Resubmitting manuscript somewhere else after rejection: Should I change who I list as my preferred reviewers? Suppose I submitted a manuscript to Journal A which allows me to provide a listing of preferred reviewers. Further, suppose that Journal A rejected my manuscript based on feedback from two reviewers (I do not know if these two reviewers were on my "preferred" list).

Now, I want to submit my manuscript to Journal B, and I do not anticipate making any major changes to the manuscript (I will address all the comments made by the Journal A reviewers, but I will not change the paper by more than 10%).

My questions:

Should I suggest completely different preferred reviewers? Will suggesting the same reviewers again decrease the chances of having the article accepted?

Unpacking your question a bit, I think that the key issue that you are worrying about is whether one or two of your preferred reviewers a) got your paper rejected, and b) might do it the second time around.

Now, if you were not going to substantively improve your paper, just submit again and hope the randomness comes up in your favor, I think that would be a serious worry. There are other questions on this site where people talk about the frustration of getting the same crappy paper twice, and you really don't want to be that crappy paper.

If you're addressing all of the key issues that caused the first decision, however, then I think that you are unlikely to need to worry.  Let's break this down by the different cases that could occur:

At least one the journals might use none of your preferred reviewers: This sometimes happens, for a number of different reasons (e.g., the journal has particularly strict COI rules, or none of them might be available).  In this case, your concern is moot.
The journals select different preferred reviewers: Journals generally want most of your reviewers to be non-preferred, to reduce the impact of bias and groupthink, so if you supplied several names, there's a good chance that the journals will pick differently from them, and again, your concern is moot.
Your preferred reviewers like the paper: Presumably you chose your preferred reviewers because they are likely to view the problem in a similar way to yourself, and so if you got some good reviews and some bad reviews, there's a good chance that your preferred reviewers gave a good review once, and will do so again.
Your preferred reviewers rejected you the first time, but find your improved manuscript much better: If you successfully addressed reviewer criticisms, then getting the same reviewer is likely to help you.  This is because every reviewer is likely to have a different perspective, which may lead to focusing on a different set of concerns and issues.  Thus, you may actually do better being reviewed by somebody who previously rejected your paper, but whose issues you have addressed, than by an new person who may reject the paper for their own entirely unrelated reasons.
Your preferred reviewers still hate the paper:  Maybe they are prejudiced, maybe their issues simply cannot be reasonable addressed, or (more likely) you just didn't do as good a job as you thought in addressing their issues.  This is the only real failure case amongst the scenarios.

On balance, then, I would recommend first thinking carefully whether any of your preferred reviewers might actually have a previously unexpected reason to be prejudiced against your paper.  If so, exclude that person from the set.  Otherwise, just pick the best preferred reviewers, and if they're the same as before, they're the same as before: most likely the concern is moot in any case, and if you've actually done real solid improvements in the paper that address the former issues, then even if you get one of the same reviewers again, it seems to me that it will be more likely to help than to hurt your paper's chances.


What does it mean that a conference is sponsored by ACM or IEEE? Some conferences are established by IEEE and ACM, others by only one of them.

I thought at first that such organizations somehow maintain a certain degree of high quality in the affiliated conferences. But I've seen beginner conferences saying they they are sponsored by IEEE, some say "technically sponsored", while they accept poor quality papers.

So what should "having the ACM or IEEE logo on a conference's website" mean to me?

In part it means that the conference organizers have access to the conference administration tools and resources that IEEE, ACM, or the like provide. Having been around some IEEE-sponsored conferences, that can mean things like payment processing and credit card handling; access to a journal special issue for proceedings; conference organization website for registration, submissions, and reviewing; and registration discounts for members of the society.

Access to these features doesn't come for free. The professional societies charge for their use and stand to make money on them. As such, while you have to propose the conference and get it approved, after that the oversight is less. The quality of a conference comes down to the Organizing Committee and it's technical/content/papers committee. If you've never heard of any of the members of these committees, or many of them appear to have low-quality papers, there's a good chance that the conference isn't all that great.


lab relations and busy professor I am currently in a lab that I feel I cannot grow sufficiently in and am considering changing labs. The background is I chose to join this lab because it was aligned with the work i wanted to do, but I didn't really look into it any further since this was my first experience joining a lab.

After being in the lab for some time Ive found out that communication between the labs 8 members is very limited and there aren't any group projects, assistant professor etc. The professor is a nice person but is usually busy with other things so doesn't really give students much direction or input and leaves the students to figure pretty much everything out on their own. I'm aware this may sound great for some people, but I'm the type of person that requires more direction and to be pushed a bit more or else i tend to procrastinate. This coupled with the lab atmosphere just being very cold and not good for brainstorming with members etc has made me feel that I wont be able to grow much in this environment.

There is a similar lab in the university with more members an assistant professor, group projects and a professor that engages more with his students. I'm thinking I would like to join this lab but think my professor could take it badly since the other lab is in the same uni, and is a friend of his he will probably feel like ive slighted him, or am making an indirect comment on his skills. Which isn't really the case, I just want to be in an environment that allows me to learn as much as possible.

Has anyone else encountered these sorts of issues ? how did you deal with it ?

As you are someone who tends to need structure and, perhaps I could even say hand-holding, and since your target advisor has a set-up that is more amenable to that style... you might be able to get some assistance from the target advisor in making the change.

You could also ask the director or dean of graduate studies in your department for assistance.

Alternatively, you could take a deep breath and let your current advisor know about the change.  Use I-messages such as "I'm the type of person that needs to be pushed a bit more or else I tend to procrastinate."  Make sure to thank the professor for the opportunity s/he provided you.


Should references in foreign language be translated to make popular audience get familiar with how academia works? Typically, references in foreign language are cited with title and journal name in original language, whether they are academic or popular science books. As pointed out in this answer, popular science books, written by native authors and published by different publishers, report English, German and French references without any translation.

Of course leaving the identification of the references is vital. However, I wonder if this is the best practice for the audience who are not familiar with how academic works, especially kids. I imagine that having them written in their mother tongue will make them compelling and informative enough to read, and after reading them, they will know at least these things:

Academic researches are published in academic journals, collaborated by many authors
Titles tend to be very specified, journals are very niche
Consistency needs to be maintained
And whether they understand them or not, some terms will get into their mind, enhancing their vocabulary. To put it as Wittgenstein, "my language is the limit of my world".

The book I'm translating is What If? from Randall Munroe. It's academic enough to have several pages of references, but entertaining enough to have comic on it. What I am trying to do is to find the balance point to make an academician and a kid both happy. One reference of it goes like this:

  Merlis, Timothy M., and Tapio Schneider, “Atmospheric dynamics of Earth-like tidally locked aquaplanets,” Jounal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems 2 (December 2010); DOI:10.3894/JAMES.2010.2.13.

Questions:

Should this be done? I guess yes, despite of the current practice. How far should this be applied? Having the origin text first, the translation first, or only the translation if other identifications exist such as DOI or URL? As long as the audience can trace the references on their own, then there's no reason for not doing this, right? What if only some references have DOI, and some others have dead links? Should I add the DOI for every academic papers? What to do with blog posts and YouTube clips?
Is there any drawback of this? Would the readers lose their interest in the middle, or having no interest in reading them at all, hence wasting the translating time?

Figure out what the younger portion of your target audience is, and find out how comfortable they'll be with the various languages your references and quotes are in.  For example, my guess would be that your typical younger readers would be age 12?  And that you are writing in German?  I imagine your interested 12yo readers will be okay with most article titles given in English, so those translations could be given in footnotes.  The reader who doesn't need the translation could just keep reading and not bother with the footnote.  My guess is that all the French would need to be translated.

The general answer is, you need to know your audience.  Give some talks in schools to get to know them better.


Second time chance for applying in one university My application for admission to a degree program or research position at  universities in Europe, USA, Australia, and so on has been rejected. If I then write several new papers for journals and conferences and again apply to the same university, is there any chance for me to obtain admission, or will I be automatically rejected?

No, every year, (at least with majority institutions here in the USA), there is a new applications cycle. They may ask you if you previously applied, and they may compare you with your previous stats, but in the new cycle, you will facing off against new applicants. So for your question, no, every year is a new ball game and a new start. In my experience though, I (personally) have seen a very low success rate of students applying to the same institution in varying cycles. It's best then, to know your capabilities and apply to other schools, and perhaps some that are lower ranked.


How do you keep focused on a long-term academic goal while working? I'm a college graduate and now working as an EMT in the hopes of going to physician assistant school next year. While working, it's easy to get sidetracked by many different points of view. I don't want someone to end up persuading me to become a paramedic.

How do you stay focused on your long-term academic goals outside of academia?

You're right: it is easy to get sidetracked by the immediate responsibilities of work and other parts of life.  The first question that I would recommend you ask yourself is: why is that a bad thing?

A higher degree ambition is a great thing, and can lead to a very fulfilling life.  But you can also have a very fulfilling life in a lot of other ways as well.  What would happen if you just let go of the ambition and abandoned the plan?  Would that be so bad?

If it would be so bad, then there must be a reason why.  Now, that's the driver for your long-term goal.  The problem is, how do you get from where you are to that long-term goal, when all of these distractions are around you?  Some of the best advice that I have heard on this subject comes from writing podcast that I enjoy listening to: in one episode the podcasters, who are all well-established fiction writers, were talking about the shifts they had made on their path from aspiring writer to well-paid professionals.  One big shift that they all identified was that they had had to start thinking of writing as their job even while they were not yet being paid for it, which meant setting aside significant amounts of time per day to work on writing.

I would recommend the same thing for you in terms of making sure that you keep your focus.  Set aside a weekly schedule of time to work on the things that you need to do in order to be able to gain admission to the program you are aiming at and to prepare yourself academically for it.  With that time, you can both organize yourself, planning the short term goals that will move you toward your long-term goal, and also you can work on those steps.

Then, keep records of how much time you are actually devoting toward your academic goals.  If it's much less than you intend, then you need to reassess your priorities and ask again: do you really want this degree if you are not setting aside time to prepare for it?  And if you do really want it, what are you going to de-prioritize in order to make the time you need?

Preparing for higher education while working a full-time job can be hard, but it's also very possible, and I know many people who have done it.


How acceptable is it to ask a professor a question such as "so you think it's justifiable to take points off my proof for this?"? TLDR: Professor apparently only takes at most one look at a student's answer to determine correctness, doesn't award full marks kind of unfairly (clarifications below), is offended by hearing the question in the title, and grade reviews end up taking up to 5 hours due to complications I try to make clear here:

Last Thursday, our professor lets us know he'll be in his office doing grade reviews for everyone so that we have a fair grade, see if everyone agrees with his correction and all that stuff: I'm the first one in and I start reviewing my answers to the first and easiest items on the exam... and I find that the professor could have been a little fairer.

After disagreeing with a few marks taken off because of small stuff, I ask:

- Then you think it's justifiable to take points out of the exam because of things as small as this?

- Watch your tone! If you want a 10 right now, just walk out of my office right now, don't speak to me again and I'll give it to you!

And then, before I even had a chance to say anything at all, he crossed out my 8.2 and wrote a gigantic 10 where the 8.2 was before. When I had a chance to say my piece, all I did was apologize and try to emphasize as much I possibly could that I meant no disrespect at all, I was just trying to gauge how rigorous of a standard I should expect so that any mistake I made in the past wouldn't be repeated.

After a while of my apologies, he said:

"Alright, forget about it, let's just start over and pretend it never happened"

A while after that, I was still pretty anxious, so he gave me some time to calm down and my grade went from 8.2 to 9.6. I guess what I'm looking for in an answer is advice on what I could have done better so that I don't mess up like this in the future.

  Some helpful background but not absolutely necessary: A colleague of mine had an initial grade of 9.3, after the review, it was 9.9. The reason was that in his answer to a problem asking for a proof of a certain statement, he actually stated and proved a much more general result and said the initial statement was just a particular consequence of that result - the professor didn't like that and thought a 10 was undeserved. Another colleague mentioned a story of grades going up so far as 9.5 after the review (with an initial grade of 1.5) in another exam of some other course he gave on the past. Yet another colleague shared that his initial grade was 3.8, but he managed to convince the professor that a lot of his other arguments were right too - his grade would then go up to something between 5.5 (the bare minimum for a C is 5) and 7, and in order to avoid that the professor took points of another unrelated answer which had initially been awarded a full mark, said "alright, you got a 5, it's good enough" and left it at that (my colleague was the first one after me in the office and heard what had happened before because the door to his office was open, so that's why I think he didn't argue anymore). Finally, I and another colleague whose grade went from 8.3 to 9.3 agreed that a general impression of his correction was that he just read your proof once and if he didn't agree that was it (where it also happened to him that he proved more general results than asked and the professor didn't like it or hadn't read the arguments carefully). All in all, the review started at 2 pm and ended some 4-5 hours later and a lot of people got their grades up.

It's quite difficult to catch the tone of what you said from a written recollection, but:

  So you think it's justifiable to take points of my proof for this?

(emphasis how I imagine the professor perceived it) is indeed not very respectful. Next time, try something like this:

  I'm sorry, I understand that I should have given a more detailed reasoning about why [...] but it's just such a small and obvious part of the proof -- isn't it a bit harsh to take off Y points for this, what do you think?

Keep in mind that if you do this often you might still get a reputation as "that kid who tries to argue every tiny point even when they already have a pretty good grade" but if you are reasonable about getting told "no" it shouldn't be much of a problem. Still, you have to weigh your chances of getting an increased grade against the chances of being perceived as annoying or needy.

However, the professor's response in this case is completely unacceptable. Giving you full marks based not on your performance on the test but based on you getting out of their office is a gross violation of academic standards (even if they later rescinded this "offer"). Honestly, the whole thing that transpired here sounds like both sides messed up. It sounds like the professor (rightfully) immediately regretted "offering" you full marks.

So many people getting their grades increased sounds like the professor should invest a bit more time in designing a clear grading model and then consistently apply it. The way they currently have it set up pretty much guarantees having to argue every little point with every student. Even if what you said is inconsiderate and perhaps rude, they had themselves set up for it.


Publishing figures: Serif or Sans-serif fonts? Whenever I am creating figures for publication, I often wonder if I should be using a serif or sans-serif font. I browse the journals in my field and notice that there is no standard, just chaos.

I have typically chosen serif font to match the typography of the body text; however, I have read that sans-serif stands out among the serif body text. My rationale for choosing serif text is because it allows me to reproduce the symbols from the text exactly in my legends (and/or annotations). To me, this seems clearer.

Does anyone have a source or standard that recommends one or the other?

When it comes to typographic design, it can be dangerous to adhere to rules of thumb. Sometimes (actually most of the time) sans-serif fonts work, sometimes they don't. It would depend on tradition, trend, and overall feeling that the fonts project.

If the journal does not specify. I would usually favor sans-serif. The reason is that unlike my texts, I am not always sure how much the editorial team may size down my illustration. Sans-serif has a pretty good property that they are quite resistant to shrinking, and can still be legible at relatively small size.

In the mean time, if the publisher uses any software to smooth out the edge of the fonts after resizing (e.g. through aliasing,) serif fonts can sometimes appear broken at their thinner strokes.

There are, however, some illustrations that just don't look right with sans-serif. For instance, line labels and angle labels of trigonometry problem sets and formula like this one are much nicer with bold and/or italicized serif fonts, monotone ink-drawn anatomical charts (like this one) will just look very odd if we put on sans-serif labels. This timeline describing Shakespeare's Life may look ridiculous if sans-serif fonts are used.

In those difficult situations, look for serif fonts that are beefier or with more uniform stroke width. As they can likely withstand shrinking and aliasing. In addition, look for fonts that are slightly wider, and have a good "x-height" (literally height of the font "x"). Some possible candidates are Caslon, Baskerville, Garamond, and Palatino. Avoid cursive fonts, or fonts with some very thin lines like Times New Roman. A more in-depth discussion on squint-free fonts can be found in this blog page and this thread on SE UX.


How to not lose focus after each disruption in flow I have observed that whenever I'm studying something, or solving an assignment, whenever I would hit a question which I am unable to solve or is taking too long for me to do, my mind wanders away from that task, no matter how urgent or important my current task is. I would maybe end up surfing the net, or thinking about a conversion ,etc. I end up wasting 15-20 minutes of my time . This is very frustrating. How can I curb this problem ??

A very simple solution, that might work, and is worth a try. When you reach such a block, jot a note to yourself that captures the problem or the crux. Then get up from your desk and take a ten minute or so walk. Get your blood moving a bit and break the flow explicitly. Take the note and a pencil/pen, so that you can write ideas that might occur.

You may find that the solution will come to you, but at least, the break may help to clear your mind of the reason you may be pursuing the wrong solution.

This won't work for everyone, of course, but it is a painless way to experiment.

Oh, and don't be checking your phone on the walk or texting, or ... It might even be best to leave it behind since you will only be away for a few minutes.


How to progress as PhD student with nonchalant supervisor I'm a PhD student who has been enrolled in my program since the beginning of 2017. I took a half year break in mid 2018 for personal reasons. My supervisor is an Assoc. Prof in our department and has at least 10 other students who he is either primary or co-supervisor for (a few are part timers).
As with any tenured academic he's constantly bombarded with a million things to do at once: course co-ordination, academic advice, industry connections, his other students, and (maybe) some research work! I don't envy him at all.

He believes in "free range" PhD students, which I think is partly because he thinks giving his students freedom is a good thing (I agree), and partly because he is lazy and doesn't like committing more time than absolutely necessary to things. I still think the second point is true even though he is so busy, he seems to have a very difficult time saying flat out yes or no to things and seems to have his fingers in too many pies, so to speak.

I entered the program having very little idea what I was going to do - I made up a research proposal and it got accepted, but it had no substance. In hindsight I don't think I should have even been admitted into the program. Fast forward to the start of last year and I discovered a topic that really clicked with me and that I am very interested in. I spent most of last year learning about that topic and trying to reproduce results from the literature. I was able to do this and have gained a lot of knowledge about the topic.

A little over 2.5 years (not including my break) into the program I submitted my first paper to a conference. So finally I have some direction and some form of payoff is in sight. I did 95% of the work on it, and the input from my supervisor was very minimal, but of course his name is still on it. I think this is partly because the topic is outside of his immediate area of knowledge/interest, but also because he put in almost no effort to try and understand what I was doing. From my perspective he basically just agrees with everything I say and doesn't give any clear direction. I got better feedback on my work from my fellow PhD students. I've heard the phrases "We should talk more about this later" and "It would be good if we had more time to do this" come out of his mouth an uncountable number of times, but nothing is ever aggressively followed up on - I have to make everything happen.

So my supervisor doesn't really understand what I'm doing and is not willing to put in any time or effort to improve that. I, however, am (maybe paradoxically) very motivated to keep on doing my research because of my great interest in the topic. So, how do I progress from this point? I still like my supervisor as a person but he is not sufficient to see me through. I have been attempting to contact other academics from my topic area but things are moving slowly. Either they don't reply to my emails or give a response like "Yes I can help but I'm also busy and can't promise anything". It's frustrating - I just want to have a verbal conversation with them about the topic area.

I guess I'm just a bit confused, upset, but also motivated. How do I make my PhD work? What are your insights about my situation? What would you do if you were me?

Ideally you need to find someone else who can unofficially supervise you. While such a hands-off style of supervision can benefit a student in the long run (by essentially forcing you to work independently and follow up your own ideas), it's not great when you run into the typical day-to-day problems of research. In this situation, as you have realised, you need someone who you can reliably talk ideas and problems through with on a regular basis.

Rather than contacting other academics, are there any postdocs in your department who you could talk to? Or even perhaps a postdoc from another university who you've met at a workshop or conference? They would be the best sort of person to try and start collaborating with. Postdocs generally have more time for research and if they're keen to stay in academia would probably welcome the opportunity to help supervise a student. The relationship doesn't have to be formal in any way -- you can just start by sending an email. Be clear and upfront with why you are contacting them specifically, so it's obvious you're not just pinging off emails to everyone you can think of in a scatter-gun approach. Ask if they have time for a video meeting, although bear in mind that at the moment, everyone is over-saturated with calls and telecons.

The best way to then move from conversation to collaboration would be to have a concrete idea or question to answer, and preliminary results if possible. This way, the potential collaborator can see you're committed to the project and have an idea of where it's going. Make it clear that you'd like them to be involved in the paper that you're planning to write (or, if you have notes or a preliminary draft, share that too). As things progress, you can then ask for the detailed feedback that you're not currently getting from your official supervisor.

I speak directly from my own personal experience: my supervisor, like yours, is very busy, although we do fortunately have regular meetings. However, for technical matters on which he is not an expert, I have a postdoc collaborator who I can talk to and ask for help.


How does research contribute to teaching, and vice versa? If research is related to teaching then research could have a direct contributions to  teaching.  However, if research is not directly related to teaching, then how can each of them contribute to the other?

Personally, I struggle coming up with good teaching materials (lecture notes, homework questions, et cetera). I had lots of teachers that were either way too abstract where abstraction wasn't necessary, or gave really wacky examples that didn't have much basis in real life, and I silently vowed not to do that to my own students. One way that I've found to present real-life and relevant material is to draw upon my research. For example, if I'm lecturing about a particular biological system that I study, I might walk the class through a particular experiment that I ran to test an aspect of the system. I find that students feel these lectures are the most interesting, and they seem to grasp the material better than if I gave a "standard" lecture.

On the flip side, I always get 1-2 questions per semester where I don't know the answer, and it turns out no one else in my field does either. As such, the questions I get while teaching are a source of research questions that I may attempt to answer. If I actually think the question can be answered, I almost always invite the student or students who posed the question to help me with the research, which is also another way teaching impacts research (i.e., I expose more people to what research is, and I get help doing it).


Origin of 7 year sabbatical leave cycle I believe many US universities have a 7-year cycle for sabbatical leave.  For example, at my university a full-time tenure-track faculty is eligible for sabbatical leave after 7 years of continuous service (so technically every 8 years).  The term "sabbatical" has its roots in "sabbath," so I wonder if this (roughly) 7-year cycle has its roots there, or is just a coincidence.

It seems to not be a coincidence. A glance at the Oxford English Dictionary shows that "one-in-seven leave" probably started at Harvard, but did not come with the name sabbatical.  If it makes you feel better, the rule was that this was the highest frequency allowed, and not all leave requests were expected to be granted if there were too many in one department at the same time.
Soon after Harvard 1880 policy, Wellesley in 1886 adopted a one- in-seven policy that called the year off a sabbatical year.
The name almost certainly is an allusion to Toric law relating to leaving land fallow one year in seven.  See Exodus 23:11 or look up Shmita.
The connection between revitalizing farm land and revitalizing the scholarly mind has been made clear by many.  Bertrand Russell wrote "Every university teacher ought to have a sabbatical year (one in every seven) to be spent in foreign universities or in otherwise acquiring knowledge of what is being done abroad."  (On Education, especially in early childhood, 1926, by Bertrand Russell.)
The stricture of always going to Europe is not to be found in the US these days.  In modern times, I have heard of explicit rules that you have to physically go to another university. Of course that was in Antecovidian times.
In summary, the name refers to a one in seven cycle.  Just as a semester is not exactly half a year, the exact meaning of one in seven is subject to interpretation.


Position of infixes of names (e.g. “van”) in bibliographies When I create a bibliography, do infixes of names always go with the surname as follows?

Van de Sompel, Herbert
van Leeuwen, Theo

The examples come from bibliographies I have within my collection where this style is used. My question is more about whether this claim is generalizable. More precisely, are there differences between different style guides or depending on the background of the name?

Unfortunately, it's complicated.  The proper organization and alphabetization of names is dependent on the identified nationality of the person in question.  Thus, a German "van" name is handled differently than a Dutch "van" name.  It may change further again upon immigration, e.g., Americans of Dutch or German origin typically follow English conventions or even remove the space.

Here is a nice guide to navigating these muddy waters, as well as a question from the German Language SE.


What to do when you publish a paper that accidentally included a wrong or irrelevant citation? My paper was published and later on I found that two references were mistakenly included with the third reference, which is the correct.
My phrase looks like this:

  I am worried about this (Smith 2001; David 2006; Magnus 2007)

and this is the correct form that it had to be:

  I am worried about this (Smith 2001)

so the references "David 2006" and "Magnus 2007" have nothing to do with the cited phrase and they never did that work; and were not meant to be included but maybe it was a problem with reference management software that I used at the time.

I wonder if this will cause a problem to my paper or even plagiarism/retraction.
I am really worried about this and any advice is more than welcome.

Plagiarism is the use of another author's ideas or words without proper credit.  You haven't done that, so there's no need to worry about it.  Also, people don't retract papers over trivial editing errors like this.

However, since it's something that might be confusing to a reader, it may be worth asking the journal about printing a correction.  Simply get in touch with the editor who originally handled your paper, or if they no longer work with the journal, contact the editor-in-chief.  They would typically publish a one-sentence note in some future issue of the journal, stating that the references were included by mistake and should be ignored.  Alternatively, they may decide the matter is too trivial to be worth the space to correct it.

Either way, you should post the correction on your web page, and any other place where the paper is publicly available (preprint servers, etc).

This is no big deal and happens all the time.  Just get it fixed, move on, and be more careful next time.


funding for current Master's students in the USA If one didn't obtain any funding before being admitted into a Master's program, is it hard to find funding in the middle of the Master's? Are RAs and TAs strictly reserved of PhDs? Any funding other than RAs and TAs?

In many (I daresay most) departments, funding for Masters students is fairly hard to come by, especially for students in Masters-specific programs (rather than students who are in programs that are expected to roll into a PhD).

There are a number of reasons for this, ranging from Masters students being unlikely to produce much in an RA position before they move on to Masters students actively being used as an source of income for the department (this is especially common for professional-type Masters programs).

It may still be possible to find funding - I occasionally hire Masters students for short term projects etc. but it's definitely more difficult.


What is the difference between letter, communication and journal paper? Scientific literature has items called letters, communications and journal papers. They all seem quite similar in terms of format and content. What are the differences between them?

In physics, each category has a different length limit.  Often "paper" has no limit.  Typically the shorter the length limit, the more prestigious it is and the tougher the acceptance criteria.  The subject matter covered by the journal is the same for all categories.  Some journals also have a "review" category which includes papers which are not original research.  Often a review is by invitation only.


How much time should one spend refereeing a paper? I finished my PhD about a year ago and every now and then I get asked to referee a paper (perhaps once every two months from a reputable journal). I tend to accept as many as possible (except from crappy so-called "predatory" publishers, which I decline immediately) because I find refereeing papers is a good way to force myself to learn new things. There is also the moral obligation to referee a peer's paper to compensate for the time your peers spend refereeing yours.

My problem is that, at this early stage in my career, I'm familiar with the work I did during my PhD and little else. Since I try to be as fair as possible (I hate it when I get a report from someone who has clearly not understood the paper or just skimmed through the text), this means I spend a lot of time reviewing literature and trying to understand a paper before submitting a report. For something very close to what I have done in the past, I could finish the report in half a day. For something further away, I could be looking at anywhere from one to three days, depending on how familiar I am with the methods used and the length of the manuscript. As everyone in the academic world knows, it sometimes gets very busy (just "normal" busy otherwise), and these breaks tend to disrupt my "paid" job routine (I understand reviewing is also part of my unpaid duties).

I guess reviewing will get easier and quicker as I gain experience, but is it usual to spend so much time refereeing papers? What would be an acceptable compromise between a rigorous review and reconciling it with your paid duties?

The slightly unsatisfactory answer is "enough time". You should provide a constructive review and that might take time. How much, depends on, for example, the quality of the paper, the complexity of the paper and, of course, your own experience. As new to reviewing, you probably spend longer than what you would with experience. Having said this, I would say that between close to a full workday to maybe two might be expected from an average research article.

Since you are a beginner, I would also recommend that you take your time. A common beginner's "mistake" is to focus on details more than the larger perspective. You need to focus on both. A paper may be poorly written but contain good science (and vice versa) so attending to all perspectives of an article is necessary, and that takes time.

This may all sound like a chore no-one would want to do but reviewing can be a really positive experience since you get to read a paper in such detail as you would probably not do otherwise, you see new science and you get to contribute to science with your expertise in ways other than producing your own papers.


How often is PhD work linked to life after the PhD? So I am currently a Master's Student in an earth sciences field, looking to get into the PhD program at my university, provided that there is funding. My current adviser likely won't have funding for my PhD. Recently, my adviser told me about an opportunity with a different adviser, working on a topic in life sciences with an influence of earth science, but one which I may be qualified for. If I do this, is it likely that I can find jobs/postdocs in earth science, where my true interest lies, or would I be irreversibly altering my career path for life science?

It depends on the exact topic and what guidance the new research group will offer you. There's plenty of opportunities to develop expertise in life sciences during PhD. Your options after may not be as limited as you perceive. There is a lot of demand for collaborative and interdisciplinary researchers both in academia and industry.

I'm doing an interdisciplinary PhD between stats and genetics. While on paper you do have to enrol in one course and will be assessed on it. In practice, you can lean on the other field. For instance, with the methods I use. My research questions are biological but my methods differ from lab trained biologists.

You ought to still have room to develop your earth science skills in this way, particularly if your new research group collaborates with people in your field that can advise you on those aspects. You should have a wider range of an advisory committee and peers to assist you with work in both disciplines. A PhD is also an independent project, especially near the end, you should be able to build up confidence ants negotiate using some of your current skills if they tie in the research topic cohesively.

In short. Consider it, it may not be a one way track to biology. It's also not too late to apply to other labs.


Is there any reason to not make course details public? While attending a course sometime back, I recall an instructor saying, "I need to warn (other instructor's name)...their course syllabus is available to anyone!"

I do not have access to an LMS for my classroom-based course, so I just post my course details to a regular Web hosting service. On the Web site, students, or anyone else, can easily locate:

the syllabus
exam study guide
homework instructions

I cannot think of any reason why this would be a problem, but recall the comment, so wonder if there might be some issue I have overlooked. Is there any reason why any of this information should not be open to the public?

Basically, I would answer no! There are, however, several issues that may prevent people from publishing material openly. One is if it contains copyrighted material, another is if the material contains hints that can help students gain an unfair advantage. In your list, the only possible issue could be with the third if those in any way could lead to an unfair advantage (not that I can think of how). That said, many publish homework questions, lecture materials etc on web sites that can be found by a search. I have benefited from finding such materials when developing my own courses and I am very grateful for that. Returning to your three points, I think they provide a good basis for students to decide what they can expect from the course and hopefully will attract the right students to it.


When and how do I start writing a conference paper? In some areas, like Computer Science, peer reviewed conference are as important as Journal Papers.

Unlike most Journals, Conferences have hard deadlines to submit the papers as well as page limits.

So I have a few questions:

How early should I start writing a paper for a conference?
Is it reasonable to write and do experiments at the same time?
How many references should you check? one professor told me: check 200 use 30.

How early should I start writing a paper for a conference?

Well, there are different approaches. Some people think "there is this conference coming, I need to write something for it", others think "I have this nice idea of research, let's see where I could present it". In the first case, you might need to start very early, since you need to do all the research, while in the second case, you might just need to start early...
Seriously though, it depends a lot of the content of the paper, the mechanical action of writing it (i.e., typing and formatting the text on a computer) is not what takes long.

  Is it reasonable to write and do experiments at the same time?

Sure. Even if you can't finish your experiments by the deadline, it's very likely you can reuse a good part of what you've already written for another conference.

  How many references should you check? one professor told me: check 200 use 30.

You don't check references because you should, but because they are relevant to your research problem. You should cite what you've read and what you think is important with respect to you work. You should cite the approaches that laid the basis for your own approaches, and explain how you build on them, which assumptions you are challenging. You should also cite the approaches that are similar to yours, and explain why yours is better.

There is no magic number: there are excellent papers with only 10 citations, and bad ones with 50 references.


Mentioning accepted conference papers that were not presented If I have a paper accepted in a known conference of my field but am not able to present it at the the conference due to certain factors, should this be mentioned on my Master's application?

Also, where/how should this be mentioned?

If a paper is being withdrawn, then I would not give it any weight if I were reviewing a grad school application. The publications & presentations section of your CV is evidence of scholarly achievement, and so if the presentation didn't take place, there was no achievement -- I know of many conferences that have a nearly 100% acceptance rate, so having the paper accepted may simply be evidence of your ability to write coherently.


My mentor is advising me to "not worry about the cost"? In my school,  we have a program that allows students to do research as an undergrad with a mentor.  Not uncommon. Naturally,  as a participant,  this is my first dive into the world of research.
I am choosing to do research on high power lasers.

The school gives us a 3 figure budget,  but when my mentor heard of the laser being 5 figures, she told me "don't worry about it." And mentioned that she has something, but i didn't quite hear what she said. She kept putting emphasis on keeping on going "don't let the cost stop you", etc.

Is this common?  Should i apply for a grant? I'm not sure anything 5 figures is worth undergrad research. Is this generally the case?

Your mentor, or prospective mentor, is telling you not to worry about the cost. Presumably, they know what they are talking about and have funding that can cover the costs. A $50,000, I am assuming US, laser could be easily covered by a large NSF/NIH type grant or start up funds. If it is a piece of equipment that the mentor needs for their lab and will use in the future, then it is no big deal. You are not taking money out of anyone's pocket. That said, you should realize that you will not be able to keep the laser at the end and it will likely stay in your mentor's lab.


Practice for publications in foreign language I'm an assistant professor in a non-English country. I work in control system and signal processing. I write publications in my native language. But I want  to get experience in publications in English. But I think my English is not so good. So I have small questions. Does anyone know courses or sites where I can practice? I know about Arxiv.org, but I am not sure it's best practice for my problem.

I am personally not aware of any open online courses although I would be surprised if none existed. I can, however, point you to some other good resources. First there is the Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) which has guides and resources for teaching so it is not a course in itself but contains very useful material. I can also recommend a couple of books on writing in English for non-native English writers.
The first is

Robert A. Day and Nancy Sakaduski, 2011. Scientific English. A guide for scientists and other professionals. (publisher link)
Hilary Glasman-Deal, 2010. Science Research Writing For Non-Native Speakers Of English: A Guide for Non-Native Speakers of English. Imperial College Press (link from publisher page)

and then of course

William Struk Jr and E.B. White, (many editions over the years). The Elements of Style. Longman/Pearon. (publisher link)


Software for personal remote monitoring of exams I suppose many instructors are looking for such a software. I give an exam that requires pencil and paper and computer software. I want to be able to look at computer screens students are using, I want to be able to look at their webcam output, their desk, etc. I want to be able to send messages by chat or voice to class or to a single student.
I do not want to share the screen I am looking at, by default, with the entire class.
Of course only external webcams, relocated under command, will have the necessary effectiveness. Integrated webcams have many blind spots.
Some software attempt to automate the monitoring of exams. They produce videos and record student's computer and environment. In my case it has turned out to be of limited value.
What software do you plan to use in the coming fall semester?
Edit- 8/11/2020
I just used Blackboard Collaborative Ultra (BCU) in a summer junior-level class with 15 students. Perhaps BCU it is not meant for this purpose but it worked better than the automated monitoring software. It has 20 breakout rooms. So you can accommodate 20 students, or 40 if you are willing to give two  different exams. From the main room you have no view. You have to rotate among the rooms to see anything. So it feels a bit clunky. If you want to check students' work environment  ask them to show up in advance (you end up acting like a TSA agent at an airport).
Edit- 8/18/2020
Zoom has 50 breakout rooms. Spreading students into rooms seems easier here. I have not tried it yet though.
Independent webcam allow  you to inspect the environment with much more ease and certainty than an integrated one. However most of these do not get secured to anything easily and do not have a tripod or base. They can be secured to objects like a paper towel.
Please note that this is not a discussion about privacy issues, unless it is in relation to a comparison of two software.

I intend to use no such software, because it does not work (there are many ways to work around it, depending on its complexity), and it is incredibly invasive of student privacy (and the harder to circumvent it is, the more invasive it is).
When you ask students to take exams using software like this, you are asking them to:

invite a camera into their home
install invasive software that can take substantial control of their computer
subject themselves to continuous monitoring, either by a person (looking into their home!) or an AI system
if the monitoring is by an AI system, subject themselves to all of its errors and biases, running a nontrivial risk of being falsely flagged as cheating, especially if they are a racial minority, poor (so they have less space for the kind of 'clean' environment the software expects), in any way act in a way the system does not expect (e.g. does a student stare off into the corner when they are thinking? what will the system due with that change in eye contact?)
expose their computer to potential security vulnerabilities, because invasive software, that may be employing clever workarounds for operating system features designed to protect the user from software trying to exercise the level of control it demands, probably has some security vulnerabilities of its own

And all of this as a prerequisite for obtaining their education, and the students who want to cheat will find a way to do so anyway. All it accomplishes, in practice, is invading the privacy of honest students.
I believe it is better to structure assessments to disincentivize cheating and/or be robust to it, rather than to subject students to substantial privacy invasion and circumvention of their computers' security in order to try to prevent it.


Being the right kind of demanding as a college instructor As part of my work as a graduate student in maths I currently teach a basic second semester calculus course. It seems like every semester I teach, one or two students want some sort of special privilege to turn in homework late for a month or take a test a week after they are supposed to. Many times they have somewhat legitimate reasons (documented depression, getting a divorce, wife having surgery.....). How should I handle these cases? I am not big into putting up with lots of late homework or late tests, but then again I would want someone to be lenient with me if things such as the parenthetical reasons above arose in my life.

How should I handle students with such situations? Should I write them off and just feed them to the dogs or should I allow them to catch up at their own pace? My honest opinion is that school is a sort of competitive game (Bad, yes, I know) and if they lose they lose. We do not shorten the football pitch because some club's striker is not a good runner. However, I think students should be allowed to have a chance to make things right.

If people have a legitimate reason for wanting an extension of the deadline, I would simply give them the extension. If they cannot provide a good reason, i.e. they simply procrastinated too much, they have to take responsibility for their behavior, and they do not get the extension.

This has nothing to do with being a hard-ass, but being fair. Other people have done the work, and giving people that procrastinated an extension is not fair to them. In addition, getting work done that you where assigned (even if it is hard or boring) is a valuable lesson to teach a student. Their future boss will also not be sensitive to a missed deadline because of procrastination.


"We" when I mean "I" or should I say "the author"? I am currently working on my thesis and facing the problem of choosing between "I", "We" or "the author" when I want to talk about things I defined, decided etc. I am the only author of my thesis, but using "I" is not very common, is it? I saw quite a lot of work of single-authors that used "We" when referencing to themselves.

"The author" seems nicer to me, but it is not common?

Any recommendations or remarks?

"We" is correct, even if you are the only author, by "we" you express "me and you, my dear reader". Therefore it's completely fine to use it in your thesis.


How to handle an obsession about being 100% academically honest I’m an undergraduate student, and I find that multiple times (each week), I have an obsessive need to make sure something I’m doing is allowed/accepted.  I do this by asking the TA/Professor for my course in question.
It’s usually situations where it’s almost certain that something I’m doing is ethical, but I feel the need to ask for each instance if the professor did not explicitly state the rules.
Some examples:

A little while back I asked my professor if thesauruses were allowed, and if I had to cite them.  Based on common sense, I was over 95% sure it was fine – even on the university library website, links were given to a few online thesauruses.  When I asked my prof, he said that it was absolutely fine, and that thesauruses did not have to be cited.
My professor for another course mentioned that certain calculators were not allowed on tests (the kind of calculator I currently have).  I wondered if I could still use my calculator on assignments, and I assumed I probably could since he only mentioned tests.  I asked the TA about it, and he said I could.
I was wondering if I could use my course notes while doing an assignment.  I was always allowed to do this in high school, and I was 99 % certain it would be okay.  I asked the TA about it, and he replied that it’s completely okay.

I want to earn a degree that was done in perfect ethical standing.  I feel that if I don’t ensure every single thing I’m doing is completely ethical, then inevitably a few of my actions will be unethical over the four years.

I don’t want to have to keep pestering my professors about every single detail, as it wears on me and also (I’m sure) will wear on them.  At the same time, I have the problem I discussed above.  Should I just accept that it's pretty much impossible for anyone to finish a degree with a 100% ethical standing?  Any advice/experience would be greatly appreciated.

Should I just accept that it's pretty much impossible for anyone to finish a degree with a 100% ethical standing?

No, I find that to be a rather unreasonable formulation of your predicament as well as a loaded question. What you should correct is not your notion that ethical behavior is achievable, but rather your unreasonable idea of how to achieve it, and your misguided view that there is some ideal level of "100% ethical standing" that is only attainable through extreme efforts of constant vigilance and constantly pestering your professors and TAs with annoying (and unnecessary, as you yourself seem to understand quite well) questions. In general in human affairs, trying to attain 100% of anything is an example of what is known as a category error -- the act of attributing a concept that is applicable to one realm of thought to another realm where it is no longer applicable. "100% ethical standing" is simply a meaningless concept.

I could go on and give a detailed answer touching on all kinds of philosophical issues and giving you a crash course on academic ethics, but a more lightweight approach seems like it will be more useful here. Basically, you just need to chill out. Relax, trust your instincts and common sense and stop worrying about this and you'll be fine, just like the vast majority of students who just want to complete their studies honestly and then go on to make use of the knowledge they acquired.


Increase chance of reply when e-mailing an eminent researcher? I found this question, but it does not exactly match what I would like to ask. In my case, it's almost surely appropriate to send the e-mail (since my adviser suggested it), I'm just wandering as to what is the best way to formulate such an e-mail.
The situation
The situation is that there is this bigshot researcher in my field, who designed an experimental framework that is very widely used (which I want to use now). In the paper describing the framework (not so recent, ~2005), he compares 5 (then) state-of-the-art methods, and those 5 are still used as comparison references.
The problem is that, even though implementations for the reference methods are provided, I can not find the parameters used to initialize the method.
It is stated in the paper that the parameters suggested by original authors of the methods are used, but, after weeks of digging through the framework paper, papers introducing the method for the first time, and even trying to guess the parameters so they match the ones used, I still can not get the ones used. Since I want to test the method with slight modifications and not just use it as reference, I can not re-use the implementation provided but instead need to run my implementation with parameters I can not find, and introduce modifications to that.
In short
So, to summarize and generalize: After a few weeks of looking for it, I can not find some parameters used in a (seminal framework) work published in 2005. These parameters are not needed to reproduce the work, but are important in extending it. My adviser suggested e-mailing the author of the paper (who is a well known in the community), but since he is so well know and I'm a lowly PhD student I feel kind of uncomfortable sending this e-mail.
The question
I do understand that this is probably the best (and possibly only) approach to getting the information I need, even if it is not very probable that it will work. With that (and my fear of bigshot academics) in mind, my questions are:

How to best write such an email? Besides the basics (be polite and concise) I don't know where to even start.
Do you have any advice on how to increase the chances of getting a reply? Maybe including my adviser in the CC of the e-mail would be a good idea, indicating my relation to a more established academic?

Your chances of a reply will correlate quite strongly with two factors:

How interesting your problem is.
How long it will take the professor to respond.

Thus, you should:

Make everything as brief as possible, yet still include all necessary information.
Ask yes, no, or short-answer questions that the professor will know off the top of his/her head. Ask for references to a paper, or for whole pieces of code: not the embedded details.
Briefly mention that you're a PhD student at Fake University, supervised by Professor Jones (if the prof you're contacting likes your supervisor's work, that's a good start).


How can I get useful feedback when collaborating on research proposals? I'm pleased to be working on grant applications and ethics applications with my supervisors. I willingly contribute however I can - either they assign me bits to work on, or I suggest how I can help. I'm getting good insights into the process.

However, I get a bit demoralised when I spend a day or more working on a section of the proposal, send it through for them to look at, and then find that not much (none?) of it has made  the cut. In one instance, I spent a couple of weeks working on an ethics application but then it was simply rewritten from scratch over a weekend. I realise that there are deadlines, and that I'm new to this, I don't really get the grant application writing game yet, and it could be that my contributions are mostly garbage. But I'd really rather hear that - and know why it's not useful, to be able to learn for next time, than just have it disappear... which is really rather demotivating. Any tips on how I can gently steer my supervisors to either provide me clearer guidelines upfront or take the time to give me feedback on my contributions? Ideally without coming across as difficult / high maintenance.

[I feel like this probably applies to other collaborative writing endeavours, too...]

Background: I'm in the final year of a 3 yr PhD. My supervisors seem happy with my output and contributions to the lab, we generally have a good relationship and they are keen to make a postdoc happen for me here. I'm happy to broach this subject with my supervisors, but am unsure how to do so - partly because I'm not sure whether this is a common issue in academia (I spent 15 years working in corporate environments, generally found that bosses would give me feedback but expect me to implement changes... so this is weird).

Answer 1:

Ask for explicit feedback (maybe after the deadline is passed and crunch time is over). Giving feedback on your work is part of the implicit deal that a senior person enters when enlisting the help of a PhD student on things like that.

Answer 2:

In addition, re-engineer what they did to your text. You sent a full page of content and little of it made the cut. That is valuable information: apparently your text was, for one reason or another, not suitable. Read very carefully what the seniors decided to write instead: did they focus on different aspects? is their writing more polished in terms of language? is the tone different? was your original draft not aligned well enough with the rest of the proposal? is there anything else that reads notably different?

What I did when I was learning the ropes (actually, I still do this sometimes when I work with somebody better than me at grant writing) is to very carefully re-construct how they build their argument, what they write, and what they don't write. If in doubt, I ask them directly, but I feel the exercise of figuring this out myself is a better learning experience than simply asking for feedback.

Another thing to keep in mind of this happens regularly is that maybe you need to ask more, or better, questions before starting to write the text. If the PI asks you to write about related work, discuss in advance what fields you should cover and in what detail. If you should describe a specific work package, run your thoughts on what it should entail briefly by the PI before writing it all down. A quick meeting is usually more productive than multiple iterations of text writing, and being efficient is usually very important when writing a grant.

Finally, figure out whether anything related to your text actually made the cut. Sometimes, one just finds out when putting it all together that a specific section that sounded like a good idea during planning simply does not fit the proposal after all (for content or space restriction reasons). This is unfortunate, but still happens sometimes. In that case, maybe your writing was perfect, but your section simply still did not make the cut. In this case, move on.


Approximate time frames for US postdoctoral application decision making and starting Performing an academic job search for the first time (unlike the industry ones), the more I dive in, the more I see how such search for a junior faculty position is very dependent on timing, time frames, natural seasons and academic calendar (and I totally understand the reasons for that). However, that creates significant challenges in my particular situation, to a degree that I almost decided to abandon my junior faculty position search and focus exclusively on postdoctoral positions along with some IT research-related and general research-focused industrial ones.

In addition to timing issues, there is also a reason that many, if not most, junior faculty positions require or prefer a candidate to have a portfolio of peer-reviewed publications (or, at least, working papers) as well as teaching experience and, often, teaching evaluations. Unfortunately, at the present time I cannot offer any of these (beyond my dissertation and citable research software).

Having said all that, for my job search planning and plan adjustment purposes, I am curious about time frames for decision making and hiring for postdoctoral positions. I realize that this aspect might significantly vary, between geographical locations and, even, institutions. However, if there are some average numbers for US universities, I would appreciate you sharing them (my discipline is information systems, if it matters). So, my question is as follows:

For US postdoctoral positions, what are approximate time frames between applying and making hiring decisions as well as between communicating such decisions and desired actual start dates?

Most postdoctoral positions in the US are made available by individual professors within their own research groups. Consequently, there is no standard timeline for postdoctoral applications, outside of special programs where positions are sponsored by entire departments or institutions.

In general, though, I think that positions are held open at least as long as is required by the guidelines of the individual institution where the postdoctoral associate will be housed (anywhere from two weeks to 60 days), although this may be extended if no suitable candidate is found in the initial advertisement process.

Moreover, the start date is usually somewhat flexible, but is also dependent on funding—usually people will want the postdoc to start as soon as is reasonably possible.

On the whole, however, if you're applying for an individual postdoc position, I would normally assume that you'd hear back from the postdoc advisor within a few weeks if there's any interest.


Why do some conferences with double blind review ask for author names when submitting the paper for review? I wonder why some conferences with double blind review ask for author names when submitting the paper for review. Why not asking for author information once the paper has been accepted?

Likely so they can track the papers internally by author. It prevents, for example, a submission being sent out to a reviewer who is on the paper.'

Double-blind just means that the reviewers are unknown to the author, and the author is unknown to the reviewers. It doesn't say anything about the conference organizers/editorial staff.


What prevents reviewers from providing biased and very negative reviews? One of the fundamental features of science, maybe even the most important, is that publication of scientific results is peer-reviewed.

I want to understand why peer review is effective in the scientific community, because I want to apply principles of peer review to a different domain.

As I understand it, a researcher is reviewing work of a competitor who is producing scientific results in exchange for grant funds and reputation, usually same as the reviewing researcher does. Of course, this competition may not be very direct, but the reviewer is in an overlapping area of research. In addition, there is some natural bias of every human being to groom their own ego. Based on this, I expect most reviews to be very negative. However, it seems that biased and extremely negative reviews are rare for decent submissions.

What stops reviewers from providing biased negative reviews?

I think the main factor that makes the peer-review system to not fall in the trap you described is that academics are finally interested in the advance of science. If I have to review a good paper, then I enjoy it and want to see it published. If I review an almost good paper, I suggest some improvements and enjoy if these are incorporated and the work is published. The very mild advantage I may have if I reject more papers does not really seem to be worth it, if I have to act unfair and unreasonable to get this advantage.

Another factor may be: The reviewer is not anonymous for the editor. Editors are often influential people and writing consistently bad and unfair reviews will make you look like a mean and unfair person. Also, the editor will not choose you again as a reviewer if you write such reviews and you will be effectively eliminating yourself from the review system for that journal (while you can still submit papers).

In view of the bounty I gave the question another thought and here is one more thing: Community. Science is well organized in communities (e.g. I consider myself as part of the mathematical community, the applied math community, the community on mathematical imaging, the optimization community and some more). As part of a community one has a sense that there are some rules one should follow to be a valuable member of the community and of these rules is fairness. Being unfair feels like a misconduct by the unwritten community rules. So even though one may get along with several cases of unfair behavior, it feels like one is cheating the system. But staying a respected member of the communities is very important both for the scientific standing and also for productivity. This reasoning also explains that bad behavior sometimes happens, when several competing communities form which are somehow "enemies of each other": One can stay a respected member of one of the communities while still treating members from the other community unfair.


How do I find a job that actually uses what I learned in school? Many of my peers in my program, Computer Engineering, are of the opinion that what you do in school is a "head-fake", that you take all this intense math and science essentially to prove that you can accomplish difficult tasks quickly. A "real job" doesn't actually use any of that junk except for a few select classes.

I suppose I understand that sentiment, but my issue is that after something like 20 years of math, Stockholm Syndrome has kicked in and I really enjoy it. I will miss it. I just finished one of the hardest classes at my University with an A because Fourier Transform just makes sense to me. Learning how to operate some software program is not the same as learning how to build a differential amplifier. Not all learning is equal. I have had two fantastic Co-Op (internship) rotations with some big name companies working on great projects, but the most intense math I used was division and that makes me sad. While my peers cannot wait to graduate and start their lives, it feels like it is the end of mine.

It seems that industry, for every 1 person actually producing something, there are 20 people doing documentation, management, talking to the customer, supply chain, etc etc. (edit: and I do not mean that in a derogatory manner, I am actually getting an MBA as well at the moment. I just mean that the one person who uses their academic knowledge is followed by a slew of people who do not use it).

So, the obvious answer is to go through a PhD and enter Academia but I do not think that is the right path for me considering I have no desire to teach and I also really enjoy making the money I do now. Putting my fiscal life on hold for another 4-5 years seems like quite a lot as I am already in debt.

My question then, is, how do I use what I learned in school while in industry? Or should I leave industry and pursue academia? Should I still go for a PhD but do industry research? How can I continue to learn while I am working in industry?

Apologies if this question is unclear, it's very nebulous and if this gets removed or -1 I understand.

What you'll find is that most positions—whether in academia or in industry—you will not be directly applying most of the skills you learned in school.

As a "knowledge professional," the most important "skill" you'll use is learning how to learn: you'll likely be placed in situations where you have to figure out what you need to solve, and how to come up with a solution. Your background will provide help in figuring out the problem—after all, the principles are the same—but you'll typically have to simplify your analysis (because of time or resource constraints, and so on). Or you might have to branch out into new areas that you haven't learned before: being able to do so quickly will give you a big advantage over the "competition" (whoever or whatever that may be).


Can I give back my Master's Degree and remove my Master's Thesis? I was coerced into a sexual relationship with my Advisor. Although, I passed my First Doctoral exam in my first year (2008), I was held back from any further advancement by my Advisor. In frustration and by manipulation, I defended a Master's thesis using my Dissertation work.  In an ordinary world, the sophistication, analyses, and level of research comprises two of the three required for my dissertation.  I can't defend myself and laws aren't upheld at my University. In December 2015, I submitted allegations of sexual misconduct, after accumulating overwhelming evidence that my Advisor had sexual relationships with me and three subsequent students he mentored. I am still waiting for a finding on my allegations from the Title Coordinator at my University.

I want to return and decline my Master's degree. It's apparent that I was held to a different standard than other Masters and PhD students. It is my way of getting this acknowledged. I also want to remove my current obstacle in getting help from my uninterested advisor - "Your Dissertation must be significantly different from your Masters Thesis, thus you need four experiments."

Is this possible?

You're in a tough situation. If the university is smart and if the Title IX Coordinator has power (big ifs), they will do everything they can to keep you from suing or otherwise bringing bad publicity to the university. This could include finding a way to count your Master's research to your dissertation.

I infer from your reference to Title [IX] that you are in the United States. I recommend that you look into the Legal Advocacy Fund of the American Association of University Women (whether or not you are female, which you don't state). They might be able to offer you some free advice or point you to a lawyer who can give a free initial consultation. It is possible your university will be more cooperative if they know you are well informed.


Citing Mathematical Proofs given on Math Stack Exchange Good morning.  I recently posted a question on Math Stack Exchange here and got a fantastic solution.  The problem in question is one that I've had for some time, and both myself and research professor have been searching for proof of the claim both through papers and using mathematical techniques.
It would appear that a particular solution to the problem has been found, though I must go through the proof with my professor to verify its truth.  If it is true, what is the protocol for citing the proof and giving the author credit?  Do stack exchange contributors post solutions knowing that their work may not be credited?  I would never want to plagarize, but the information is useful for the greater problems that we have been trying to solve.

There are actually two questions on MathOverflow that ask how to cite answers found on MathOverflow. I would recommend following their advice.

One of them is a fairly old question, whose answer is somewhat outdated. Summarizing:

Even though you may not be legally obligated to show where you got your answer (for example, when MO points you to a theorem already in the literature), it is a good idea — it never hurts to be generous and honest. (And if you're copying part of an answer, not citing it would be plagiarism.)
There is a little button for each answer that says "cite" and will give you a citation. You might have to reformat this to make it fit in your journal's bibliography style.


MLA convention for words and phrases used as words? I am using MLA format and am lost for an equivalent to what the Chicago Manual of Style describes as "words and phrases used as words".

In my entire paper, I have chosen to put quotation marks in the following cases:

  The term "power" is very important here because...

Whenever there is the signal term or phrase and then the word I use quotation marks.

Is there any MLA rule to back me up on this?

I have problems now with the following examples.

  Theorist xyz introduces the concept of power in his volume ABC. By power, he means ...

Should I have quotation marks in this case as well to stick to my style:

  By 'power', he means ...

or is it not necessary?

Any hint would be greatly appreciated.

This is what the CMOS has to say about this:

  When is it appropriate to use quotation marks to set off a term that is being defined or described in academic writing? I edit casebooks and journal articles for law professors, and authors will often write sentences such as:

  It will be helpful first to explore the meaning of the concepts of
  “public health” and the “common good.”

  I find quotation marks unnecessary unless they are used to set off
  words coined by the author or if their usage is not standard. What do
  you think?

  A. I agree that the quotation marks aren’t needed in the sentence you
  cite, but the difference between that sentence and one like the
  following, where the quotation marks would be standard, is subtle:

  It will be helpful first to explore the meaning of the phrases “public
  health” and the “common good.”

  Although those phrases aren’t coined by the author or used in a
  nonstandard way, it’s conventional to quote or use italics for words
  or phrases being introduced or defined (CMOS 7.58). For that reason, I
  wouldn’t fuss if an author wanted to keep the quotation marks in
  sentences like the one you quote.

There doesn't appear to be a direct rule regarding these "words and phrases used as words". The closest I can find to an opinion on the matter is under an MLA resource for plagiarism, which implies that quotation marks are only appropriate when the words or phrases are directly borrowed from the original author or authors. Those would of course require a citation.

The article, to me, suggests that quotation marks shouldn't be used without a corresponding citation. It definitely leaves room for interpretation, however.

On a purely stylistic note, it is incredibly easy to start weighing a paper down with excessive quotation marks when you're new to a field because every other concept seems profound. The first draft of my thesis probably had these in nearly every paragraph - making it hard to read and just a little bit pretentious. So I would say it's probably better to err on the side of caution and limit your use of quotation marks for these types of words and phrases. You're going to explain the concept regardless!


Are professors generally straight forward about admission decisions? I had applied for a PhD to some colleges in the US, and am waiting for admission results. A professor at a college that I am hoping I am accepted at has responded to my queries of "Is my application likely to be accepted, or should I just accept school B's offer?" with the same answer "your application will be considered in the second round, so you should wait for it. However, I cannot make any promises".

I feel that if the professor thought I had a good chance of getting in, he might have stated so in his replies. "I can't make any promises" seems to be a polite but safe reply, indicating I might be accepted, but thechances do not appear too bright. Should I just accept school B's offer?

I take "I cannot make any promises" to mean ... I cannot [i.e., I won't] make any promises.  Behind that door could be anything.

In other words, it added no information to your decision about whether to respond in advance to School B's offer.

I wouldn't recommend asking the same professor again, but a more informative question for you to have asked would be when (with specific reference to the April 15th deadline that most graduate programs operate under) you would hear back.

Your best bet is to wait.


Research plan vs proposed research for class project? A proposal format for that class project requires student to provide research plan as well as proposed approach. Can you please help me in understanding differences between the two?

In general a research plan will include within it a section that deals with the proposed approach. As this University of Michigan page explains:

  Research Plan (Approach)

  This section includes a comprehensive explanation of the proposed
  research, and is addressed to other specialists in your field (not to
  laymen). The section is the heart of the proposal and is the primary
  concern of the technical reviewers. To make it clear and easy to
  follow, you may need several subsections tailored to your work.
  Research design is a large subject and cannot be covered here, but a
  few reminders concerning frequently mishandled aspects of proposals
  may be helpful.

As always, you should talk with your advisor/professor to ensure if this is exactly what they have in mind, or if there is some specific template or example for your field/subject/use that you should follow.


Academic Statement of Purpose vs NSF Personal Statement Beyond the obvious, that the NSF Fellowship Personal Statement is "Why am I good for the NSF," and the Academic Statement of Purpose on a graduate school application is "Why grad school and why  grad school?", how different or similar are the two essays?

Having already written an NSF Fellowship application, I'm now in the process of writing my Academic Statement of Purpose for grad school applications, and I'm trying to figure out how similar these statements are going to end up being.

There will be many common features, but the NSF has many highly stylized requirements, including "broader impact" and such, which would seem stilted or hypocritical outside that venue. NSF has a page limit, rigid formatting requirements, many other formal requirements, none of which matter in a statement of purpose. You have room to be more sincere, more genuine, explain more fully in your grad school application's statement of purpose. Also, unlike the NSF, where there is some compulsion to pretend that you already know what you're doing and will start research immediately, grad school applications (e.g., in mathematics) can easily and reasonably acknowledge that it might be premature to be thinking about PhD-level research prior to grad school.

(I don't necessarily hold a grudge against NSF over some of this, because they have to "make the sale" to Congress, in terms Congress-people can understand and find compelling, in order to get the money...)


Is extra time on the GRE looked down upon? I have a friend who generally gets extra time on tests within my University, but is worried that if she requests it on the Math GRE it'll be denoted on her scores somehow, and places she's applying to may count it against her.  So, I have the following questions:

Does the Math GRE subject test currently indicate whether a student used extra time on the exam (as a disability accomodation)?
If so, how do grad schools in Math/CS take this information into consideration?

ETS used to "flag" the scores of anyone who took the GRE under what they referred to as "non-standard test conditions". After an Americans With Disabilities Act lawsuit they settled and agreed to no longer flag scores, and according to their website:

  I heard that ETS is no longer flagging test scores that are reported to score recipients. Is this true?

  ETS has discontinued flagging almost all scores for tests that are
  taken with accommodations. For example, if a test taker receives
  additional time or extra breaks, the score will no longer be flagged
  in the report. In rare instances, ETS will flag the score report as a
  "nonstandard administration" only if the test is significantly
  altered.

This is true for other related tests, such as the GMAT. Note that this last line about "significantly altered" means some accommodation that requires a whole section to be removed, or the test to be heavily altered in some other way, and does not apply to just extra time or similarly regular adjustments.

A person seeking accommodations will still need to request them well in advance of the test from ETS, and will need to provide appropriate medical information in order for them to approve the request.


Combined degree in the UK for a US Student In a recent conversation with a person born in the UK, he mentioned his son had attended a US college for a year before deciding to move back to the UK to finish school. He told me that apparently if a student completes one year of school at an accredited US university, they can do a combined bachelor's/master's degree in the UK in, as I recall, only an additional three years. Apparently that was what his son was doing.

I unfortunately neglected to ask him for more information regarding the process or where I could find more information online, and have no way of contacting him. A friend of mine and I have been looking into moving to the UK after college anyway, and I recently remembered this conversation and wanted to look into it. We're about to be entering our first year of college in the US, and are considering doing precisely what the man said, completing this coming year and then attempting to apply there for the remaining three years. Not only would it get us to the UK sooner, but it would also be good for costs considering how much cheaper college is in Europe.

Is anyone else familiar with such a system and at least where we could go to begin researching it? I've tried looking online but have, as of yet, found little real information. Or is it just that the information I got was faulty and there is no such system?

In the UK, a bachelor's degree lasts three years, and the there are some undergraduate masters degrees available that last four years.

If you complete a year of study at a US university, some UK universities may accept this as enough experience to let you transfer into the second year of a UK degree.  This depends upon how closely aligned the two courses are, and how well you performed in the first year.

The other option to consider is that many US degrees include a year of study in another country.


Should I take class time to explain software? I'm teaching a course that introduces linguistic field methods. We have fewer lectures than a typical 3-credit course, but the students have ‘lab’ sessions eliciting data from speakers, and they're expected to work a lot on their own.

Analyzing the data requires the use of specific linguistics software. The software doesn't teach concepts; it's just helpful for analysis. In the past, some instructors have taken lecture time to introduce this software, but that has always rubbed me the wrong way:

I found such demonstrations tedious to watch as a student, and tedious to teach as an instructor.
Most students seem to be able to figure it out on their own; for the others, there are succinct instructional videos, and there are office hours.
Teaching students how to use software just doesn't feel like university education to me. I would much prefer to talk about bigger picture issues—e.g., database technology or data portability in general, rather than how to use one particular piece of software.

Computer work has always been easy for me, and I recognize that I may underestimate how difficult it is to learn new software. I wonder if anyone has a sense of how much computer competence we can expect of the ‘average’ student.

I am also curious whether my intuition about the content of university education is appropriate. This is a practicum, after all.

"Modern Approach": I would suggest creating a video demonstrating how to use the software. Free software like CamStudio makes this easy to do. There might even be a video already online.

The video would allow students that need the assistance to view the video outside of class or follow along in class. This puts the freedom in the students hands and would also free up your time to focus on the subject matter. This could save time for future classes as you integrate it into your class structure.


What is the key difference between the term "Research Gaps" and the terms "Literature Survey" or "Literature Review"? The difference between the terms "Literature Survey" and "Literature Review" is covered in this question and answers. But how do they differ from "Research Gaps" in the context of a research proposal?

The difference between "Literature review" and "Literature survey" is small, if it exists at all - people may use the two terms to mean the same thing. It has been discussed in this question.

A "research gap" is an area of research that has not yet been done. You may identify a research gap by doing a literature review or survey.


Is 14/20 a good grade on master studies in France? When I asked my professor why Is my grade so low, he told me that it is a good grade. Maybe he didn't want to make me sad? In my country 14/20 is just "not being dumb" grade.
I am an international student and study on one of the best universities in France.

Your question is a bit too broad; even restricting to classes I graded or saw graded by others, the answer can vary a lot. What I can say with some confidence (after about 20 years as a student then teacher in French higher education in mathematics) is:

it is almost universal (by law!) that the passing grade is 10, so all grades above 10 should mean the work deserves more than just a passing grade,
in some classes (projects, internships, etc.) 14 might be a bit plain, but still good,
in most written exam classes at the licence level (first to third year), 14 is pretty good but not outstanding,
in most written exam classes at the masters level (fourth and fifth year), 14 is between pretty good to very good (the best grade in a course can be lower than that).

Of course, on some occasion I have been disappointed by a 14. But in higher education I don't think I ever thought it was disgraceful.

To make a comparison I have seen quite a few files from Italians, our grading system is very different. Every Italian application I ever saw but one had maximal grades everywhere (70/70 or 110/110), while that is very rare in France for a single grade, let alone an yearly average.


How can I handle publication jealousy among peers in my research lab? I have been involved in a research lab for a while now. I have a set of peers who work on related, yet non-overlapping fields.

I find myself uncomfortable when other's works get accepted in some research venue (journal or conferences). And, so do I believe that others feel the same when my work gets accepted.

However, though it might be common in the research labs, I feel it is not a good sign and it, in some way, restricts me to open up my discussion on my ideas on any problems. Further, others also do not discuss much on their own ideas and their working problems. It is obvious that discussion among peers could lead to better research and outcomes.

Is it common for others who have experienced such behavior during their graduate studies? Or, is it a paranoia?
How to handle such uncomfortable feeling inside the lab and feel positive?

I did speak with some of my professors and still, I can not let this useless feeling go away from my brain.

I share an office with several grad students in a similar situation of non-overlapping fields. The problem extended to the PhD students of the program in general.

Is it common for others who have experienced such behavior during their graduate studies? Or, is it a paranoia?

In my experience, it is completely normal, but as you say, not desirable. I have heard that programs with less pressure to publish experience it less. I remember learning that a Masters student had entered the PhD program with a publication and felt like I had been punched in the gut.

How to handle such uncomfortable feeling inside the lab and feel positive?

To echo some of the comments, a lot of it seems to boil down to openness and collaboration. Here are some options that have helped me and my fellow grad students reduce negativity and increase the quality of our research:

Reading about the publishing process and ways to get better at it, like with How to Write a Lot.
Start or join a weekly writing group with your lab mates to mutually support one another. For me, this was the game changer. We talk about the good and the bad, as @Stefan_W mentioned.
Find a supportive community outside the lab where you can discuss your feelings. For example, in Barcelona, we have several city-wide communities of early career researchers from every discipline.
Similar to Point 3, participate in the associations of your field. For example, I attend events for the British Academy of Management. Not only do they hold seminars for grad students, but they generally require me to bring a work in progress, which has a motivating effect.

At my university, we went so far as to start a student association. We hold regular social events, mock conferences, organize writing groups, and participate in community events. These have started us in the direction of a feeling of shared victory (instead of resentment) when one of us manages to publish, and of course it gives us a place to turn for support in the case of rejection. In the beginning there were just a few of us in a weekly writing group, but eventually we got more organized.


At good American PhD programs in the STEM fields, are there not enough American applicants, or are the international applicants simply better? This question is specifically about funded PhD programs, not self-funded PhD / masters programs.

In funded PhD programs in the STEM areas where there is a big international student body, e.g. students from China, India, Russia, is it because these international students are just objectively better, or is it due to a consistent lack of American applicants (because perhaps they choose business schools, medical / law schools, industry over academia)?

Any data would be helpful, too.

Thanks,

I don't know the specifics of the US, but I can give you my 2 cents about what's going on in European countries under a similar situation, which I think might probably apply.

It's not about people being better or worse, but about several factors:

Education/Attitude. In many "rich countries", the educational system has changed to a point where the knowledge about STEM subjects in primary/secondary education has become weaker, less demanding, often collaborative, and sometimes even "subjective". Parents are complaining about excessive homework, taking kids to alternative schools so they can play and spend more time with other kids and learn at their own pace, etc... Other things are valued more. You can see that the level of mathematics, physics, etc... has really declined from 50 years ago to now. My parents laughed at the STEM subjects/problems our generation studied at a certain age, and I laugh about what the current generation studies now. In the countries you mention (China, India, Russia), the rationale and culture are absolutely the opposite (as they were in "rich countries" 50 years ago): an emphasis is put in learning by the book, no matter if you like it or not, and individual ultra-high effort, because this is the path to get a better life, possible in another country, even if it's in detriment of having a healthy childhood, friendships, free time, or a proper socialization.
Expectations/Knowledge. Because of the great life they had and what they often see on the Internet, TV, etc... young people expect that life is a low-effort/high-reward business. They have been sold that anyone can be anything, and it's a matter of just "wanting it very much" (or paying very much/knowing someone to get into the club of good jobs). The aim is to become a manager or earn a lot of money. Certainly, no sane person would consider a PhD/research career as a path to achieve that and the other ones you mention make much more sense (law, business...). When I studied Computer Science 20 years ago, you needed nearly an 8 out of 10 in your SAT to get in because of the high demand (same in other engineering studies). Nowadays, there are free spots, so everyone gets in. This has happened in many technical universities because students are moving to other areas of knowledge.
Market. Here comes the market. You have two groups: (a) the local candidates, who were born having had everything, barely confronting any difficulty in their lives, and within that educational culture and expectations described above, (b) candidates from China, India, Russia, who often have had a tough life they would like to improve, with a different educational background and culture that values effort, willing to work extremely hard for a better life. STEM subjects are, in general tough and objective. A theorem, a piece of software, or an engine, simply have to work. The market prefers people from the (b) group.