinking beyond my current situation in anticipation of the next one.  Answers from people who have been in this situation are appreciated.

The answer depends on the academic ambition of your spouse. If she/he has none, your question is borderline off-topic on this site. In this case, you can look into things similar to the Harvard Spouse & Partners Association, which I personally would only join with a gun to my head, but might be something your spouse is into.

The rest of my answer assume she/he wishes to stay in the academic loop.

From what I saw in several universities in Europe and the US, several universities try to take into account dual career ambitions. Especially if your spouse is a woman, chances are the institution that hired you will consider creating some sort of academic position for her. Look for things like 'gender-equality office' to have more information on the topic.

If there is no such thing, I know that some people attend classes and seminars in the local universities (this is true in universities unlike Harvard, were guest attendance is allowed and free). Some volunteer as lab assistants. Some join local chapters of scientific societies (a good way to meet potential employers or hear about academic opportunities).


The etiquette of leaving a faculty position If a tenure track professor wants to leave their university for another job, how much in advance should they inform their department chair? The standard two weeks notice probably doesn't apply.

And what times of the year are okay to leave? Only in the summer or between the fall and spring semesters?

The faculty member doesn't feel mistreated and doesn't want to ruin ties at their current university.

The following rules are pretty standard:

It's not reasonable to quit in the middle of a class except in a dire emergency (for example, a serious health problem).  In practice this means you can quit only between semesters, unless you aren't currently teaching.  Many universities plan their teaching one year at a time, in which case quitting in between the fall and spring semesters may be a problem.
You should try hard to leave enough time for your university to find a replacement for your future teaching.  For example, for a US-style semester system, announcing in January that you will leave as of the next academic year (starting in September) is probably reasonable.  Announcing it in April is more problematic, but it might be OK if you have to.  Announcing it in June is a serious problem, and announcing it in August is a disaster.
It's common for tenured, and sometime tenure-track, faculty to go on leave for a year or two rather than immediately resigning, even if they are sure they won't return.  If your chair offers you that option, then you should definitely take it.  Turning it down (and resigning instead) comes across as an insult: you are effectively saying that your new job is so much better that you can't imagine ever wanting to return.


Supervised self-study Imagine an education model in which teacher/supervisor/mentor does not teach the syllabus to students. Instead, just pushing them towards key topics, and students must study by themselves. The teacher only control/supervise students to keep studying in right direction, but no professional teaching.

This is something like supervising academic research projects at graduate level.

I am curious if there is a pedagogical model/category/method of this kind for education (at lower levels)? For example, is there any example for teaching by this method in any school or university around the world? If yes, what is it called? I had no appropriate keyword to search for it.

Problem-based learning is one approach that fits your description. From wikipedia

  Problem-based learning (PBL) is a student-centered pedagogy in which students learn about a subject through the experience of problem solving. Students learn both thinking strategies and domain knowledge. The goals of PBL are to help the students develop flexible knowledge, effective problem solving skills, self-directed learning, effective collaboration skills and intrinsic motivation. Problem-based learning is a style of active learning.

A related approach is inquiry-based learning, which allows the idea to be used on a much smaller scale than problem-based learning, which, based on what I have read, tends to be rather resource intensive and require vast amounts of planning from the teaching staff.


US/UK titles vs LATAM ones (Venezuela) I'm from Venezuela, and of course I got all my education in that country. I need help with converting degree titles into their US/UK equivalents.

For example, in the US/UK you have the B.Sc. grade, and I understand it goes after high school (if I'm correct). Here, Bachelor means graduated from high school.

When you go to university, here we can become technicians (3 years post school), or get a "long scholarship title" (up to 7 years) like engineer, lawyer or surgeon.

After that you can get up to 3 different grades: Specialist (???), Magister (Master) and Doctor (PhD) (2 years each, and all require to do a thesis) or just get a Diploma (a short (1 year or less) course, without thesis).

What is the equivalent of the Specialist title in the US/UK?

I did specialization; I'm more than an engineer, but not a Master. What title should I add if I translate it into English nomenclature?

Thanks in advance for your answers :)

PS: I did the post-degree on informatic

The US is not a particularly heavy user of formal titles, especially compared to, for example, Germany.  Broadly speaking, education goes like this:

High school diploma (year 12, or about age 18)
Technical school, trade school, associates degree (HS +2 years)
Bachelor of Arts/Science (HS +4 years, a typical undergraduate degree)
Master of Arts/Science (BA/BS +2 years)
Juris Doctorate (BA/BS +3 years, law school)
PhD (BA/BS +4-8 years, depending on field)
MD (BA/BS +4 years, medical school, not including residency)

There are more, but these are some common ones.  However, very few of these translate into an actual title that someone would put before (or after) their name.  Generally just medical school and PhD, I think.  Although for specific use within your field, for example on a business card, you can get into all sorts of initials for niche things, like certifications.

Engineer is a big one that gets confusing, having spent some time in central Europe where "engineer" is a designation for anyone who has studied a technical subject beyond undergrad.  In the US, an engineer is someone who studied engineering, and nothing more.  Americans who don't have contact with foreign institutions and individuals would be quite confused at someone calling themselves a "Specialist" or "Magister", as well, since we have no commonly-used equivalent.

A lot of how you handle this will depend on your audience.  Just because "most" Americans won't be familiar with the myriad of possible titles/levels of education doesn't mean the one you want to communicate with isn't.  But very broadly speaking, anything after your undergraduate studies that isn't a PhD, MD or JD, should probably just be referred to as graduate school or a masters.


In computer science in the US, is there a bias towards hiring junior faculty straight from PhD programs? In computer science in the US, is it harder to get employed as a professor if you've had to do post-docs, or if you decided to work in an industrial research lab for several years?

In many fields these days, it is exactly the opposite: it is hard to get a faculty position until you have spent time as a postdoc.  Graduate students are often considered to be simply too inexperienced to become professors.  It is also the case that in some fields (e.g., biomedical research) postdocs are a source of cheap labor and professor positions are scarce, so there is a "market" that pushes people toward more and more postdoc.

Industrial labs are a different matter: they may effectively count either for or against you, depending on the situation.  In essence: if you are in a postdoc-like position, doing a lot of publications, it's probably in your favor.  If you are mostly doing proprietary research that cannot be published, then it's likely to count against you instead.

Specifically in US computer science, the field is currently in transition: historically, there were few postdocs and much hiring directly from graduate school (my own advisor did not even apply for his post).  Now, however, the field is moving toward more postdocs before professorship.


How to cite a Google Play app? In my paper I need to cite an Android application.

There is an official way to cite the site Google Play?

I know the tag @misc on BibTeX, but I am looking for a standard style, if exist.

This is how you can do so in the APA style:

APA Style Blog: How to Cite a Mobile App

If you were to translate the citation to another citation style, the pieces of information that you need are the author, name, and version of the application, and the operating system it was written for. You should also include where the app was downloaded from (in this case, play.google.com). Make sure any links are permalinks.


Where should the line be drawn regarding political statements in a scientific report? I am writing a report on Fusion energy as an assignment. It contributes to a sperate qualification in Physics which is simply a Pass/Fail. Further studies will often not accept students who do not pass this section.

In this report, I have briefly looked into the current state of electricity generation, including the emissions from coal power plants, and the mining of coal. I found some excellent sources, but also one that had been deleted from the state.gov website. It was available here. It is still available on archive.org here.

Archive.org shows it was removed sometime between 12:45 and 19:54 on the 20th of January 2017. This does not seem to be a coincidence as many news sites reported on Trump ordering the EPA to remove climate change data.

Personal politics aside, I feel attempting to remove/removing any data from the internet is disgraceful, and I want to express that in my report. Currently, at the end of my bibliography I have this text:

  Note on Citation 30: UNITED STATES CLIMATE ACTION REPORT 2014. The Available URL provided is from archive.org’s WaybackMachine, a project which aims to archive public facing sites for the future, protecting them from removal. On the 20th of January 2017, this report was removed from the state.gov website. This appears to have been under the instruction of President Trump, as news sites reported data on the EPA website was removed. The provided archive.org link is the most recent version, from 23 December 2016.

Is this appropriate in the bibliography, or should I simply leave it at the first 2 sentences?

This appears to have been under the instruction of President Trump, as news sites reported data on the EPA website was removed.

Speculation usually doesn't belong in a scientific paper. This is especially true when it does not further the scientific purpose of the paper.

The rest of the statement - about the document no longer being available at its original link, and a note regarding its availability on archive.org, is fine because it is not speculation and serves an academic purpose. However, you actually don't need to resort to archive.org, because the document is still available on the archived state.gov site.

Like whitehouse.gov, the entire State Department website is routinely archived at the end of each administration, and the new administration can put whatever they want on their new site. (For example, at the beginning of the Obama administration, they replaced the Bush-era State Department site on climate change with their own.) The state.gov material from the Obama administration is still available; you just have to replace "www.state.gov" in the URL with "2009-2017.state.gov".

(P.S. an archive of the EPA website immediately before the transition, created in response to numerous FOIA requests, is also available: https://19january2017snapshot.epa.gov/)


IEEE journals: how do I find articles published as letters? In JMEMS there are primarily 3 types of publications: conference proceedings, letters(3 page limit) and articles.

I am trying to find articles published in letter format in JMEMS. I have access to Webofscience and ofcourse google scholar/scopus etc. I can find these articles by manually going to each issue (published quarterly) and looking for 3 page articles. However this is very inefficient, since I am looking for a certain topic published in the letter format, and I will have to go through all the issues to collect these articles and then look through them.

How do I find/search for letters published in JMEMS? Is there a more efficient way?

First things first:

Unless you are searching for IEEE Letter papers in venues which only publish Letters (such as IEEE Communications Letters, IEEE Signal Processing Letters, IEEE Electron Device Letters, etc.), there is, unfortunately, no formal, efficient way to search exclusively for Letter papers in IEEE venues which publish multiple types of papers.

As you stated, your target venue (IEEE JMEMS) publishes multiple paper types, so it seems that some creativity is needed to generate some results which are relevant to you.

One way to get creative here: It is quite common for authors of IEEE Letter papers to refer to the paper as such within the text of the article, e.g., as "This letter ..." or "In this letter ..."

In this case you can use Google Scholar to search for keywords "letter", "this letter", or "in this letter" and restrict your search to your preferred IEEE venue (in your case, IEEE Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems). You can further narrow down the results list in Google Scholar by also providing technical keywords relevant to the papers you are interested in.

While the above is not a silver bullet, I know of no other better way to accomplish what you aim to do.


How to stand out in math graduate school admissions In less than a year from now I'll be applying to pure math PhD programs. I'm going to have a competitive application. I'm attending a well regarded school and will no doubt get good reccomendations; I took a whole slew of math undergrad courses receiving all A's; I took (and am taking) a handful of graduate courses receiving a mix of A's and B's; TA'd some undergrad courses; I have two solid REUs; participated in Budapest semesters in mathematics, etc

But these are all things that every top (20 or so) graduate school is going to expect from all it's applicants. I don't have any research independent of my REUs, I've never done notably well on the Putnam, and so on. My main concern is that I'm not going to stand out in any way to a graduate school admissions committee.

Looking at application threads, this seems quite worrisome. There are consistently applicants in a similar position as I who get almost universal rejection from good graduate programs. I love mathematics and so that I can pursue a fruitful research career someday, I want to attend a serious graduate program.

What can I do in under a year to improve my graduate application? How can I stand out?

Consider the viewpoint of the admissions committee. How would they know who to pick? One way is to trust others opinions -- this is why they seek recommendation letters from those who know your abilities.

If you still want to "stand out", and aren't satisfied with your performance in the standard ways (grades, exams, REU programs), consider what makes you different. You should seek advice from those who know you better than us for ideas here.

In addition, if you're afraid of not getting in anywhere -- apply to a spectrum of schools, and simply pick the top one(s) you are accepted to. Having backups is a good way to be safe.


Should I use italics and different typefaces for foreign words, file names, class names, variable names, etc. in a master's thesis Currently I'm writing my master's thesis about the detection of Android Malware. It's being written in French. Like you would expect, there are a lot of concepts (e.g., about Android and security) that are in English. The translation in French is not clear and is not known either. How do I write those terms ? Should I write them in italic?

In addition, I would like the reader to be able to distinguish between a variable name, a file name, a class name, etc. just by looking at how the word is typeset. Can I use different typefaces for each element?

How do I write those terms ? (Maybe in Italic.)

No, don't write every occurrence of a technical term in italic, or you will make your readers sea-sick.

Treat those terms as you would treat any French technical term, and possibly use italics just on the first occurrence, where the technical term is defined or introduced.

Even though it's not a French style manual, I think it's worth reading what the Chicago Manual of Style, 16th edition, writes on the topic:

  Italics for unfamiliar foreign words and phrases. Italics are used for isolated words and phrases in a foreign language if they are likely to be unfamiliar to the readers [...]. If a foreign word becomes familiar through repeated use throughout a work, it need to be italicized only on its first occurrence. If it appears only rarely, however, italics may be retained.

The sentence

  If a foreign word becomes familiar through repeated use throughout a work, it need to be italicized only on its first occurrence.

aptly applies to your thesis work.

As for your last point,

  I want the reader to distinguish between a variable name, a file name, a class name ...etc. by only looking how the word is written.

In books, authors frequently distinguish code snippets by using monospaced fonts, but I would avoid using too many different typefaces (or too many colours) to highlight different syntax elements. I suggest you to have a look at the LaTeX package listings and to ask on TeX - LaTeX Stack Exchange for further information.


Is a PhD degree from a European university considered equally valuable as one from the US? I earned my PhD in continental Europe. Except going to a few conferences outside Europe, my network, collaborations and events were all in Europe so I was pretty much living in a European bubble. I am still here, but now that I am in a faculty position I started collaborating with people from everywhere and travel quite a lot outside Europe. As much as I try to avoid generalizing and I am aware that much is field dependent, there are some things I noticed about the general perception of European PhD degrees (and this can probably be extended to universities in general) outside Europe:

Students from Asia (especially from China and Korea) I met said that they prefer going to the US for a PhD, and Europe is only a second option because of less prestige.
When I was considering applying to positions in the US, a few people told me informally that I don't have good chances as those who apply with PhD degrees from US universities, without even considering my CV.

But my experience is conflicting and makes me confused:

I visited a few universities in the US, and noticed that people doing a PhD are treated as students rather than as employees, financially they struggle and most of them have to work on stuff other than research (taking courses, teaching). Frankly the whole system looks miserable to me. In many European countries they would be employed with a decent salary and benefits, focus only on research, have a better travel support, among other benefits. If one was given the choice between the two, I don't understand why anyone would go to the US to do a PhD instead of Europe (no hard feelings) and consider it a better option.
Judging from job applications I get from fresh PhD graduates around the world, on average those with a PhD from the US are not better than others (I am aware that this might be biased because good PhD graduates in the US often prefer staying there).
American PhD theses I have seen are not as good as those from Europe. For example, in the Netherlands most PhD students must publish a few journal papers before they graduate (some have 4-5, and this doesn't include conference papers). The theses are usually of high quality, and are even published as books. Looking at recent PhD theses at elite US universities like Stanford, Harvard, Berkeley and MIT, I cannot help but consider them less good and with less contribution.

This will likely strongly depend on the field, but in general I find that the average PhD experience, student wellbeing and quality of work in Europe is no worse than in the US, if not better. Yet, people worldwide seem to favor US degrees.

Is a PhD degree from a European university considered equally valuable as one from the US?
If not, why is there this gap and lower perception of PhD degrees from Europe?

One simple answer is no, the two aren't equally valued, because the two are also not even regarded as equal.  As a trite example, consider that many European countries (especially the German-influenced ones) are very picky about which letters you can put before or after your name.  I have a dual-degree, so I am "allowed" to use Dr. as a legal part of my name in Germany; but my officemate with a solely American Ph.D. cannot.  The way in which doctorates are made is also vastly different-- the U.S. requires coursework and then research, (often) mixed with lots of (often underpaid) teaching duties, while European doctorates typically frontload on the research and are light on teaching responsibilities.  Those different experiences produce different palettes of qualificiations and skill sets.  It's no wonder that if you're primarily paid to do research, you'll probably produce a better thesis than someone who had to perform teaching duties 20 hours a week.

However, there's also the danger of regarding "Europe" as a monolith.  I've heard anecdotes from some Italians who struggled to get funding to finish their degrees without taking on big teaching duties. (But see comments by @MassimoOrtolano.)  Croatia, Romania, and Bulgaria all suffer from "brain-drain" as young folk go west for education.  And I get the sense that when people say "Europe" in the context of academia, they're almost always, knowingly or unknowingly, referring to Germany, France, and the UK.  Few other European entities have as much economic, political, or historical influence as those three.

Along the same lines, Europe comprises dozens of different languages and cultures.  Asian students are more likely to already know English than French or German (or Dutch or Polish or Finnish...) and therefore will seek a degree in an English-speaking country.  American culture and accents are more familiar to the world than, say, British or Australian, because of the movie and music industries.  (The UK is also not super stable in terms of immigration standards at the moment.)  Seeking a degree in the U.S. is then just plain easier-- you don't have to spend time learning a new language or adjusting to a new culture.  For these students, it may be that because English is the de facto language of science, the notion of what's considered "prestigious" just followed blindly.


How to know if a topic is completely explored? I read a very recent paper that describes something I am only starting to study. Basically, it looks like authors of the paper have covered almost everything that can be explored in the topic.
How can I know if there is room left to research the topic? Should I approach the authors with a similar question?

Welcome! The answer is usually that the topic is not completely explored. When you're new to an area, it can be hard to see what the open questions are. Hold off on asking the authors anything until you've asked your advisor and really dug into the topic (reading related papers, working through the problems).

There's a nice answer to this question about approaching a new field:
Exploring something completely new, even silly.

Beyond that, I encourage you to look at the Illustrated Guide to the Ph.D.
http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/


How to add a paper to google scholar as "to appear"? I had a paper in an IEEE conference which will appear in the proceedings. But the proceedings is not out yet.
Meanwhile, I would like to cite mentioned paper in another paper.
How do I do it? I want it to be added as "to appear in ..."
Can I add the article manually to google scholar?
If I do so, what happens if the proceedings out eventually? Will it be merged automatically?
I have read this Submitting conference paper to Google Scholar when proceedings not available but this doesn't solve my problem. Because of copy right I can not publish the pdf in preprint, research gate, etc.

Meanwhile, I would like to cite mentioned paper in another paper. How do I do it? I want it to be added as "to appear in ..."

Cite the paper as you would any IEEE conference paper, omitting any information that you don't know (e.g., page number) and tagging "to appear" on the end.

Can I add the article manually to google scholar?

If you want.

If I do so, what happens if the proceedings out eventually? Will it be merged automatically?

It may or may not be automatically merged, we cannot predict how Google's algorithms operate.

Because of copy right I can not publish the pdf in preprint,

Actually, you likely can, since many publishers let you publish preprints on personal websites.


How to read 2 academic papers a day without confusion? Assume you are reading two academic papers every day. What strategies can I use to decrease the possibility of confusion between the two?

I do of course not know what your current work strategy looks like so I can only provide what I think are generally helpful tools.

Note-taking should be a priority, not only to avoid confusion but also to help you get an overview. set a target to summarize the paper in a about a page and try to capture the following:

What is the major question covered by the paper?
Why is it important?
What was done (experiments observations data)?
What are the major conclusions of the paper?
Did you find any new information of particular interest to you?

You may come up with similar or different key questions depending on th epurpose of your reading. The point is to make such short summaries of the papers.

Once you have the summaries you could consider organizing them in some fashion. There is no exclusive model to use and in fact the organization may depend on the purpose of your reading. You may find that after reading a number of papers a possible way to organize them can become clear. The main  purpose of this step is to bundle papers that have specific points in common.

You should also sort your papers (printouts or files) with your notes. There are many ways of doing this rom the analogue to data bases. Try to use a free reference data base system to get everything organized.


Is it possible to obtain an English certification online? Assume that you are applying for a certain position and they require a proof that you master a given language at a certain level.

Are there websites where you can fill out tests and obtain a certificate?

Yes. You are able to demonstrate your proficiency in English by obtaining one of the certifications below. Mind you, these courses do take 120 + hours and extensive command of English (grammar) to complete. Choose properly accredited ones when possible that include a practical component. Bonus: A recognized TEFL, TESL or TESOL certification can net you a job as an English teacher aboard as it is internationally recognized.

TEFL – Teaching English as a Foreign Language

TESL – Teaching English as a Second Language

TESOL – Teaching English to Speakers of another Language


Email of Appreciation in CV I sent a proposal for public sector transformation to the Ministry of Economy  and received a reply from the Federal Minister, who highly appreciated my suggestions. I would like to know this: can I put "Email of Appreciation" by the Federal Minister of Economy in my CV?

"Thank you, I appreciate your suggestions" can mean anything from a true and deep appreciation to "I am politely throwing your work in the trash."

As such, I would strongly advise against including it in a CV, as it will essentially be meaningless padding.