Is conducting research in the field of evolutionary computing/genetic algorithms considered inferior within the CS community? I read somewhere online, how one shouldn't show their interest in genetic algorithms to a potential grad school, as its not the 'in' thing in todays CS community, compared to Machine Learning algorithms. I am interested in genetic algorithms and reading such a notion left me a little bothered, honestly.

When applying to a school you should be aware of the faculty at that school and the research they perform. Take a look at their research papers. If nobody at the school does work in genetic algorithms, then it probably isn't going to help you to mention your interest in the area.

If you have a sincere interest in genetic algorithms, then you need to find a school with researchers that are doing work in that area. If there is a prominent researcher at a school working on genetic algorithms, then you really want to mention your interest. If the researcher is accepting new students it might improve your chances of acceptance.

There are always hot areas in a field, and machine learning is currently hot, and genetic algorithms aren't as hot. But, there is good work being done in both fields. (There is also bad work being done in both fields.) I would advise you to find someone doing excellent work, and then the field that you are in will not matter as much.


How hard is it to change a (sub-)field right after starting a CS PhD? I am a senior undergrad in computer systems field (specifically, computer networks) and applied for CS PhD this year.
My question is:
If I find a new interest in a different field before starting a PhD, is it possible to change from the field that I applied for to the different field as I start my PhD?
I can see many problems that would prevent me from changing my field. For example, I would have almost no depth in the field yet compared to other students who came for that field, but I would have to somehow find a way to find an advisor in the field who can advise me.
And I just wonder if you think any problem you see would make it almost impossible to change, so I would just have to get research experience again in the field and then reapply for CS PhD for the field
To give more about my context, I am now a 4th year undergrad and enjoying research projects I have participated in, but I really don't think those (computer networks) are what I can do or enjoy for at least next 5 years. I've been always thinking of exploring as many fields as possible and changing my field (which can be a huge change like from system to theory) after going to PhD. I think I already knew such a huge change would be almost impossible, but maybe I just pushed myself to continue my research because I felt like it was quite irresponsible to quit in the middle of the projects that professors worked with me on (I just... don't know...).
I feel very lost now as I realized I applied for PhD without knowing anything about it. If needed, I am even willing to explore new fields for several months, find a research assistant position in a new field, and prepare for grad school application again.
Thanks for reading this long post.

If this is for the US, then there is plenty of time after acceptance to a doctoral program to choose a specialty, assuming you start with just a BS/BA degree. The early couple of years are course rich to get you prepared for qualifying exams. This gives you a chance to see advanced material in a number of specialties and also get acquainted with several faculty members.
If you take advantage of that, and establish a few relationships, then, by the time comps/quals roll around you will be in a good position to choose some narrow specialty and work with an advisor to find a suitable problem.
Other places the system and expectations might be quite different, but if you are now an undergraduate it is probably too early to choose. I studied mathematics and started grad school with an interest in both Analysis and Topology. I might have jumped either way, but wound up in Analysis. But both of those are still pretty broad. Both have several subfields.
An advantage of choosing (rather) late is that you get a chance to evaluate the faculty for their likely support for your studies. I started with a poor advisor, but finished with a really great one.


I have asked a professor if he were available for being my graduate thesis advisor, now my bachelor thesis advisor is angry with me A couple days ago I was asked by my former bachelor degree advisor (let's call him X for short) if I were interested in doing a MD thesis with him. I have replied him that I wasn't sure yet about what I would like to do for my MD thesis and I told him I would have asked some other professor before deciding. He said he was perfectly okay with that.

I have therefore talked to several professor and, among them, to an ex collaborator of X, let's call him Y, who works in a different country.
In the mail I wrote to Y, I did not put X in cc nor I have mentioned him.

Y replied to me, putting X in cc, and suggesting that I should ask him if he were available to be my internal advisor first.

Finally, X sent a mail to Y, with me and a friend of mine (who wrote the mail to Y with me, as he were interested too) where he said I was trying to "outmaneuver" him by writing directly to Y. He also reported a mail written before I wrote to Y where, among other personal opinions on me, he suggested I was a mental instable person and that I push around my girlfriend (X was the bachelor thesis advisor to my girlfriend as well).

Now, of course the reaction of my professor is beyond any acceptable boundary, but what I really want to know is whether I am wrong at all. Should I have asked him before writing to Y?

Also, how should I reply to X?

Beg your pardon for the Xs and Ys...

It sounds like you've found out the reason that Y is no longer a collaborator of X.  Furthermore, you should thank your lucky stars that you found out now, before you committed to working with X.

Assuming there are no important missing pieces in what you report, the situation is pretty straight-forward: you were entirely reasonable in telling X that you wanted to talk to some other professors before deciding, and it is entirely reasonable for you to contact Y without reference to X (X has no claim over you and your interactions).

The email that you report X having sent is absolutely inappropriate, and also clearly disingenuous: if X thinks so badly of you, why would X have invited you to work for them?  It seems clear that X is wanting to control you, and so you should definitely NOT work for X.

At this point, I would recommend writing an email to X, stating that you found the email both highly inappropriate and also confusing, particularly given that X was also asking you to work for him.  State that because you find this inappropriate, you are no longer considering working for X.  It is very important that this interaction be in email, and that after this point you restrict interaction to email, since X has proven to be manipulative and untrustworthy and you need a written record with which to defend yourself if necessary.  I would also recommend continuing communication with Y, if this is possible despite the attempt of X to sabotage you.


How do you study a PhD without a supervisor and other PhDs? The situation is as follows:

1) I and supervisor dont understand each other

2) supervisor keeps the PhD group fractured

What it means ?

The supervisor is way off from my research area. But I know that happens. Unfortunately, he is the one speaking the most during meetings. To me it seems he want to prove himself as knowledgeable. This led me to ignore his advice, as it is usually inapplicable, since he doesnt understand my research. (I want point out, that I know this happens, that the supervisor may not be able to provide a profound advice, due to the differences in research interests. But what I consider a bit odd, is a lack of interest in listenening, as he needs to be the one that talks.) Therefore, I dont have a supervisor that would give a hand in research.

The other thing really bothers me though. We have never held a full PhD group meeting (there is about 5 other PhDs I barely know). Furthermore, there are "secret" projects among the PhDs managed by the supervisor, which fracture the relations and communication even more. This actually happens in very exclusive way. They just switch into their native language, right in front of me (including the supervisor), when such topic is discussed (I am international student).

For me this is both personal and professional problem.

On personal level, there is loneliness and the feeling of being different, as explained by the language exclusivity.

From professional/academic level, I have no ground under my feet. I need to progress on my own, without the feedback from supervisor or other PhDs.

Questions:

How do I progress on my own ?

Do I search advice from other professors ? Do I try to connect with other PhD groups on my own ? Is this practically manageable, to force myself into other groups ?

Is it sustainable to manage PhD stress AND to put quite an amount of energy to "join" other people just to sustain myself from psychological point of view (this situation is very heavy on mental state) ?

And maybe on more personal level, is this a very bad situation to continue the PhD ? Does the academia really look like this ?

Lets say I would change supervisor/university/etc. What could I expect from regular similar supervisor, BUT that can manage and keep the PhDs in touch ? How much does this helps in PhD ?

P.S. This is a long term situation, lasting more than a year and half.

Speaking generally, this does not seem like a workable situation for you. Your PhD supervisor seems to neither match your topic nor your personality, and it seems unlikely that they will support you through to the end of your PhD. Even if you did manage to produce a passable PhD without your supervisor's support, they don't seem to be someone who would be going out of their way to help you network into a position or write recommendations for post docs, etc. This does not sound like where you should be.

Step one would be to tell the administrative/departmental powers that be that you are considering leaving your programme. Don't make it personal, say that you do not believe that there is a research topic and research culture fit between you and your supervisor. They may be willing to discuss new supervision for you at that point (my UK Uni would, losing students messes up our stats).

Meanwhile, where SHOULD you be? Whose research out there influences your own? It might be worth getting in touch with scholars who more match your profile. In some circumstances, Unis can secure external supervision for a PhD student by, well, just paying that person to do it. This is far from a guarantee, but we secured an external supervisor for one of my PhDs (edit, I mean one of my PhD students, I'm the supervisor) during my year of parental leave because we felt no one else had the specialty she needed.

Caveat, I'm in SocSci/Humanities so this might not fly in your discipline, but it really is rare to get through a PhD with no support and much antagonism.


Why has the time spent studying declined so sharply in the United States over the the past few decades? I read on https://www.aei.org/publication/leisure-college-usa/ :

Study time for full-time students at four-year colleges in the United States fell from twenty-four hours per week in 1961 to fourteen hours per week in 2003.

The authors give some inconclusive statement regarding the reasons behind the trend:

The decline is not explained by changes over time in student work status, parental education, major choice, or the type of institution students attended.
Evidence that declines in study time result from improvements in education technology is slim. A more plausible explanation is that achievement standards have fallen.

I wonder why the time spent studying has declined so sharply in the United States over the the past few decades. I am only looking for data-supported answers (or pointers to them).

First, it is important to deploy your scientific skepticism in assessing this claim.  The source, after all, is the American Enterprise Institute, which is a political "think tank" that is explicitly dedicated to pushing a particular point of view.  Other key elements of its scientific record including taking tobacco company money to produce pro-smoking studies the 1980s and recent attacks on global warming.

There does, however, seem to be at least some difference there, and a deeper analysis of both the data and possible causes found that a major transition happened across the 1970s:

Expansion of the student population to include many more people who are working to support themselves, parenting, commuting long distances, etc., which means they cannot devote as much time, and
A shift in faculty requirements away from teaching and toward research, with a concomitant decrease in the amount of work that faculty are able to support asking from students.

From the early 1980s to today, however, the situation appears to have been more stable.


How to write a personal statement if I change my interest? I was interested in deep learning and devoted most of my undergraduate time to it. However, as I learn more about this field, I discover it does not fit me: I hate tuning parameters and doing experiments. Developing concrete and explainable applications seems more appealing to me.

I am about to apply for grad schools in CS and the personal statements become a headache. I what to apply for professional programs but all my experiences are in AI.

If I don't write about them, I have nothing to say except for mundane course projects. If I write about them, how can I explain why I choose a program for future SDE? Should I do intern works for the time being and postpone my application to next year?

I am also considering programs that do not have a clear orientation to work or research. Should I focus on one topic, post two topics in a parallel manner, or, discuss my changed mind in my PS? I am afraid that changing mind would be considered as a lack of resolution and reliability.

A personal statement is set up to describe the development of your interests as they pertain to your graduate program. People apply to graduate programs for many reasons. The backgrounds of applicants may differ widely. The personal statement is an opportunity to tie together your experiences in such a way that they show the school that your skills and interests will likely lead to success in their program.

In your case, you need to talk about your previous experiences, show the research skills you mastered, and describe in positive terms how that led you to an interest in professional work. A few general tips:

List out how your experience in AI would help you in that school's CS program. Then, in your draft, describe previous projects in ways that highlight the transfer of skills. These can be general abilities - like time management and project delegation - or specific skills with development tools.
Think about the transition in positive terms. Don't focus on what you don't like in AI, because the purpose of a personal statement is not to write about why you don't study something else. Focus on what you like about software development. Then, as your overall narrative, convey from point to point how AI led you to pursue software development. (If you really have no positive reasons for pursuing CS, then you shouldn't be applying.)
Specify an achievable goal that the graduate degree would help you attain. In other words, if you go to this school and work with professors in X and Y areas to earn (for example) an MS, what do you plan to do? Setting such a goal will help flesh out your motivation.


Uncited general claims followed by cited specific claims – is this an accepted writing style? I’m currently reviewing a paper and thought it may be good to consult more people on this issue. I’m wondering where exactly should we include citations in article main text (in a science/psychology paper).

The paper starts with two paragraphs of intro with zero references in them with quite general claims. The logic behind it should be that later text will validate the claims. The same trick is used for literature-review paragraphs, where the first sentences make general claims/generalizations and the remaining paragraph seeks to validate them.

This system seems to me to be inconvenient for the reader as the remaining data given is more specific than the claims, and it needs work to see whether they actually cite enough studies to justify the earlier generalizations. Sometimes it seems they don’t but the style itself makes it difficult to immediately perceive.

I am used to the style that citations should be introduced whenever you introduce information (especially general claims). I am wondering if anyone can confirm that the other way works and is common also in practice, where the general claims are followed by more specific validation.

It seems appropriate for me that the sentences could really be left uncited if they are common knowledge and for introductory purposes. But not if they make claims to be built upon. The authors do think that these are claims, they just present the summary before the facts.

For example (made up of course, and to be read by someone who doesn’t know tea):

  Tea leaves are generally green. They look green to most people and animals. For example they have been found to be green in sunlight (Authors 2012), and particularly the leaves of carnelia sinensis has been found to be very green (Other Authors 2011). [A few more specific cases …]

I’m sure academia is full of different styles of writing. I’d be happy to hear of different ways to approach presentation. Any style guides proposing this that you could point me to?

Certainly general statements that are common knowledge do not require citation.  Particularly if the general claims just help to provide a framework for thinking about things (context), are reasonable, and are not truly needed for the paper.

However, different people have different opinions about what is common knowledge, or is reasonable, or is important (say in putting the work in context), and part of your job as a reviewer is to point out where you think citations should be added or assertions should be questioned.  The authors always have the option to disagree, but at least if you make a suggestion, they should think more carefully about the validity and evidence for such an assertion.  (cf. my answer https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/66329/19607)

In your example, you might ask for evidence that they "appear green to most people and animals," or just point out (politely) that that's a stupid statment.

As another example, here's something I wouldn't expect a reference for:

  The only known techniques to attack Problem A are Method X and Method Y.  Method X was pioneered in [cite 1] and Method Y was recently applied in [cite 2].

It's hard to give a reference for the first assertion, and maybe the reviewer will be aware of a Method Z and can point it out.  Or maybe there is a Method Z but it got neglected by the authors and the referees.  Or maybe the referee's not sure.  This is why some people might prefer to be more modest and say "The only techniques we are aware of..." but people write in both ways, and as a referee I wouldn't say anything unless I actually thought the authors were neglecting something.


Difference between a letter/short article and a full length article? After 3 weeks from submission, I recieved the below email from the editor in chief of an applied math journal, asking whether I would consider changing my manuscript from full length article to a letter/short article, giving primary reason that the article length is short, so it would suit a short article/letter, and mentioning that the journal publishes short articles of high quality along with full length articles in all regular issues. I was asked to give my decison. I had a look at the letters/short articles of that journal from previous issues and found that they are no different, except in length. So I am not understanding the difference.

I am not able to interpret, whether I have been strongly adviced by editor, and that I better go with it. The editor already had that article with him for 3 weeks, so he might have had a look at it and might be giving strong advice. I also don't fully understand the difference between both modes of publishing.  Do these two have different academic values?

Email:

Dear Mr. XXXX,

I am writing to ask if you would consider to change your submission, XXXX, to a Letter from a Full Length Article. The reason for my request is based on the short length of you manuscript. XXXX Journal publishes short papers of high quality. Please let me know of your decision. The official review process will not proceed until we hear from you. Thank you.

Kind regards,

XXXX

Editor-in-Chief

In my experience, there is no real difference between "full" articles and "short" articles except for length.

Many journals, especially more recent online-only ones, do not bother with this distinction at all.  An article is simply as short or as long as the article turns out to be. Even with journals that do make the distinction, it often has little impact of the de facto length of the material once supplementary material is included---all that is affected is the fraction of the published "iceberg" that is "above water" in the main text. The peer review process is generally the same, and the perceived value the same, just simply some are shorter than others.

In terms of visibility and citations, short articles are typically just as visible (as you have noticed). I have never seen a citation attempt to distinguish between short and full articles, and most citation formats have no way that one could do so. For those who are affected by publication statistics (e.g., impact factor), that's not affected either: these are calculated by journal, not by article category within a journal.

In short: some things are just shorter than others, and that has little effect on their significance.  The editor thinks your article will work better in "short" than "long" format, so take their offer or risk rejection pointlessly.


Is it plagiarism to publish work that is contained in a final report to the funder? I am trying to sort out if material contained in a final report can then be published in a scientific journal.  The final report can be accessed through the funding agency, but is not peer reviewed.  While I thought this a straight forward question I am not finding a clear answer.

The final report is used by the funder to demonstrate the work completed by their funding.  It is not copyrighted.  It is available through the web.  It contains objectives, methods, results, and discussion much like a scientific paper, but it is not peer reviewed.

I did check with a publisher and their reply was that since the material was not copyrighted that it could be used in a publication.

If the final report to the funder is kept confidential by the sponsor and not used for external purposes, then turning that report into a publication is not really self-plagiarism. It's similar to the logic that the contents of NSF and NIH proposals are not publications, and therefore material from them can be recycled later into publications.

In the present case, where the report is "published," you need to check with the journal to which you would like to submit your manuscript and determine what the journal's "prior use" policies are. Not all journals operate under the same set of rules.

My answer to the question Is there a downside to “publishing” a preprint first? and the comments are worth reading.


Tips on how to format a manuscript in marine biology and physiology I'm working on my first publication on work I did as an undergrad. My adviser from undergrad will be helping me edit and go through multiple drafts, but because I'm now at a different university for grad school I haven't spoken to him about this first draft.

I've looked at the publisher's website, but they were vague and provided only general comments about how to format the manuscript. I don't want to send my draft to my old adviser and have him think I'm an idiot because my formatting is different from the norm. (Perhaps relevant: this publication has to do with marine biology and physiology.)

What font is appropriate? Times New Roman 12?
Double spaced?
Do figures go at the end? Should I space my figures the way I want them spaced in the publication?
Do I include line numbers?

Side question: What is an appropriate length (in number of words/pages/whatever) for this type of publication? I know it depends on the journal, but it's hard to translate pages in a journal to typewritten pages. I'm submitting to a journal with an average impact factor.

The general formatting advice from @CapeCode is sound. Generic font (certainly not anything odd) and 1.5-2 line spacing is fine for the text. Tables and figures should go at then end. Many journals ask for figure files not to be included in the manuscript file at all, follow such advise. If figures are separate all figure captions go at the end of the manuscript file.

Regarding line numbers it is not a major issue unless the journal specifies something special. Some manuscript systems provide only PDF-files of the manuscript. Some reviewers then prefer to have the line numbers to locate their comments. If the journal provides the Word files then as @Cape Code states these can be more of an issue. So try to see if you can figure out what the journal sends out but in the end I do nto think it is a major issue.

In addition, I strongly want to push following any instructions for authors to the point. Make sure your use the proper reference formats and follow other journal formatting details. If no explicit instructions for authors exist then look at recent articles to see what styles the journal uses. A manuscript that follows the journal style looks more serious than a manuscript that does not.

As for length, I would say that 6000-8000 words incl. references is a reasonable size for a regular research paper in your disciplines, shorter is possible but longer should be treated as a warning. If you really want to know just count the words on a page and guestimate the total for the article, you will not be far off.


pdf or word of the article for the first submission I'm submitting an article to an Elsevier journal, but I'm hesitant about the file format I should choose as the first submission. According to this journal:

  Your Paper Your Way

  We now differentiate between the requirements for new and revised
  submissions. You may choose to submit your manuscript as a single Word
  or PDF file to be used in the refereeing process. Only when your paper
  is at the revision stage, will you be requested to put your paper in
  to a 'correct format' for acceptance and provide the items required
  for the publication of your article.

My field is computer networking.
The reason why I'm hesitant is that sometimes word files look different in other people's computer and the reason why I'm hesitant about submitting a pdf is that the quality of the images in pdf file is a bit lower than the word file.

I wanted to know which one is better for the first submission? pdf file or word file? or both of them in a zip?

I recommend you submit PDF, for two reasons:

Only PDF gives you full control over the formatting of the document as received by peer reviewers;
Those who are accustomed to typesetting in LaTeX (of which I suspect there are a fair few in your field) may be biased against authors using Word. Admittedly a Word document with default formatting settings could not be mistaken for a regular LaTeX document, if only because of the characteristic typeface used by the latter, but a well designed document might almost be mistaken for a XeLaTeX-generated PDF. At any rate no one will be triggered from the production-neutral process of opening a PDF file, but some may resent having to deal with .docx.

The PDF image quality is a concern. Have you set image compression in the PDF export dialog to prioritize quality?


Academic reference for employment If a Professor has explicitly stated that he is open to being a reference for a summer scholarship application, would it be reasonable to assume that he would be alright with the same candidate citing him as a reference for future employment?

Honestly, you should make no assumptions about what other people think, whatever we are talking about. People are just too very different.

I think that you should ask your professor, simply as that.

And good luck for you!


While applying to masters programs, how important is GPA of unrelated under-graduation? For example: I'll soon apply for masters in Statistical Machine Learning after 4 years of relevant work experience. I've done under-graduation in Electrical Engineering from a highly reputed Indian university, obtained poor grades however.

I wanted to understand if admission committee emphasizes GPA in unrelated program when I have considerable work experience in field I'm applying to.

This can really only be answered by the faculty of the university you apply to. However, I would guess that your old grades will have a negative impact. The reason is that they were earned in a course of study and you are attempting to join that world again, not the world of work.

The impact of your work experience will differ (greatly) from institution to institution, with some weighing it very heavily, but others less so.

However, your record is what it is and people will see and judge it. You won't know what that judgement might be, however, until you make application and state your case for admission. People will want to know what is different now about your aptitude for and commitment to study and learning. You need to convince them that you will do better in the future than your record of the past indicates.


How are conference TPC (Technical Program Committee) members selected? I've been a member of TPC (Technical Program Committee) of some famous conferences for few years. But this year, I, along with many, were not invited.

Wondering how is TPC selected? I guess the TPC chairs select those? But TPC chairs are actually the same as before!

They are selected by the conference chair to be on the technical program committee.  People on the technical committee may suggest other people.  Some times they will ask past authors of the conference to be on the committee.


Is it common to be given 6 months for a minor revision outcome? I received a paper back with a verdict of minor revisions on August 30th. Both the letter from the editor and the scholarone submission system states 'minor-revision.'

I've read the reviewers' comments very carefully, and everything is, as the editor states, a minor revision. Nothing requires me to re-analyse the data, or engage with new work. Rather, most revisions are of a small nature, such as fixing up some grammar and clarity errors, ensuring consistency with terminology, and further developing a couple of sections (drawing out the analysis a bit more, being more specific about methodology). This would at most, take a week or two, and then an additional few weeks to get a peer to proofread for me one more time before submission.

However, I've been given until February, 2016 to complete them! For a minor revision that seems like a lengthy amount of time. So now, I'm unsure as to whether they've just given me a lengthy timeline because the journal itself articulates a 6 month turnaround time for peer-review (it took about 5 for this article), or if the revisions are meant to be more substantial.

I read this What is a reasonable time to resubmit revised papers after they have been peer reviewed? but didn't find it helpful.

Is it common in some fields to be given 6 months for a minor revision outcome that will only take a few weeks? I'm concerned that I should be making substantial revisions despite the letters indicating otherwise due to the time-frame provided.

My field: Social science

I suspect that what happened is that the editor used a web form to notify you of his/her decision, and to send the referee reports. 6 months is probably a default in the software which the editor did not bother to change. The only thing it is likely to indicate is that the editor sees no need to rush you, and is happy to receive your paper when you're ready.

It's certainly a good idea to finish your revisions much more promptly, and it will likely result in your paper being accepted sooner.


How to mention paper that we withdrew and another paper under preparation in CV? One of my papers have been accepted to a conference for presentation. But we figured that the quality of the conference was quite bad and we wanted to submit it to a good/okay conference in the coming days. But my Master's application deadline is fast approaching and I need to submit my CV.

Moreover, another work of mine is currently at the final stage (draft has been made) for submission in a journal.

How do I meantion this in my CV? Or should I not mention at all? So far I only have one conference paper that I have presented and has been included in the proceedings. Thank you.

I would avoid mentioning the bad-quality conference and the withdrawal.  Mentioning it may send a negative message about your  planning habits, and your willingness to waste peoples' (reviewers') time due to those planning habits.

After re-submitting the paper, you can mention it in your CV if you clearly label it as "submitted". The other, unsubmitted paper can be mentioned as well, with the note "in progress" rather than "submitted".


Marie Curie fellowship - family allowance Am I entitled for a family allowance if my family (a husband and children) don't live in the same country where my host institution is?

Yes you are. Source: Been in the same situation.


Should I bring a copy of an article I wrote in a science journal to my interview? I'm currently applying to a combined pre-med/medical program. This program guarantees a spot in the school system's medical school (assuming a certain GPA is maintained etc.). I'm between high school and undergrad, taking a few years off for intensive Judaic studies.

In 11th grade, I submitted an essay to a medical journal's contest for high school juniors and seniors. My essay (though not first place) was accepted for publication, and was published in that journal. The essay was basically a review paper of research done about a specific treatment (not CPAP) for obstructive sleep apnea.

Should I bring a copy of my essay with me to the interview at the medical school? (Does it matter that I don't believe the essay was particularly well-written?)

Is there anything to gain? (I know how to write a paper for a journal)
Is there anything to lose? (Might this appear presumptuous or arrogant? The paper doesn't actually look that good, at least to me)

Yes you should.

I expect that a common question in any interview would be to ask the candidate about any piece of work of which the candidate feels particularly proud or pleased. Being able to refer to your publication -- and have a copy of it with you -- would be a positive thing.

Regarding your opinion of the work -- you might be your own worst critic. Clearly the journal editor felt it was acceptable for publication. In a positive spin, you could outline in your interview where you feel the work could have been improved, showing a capacity for reflective practice.


Who, and how to write when withdrawing a submission before notification? I have recently submitted a paper to a top notch conference. Only then, I have realized that another good conference has announced a call for papers recently.

My problem is that the notification deadline for the first conference is after the submission deadline of the second one. Given the chances of acceptance, my best course would be to withdraw the submitted paper, and then submit it to the second conference. However, I do not want to just withdraw the paper. I would rather send an email to the committee, stating the reason, and apologizing for the inconvenience.

My question is, which committee (among general co-chairs, technical co-chairs, advisory committee, steering committee etc.) should I send the email, and roughly what should I write so that this situation gets less cringey for everyone?

You should contact the conference editor to withdraw/retract your paper.  They may not allow you to withdraw or retract without a valid research issue.

THINK LONG AND HARD BEFORE DOING THIS

Withdrawing or retracting a paper from a conference is usually done because of unethical or incompetent research practices.  Before withdrawing your paper, consider how this may hurt your academic career.

1) You may not be allowed to publish in the original conference again.  Many people will see the withdrawal as an indication of poor research acumen.  Your actual reason, to apply to a different conference, isn't much better.  The first conference has spent time and money finding peer reviewers and such.  You just wasted their time.

2) People may not believe you withdrew just to re-submit elsewhere.  A withdrawal is a big deal.  If this comes to light later on, you will likely get some very pointed questions about what "really happened," and the interviewer will not be pleased with this answer.

3) Others may choose not to work with you if they are concerned you'll withdraw and re-submit elsewhere, pulling their reputation down with yours.  Academia is smaller than you may think.  I would personally be very hesitant to work with someone I knew would attempt to do this, as I could get me black-balled by a conference as well.


Is it appropriate to submit a co-authored writing sample to PhD applications? I will be applying to PhD programs in Psychology this fall. Currently, I am in an MA program where we will be assigned to draft a research proposal in the topic of our interest. However, There will be another student co-authoring this assignment with me (we must work in pairs). Is it acceptable or favorable to submit such draft as a writing sample?
If not, what do you suggest might be a good piece to submit?

I suggest that you don't submit a sample that was written jointly. It would defeat the purpose of the request. The reader doesn't know how you write. I suspect that it would be rejected by many (most?) places.
There are a lot of possibilities for what you might submit. An old assignment, perhaps. Or write up something specifically for this purpose. Perhaps you could write a proposal for some specific research that interests you, showing that you have done some background reading and are looking ahead.


How/Whether to correct a wrong paper published in a prestigious journal There are several publications which I was advised to read by my supervisor, and work on during my master thesis. At some point I tried re-deriving the presented statements formally, and found that there are major mistakes that make the publications wrong in a very large part. I have had several people re-derive the same results and arrive at the same conclusions as me since. The issue seems to have started with two publications which used informal (and wrong) logic to argue about the correctness of their main statements. This has been cited over a period of almost a decade and various formalizations and analyses have been done on top of that (including PhD theses) - most of which will turn out to be irrelevant if the results on which those are based are shown to be wrong. A lot of the follow up publications have been published in some of the most prestigious journals in the field.

I tried talking with my supervisor (which is a co-author in some of those) about the issue. Initially he wanted me to find cases in which the statements in the publications hold, however it turns out there are no such cases. Since I notified him of this fact, he has been dodging the issue, even when I suggested that we should at least contact the authors.

How should I proceed with this issue? The publications in question keep being cited and have resulted in even more wrong publications in the last years, as well as wrong conclusions in mainly correct publications.

It is hard to tell whether you are on firm or shaky ground. If the ground is firm, probably the best way to approach it is to write a paper yourselves with correct results and see if the same journal will publish it.

But, the ground may be shaky for the following reasons.

In mathematics, a failed proof doesn't leave the result false, just unproven. It gives no evidence for the validity of the claim. A counterexample, on the other hand, leaves the result certainly false. So, it may be that, while an argument fails to deliver, the overall result is still correct, just not provably so.

But a result that is (if true) contradictory to the original, then the original must be false. This is actually stronger than a counterexample, since a counterexample only shows that a general statement is false, but might leave some specialization of it true, provided that the specialization excludes the counterexample.

However, in this case you say that your analysis leads to different results. If those results are contradictory to the original claims, and if your reasoning is correct, then you may have the basis of a paper.

However (again), if your results aren't, in fact, contradictory, then your advisor is giving good advice that you explore the intersection of what it is that the original paper claims and what you claim from your analysis. This might also give you the basis for a good paper, leaving some of the original claims win place, but improving on them.

I suspect that the situation is complex enough that a simple letter to the editor of the journal, pointing out the error, isn't going to be sufficiently compelling for anyone to take action. If the journal in which you find the original is reputable, then many people have missed the errors, implying a certain subtlety. This leads me to suggest that a full paper laying out the situation is more appropriate.

And even if this invalidates some early work of your advisor, he is at an advantage in being part of the process that corrects it.


Is there an informal understanding at universities about PhD student funding? This question was prompted by answers and comments on this question about PhD student funding.

I am under the impression that STEM Ph.D. graduate students, when accepted into an RU/VH university in the United States, will typically be funded for at least 5-6 years, depending on the average length of Ph.D. in the specific field, by either TAs, RAs, a mix, fellowships, etc.

I understand that my university, the University of Arizona, has shirked this duty in a legally binding sense, but is this impression wrong?

If it is, why would I (or any other graduate student) risk having to find a job in the middle of a Ph.D. in order to "pay the bills?"

I cannot speak for all US universities or all disciplines. That said, the graduate programs in the natural sciences that I have been involved with  do knowingly commit in legally binding fashion to provide five years of support with the caveat that this may come in the form of 20 hour per week TA appointments if no RA funds are available from the PI or the department.

Why would someone accept a lesser deal? If one has a better option, I see little reason to do so. If one does not, one might perhaps accept such an arrangement in order to receive a PhD education that, in many fields, vastly increases one's earning potential.


Do any schools maintain records of when instructors arrive and depart the classroom? Recently, my college began placing staff around the school to record when instructors arrive. The record is to the second. A school announcement also warned against arriving late and ending lessons early by even fraction of a minute. I am somewhat surprised to find this in a tertiary institution. How common is this?

I thinks it depends if the instructor is Tenured, part time or a contract instructor. For the later two, I would believe that the school would have some time sheet system for payroll purposes. Its becoming common.
Temple university has a template for time sheet for instructors
http://www.temple.edu/cjtp/pdfs/Instructor%20Timesheet.pdf

Also, check out this link

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/02/kean_university_now_requires_f.html


How to express appreciation for an offer of science research funding What is an acceptable way to state that you are very happy to have been offered funding for a research proposal?

"I am honored to have this offer of funding for my research"
"I am grateful for this offer..."
etc

Neither of those sound right to me -- research funding is about having a sound and interesting proposal, so feeling honored or grateful doesn't ring true to me.  I've been wondering this for a while but I now have a research fellowship offer I need to decline (already took an earlier offer) so I want to make sure my declination does not sound unappreciative.

I know this issue may seem simple or pedestrian to some, but I'd like to know how most would reply to know I'm meeting the expectations of program officers, etc.

Thanks!

I received your offer for research funding. While I am honored and
  greatly appreciate your offer, I must regrettably decline as I have
  accepted another source of funding.

  Thank you for your kind consideration.

  [salutation, like Sincerely]

  [signed]

Keep it simple, short, polite, and professional. If you are in a country where overstatement is important, throw in a "very" and/or a "deeply" to conform to your norms.

You might want something more personal only if someone was literally offering to write you a personal check to pay for your research out of their own account. Otherwise accepting/declining an offer (and applying to multiple programs which all have the same deadlines) is the norm - so don't worry about it.

Simple, short, polite, and professional.


Do US universities offer Graduate Paid Internship programs in CS/CSE? Do US universities offer Graduate Paid Internship programs in CS/CSE?

That is, studying MS in CSE while working as a paid intern in a company, which is arranged by the university itself?

If yes, do they have any age limit?

Yes, US Universities do offer Graduate paid internship programs in CS/CSE.
It is called Curricular Practical Training/Optional Practical Training.
But each university is different in accepting your CPT/OPT.
You need to have a job offer in hand, check with the DSO of the university for the dates within which you need to apply for your CPT/OPT.
You need to be atleast 18 years i guess.

For more information you can look this up : http://www.ice.gov/sevis/practical-training/


I graduated with 1st class honours - do I add it to the letters after my name? I'm in the UK and graduated with 1st class honours. Should I write my name as:

FirstName Surname Bsc(Hons) (1st class)
FirstName Surname Bsc(Hons)

or something else when writing a CV and on business cards?

No. The class of a degree is not written in your post-nominal qualifications. You can add it in he educational details on your CV.


Is using the relatives’ friend’s recommendation inappropriate? When applying for my postgraduate position, I browsed my future advisor’s web page in detail and surprisingly found that one of my relatives’ friend co-authored a paper with him. Then we reached out to the friend and asked whether he could give me a recommendation. He agreed and gave me a recommendation. Since I used to intern at his lab, the process went quite smoothly. And I got and took the offer.

However, I stupidly posted this process online and omitted some important details myself. Under the question, “how did you get your admission?” I answered using my alias:

  My friend and my relatives’ friend both gave me a strong recommendation to my advisor. And of course, I excelled in the interview. So the connection is very important.

This alias was recognized by someone in the lab and accused me of being “cheating” during the admission. The professor punished me for damaging his reputation and making the lab unstable by spreading the rumor.

I want to figure out whether I was acting inappropriately or not.

As a rule, where a significant personal connection exists between a referee and the subject, there is a potential conflict of interest. Definitions of "significant personal connection" are not universal. Policies on the acceptability and handling of potential conflicts of interest are also not universal. Where a potential or actual conflict of interest exists, it is imperative that it be declared.

A referee who has a significant personal connection to the subject may still be acceptable, if he/she has experience of working with the subject in a professional capacity, and the personal connection is declared. However, it should be understood that such a referee's comments would carry less weight than an equivalent referee (in terms of stature and experience of working with the subject in a professional capacity) without a significant personal connection. In some cases, it may be that such an "equivalent referee" may not exist, and so the referee with a significant personal connection is the only feasible choice (although, as I said in my answer to the related question, if more than one of the referees had a significant personal connection, that would be a red flag, since it would imply that the subject relied on friends to compensate for lack of merit or initiative).


Multiple PhD applications I'm a student from India who wants to do PhD(in math) in Germany in September 2019. The first thing I did was mail a couple of supervisors who I thought would be interested to work with me. Among them, I have received two positive responses. Now, the next step is to apply for DAAD scholarship. As far as I'm aware, I can only send one application for the scholarship. Does this mean that I will have to choose one of the supervisors now and hope that I get the scholarship?

Does this also mean that I cannot apply to multiple places in Germany to increase my chances of getting a position?

This is highly specific and might require reading between the lines. Your best and simplest course of action is to contact the admins in the funding body and simply ask them.


Ethics: donation link on github repository for an academic side project I'm a grad student in the United States with a strong programming background in a field where most people have very little programming experience. A while ago a faculty member I know requested my help; they were working on a manuscript for an analytical framework with major applications, but needed someone to implement it in software because it addresses very computationally difficult problems. By creating a somewhat performant proof-of-concept to go with the manuscript, and contributing to the manuscript in other ways, I got to be a coauthor, and it was published in a very high-tier journal. I then developed a complete software package that has been published under my account on Github, and then we published it as a software note with me as the first author in another pretty decent journal.
Currently, I'm the sole developer of the software. It's fairly complex and unlikely I'll be able to find someone that could pick it up. I still like to maintain it and add features to it because it has cool applications and I want to see it be used and be successful. The problem is, writing and maintaining good software (which my field desperately needs, and is what I would like to do career-wise) is very time consuming, and it's harder to justify taking time away from other things to keep it going now that the manuscripts (e.g., more tangible rewards) have been attained. I was thinking of adding a donation link to the bottom of the main page on github for the project as a way for people to show their support for the project. As a grad student, even a little bit of extra income (and I know enough about funding in the open-source community to not set my expectations high) would be a huge help, and would make it easier for me to justify spending my personal time on it.
The question is, are there any ethical concerns with doing so? I mainly did it as a favor and a way to get my name on some good publications, so it is an academic project in that sense. With that said, it was done in my personal time without university resources.

It is ethically acceptable to ask people to give you money when they are receiving nothing in return.  The fact that the request is on a Github repository, or that it is attached to software, or that it is attached to a university project, are not particularly relevant.
You should not use university resources to ask people to give you personally money.  A personal Github account is not a university resource.
Asking for money is unlikely to lead to receiving money.
Before selling anything (like software licenses) you need to check your university policies and see if the university has a legal right to your work.


what is the usual time to start applying for jobs and other positions during a phd? I have started writing my thesis ( just yesterday:) ). My advisor asked me to submit it in one or two months. Now am wondering should I start applying for jobs at this time period. I plan to talk about this with my advisor. But I thought of other opinions as well. Please share your experience also.

Yes, you should start applying for jobs.  You should have started several months ago, since it can take time to find a job, and after you do it may still take some months before the job actually starts.  This depends strongly on what kind of job it is.

Of course, if you are looking for an academic job in the US, the interviewing season is roughly November-March, so you want to time things around that.  For industry jobs and academic jobs elsewhere, there is not usually a particular season to focus on.


Is it appropriate for an undergrad to friend grad students / postdocs on social media? I'm guessing that if the grad student / postdoc is directly supervising the undergrad, friending would not be very appropriate. However, would it be ok for an undergrad to friend other grad students / postdocs in the lab?

This is for a university in the U.S.

I don't think there is a general social media rule about this. I have had many undergraduate friends on social media during my Ph.D. and postdoc. My rule is to send friend requests to whoever you like. It is just a request, they don't have to accept it. If someone sends me a friend request and I don't care to be their friend, I just ignore it.

But if you're worried that it could get awkward, you can just ask them if it is okay with them before sending a request.


Is it possible to be admitted to a masters in Germany with a 3-year bachelors from another country? I am a Nepali citizen and I have completed a 3 year bachelors from my country. I am planning my masters degree in Germany. Can I directly start my masters or do I have to do some courses?

Schools in Germany typically have an "International Office" or some other similar organization whose responsibilities include the "recognition" of foreign degrees earned outside of Bologna Process countries. If they approve of your bacehlor's degree as functionally equivalent to theirs, you should be fine. They may also ask you to take some additional number of classes to complete the equivalency. However, if too many credits are needed, they may refuse the request.


What to include for a strong research statement for a faculty position? An application for a faculty position normally needs a strong research statement, but what is included in a good research statement?

Highlighting the past successful research projects evidenced by
publications?
Giving novel ideas for future research, although there is no evidence
that the applicant can be successful in this field?
Including technical descriptions and graphs or writing for a broad range of readers?
Emphasizing potential collaborations for prospective research
projects?

In general, what are the eye-catching points of a research statement? What does the search committee look for in a research statement, and what can extraordinarily impress them?

What a hiring committee for new faculty is looking for is evidence that the applicant will be able to continue a strong research trajectory over the course of (at least the) next 6 years, and become an established leader in his or her chosen field.

To make a convincing case for this, you need to include evidence both that:

a) you have succeeded so far in doing this: that is, you have a track record that if it were extrapolated linearly over the next 6 years would result in tenure. So you should spend a good deal of your statement explaining what you have done, and why it is important/influential.

b) You can plausibly continue your trajectory. To do this, you should express a cohesive
research agenda that ties in with your past work, and plausibly leads to a large number of meaty, interesting, unsolved questions. The more closely related this is to things you have already worked on, the more plausible it will be that you can carry it out. But it should also be different enough that it is new and exciting, and not merely a rehashing of your thesis work.

As in all statements, what you write about should form a cohesive story. If you work in several disparate areas, or would like to branch out to new areas, try and find something that ties them together, or some reason why your experience in both areas gives you an edge.


Difficulty being admitted to good PhD programs in the UK Since last September I have been working hard on my applications, applied to multiple good CS departments yet none of them even wait-listed me, all rejected me, I have also got rejected informally by supervisors I approached.

Now I know I am not an established researcher in this field, I did not publish anything yet nor I have a concise experience with a certain topic but I know that I am not far off and I can pull my weight to reach the desired level by a number of the departments I applied to. The issue is that I almost all the time get unfriendly, cold treatment from professors, none of them is willing to take 5 minutes to discuss anything.

I am told that professors will always accept me even if I had average or below average marks because I am bringing my own fund for this degree yet this whole notion seems false.

My master's transcript does not look good, I have failed 2 courses and recovered but that 'F' will always look like a stain on my transcript. My bachelor's transcript is average (upper-second in UK scale).

How can I improve my chances to get into a PhD field that is not far off what I did in my master's?

You seem to be operating on the assumption that "I have my own funding, therefore, I can go wherever I want". That is simply not true. Taking on a graduate student is not only a matter of money, it is also a significant investment of time on the part of the advisor and believe me, at top departments, time is a more scarce and precious resource than money. If the professor does not see a reasonably good chance that this investment is going to result in a comparably good outcome (i.e., a student with high-profile publications and a strong thesis), then very likely they won't take you, even if you bring your own funding.


Can anyone write a paper and then publish it in a journal? I know nothing about the bureaucracy of the academic world when writing papers but I sometimes need or enjoy to read academic papers.

Usually all the papers I've read were written either by professors or by reasearchers (I'm guessing PhDs). Some papers were written by people working at Google and they were PhDs too.

My question is: can anyone write a paper or is some minimum level of education (say a PhD for instance) required? Of course I'm not asking if a persone can wake up tomorrow and write a paper on quantum physics without knowing anything at all of physics.

EDIT: when I said "write", what I meant was having the paper published. Sorry!

In principle: Yes, of course!

No journal I know has a rule that requires a minimum level of education or a specific affiliation. But in order to be accepted for a journal with reasonable reputation, there are several requirements:

Contribution: With more education (not necessarily a higher degree) it gets easier to provide a better contribution. As you said, just waking up with a great idea without even knowing the fundamentals of the field of research before is unlikely.
Novelty: For an external person it is hard to decide if he has really found something new or he was just reinventing the wheel. That is much easier if you are part of the research community. That does not necessarily require any affiliation, but for example the regular participation at conferences and workshops.
Experience: You need experience in many areas to write a good paper. A lot of (if not most) papers are rejected not because of bad ideas, but because of wrong experimental setups, wrong application of statistical methods, ugly looking plots that do not provide confidence intervals ... and most importantly because the paper was not written in a convincing way. You can not learn these things by just reading a book at home.
Time: Research requires a lot of time! If the university pays at least part of your bills you have more time to do research.
Money: Depending on the journal, publishing might be very expensive. With an affiliation at a university it is easier to find someone who pays for your publication.
Reputation: Last but not least, there are things, such as reputation of the author, that should not influence a reviewers decision, but they do at least sometimes.


Protocol for Submitting Fellowship Application where I need to see my advisor's Recommendation Letter I'm applying to a graduate fellowship program that has extremely strict rules about submission, and I must submit my application as one PDF, including my letter of recommendation from my advisor. He's written me several letters before that I haven't seen, but how am I supposed to ask for this letter?

Just ask.  Tell him the rules of the fellowship application (with a link so he can verify) and ask if he's comfortable writing a letter that you would be able to read.

If he's not (and this would be an entirely reasonable position), see if you can work out something else.  For instance, you might be able to send all your other materials to your advisor, or to some third party such as an administrative assistant, who would compile everything together with the letter and submit it on your behalf.  Or you (or better, the professor) could contact the fellowship funding organization and explain the situation, and ask if they can suggest any alternative methods of submission.

In the worst case, if there is no way to resolve the conflict, then you simply won't be able to apply for this fellowship.  Seek out others.


Should I use reference manager software? Should I use software for managing my references?  What is the benefit of it?   I can write down the references by myself, so I'm not sure what the benefit is.

You do not need to use reference managers. However, if you use some reference managers like Mendeley then, some of the benefits are obvious:

The pdf of your article is linked to the reference itself.
You can organize references into logical groups (areas, subjects, disciplines, sub-disciplines) by utilizing folders and tags.
You can one-click save articles and organize them from your browser. This is invaluable in saving time on organizing.
You can sync across multiple devices like desktops, laptops and tablets. For instance, Mendeley has an iOS app which does this for you. I use Android so I workaround using Droideley or Scholarley.
You can read your articles inside the reference manager and then do useful things like highlighting and annotations which can then be saved as notes for future reference.
You can export to specific citation styles. This is very useful for someone doing interdisciplinary work. For instance, I have to constantly use the same or similar bibliography using APA style, ACM style, IEEE style.
They are very useful for multiple collaborative platforms. For instance, when collaborating with some computer science colleagues, I generally use LaTeX and Mendeley does a brilliant one-click job of exporting to BibTeX. When I work with social scientists, I generally use MS Word and there is a MS Word plugin for Mendeley which dynamically adds references in-line as well as the full bibliography at the end of the document.

I hope this has been partially useful to you. This is a little Mendeley focused and I am in no certain terms claiming that it is the best or the most useful. However, for me, it certainly has its advantages.


IEEE TVCG length of review process We recently submitted an article to IEEE's Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics journal. It is the first time I submit to a journal so I am a bit unfamiliar with the process, being used to conferences.

In their website they mention that the review process usually takes between 6 and 12 months. I am wondering, does this refer to the time taken by all reviewers to take a single iteration on the manuscript or, does this include more review iterations? I.e. does this time take into account also the time needed by the authors to revise their manuscript according to their comments and resubmit it? How much time does one have to do these revisions? Provided that it is not rejected...

Review time is usually time from submission to final acceptance (ready to print).  After you submit most journals will assign your submission to a group of reviewers based on their specialties.  Those reviewers will read your paper and write up any comments, questions, or concerns.  They also typically issue a recommendation as to whether the paper should be 'accepted', 'provisionally accepted', 'changes requested', or 'rejected' (my terms).  All of that is uploaded to a central website, and when everyone has responded those comments are sent back to the authors.  If it wasn't accepted outright, you'll usually have a chance to address comments or concerns by making modifications (clarifying graphs, numbers, etc.) and resubmitting for reevaluation.  This can go on for a number of rounds of back and forth.  If your paper is eventually accepted, you are notified and sent a proof of what it will look like printed.

Now sit back and watch the citations roll in.

IEEE's TVCG process may differ a bit.  I'm familiar with publishing CS papers, but most of my publications are in Bio.


In a submitted manuscript, how (un)usual is a note "will be inserted in the final manuscript", or other meta-information to editor&reviewers? I'm about to submit a manuscript describing a data product.  In the manuscript, I will advertise that the data are available for public use under the ODC Attribution license.  After submission, I will start the process to transfer the data to the World Data Center for Remote Sensing of the Atmosphere, who would like to see a manuscript before I can transfer my data.  But in the manuscript, I hope to have a persistent link, citing the actual data.  So, I have a chicken-and-egg problem.

I could solve this by writing in the submitted manuscript a note This will be adapted in the final version.  How usual or unusual is it to write such meta-information in a manuscript?  Or should I rather not make mention of it in the initial submission, and rather communicate this meta-information to the reviewers via the editor?

I recently had a similar problem and submitted a paper including the sentence:

  Data for the analysis has been submitted to Dryad (http://datadryad.org) with DOI: xxxxxxxx (Note: data will be uploaded at publication, during the review found in Appendix A).

The journal did not have any problem with this, and I have now recieved the reviews. However, I contacted the journal beforehand and asked about this, since Dryad only accepts data from papers that are published or in press. In this case I included the data as an extra, review-only, appendix, and the need for this will naturally depend on specific journal policies.

Only communicating this information to the editor (your last option) should also be fine. However, for the reviewers it can be useful to have the information in the actual manuscript when they are reading, instead of buried in an email from the editor.


Writing an article outside of Academia. Is it likely to get supported? I graduated from my MSc two and a half years ago, so I have been outside of the University environment for a while.
I have recently started working on some novel machine learning techniques. Writing an article by myself and submitting it to a prestigious journal is no joke. I'm wondering: how likely is it to get supported from a University, or by specific researchers that are working in a University (for example PhD or postdoc students) with my work? I envision them becoming co-authors of the paper. Would they benefit from this? For example can they get some credits for correcting the paper and being a co-author even if I'm not a PhD student?
Clarifications:

I'm developing my own technique, independent from my employer. It's a general topic (regularization) so it's not directly applied to an industrial task.
I want to apply for a doctorate, but my GPA and MSc thesis grade weren't brilliant. Hence, the need to publish an article before applying for the PhD - but also for the pleasure of writing about innovative research, of course

I agree with Wetenchaap's answer and just want to elaborate the picture from our (university) side. Occasionally people write me and suggest something along the lines you envision, so, in general, yes, it is possible. However, my personal experience with this type of collaboration is mostly negative so far, and thus now I'd think twice before venturing into such projects again.
So, what's the problem? Usually it boils down to expectations and work management. People outside academia often misjudge what is considered "interesting" or "publishable", and what kind of work is typically required to compose a paper. More often than not getting a full picture cools down their motivation. Next, since people typically have jobs and do research in their spare time, months of efforts can easily end up with a short "sorry, piled up at work" message. Thus, investing into someone else's idea requires trust that lies on some firm foundation.
Dealing with students and colleagues is much easier. Students need it for their graduation works and (possibly) for their future careers if they consider staying in academia. Colleagues do research with me as a part of their normal daily activities. Outside people are unpredictable: today they believe that publishing a joint paper is good for them, but tomorrow they can easily change their mind.


As a postdoc, how to deal with supervisor who keeps trying to involve my student in other projects? I would appreciate very much an advice on the case which I will describe after a short intro about myself. Such introduction is not really necessary for the matter of question, but I hope it can better explain my situation.

I am PostDoc working in the field of one of the nature sciences in one of German Universities (I apologise for being so cryptic). It is my second postdoc position and I am doing science for about ten years. I moderately rate my achievements although I have several publications in high rank journals and currently my Hirsch index is 10.

Around three year ago I wrote a project for the German Research Foundation and was granted finances for one PhD student. Before submitting a project I discussed the matter with my prof. He was not against such project, but not very encouraging either.

After the project was granted I was first surprised that my boss used all possible kinds of arguments to prevent me of publicly advertising the position. After almost nine month of indeterminacy he suggested me to overtake one of our master students on this position. After all, it was not a bad decision because the student has already worked with me and we had a good experience of collaboration.

Currently, my biggest problem is that by boss interfere in all possible ways with our scientific work. He constantly tries to involve the student in other scientific projects. I would completely understand such approach if we were failing in some respect. On contrary, we regularly produce high rank papers, where my boss naturally is the last “courtesy author”. I spend sufficiently large time working with the student having 4-6 hours of weekly discussions.

One might say the situation is favourable to me. However, as scientist aiming at permanent position I am concerned with development of my own way in science, and working exactly according to the plan of the research project suits this aim. Therefore, I openly talked to my boss to get little bit more scientific independence. I was surprised to hear that "extra projects are in the interests of the student's scientific career". I am failing to see how this can be the case... (jumping from topic to topic?)

I need you advice how to deal with this kind of situation. Of course, I do not want to make strong steps because after working for so many years with my boss I heavily depend on him in e.g. searching for the next job.

Edits in response to comments

I am greatly surprised with the comments below which perceive everything from a very idealistic perspective:

Even though it might look selfish it is a post about my problem as a scientist trying to establish my way in science
I am also interested vey much in student being able to establish in science. Since the time for PhD is limited, in my view, involvement in too many problems, superficial approach is bad in a long time perspective
In the same way as time for PhD is limited same is true for Postdoc experience. Allowing the student to work on other projects also reduces the outcome of my project. In numerical terms it reduces the number of publications on the topic as I deny an opportunity to be a courtesy author. Which is never the case for my boss

This is a tough one.  The German academic system is more of a pyramid than in the U.S. Too often, the guy at the top of the pyramid got there by, shall we say, not being the politest, most patient piglet in the litter.  So I understand your reluctance to assert yourself.

I also understand your resentment of the boss setting up distractions for your student.  You have described a pattern of subtle sabotage.  The student should be your responsibility.  From your point of view (and mine), the boss has no right to butt in.  From his point of view, he has every right, because he is the great man, who has earned a high position of great respect, and has years of wisdom and good judgment to draw on.  Since you are the student's advisor, and the boss is your advisor, the boss concludes that he has the ultimate responsibility for the student.

I think the dilemma you are in is inherent to the hierarchical structure of German academia.  I've never heard of a situation like what you described, in the U.S.  In the U.S., which is the academic system I am most familiar with, post-docs don't advise PhD students.  But, from what I know of the German system, my guess is that it is not extremely common, but not rare either.  Is that about right?

I hope you can get a different job soon....  In the meantime, the best that I can offer is empathy.  Possibly you could talk this over with the department chair, or with the equivalent of the dean of the graduate program?  Or could you say to the boss, "Frank (I made that name up) is very interested in such-and-so project that you have proposed for him, but he can only spend x % of his time on it (e.g. 10%), because his primary responsibility is his principal project."  In other words, start with an assertive stance, but be prepared to negotiate somewhat on the percentage.

I wonder if there are any gender aspects of this?  If so, is there an office at your institute that supports women in tricky gender situations?

Have you talked things over with the student?  Perhaps he feels some divided loyalties, and finds it difficult not to defer to the big name?


How does ReadCube compare to Mendeley? Currently I use Mendeley. I have heard some stuff about ReadCube, but they don't have a Mendeley quick import tool, so… before I go through the hassle of resetting up my library with them, I wondered how it compared to Mendeley. What are its extra features? What is missing? How smooth is it to use, how widely adopted is it, that sort of things…

From a short comparison of the features listed on the website here is list of Mendeley features that ReadCube doesnt have:

In-text citation insertion and formation: Mendeley has Word and other plugins, ReadCube only exports to Endnote and "your favorite citation software"
Sharing and collaboration features
ReadCube is only a desktop app (no web app), and it doesn't work on Linux
Mendeley has an open API to query its huge database

On the other hand:

ReadCube is used as the online reader for a few publishers: Nature, Frontiers and Wiley.
ReadCube suggests personalized article recommendations (dont know if they're good, though)


Advisor ill, out all year... how should I proceed? I’m a first year grad student beginning this year. My professor was diagnosed with cancer and won’t be in, probably all year, maybe even the entire time I’m in class.
He’s a great man, and also a nice man, which are two things that don’t always go together, so I’ve spent a while just being sad, but now I think it’s time to try to figure out what I’m going to do. I don’t want to make it to obvious who I’m talking about because I don’t know if he’s announced it publicly yet, but I am studying an ancient language… So he is the only professor in my program who knows how to read it. My question is do I change my topic of study to match a different professor at the school, or do I continue to focus on what I had hoped to focus on without the guidance of my advisor?
Thanks so much for any thoughts you can give me on this topic.

Your best option, in my opinion, is to discuss it with him. You may need to wait a bit until he feels well enough to think about it, but you really need his advice about how to proceed. He may be able to help you in your current studies, or not. Depending on the illness he may also never return to work. But, if you need to change professors and projects, he can probably help you get started with someone else, and is probably the best person to do that.

If you stay with the current project you will need to prepare for the eventuality that you will have to finish on your own. If that is the outcome, you will need to find resources to make that possible. It might be possible for you to continue yourself or not, depending on many things. But the professor will likely have advice on all of that.

I would advise against just making a decision without such advice. It may be that other professors in your department can give you the best advice about how and when to contact him. Good luck to you both.


Is It a Common Practice to Contact the Reviewers? I am about to submit my article in a peer reviewed journal which requires the contacts of three potential reviewers of my work. I can think of a few names whose works I have cited in the paper (who, I think will be the best judge). Is it polite to contact them via email to check their availability (of course everybody is under time constraints) before I put their names in the journal website? I am concerned that it can be regarded as a conflict of interest or an attempt to bias their opinions. What should I do?

My strong advice is a clear NO!

There are several reasons:

The journal might contact other reviewers, not the ones you suggested.
Possible conflict of interest, even if you don't send your paper with the review request
The reviewing process is a business between the editor and the reviewer. It is specially designed to enhance the quality of the accepted papers (Blind, double blind reviews, etc). Once you contact the reviewers, any chance of a blind review goes up in smoke.
If the potential reviewer that you contact, is not selected by the journal he/she might feel offended.

So, in a word:

 NO


Review-only supplemental material I am at a difficult position. I work in a major software/telecommunications company, and pursue a doctoral degree at the same time. The company has strict policies against competing behavior. I have implemented a lot of core Internet component code at my free time, but the company would consider releasing those under an open source license as competing behavior. I won't consider changing the employer, as the salary is acceptable, the job is extremely interesting and I frequently get good extra payments for all of the inventions I have made.

However, I have managed to obtain publication permission for several articles given that main algorithms are only explained as pseudocode. Because my core Internet component is over 20 000 lines of code, I of course cannot explain all as pseudocode.

I would like to submit articles related to this to major IEEE computer society and communications society journals. I would like the reviewers have ability to assess that all experiments have been performed correctly, and thus see the source code for the experiments made in the articles. But I cannot according to the company policy publish the source code to all readers.

Now, what I would like to have is review-only supplemental material. Supplemental material that only the reviewers can assess, and that the journal can store for their private use (e.g. for verification of results if there's a suspicion of scientific misconduct), but not available publicly for all readers.

Is this kind of review-only supplemental material in general possible? I wouldn't be surprised to find if the answer was "no", as it makes it impossible for regular readers to work as unsolicited reviewers, publishing their own commentary on the results in the process.

Of course the answer can depend on the circumstances and the journal, so perhaps asking the editor would be a good option. But I believe this question may have more general value, and thus, I am asking it here as well.

Technically, there is obviously no problem. In the paper, you provide a link to your server that will be accessible only by reviewers. After review, you block the link. You may explain in the paper, that the code is proprietary and will not be accessible to readers. As soon as this is not a mandatory policy of the journal to provide an open-access code,  I do not think that you violates any journal policy. You will violate for sure the policy if you submit supplementary material, and then refuse to publish it. I suggest that you write to the journal that you plan to submit and suggest such a strategy. But do not explain the whole story - no one will read all these details. Just tell them that you have proprietary code that you can share with reviewers, but cannot make it open to all. Is it OK?


Is it acceptable to write a report for one university mentioning unpublished research done in another? Last year I got in touch with a professor by email. I was somewhat familiar with their topic, and very enthusiastic about working with them. I had a very positive exchange with them and did a call, after which they were willing to offer me a research internship. Their university is in the US, the field is computer science, and I am an undergrad studying outside the US.

The internship went well as far as I could tell. At the end, they offered to write me a recommendation letter (without me bringing it up), and we agreed to keep working remotely after I returned home. We had a very interesting discussion going on, even after the official internship ended, which got to the point where they asked me about my intentions for graduate school. By that time I was also finishing up the results of the work I did, in preparation for publishing it at a conference, which we had talked about when I was still in the US. It was to be my first publication.

Back at my university, I was asked to write a report of the work I did, because it was counted as the mandatory internship experience required to complete my undergraduate degree. I knew beforehand that I was to write a report, but took it as administrative overhead which nobody takes very seriously, and did not mention it to my internship supervisor until after the internship was over.

I sent them an email before writing the report, saying that I couldn't write anything very convincing about the work I did without at least mentioning some of the ideas we had discussed. I asked them about the level of detail they would be comfortable with me including in the report, given that we intended to publish. I also mentioned that the report would be used by my department (which is Electrical Engineering) only for evaluation purposes, and that it would not be read by anyone working in a field remotely close to the one we had worked on during the internship.

After that email, I did not hear back from my internship supervisor at all. Many months have passed now. I even sent them the results of the internship work, and multiple reminder emails.

Was it wrong to fail to mention that I had to write an evaluation report earlier? Or was it just unacceptable to write a report at all about unpublished research? Might they have felt that my email was not written in good faith and that I was trying to share their ideas with my department, which in reality hadn't the slightest idea of the topic I was working on?

I don't understand the basis of your worry unless you signed a non-disclosure agreement as part of your internship. Don't assume that everyone hearing of your research, even in some detail, will immediately want to (or could) try to scoop you on a publication. People generally are more honest than that.

But it is, I think, fairly easy to discuss research without giving up too much in the way of detail on the conclusions or how they were reached. General statements about the field, the methodology, and your part in the larger enterprise are probably sufficient in any such report. End it with the statement that the results are being prepared for publication.

People in academia share quite a lot with colleagues. They even ask for and get advice without having to be paranoid about primacy or getting scooped. Getting scooped normally happens when two groups work on the same problems in parallel, often without knowledge of one another, but occasionally in competition.


Can I publish open access articles on my personal website? I have written a couple of articles for a print journal which I found, at the time of publication, were available online for free as Open Access. This was around two years ago. Can I also publish them on my personal website?
I also have pre-prints of a couple of other published papers [for a different journal]. I uploaded these to Researchgate. Can I put these on my site as well without incurring the journal's disgruntlement?

Check the agreement you signed with the publisher.  If you transferred the copyright and they don't explicitly allow this, then the answer is no.
Another easy way to check is using Sherpa Romeo.  For instance, you can see here that the journal SINUM does allow the author to post the published version on a personal website.  Meanwhile, you can see here that JCP allows posting (on a personal site) of the accepted version, but not the published version.


Funding for applied mathematics postdoc - how does it work? I am an applied mathematics Ph.D. student at the end of my Ph.D., looking for postdoc opportunities. My strategy has been to apply for different positions that are already funded. Now I am thinking about applying for funding myself.  It seems like a good way to gain independence as a researcher. But I am not sure how to go about it.  Here is how I think it works:

Send research proposals to different research groups, asking if they would be interested in the problems and providing a postdoc position if I can get funding.
If one of them agrees, I apply for funding. I suppose that it is normal to apply for the same funding at several places (?).
If I am lucky enough to get a grant, I then contact the research group and get the "position"

Is this the correct way to go about it?

If you want to fund your own position, probably the best course of action would be to look for the various postdoctoral fellowships awarded by organisations like the NSF, the European Union, and many other national science funding bodies. Your advisor may know some examples that would be most appropriate for you at this career stage. Each fellowship of course has their own rules, so you would need to study them carefully. Generally, the fellowships at this stage would support yourself through either a stipend or by providing your institution with money for your salary. They may or may not pay overheads. In addition, there may be a modest research budget, which for theoretical fields typically can be used to cover for example conference travels.

In case of the fellowships that I am personally aware of, you would have to mention a host instution at which you would want to carry out your research. Typically you would have to provide a signed letter of commitment from the institution, agreeing to hire/support you if your fellowship would be awarded. So indeed it is important to get in touch with possible institutions. You would usually also have to argue in your application why this place would be a good fit for the project.

So how to go about once you have found suitable funding sources? As you said, it is indeed a good idea to contact professors at those universities that would be a good fit for the project that you have in mind. Your advisor might be able to help here as well in suggesting and/or contacting the right people. At this stage, a full research proposal is not really necessary yet, but you should be able to explain briefly what you are interested in, and how it fits in with the group.

Once you have found someone to support you, you can work on your proposal according to the guidelines for the fellowship. Your prospected host instution may provide some feedback on the proposal, but in my experience this is more common only for bigger grants at later career stages. In my experience, professors are generally happy to support your application, since it is relatively low risk for them. But be sure to secure their support in time, since it may take some time to navigate the bureaucracy to get a letter of commitment, for example.

You can only apply for each fellowship once per round, but you can apply with a similar proposal to different fellowships. In some applications you will be required to disclose this, however. And almost certainly, if you would get awarded more than one fellowship, you would have to choose between them since you cannot get funded for the same research twice.

Since typically the institution has to provide a letter of commitment, once you are awarded a fellowship they will be obliged to hire you (or support you, in terms of office space and such) for the duration of the project. At this point it will be mainly up to the adminstration of the university to proceed and prepare the relevant paperwork.

Good luck!


Is it permissible to use somebody else's words (without quotations) to describe a concept once their work is cited? Quite often one comes across a really succinct and precise explanation of a concept. I'm wondering if it is permissible to use this explanation verbatim, if the source work is cited in your paper (next to the explanation)? What's in question here is at most 3 sentences.

No, it's not permissible.  Some minor overlap in wording can occur naturally (e.g., you couldn't possibly avoid all two-word phrases anyone has ever used before), but deliberately copying text is different.  If the copied text is special or remarkable and says something better than you could have said it, then you should attribute it to its source and not seem to be presenting it as your own words.  Citing the source nearby is not considered enough to indicate a verbatim quote.  On the other hand, if there's nothing special about the copied text, then there's no reason to copy it.  (I suppose it could save you a few minutes of work in writing your own explanation to replace these sentences, but that's not considered a good excuse.)


Grad schools emailing to request that I apply? I'm an undergraduate major in International Studies applying for grad school programs in Development, Securities, and Global Governance.  I have international experience working in West Africa for World Bank and USAID sponsored NGO research initiatives.

I've recently submitted all of my intended applications for graduate school programs and fellowships.  In the last week, I've received three emails requesting that I apply to graduate school programs which I had not intended to apply for - Cornell, Denver, and Penn.

Does this mean that the programs are particularly interested in me or is this a normal spam-type email to people that have applied to other programs with similar major focus?

Universities are not above collecting and re-selling data.  There are a number of ways you could have gotten on a mailing list which was purchased by the 3 schools you mention.  In math, we have a Putnam competition and most good math majors participate.  Grad schools will buy the list of top 500 or second 250 or whatever finishers and then spam them with invitations to apply.  In your field, you may have done something that got your name on a list of likely candidates, or perhaps it's just that one or more of the schools you applied to stuck your name on a list and sold it to other schools.

(Yes, companies sell data to their competitors.  I always get a chuckle when DISH TV sends me a solicitation using the misspelling of my name that Time-Warner Cable has.)

The strict answer to your question is "both."  They are particularly interested in you, but it's because your name appeared in a list of potentially good candidates.  (This is my guess,  but perhaps your work in West Africa got noticed and they really are targeting you in particular.  But this doesn't seem likely, because how would they know you are now in the market for a grad school...?)


Junior academic jobs in the time of COVID-19 During these unprecedented times, it is quite hard to predict whether any recently advertised academic jobs will be still available next fall, as some countries might enforce social distancing or lockdown for a whole year. Still, many conferences are cancelled or delayed this year, thus getting papers published harder, alongside with academic path progression. I guess that we should be trying to get journal papers accepted instead...

Given that I am at the end of a fixed term assistant professor position (looking possibly forward for an open term/tenure track one), I'm asking if it will be possible that universities will still be hiring new APs when they might be asked to close until further notice (e.g, UK). Is it still possible that some degrees will convert all of their modules  into on-line classes (e.g., for Computer Science), thus allowing universities to get the same number of students they expected in the following academic year? This is still a relevant question - I think -, as the hiring of new junior accademic staff goes hand in hand with an expected increased amount of students on campus. Do you have any insight on this, or do you think that it is too early to make any possible educated guess?

Thanks a lot for your suggestions.

The road to the future is never smooth and upward trending. It is bumpy. In the current chaotic situation, expect chaos in the short term. Others, such as myself, have experienced career setbacks due to circumstances we can't control. I finished my doctorate at a time when the market for mathematicians was one of zero demand and massive supply. But over time, the bumps eased out for us. Perhaps, and we hope, they will for you also. But prediction of the future is an uncertain business riddled with errors among fantastic claims.

Unfortunately too many governments around the world are behaving incompetently, making everything worse. But in the long run, climate change will probably have a bigger effect than the current pandemic. And it is also being ignored by some governments.

However, unless we are willing to give up scientific study altogether and unless we are willing to give up educating the citizenry for the future, there is a lot of incentive to continue as we have as much as we can within the constraints that we see. Universities have many incentives to maintain their services and their structures. Most feel an obligation to faculty, students, society, and science itself. Those are strong positive forces.

The incentives, however, need to be met with action. We don't have answers yet to some important questions. One of the questions is how meaningful and complete we can make an education without face to face interactions. Another is how we can continue some sorts of research, say lab sciences, without physical labs staffed by researchers. These are hard questions. It will take some innovation. Conferences could, in principle, move to virtual space, just as "classroom" education is doing now.

Fortunately we are in a better place today than even 20 years ago with fairly ubiquitous internet communication. Some of the problems are probably solvable relatively quickly.

But we don't know how many students will seek higher education in the next couple of years. We don't know how taxing authorities will deal with funding education in the face of economic disruption. Some, but not all, signs are positive. But uncertainty is high. Budgets, needs for faculty, working conditions, etc. All in flux.

I suspect that the careers of people in your situation will be disrupted for a while, as mine was. But I also suspect that the situation will improve for you, though it may take some years to do so. Provided, of course, that we don't kill the planet along the way.

Try to find a way to be healthy and happy, even if your short term goals must change. Try to use the internet to stay connected. Try to stay as productive as possible given the constraints. Apply for what positions there are, and for positions that you might not have considered if times were better.