Post tenure job search in the humantities: a waste of time? I've searched many forums and websites and I am hoping to find a more direct answer to my question.

I am a tenured, associate professor of humanities at a SLAC (yes, I do appreciate this). My family is very unhappy where we are living. I would have gone on the job market before getting tenure but had a confluence of personal crises that went on for over a year. Anyway, I looked for a job last year but noticed that all except one or two in my field are for assistant professor.

Is it "not done"/completely a waste of time to apply for assistant professor positions?

Last year, I had one campus interview, and they said they would hire me as associate but not tenured.  Didn't get that job, obviously.  I am actually okay with moving without tenure, due to wanting to improve things for my family.  I am just a humanities prof, however -- I don't bring grants, funding, all that jazz with me.  I'm not a hotshot in publications, either.  I don't want a different job or a different university (a move up), just a different location where my family might be happier.

Am I wasting my time?

Senior level hires at small, liberal arts colleges (SLACs) are uncommon in the sciences, rare in the social sciences, and very rare in the humanities. Why would a small college pay the same price for an associate or full professor when an assistant costs half as much?

R1s do senior hires because we want and can pay for name-brand profs. We often have named (and well funded) professorships to entice people to switch. Big name professors also bring in big name grants and attract graduate students. These latter concerns aren't as important at SLACs.

That's not to say it doesn't happen. A SLAC might hire a senior professor in the humanities for the following reasons:

It's starting up a new program and needs an experienced hand to guide it
A senior faculty member died/left/was fired and all of the remaining members of the department are too junior to chair it
There is so much infighting in the department that the provost wants an outside chair to step in
Freak accident of nature

Since you have tenure, you can afford to be patient. Keep your CV, cover letter, and job talk polished. Go to all the right conferences. Be portable.


For paper based on thesis, should I list my university as affiliation or the name of the company I currently work for? I am currently writing a paper for the thesis work I did last year along with my advisors. (I successfully graduated last year and currently work in a software company.) I am confused regarding what organization I should  mention in the author's section. Should I mention my university name since I completed my thesis work when I was a university student or the name of the company I currently work for?

I will take a somewhat different view from @jakebeal's answer.

The primary question is: when did you work on the paper? Did you do all of the work while you were a thesis student, and then the paper has slowly made its way through the system? Or did you actively work on it as part of your new job? Did you use institutional resources from your new position to do any part of the paper?

If the answer to the latter is no, then you should only list the old institution in the actual affiliations, and then list your new job as a "present address", if you so choose. If you worked on the paper as part of your new job (beyond rote submission and minor edits), then you should list both workplaces as "active" affiliations.


Unrelated project during PhD I am in my 3rd year of the PhD program in theoretical physics. Although I would love to stay within academia, my hopes of obtaining a good position are dwindling because of various factors. Given that, it seems wise to be get prepared to leave academia after I get a PhD. My work has nothing to do with coding/programming, and I have zero experience at that. If I leave academia, I want to get into the field of data science/machine learning. Is it possible/advisable/reasonable to work on a side project within physics but in an unrelated field which allows me to gain experience in data analysis and programming? Would I be able to handle it? Would it be a reasonable thing to do without upsetting my advisor? Also, if I do intend to stay within academia, would the experience of working in a different field count, even though it doesn't appear in my dissertation at all?

I do want to mention that I am certain that I do not want to change my field of research for my dissertation just because of the possibility of moving away from academia. I really enjoy working in my field and wouldn't give that up for anything. So switching to the other field for good is not an option.

Thanks in advance!

Edit: I could also work on problems that are a little more closely related with my work that involves numerical computation through which I could learn to code but I wouldn't be working with data. However, I don't know if that would help in terms of getting into industry.

Long story short: Depends. It is difficult to answer these questions without understanding the precise details of your situation. Getting experience is always a good thing, especially if it is programming experience, and you are considering a possible career shift towards more programming/machine learning heavy field of research . However, your part-time contribution to a different scientific project might distract you from finishing your PhD: which should be, considering the year you are in your main worry. If possible, I would discuss this with your supervisor and ask them for a honest opinion: if they feel like your particular situation (expected time commitment, skills, the nature of the work...) allows to go for outside research opportunity, and they think it is good for your career, good for you. I believe that simply bringing up the subject is very unlikely to upset them: after all, their main purpose, at least from your point of view is to supervise you and advise you on starting of your scientific career. If however they express doubts about the extra project being a good fit for you at this point, you might consider focusing on your PhD and then looking for extra learning opportunities: remember that life is just starting after you're done, and there will be plenty of time for various projects afterwards. As to whether the experience would count: depends on what do you understand as 'counts'. But personally I believe that at least familiarity with programming is a skill which counts a lot regardless of the field you end up with.


When you reference an article, is it always expected that you have actually read it? Naturally I would say "of course", but my current situation makes me doubt.

In my paper I'm briefly covering various alternative cryptographic constructions. I am (of course) familiar with all of them, but I have not (nor have the time to) read the full papers I'm actually referencing. The reason for this is that they contain lengthy specifications complemented with cryptanalysis.

I'm in doubt whether it's acceptable to reference said papers without having actually read them. Is it acceptable to do so?

Let me answer your question by means of an example. In my on-going research I am using a notion called "Schlichting completion" which is originated from a paper written in German by a mathematician called Schlichting. I can't read German, but using a dictionary, I've found some clues about this notion in his paper. So I cited this paper, even though I have only read about one page of it. The reason is sometimes we have to cite a paper, because some fundamental notion has originated from that paper and we have to give credit to the person who invented that notion. Other reasons for citing papers are:

They have a nice review of the subject and/or contain relatively a comprehensive list of references related to the work.
They have done some parallel or complementary works.
They have some results which are used in my papers.
They contain reasons which motivate my work. For example, they ask or suggest a problem which is addressed in my work.
They give more examples, applications and/or ideas related to my work.

etc.

So you do not have to read all contents of a paper before citing it. But make sure it is relevant, useful, some how necessary, interesting and/or important paper with respect to the work you are presenting in your paper. As a final remark, it is always nice to point out where in the paper you are citing is related to the discussion, for example specify the theorem number, the page number, etc.


Writing a recommendation letter for a student I reported for academic dishonesty A few years ago, I reported a student for academic dishonesty (in a graduate-level mathematics course, they were copying solutions off the internet, nearly verbatim). After acknowledging their wrong-doing with the Academic Integrity office on campus, they were allowed to drop the course.

The next year, the student re-enrolled in my course, and did reasonably well. I had no qualms about the originality of their work this time.

They recently asked me whether I would be willing to write them a recommendation letter for PhD programs in mathematics.

If I write a letter, am I obligated to write about the academic dishonesty incident? It appears to me that the student has already faced the consequences of their actions (they had to drop the course); however, this was a significant part of my interactions with the student and it seems dishonest to not mention it.

(I am aware that I could simply tell the student that I am not comfortable writing a letter, but I am curious to know what one should do in this situation if one did write a letter.)

Some facts: when the incident occured, the student was in their first semester of our masters program. They are also an international student, and this was their first semester in the US.

ETA: Look, I framed the question to be as general as possible so that it can be useful to the community as a whole. Since some commentors are choosing to attack my teaching practices, below are some more specifics, where once again I am trying to not reveal the identity of this student, myself, the course, the university, etc. I am actively trying to do what's best for the student here (note that I clearly state that I think the student has faced consequences for their actions; I am also not using my usual ac.se account to post this), and I don't understand where comments about "shutting down a student's career" are coming from.

I clearly state in my syllabus and on the first day of class that copying solutions off the internet (or any written source) is not allowed. I do this because I encountered this situation as a TA in graduate school. In particular, students are allowed to talk to anyone they like about problems, but I believe that when they just copy a solution, they are not learning. You are welcome to disagree with my policy, but it is my policy and my class, and it was clearly stated in two separate venues.

The copied solutions were virtually indistinguishable from the solutions online. This was not a matter of simply "being inspired". This was not isolated - three out of six solutions were copied, and those were just the ones I spotted. When I noticed this, I asked the student to come talk to me. I told them that I had noticed similarities between their work and solutions I had found online. I told them that I was not accusing them of anything, and they did not have to tell me anything; I reiterated that copying solutions from the internet was not permitted; I invited them to come to my office hours to talk about future problem sets; but that if I noticed such similarities again I would report them to Academic Integrity. They did it again on the next problem set (four out of six solutions).

Although they denied everything once via email, after talking with Academic Integrity (where they owned up to everything), they did find me and apologize. I was cordial to them throughout this event, and continued to be so afterward. We remain on good terms now. I consciously try to ensure that I do not let this incident color my interactions and behavior with them. They made a mistake once but people make mistakes and I am trying hard not to take it personally.

In summary, the incident itself was pretty blatant, the policy was clearly stated, and they had an opportunity to stop such that I would not have reported them if they had. I did not take reporting the student lightly. Nonetheless, I think academic dishonesty is a serious matter and it is our responsibility as faculty members to not turn a blind eye to it.

The best option is:  Don't write the letter.  In a case like this, I would outright refuse to provide a recommendation.

However, if you are not comfortable with a non-negotiable refusal, you might want to simply tell the student that you cannot provide a positive letter for them.  If the student insists, then you should write an honest letter that gives a balanced evaluation of their ability and personal traits.  The fact that you caught the student cheating is a critically important piece of information in this regard, and it needs to be included. The cheating will almost certainly be the most salient feature to anyone who reads the letter, which will make the net effect of the letter, regardless of whatever else you say in it, strongly negative.  And if the student insists on you writing the letter in this situation, that is basically what they deserve.


What is the difference between plagiarism and copyright infringement? In this several times up-voted answer, it is suggested, among other things, that 'if someone using an image [...] that they do not own (it) is inappropriate and should be first reported to the PI of the paper and, potentially, the publisher if no action is taken.'

In my understanding, using images you do not own is not a good idea, it's illegal in many countries and the owners of the copyrights might react and claim their rights, but it's not plagiarism per se.

Let's consider the authors of an image processing paper who use a copyright-protected stock photograph to test their algorithm. They can cite the source of the image, in which case they would still be infringing copyright. But let's say they don't: they are not claiming that the photograph is their own, they just figure the readers won't care.

Edit: I recently came across a paper where it was written that images were from a commercially available CD of example images, without saying which one. In this case it's clear that they do not claim that they generated the images themselves but they didn't give any reference.

Is this academic misconduct that should be reported?

To the best of my understanding the two differ in the following way:

Plagiarism is primarily an ethical issue: it refers to a false claim of creative work.
Copyright is primarily a legal issue: is refers to use of a work without a legal right to do so.

They can be confusing to differentiate because a person committing one is also often committing the other as well.  However, it is possible to violate copyright without plagiarizing and to plagiarize without violating copyright.  For example:

Darwin's "Origin of Species" text is old enough that it has entered the public domain, and thus is no longer protected by copyright.  A person who claimed chunks of it as their own would be plagiarizing, but not violating copyright.
If a person reproduces an image in a new paper with appropriate citation to its original but fails to pay the publisher of the original paper a $35 fee that publisher demands, then they have not plagiarized, but are in violation of copyright.

From a scientific perspective, plagiarism is a major problem, since it is a deliberate ethical violation that significantly undermines the credibility of the author.  Copyright violations, on their own, are much less of a big deal, since they may well be caused by legitimate misunderstanding or disagreement about the interpretation of a minor unclear point in a gigantic wall of legalese.

Thus, in the example given of image processing being applied to an unattributed image: if the contents of the image are not of scientific significance, I would interpret it as primarily an issue of copyright and thus not a significant violation worth reporting (as a scientist).


How should multiple anticipated degrees be listed on the CV? I'm in the process of completing a PhD and will be concurrently awarded an MS in a different field when I graduate (i.e., PhD in A, MS in B). While there is a fairly fixed format for the PhD listing (e.g., "In Progress" or "Defending YYYY") to provide relevant information for search committees, how should other degrees in progress be listed?

I would do something like this:

*Ph.D. Theoretical Junk, Enormous State University, 2019 (defending June)

*M.S. Useful Shiznat, Enormous State University, 2019 (May completion)


The steps for applying to PostDoc positions I have a PhD in computer science and recently I would like to get a postdoc with a respectful professor in my field to update my research works, or after that working in more applied domains in companies.
I don't know the steps of applying for postdoc positions specially in USA and Canada.
I'm a non-native English speaker. Furthermore, I have several important concerns as,

How long does it take the process of applying?

the range of scholarship for PostDoc job

The general requirement for postdoc applicant (number of publications, teaching experience and etc)

The possibility of research working before the acceptance
I'd like to see the comments based on these concerns and also to know the real experiences of PostDoc applying.

You can also try to approach the best professors in your field and ask them to visit their lab (and most probably they will ask you to make a talk where you present your PhD). It is a hasle to prepare a talk in a prestigious lab, but then you let yourself known, and when a position comes up there you might learn about it first and who knows.
I would try to contact people I would really want to work with and see what comes next.


Include Disability in Statement of Purpose Should my disability be included in my Statement of Purpose?

Background:

I've recently received my masters degree in mathematics and I'm looking to transfer for my PhD.

I had an undiagnosed neurological disorder for most of my undergraduate career. It wasn't managed until partially into graduate school. It would manifest itself through frequent migraines and even occasional blindness. Consequentially, I would have semesters with low attendance and there would even be the occasional test that I wouldn't attend or that I would attend but be effectively useless.

When it was diagnosed I had it documented with the school's disability services, but I never requested accommodation.

My advisers think I have a shot at some decent schools without knowing about this.

Thoughts:

I don't want to be treated differently at a new school. Especially since it's well managed now and I don't need any accommodations. I also don't want my current advisers to think of me differently. However, it also seems absurd to avoid talking about something that has had such a strong impact on my academic career.

I've seen this question: Graduate school and students with learning disabilities . I didn't feel like it applied to me because I am not requesting accommodations and my disorder is no longer as serious of a problem to me.

Mentioning your disability in your statement of purpose can be helpful to faculty.  Often faculty are trying to ensure there are opportunities for students with disabilities.  To do that, they need students with disabilities to identify themselves.


What's the formal name of 'search committee' in a cover letter for postdoc application? When writing a cover letter for my postdoc application, I have a question about how to write the recipent's name at the beginning of the letter. It's not a specfic person, but a committee. But I don't know the formal name of the committe (it is not provided in the info page). Can I just call it "Postdoctoral Search Committee"?
Thanks in advance!

Can I just call it "Postdoctoral Search Committee"?

Yes, that's fine and normal in your situation.
If a specific person is named in the advertisement, use their name.


Is it okay to use students as a reference when applying for a teaching position? On one hand, this seems like the obvious thing to do:  no one is going to be able to better testify to your teaching ability than a previous student.  On the other hand, I've never heard of anybody ever doing this, and for some reason, it seems a bit silly.

So what does the academic community large think about this?  Is it okay to list previous students as references when applying for a teaching position in academia?

I don't see why you couldn't do this, as long as you made it clear what you were doing, but I think it would probably be a mistake unless it is in addition to the usual documentation (teaching evaluations, teaching letter from a faculty member).

At the very least, you would have to choose an unusually thoughtful and articulate student, someone who could discuss what's distinctive and valuable about your teaching.  Even if you did that, there would be some concern that the student is not someone with a letter writing reputation they have an incentive to protect, or that you may have chosen a student because you couldn't find faculty willing to vouch for your teaching.  However, I think there's a more fundamental difficulty.

Any half-decent teacher can find at least one student every few years who really thinks highly of their teaching.  Maybe it's because the teaching style is a perfect match for the student; maybe it's because the student deeply loves the class material and is somewhat awestruck by the professor.  However, there's always someone, so getting a great recommendation from a student or two tells little about how the other students felt.

If you have broader evidence too, such as strong teaching evaluations from your students overall and a positive letter from a faculty member, then this would not be a difficulty.  (However, if you have these things then the student letter would probably not be needed.)


Appropriate response to sexual misconduct 'joke' made against an academic This happened quite recently to a friend and colleague of mine.

Another colleague made an off-hand 'joke' about a friend (an academic) potentially behaving inappropriately with his students.  This was said in front of my friend's students (over 20) and within hearing range of his students, as my friend heard them laughing soon after the 'joke' was said (his own students apparently had shocked looks on their faces).

The situation was that he was setting up an experiment demonstration that required the lights turned off and curtains drawn (physics - lasers).  Understandably, my friend was very angry, hurt and terribly embarrassed and could not bare to even look at his colleague who 'triumphantly went back to his own class' soon after.

Just a point I want to make here, the reason I am saying 'joke' in inverted commas, is because this kind of infantile rubbish can and does cause unwarranted mud to stick - and is potentially a lot more damaging for male teachers/lecturers.  Also, it is a lame, disgusting, low-brow attempt at humour. (I have been a butt of a joke like that myself a few years ago and it inadvertently caused quite a bit of trouble, despite being 100% innocent and proven so).

There is no question of his innocence of any wrong doing, and being the true professional, he redirected his students back to the demonstration and completed the lesson.

He is the kind of person that does not like to make waves and does not like to make a fuss.

In summary:

Lecturer X about to start his class requiring the lights to be off and curtains drawn for an experiment. Lecturer Y comes in unannounced and made the 'joke' about X potentially doing something inappropriate with the students in the darkness.  This was in front of both X's and Y's students.
Lecturer Y went back to his class.
Lecturer X was justifiably insulted, but continued his lesson.

What course of action should he (Lecturer X) do?  Particularly to protect himself from any potential future trouble regarding allegations etc from this 'joke'?  (Which as I said, can occur).

This is a very unfortunate event for your affected colleague. Usually the proverb "where there's smoke, there's fire" has some truth, but when artificial smoke is generated without the fire, it is very detrimental. As you state the comment may stick and through the grapevine it may attain any proportion.

What then to do? Well, first, I think the teacher should tell his (in this case) students that he feels the 'joke' was totally inappropriate and the he was hurt by it and also explain that this sort of action is not to be tolerated by anyone. This will set the record straight with his own class. It could spark a short discussion about political correctness and even if it takes time out of the subject teaching it will be worth it. It is a good lesson that should be taught.

The next step is to actually step up to the person who made the 'joke' and explain that it was uncalled for and inappropriate, particularly in public and at his expense. I understand that this may be difficult to do but unfortunately the choice is to do it or let it be and face the fact that the issue is unresolved.

A third step is to bring it up at a departmental level and try to turn it into a general discussion to eventually also involve students. The university/department probably has rules about (mis-)conduct and correctness. It can be fruitful to provide an opportunity to have a discussion on how people (faculty and students) should conduct professionally,it does not even have to bring up this 'joke' in any way.

Finally, being affected by a situation like this is about the worst that can happen, particularly if the 'joke' propagates without any control. It may be that there are officers within the university that can provide advice on what can be done and help defuse the situation in case it will propagate into rumours, etc. The students will therefore also be involved and can be good support if brought in to discuss the matter from a correctness point of view.


Obtain CiteScore rank Is possible to obtain the information about the CiteScore rank for a journal?

I have seen in "Elsevier Developers" that there are different APIs to obtain the SJR and SNIP metrics, but nothing about CiteScore rank and I need to obtain the percentile in a given year.

Scopus gives a list here. Is it what you are interested in:

https://journalmetrics.scopus.com/


Is it possible to get my habilitation in France while being in industry? I've finished my PhD in pure mathematics in late 2013 in the US (2 published papers, 1 preprint), and after almost 4 years of postdoc in the subjects of pure math (1 year-unproductive), medical imaging and computer vision (3 years- 3 papers), I'm joining a research position in industry in France. I've done 3 years of postdoc in France (and currently here) and 1 in the US.

I'll be working alongside a professor of statistics in France who's a consultant for my company, and the company also encourages publications (after they get patent etc.). Besides, I'm collaborating with two people from academia and industry, and in 2-3 years or so, I hope to have 2-3 more publications.

My goal is to defend my habilitation in statistics/machine learning (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habilitation) in 3-4 years from now, as I'm very interested to have a joint academic-industrial position in the future. To elaborate, I'd like to hold a professor position in academia and also a researcher/research consultant position in industry. I'm happy to indirectly supervise PhD students alongside someone else but not directly. And somewhat shamelessly, I'd like to have a second income from academia on top of industry. I'm not a EU or US citizen, by the way.

My question is: is it possible for me to defend my habilitation in France when I'm not a part of French academia? Normally, I've seen only academics do that.

Thanks in advance!

Yes, you may obtain an habilitation as a non-academic, but in fact you may not need one, see below.

An habilitation is a diploma. You would need to register in the doctoral school of a University, so the right person to ask is the director of the doctoral school. I know at least one person who obtained an HDR while working for a company.

However, it is not a simple matter.
For example, the HDR procedure in Mathematics-Computer Science in Bordeaux has five steps before the defense:

File an application. Note that there are prerequisites, such as mandatory training in directing thesis work.
Evaluation of the application by the doctoral school.
Evaluation of the application by the University Academic Council
Formal response. If the response is positive, the candidate must complete their HDR within two years.
Registration as an HDR candidate and constitution of an examining committee.

Once awarded, and HDR confers the right to be sole advisor of a doctoral candidate. It is a sufficient but not necessary condition for applying for a professorship: formally, the prerequisite is a qualification aux fonctions which may be accorded to non-academics (Appendix 11).

Note that a scientist working in industry may co-direct a doctoral student, if at least one of the other director(s) (there may be two others) has an HDR. I don't have my draft of the décret on hand, but if I recall correctly it is not necessary that the scientist have an HDR.


Teaching classmates who don't put much effort in I'm not sure where to ask this so I thought I'd ask you here.

I'm in my 3rd year at university doing maths and some of the modules are a bit tricky. I know this and I know the way that I need to work in order to understand the material and pass the exams well. Due to this, I try and spend  a lot of time learning the theory (and recently its been through loads of questions on here). However, what I noticed with some of my friends is that they don't put in the same amount of effort as me (quality wise).

Let's take the example on semidirect products. A lot of us have been struggling with constructing SDP's, however I've tried very hard to learn the theory on them and what the answer's are looking for and what the methods I need to do (and why I'm doing them) to try and learn how to construct them. A lot of that has been on Math.SE but I've been referring to online PDF's and lecture notes as well. Now, my friends know that I put this in and try and learn it and so I can do the work properly, so I think they're trying to take advantage of that.

Today I showed one person how to do a question regarding compositions on Möbius transforms and they just refused to think for themselves. I said "think about it, because I'm not going to tell you what the answer is" and they still wouldn't think (just kept saying "I don't know"), so I didn't tell them the answer. Eventually, after some BIG hints, they got what to do. Now I've noticed people are relying on me to tell them how to construct SDP's (as this is a main question in the exam). From my history, you can see that I've struggled a lot with this and I think I'm close to solving this problem now, but at the same time I can tell that my friends aren't going to learn it themselves. Mentally they've given up and so won't even bother learning it.

My question is this: Should I tell them the answer, when (it is when and not if because I WILL get it!) I figure out how to do it?

I feel bad because obviously I don't want to lie and say "I don't know how to do it" or mess up their exam, but at the same time, I feel like they had the exact same time as me to do this, and the same resources (online, books, notes, ask the lecturer, etc.) yet they still didn't do it. So it's their own fault. Plus, the time it'd take me to teach and explain it to them, I could spend that couple of hours doing my own work. Other examples, revise another module, etc.

What should I do? Do you academics have any tips?

I'm sure you feel like this sometimes when people ask questions on here clearly without thinking about and just expect you to answer it.

In my experience, undergraduate students are a lot like children. They will be as lazy as you allow them to be. They will resist learning. They will resist doing the work and putting in the time. It's human nature...and it is something we, as teachers, must get the students to change.

Were I in your shoes, I would make it clear how to do something (as any teacher should) but I would certainly NOT do the work for them. If they keep saying "I don't know" then you should tell them "It's OK. Not everybody gets it their first time. Perhaps you get it when you take this class for a second time." I usually see my students' eyes open a bit on this one as they see that you are being so compassionate and understanding while still being refused to be manipulated. They also get the clear understanding that they will fail if they don't do the work.

We need to help students. That includes helping them to not be so lazy.


Does a contract matter I have been in my current teaching/research position for 4 years. I have just been informed that my contract is research only. I think technically this means I don't have to be teaching. My School and HR want to issue a new contract (which I am sure will take months/years). I would prefer to be research only. I think if there was a screw up and I was listed as teaching only, getting moved to teaching/research would be a real fight with HR. Do I put up a fight about the change? To what extent do contracts matter?

EDIT: I took the job with the expectation of doing both teaching and research. I have had a standard teaching load consistent with other new hires on teaching/research contracts. I have been under the impression that I have to teach as part of my job. The contract doesn't say anything about teaching (in fact it says little about specific job duties). This didn't strike me as odd when I signed the contract. Now on an unrelated issue I have learned that this is odd and means I do not have to teach. The university would like to modify my contract to include teaching duties (which I am already doing and am happy doing).

If I am understanding your situation correctly, when you were hired you had a certain understanding with your department and university about your duties, which included both teaching and research.  Since you don't say otherwise, it sounds like there are "standard" such duties in your department.  Also there was a standard contract, and by some strange mistake you were given and signed a different, nonstandard contract.  After four years of fulfilling your standard duties, the nonstandard contract has been brought to your attention.  Do I have all that right?

Now you are asking whether you should "put up a fight" about the fixing the mistaken contract.  If your question is a legal one, of course get a lawyer who is an expert in the specifics of your situation.

But are you really contemplating fighting against what you verbally agreed to when you took the job and the job you have been actually doing for the last four years because a contract you signed says otherwise and the difference may work out in your favor?  To me that sounds like horrible behavior.  If your bank had noticed after four years that they had mistakenly added a zero to your account balance, would you also fight the correction of the error?  Do you not have any ethical qualms about this?

As a justification you say that you wonder that if the situation were essentially reversed, correcting the oversight would be "a real fight with HR".  First of all: is this guess grounded in any kind of history with the HR department at your university?  Have they in fact been difficult with you in the past?  If not it seems like you are simply assuming bad faith.  Here's what I think would happen if you discovered your contract was all teaching and no research and tried to change it: there would be plenty of red tape, the entire process would take an order of magnitude longer than you felt that it reasonably should and would occupy too much of your time, but the final outcome would not really be in doubt due to the essential goodwill of the various parties, including people like your department chair/head who would come out on your behalf.

Aside from being ethically highly suspect, a decision to fight the change of your contract is likely to earn you the ill will of HR and other administration in your university and -- probably more importantly -- of the department chair/head and other faculty members.  You are contemplating not doing your share of the departmental work because of some technicality that you wonder whether you might be able to get away with.  To me that sounds like you are contemplating whether to reserve the right to try to screw over your colleagues at some later time.  Unless that is your actual goal, I would steer well clear of this.


What is common in most PhD application procedures in the UK? I am almost done with my master's degree in mathematical finance. I'm done with thesis and have one course left to take. I am taking it in a 3rd world country and am interested in applying for a PhD in stochastic analysis in the UK.

I am told that, in general, the application process for PhDs, unlike applications for masters or bachelors, involves first speaking to faculty and then to the school. Is that right? That is, when I apply I should already have a professor in the university willing to be my doctoral advisor?

The exact procedure I heard is something like:

Read up various literature on your desired dissertation topic which should include several textbooks and even more for recently published articles. (If necessary, study for IELTS, GRE, etc.)
Come up with a PhD proposal.
Contact relevant faculty of the universities to which you intend to apply.
Discuss your proposal with them if they're up to it.
One of the following: Revise proposal if needed, completely change proposal or get referred to different faculty member.
Actually apply to the university.

So, is that how it actually is?

Unfortunately the system in the UK is not uniform. You will really have to read each individual department's web site to know how to apply. There are, for example, Centres for Doctoral Training http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/skills/students/centres/ which you apply to like a US graduate program.  I don't know if there is a good one that covers stochastic analysis but it seems likely.

It sounds like the list you give is for people who want to apply for a specific supervisor.  For this route, your main issue will be funding as there is very little funding for non-UK students these days.  This will also vary wildly between different universities. There may be deadlines which you have missed already if you want to start in 2015.  However, simply for being accepted by a supervisor without funding the list you gave is fine.

Overall, read each department's web site on their PhD programmes, don't forget to look for any relevant Centres for Doctoral Training and good luck.


Should I cite every study that supports my point? Suppose I'm writing a paper and at some point in the paper (e.g. the background section), I write that "Vanilla ice cream is healthier than chocolate ice cream." I search EBSCO and find check all research studies that tested this and find and skim through 15 papers all supporting this claim, including the earliest pioneer research in the area up to the most recent. Is it then appropriate to affix in-text citations for all 15 of those studies to that sentence? What about if I find 50 studies?

It depends on the purpose of the paper.

If it is a review article on the effects of different flavor of ice cream, it may well be appropriate to cite far more papers than it would be if you are merely establishing the point in a paper containing your original research on the subject. In the latter case you may even be able to cite someone else's review.

Generally speaking, new papers in a field only get published if there is an element of novelty to them. Thus it is unlikely to find 50 different papers saying exactly the same thing. If you need the citation to support your own project, you should be able to find a small subset of those that are most relevant to the question at hand (e.g. if I am using mouse models, I should probably cite prior work in mice over prior work in rabbit models). If you are reviewing a topic, you should be able to find the most important papers out of the group (e.g. the ones that were transformative to our understanding of ice cream health effects).

Additionally some papers will vary in quality or scope. Citing an initial, limited scope paper might be appropriate if you are discussing the history of a topic, but if you are just trying to establish a basis for a claim you may want to go with a later, more definitive study.

Many publications will give you a citation limit when writing for them. So you often won't have a chance to cite an entire library of previous work. You need to be able to pin down the papers that are best suited for your specific need.


Should marital status and its international characteristics be included in a CV/cover letter? This post is somehow related to a previous post on
extra-curricular activities.

My question is this.
Beside standard extra academic activities (previous work, particular sport achievements, participation to student associations and the like), is it advisable to write in the CV or cover letter for a post-doc position the marital status, if the applicant thinks this information conveys positive characteristics about him/her?

Say, there is a Spaniard married to a Canadian, they live in Norway (where the Spaniard just obtained his/her PhD) and they are open to moving to another third country (i.e., a country where both of them are foreigners). In my eyes, the information about the marital status and citizenship of the two spouses is providing evidence for multiple positive non-academic characteristics of the applicant (the Spaniard), such as determination, stability and flexibility that are beyond average.

I have conflicting feelings. I see that this kind of information provides positive non-academic information about the applicant, but maybe who will be reading this information won't be paying enough attention or won't have the experience or empathy to understand the implications of having this type of family.

For US applications, you absolutely should not include such information, as it can make for awkward situations during the hiring process.

For applications in other countries, you may mention such issues in the CV where appropriate. However, you should not mention it in a cover letter, where it will seem contrived, artificial, or "stretching." People reviewing your application will not read anything into the characteristics of your marriage.


How do PhD admissions committees view double majors? I have read and heard conflicting opinions on this topic, and would like to see what some of you have to say, particularly related to CS.

Does earning two bachelor's degrees as an undergrad, considering all other things equal, provide any advantage over another applicant? That is, saying that this person earning two degrees is still able to participate in quality research throughout their undergraduate degree and is not slave to the curriculum.

Would, say, a MechE/CS student maintain a leg up applying to a CS program related to robotics? A Math/CS applying to theory-based CS? Does it vary between fields?

Would, say, a MechE/CS student maintain a leg up applying to a CS program related to robotics? A Math/CS applying to theory-based CS? Does it vary between fields?

All else being equal, YES.  Speaking specifically for theoretical computer science, I am much more likely to recommend a PhD applicant for admission if they have a strong mathematics background.  A second major is not the more important thing, though; majors are just administrative hurdles.  I look for which advanced math classes the applicant has taken, how the recommendation letters describe their mathematical ability/maturity, and how fluently they use mathematics in their research statement.

Yes, the effect varies significantly between fields.  For example, my robotics colleagues are much more likely to recommend applicants with strong mathematics backgrounds, and my software engineering colleagues are much more likely to recommend applicants with software industry experience.

Of course, as Daniel points out, ceteris is never paribus.


can I cite personal communication from a co-author? I received a strong opinion statement in an email from an expert in the field who later ended up making enough suggestions that I'm including him as a co-author. Coming from me, or from the paper's general authorial voice, the statement would stick out as an unsubstantiated claim, and his papers don't tend to include opinion statements. This would also be the only place in the paper where I'm quoting an expert. Should I just give it up?

To clarify, I'm not even wanting to include it to bolster the paper's argument, in fact it works against the paper's argument. But the fact that an expert has this opinion is a significant piece of information that readers might want to have.

You should not provide information from one co-author as e.g. personal communication since any author on the manuscript is expected to contribute to the manuscript. If there is need to state that a specific author has come up with a particular point you could do that by stating that e.g. "one of us (initials) discovered that..." or something equivalent.

In the end, just remmeber that any fact presented in a manuscript is either due to the authors or to other (referenced) sources. It is rare, but not unheard of, that a co-author may have specific contributions that require, or perhaps deserve, special mention. I would deem this quite rare. Becoming an author on a manuscript means you contribute intellectually to the end product and that includes sharing your ideas.

So to sum up, tred carefully and objectively.

By including a reviewer as co-author, you should follow regular authorship "rules". I fully realise that the question whether or not you should include the person as an author is a different question entirely so I will only focus on the situation at hand.


What is normally done if there is an underspending of a research grant? At the conclusion of a research project, what is normally done if there is an underspending of the research grant? Is the remainder returned to the funding agency? If this is true, how is it possible to build one's funding over the years?

First, you need to plan expenditures to make sure you don't end up with too much money at the end of the project. If you have grants, you're essentially running a small business. It's your job and responsibility to have a budget, plan with and for it, and to track expenditures.

If, however, for reasons that may not have been under your control, you end up with unspent money at the end of the grant period, you can often ask funding agencies to give you an extension of the project. For example, the National Science Foundation pretty regularly provides a one-year no-cost extension on "normal" grants. To get a second year, however, you probably need to have good reasons, or they will take the money back.


Can a honours supervisors be called a Project Leader? I am completing my undergraduate honours.
To do some of my experiments I am considering applying for some supercomputer time.
I would be applying to a external organistation who manages supercomputer for research in this state.
It funded by a partnership of universities (including my own) and the state and national government.

One of the conditions on the application is that the listed "Project Leader" be a non-student member of a university.
Can I (after talking to my supervisor), fill out the paperwork, listing him as "Project Leader"?
Even if his (direct) contributions are minimal, I would still be going to him for advice regularly, so he would be providing leadership on the project.

On the other hand, I would be the person doing all the interactions with the people from the supercomputing organisation.

Yes, this is a fairly standard description of a supervisors role in undergraduate research projects. Typically supervisor, despite potentially limited input, are responsible for the research conduct of their students. This might include booking of resources (e.g., labs or super computer time) and ethical approval for research that involves human and animal testing.


Is there a convention on how to write pseudocode in scientific papers? I've found questions answering where or when to write pseudocode in scientific papers, but I haven't found any addressing any sort of convention for pseudocode, such as syntax, what type of symbols or notation to use and what they mean precisely, or any sort of 'formal' definition of pseudocode. I suppose that's the nature of pseudocode, it should be understandable and general no matter how you write it, but I wish there was some sort of guidance for how to structure and convey meanings across in a formal manner. Does this exist? For now I am purely imitating the CLRS pseudocode style.

As you are already stating: There is no norm / convention for pseudocode.

Personally, I prefer a python-like notation, but this is because I like python ;-). CLRS is fine for many purposes.

If your software is written in a specific language, it might be beneficial to use a code convention which allows you to express the specifics of your programming language - this reduces the risk of introducing errors.

Even more important then the code convention is, that you should ensure your pseudocode allows someone else to re-implement your code without room for interpretations. Sometimes, "real" code can be more appropriate (but yes, it can be lengthy).


Access to journals for individuals outside of an institution? For all that is said about the wealth of information that is freely available on the internet, the fact is that most of it is incomplete, dumbed down, lacking in context or downright wrong.

Individuals spend the best part of 20 years completely oblivious to the existence of journals and the process of peer review and even then we'd be lucky if 10% of those with access to journals (usually through an institution) actually bother to invest in them.

Granted that some journals will be totally inaccessible to those without a solid background in some particular field but by and large exposure is a good thing and there are many areas of research where individuals will benefit directly from having read these.

Where does this come from?

I decided I wanted to read Popular Politics in the Late Medieval City: York and Bruge in The English Historical Review today, mainly because it looks interesting and I'm hoping to invest more time into learning about British and European History. Incidentally I also wouldn't mind tucking into Super Stable Clocks, Nature 500, 505 (29 August 2013) and a number of data analysis and big data journals in order to advance my career.

Now, not being affiliated with an institution that subscribes to these journals means that I would typically have to pay between £5 ($10) and £15 ($25) per article that I read... I could probably spend £100 just to pass an hour by.

Question

What's being done to address the lockdown on 'higher' education material? I've noticed that the Directory of Open Access Journals publishes open articles and other firms are doing similar, mainly with journals in new fields?
How could I, as an individual outside of an institution, gain journal access without it costing so much money?

As a preamble: maintaining a publishing system has a cost. You may shift it to the authors, or to the reader, or have it financed directly by governments or supranational organizations, but there will always be a cost. It's true that in the current system, with a mixture of private publishers and non-profit ones (academies, learned societies, some well-administered professional societies), some players may be making a bit more money than we wish. Academic publishing has not yet fully adapted to the digital age, and it will get leaner by doing so. However, we have to recognize that this will always have a cost.

Now, answering your first question: there is a growing trend to go towards open access journals (and open access options in many other journals), which shift the cost onto the authors. Moreover, some funding agencies (for example NIH) have a public access policy, meaning that they ensure that publications stemming from research they fund are publicly accessible in some form (in the case of NIH, the final version of the preprint must be made available on PubMed). Now, different fields of research are moving toward this new paradigm at various speed (biology is faster, chemistry is not moving at all). In the current state of things, it must be noted that apart from a few renowned exceptions (PLOS One, for example), most open access journals are far from prestigious.

In some fields, the publication system has hoped earlier on the digital bandwagon, and it is routine for authors to publish only preprints of their work (and publishers have copyright transfer terms allowing it). For example, in mathematics and physics, arXiv.org is a very popular source of preprints. In some other fields, most journals don't allow preprints to be posted at all…

Regarding your second question, there are a few options for you to gain access to some paywalled journals:

Public library: if you live in a big city, the local public library likely subscribes to a few major scientific journals: Nature, Science, things like that.
Get a guest reader status at the closest university: some institutions allow access to outsiders in their library, either by not actually checking who gets in (as long as you behave), or in some cases by actually having an official “guest reader” status (which may require some paperwork or approval).
Membership in a professional society: individual membership in the American Chemical Society gives you access to their journals at a rather decent price.
Writing to the authors: if you see a paper you don't have access to, just write to the authors asking for a PDF.
Reddit Scholar :)


Is an improved algorithm for a non-hot problem publishable? I have been working on a research problem independent of any advisor for the past few months and I think I have a result. The problem I am investigating  has n and K as input. The naive approach would take O(n!K+2), which is ridiculously bad. I managed to come up with, and proof the correctness of a 2-approximation algorithm that runs in O(Kn2).

However, this is absolutely not a hot topic. Researchers in it are not a lot. On the other hand, there are practical applications of my algorithm (off the top of my head, I can think of three significant ones). I am also positive that my algorithm beats all published approximation algorithms as well.

So my question is: Would a reputable journal accept my paper given that it isn’t really a hot topic now?

Journals often publish articles that show something that is "interesting" or "elegant" or "unexpected", even if the topic may not necessarily be "hot". (Of course, it is easier to publish something that combines any of these attributes with "hot", but not all articles are on "hot" topics.) So, I think there is hope in your case and I would give it a try.

I would, however, suggest that you do a careful literature review. You compare your algorithm with a "naive" one, but that may not mean that the "naive" algorithm is what people would use or what is considered state of the art. For example, the traveling salesman problem is known to be an exponentially complicated problem if you are looking for an exact solution, but that doesn't mean that that is what people use when they actually want to solve such problems -- very good approximate solutions can be found quite efficiently.

In other words, in your paper you will not only have to explain your new method, but you should point out that people have actually been using the "ridiculously bad" method. Otherwise, you will hear from the reviewers that you make your approach sound artificially good by comparing it with something no reasonable person would use.


How should I respond to a terrible copyediting job? I just received the galley proofs for an article which has been accepted to a well-regarded math journal.

The copyediting is, quite frankly, terrible. The copyeditor has introduced dozens of mathematical, typographical, and bibliographic mistakes. The proofs were accompanied by a list of changes and questions, and some of the newly introduced mistakes were described in this list, but not all.

A few representative examples:

The editor has, in many places, replaced the mathematical notation << with "is much less than". It is universal within my subfield of mathematics that << means something very different from "is much less than".
The editor has typeset fractions in different ways, so that what was formerly in the denominator is now in the numerator.
The editor has monkeyed unacceptably with the bibliography. I used a software package, for which I looked up on their FAQ how to cite it. The editor replaced my correct bibliography entry with something different.
The tables now appear in wrong places. A cursory reading of the edited text reveals that it now makes no sense, and this would be obvious even to someone without specialized knowledge of my field.

I could go on and on, but I don't want to just rant. Instead I have two closely related questions:

First of all, is this typical? I find it difficult to imagine that a publisher who did this kind of shoddy work on a regular basis could stay in business. I wonder if I just had the bad luck to get the new employee this time around.
More importantly, is a strong response warranted? I am inclined to write to the journal staff, tell them that their work is unacceptably sloppy, explain in detail why, and ask them to start over from scratch, and to furnish a list of all changes made, no matter how minor.

This is not just because I want to pick an argument. I have gone through my paper line-by-line several times in the past, making very sure that everything I said was correct. With this level of copyediting work, I am back to square one and I suspect I might accidentally miss several errors introduced by the copyeditors.

Would such an e-mail be likely to produce the kind of results I'm looking for?

Thank you very much.

Update: Thanks to everyone who replied. I wrote a strong, but I hope polite, e-mail to my contact at the journal, listing several of the mistakes, and asking them to start over and to send me a complete list of changes. His first reply was a little bit ambiguous, appearing to perhaps misunderstand what I was asking for -- but he has since apologized and agreed to my requests.

One point of departure from Anonymous Mathematician's advice: I haven't said anything to the editorial board and the publisher, or discussed this issue (other than here, anonymously) with anyone but my coauthor and my contact at the journal -- happily, it looks like there won't be any reason to.

Update 2: As I requested, my contact at the journal started again from scratch, did a much more conservative job of copyediting, and provided me a copy of my file which was marked up in red and blue with every change they made. Needless to say this made my job quite easy and I thanked them for their good work.

That does sound terrible.  I haven't run into anything so bad myself, but I know people who have.  It seems to vary a lot by publisher.  My impression is that it happens occasionally when they try to save money on copyediting by outsourcing to a new, cheap copyediting company.  If the results are terrible, then the publisher will switch to the next-cheapest company, and this will continue until the publisher finds an acceptable level of quality.  Unfortunately, it leads to bad results for authors who get caught in the middle of this process.  Hopefully the publisher will learn from this incident and the problem won't continue.

  More importantly, is a strong response warranted?

Yes, certainly.

  ask them to start over from scratch, and to furnish a list of all changes made, no matter how minor

I'd guess that getting them to start over from scratch will be difficult, but you should certainly insist on seeing a second set of proofs.

Asking for a list of all changes made could be useful, but it's not clear whether you can trust that they will compile a complete list (they may be sloppy about that too).  Many copyeditors mark up a paper copy before changing the file, so you may have some luck in getting a photocopy/scan of the marked up copy.

I'd also recommend letting the editorial board know, and perhaps the publisher too.  If you just resolve the issue directly with the copyeditors, it's possible that nobody else will find out what happened.


Is there evidence that open source research software produces more uptake of methods? In recent years there has been a drive to make science more open. This includes making the software used to perform research open source. The main argument in favour of this idea is that research should be reproducible, which has been addressed in other questions on this site.

I am more interested in the 'impact' that this produces. In particular, is there evidence that by publishing software alongside research papers means that more people use the methods described in the paper?

I am especially concerned with papers in applied mathematics but also more generally.

You ask "In particular, is there evidence that by publishing software alongside research papers means that more people use the methods described in the paper?"

I am not aware of any large scale empirical studies that have assessed this for software at present [1] however there is anecdotal evidence and related studies looking at the impact of open data.

One piece of related anecdotal evidence came from short survey I carried out in 2013 looking for people who had been "scooped" as a result of publishing their code openly (i.e. someone else had published a paper using that software to get to the same scientific results before the author of the software). Whilst there were very few examples of people getting scooped, there were many more examples of researchers who had gotten new collaborations, new citations, and new funding as a result of publishing their code openly. Many said that this was because others were more able to try out the methods because code was available.

More convincingly, there have been several good studies looking at the effects on citations (a proxy for the sort of impact you mention) from making data openly accessible [2-6]. Many of the reasons for the data citation benefit discussed in [7] appear qualitatively to be true for software as well [8-9].

Finally, in the area of Applied Mathematics, you might like to look at some of the outputs of the ICERM workshop on Reproducibility on Computational and Experimental Mathematics [10], as well as some of the publications of the participants.

[1] One of the reasons for this is that up until very recently, it was difficult to conduct such a study - it was difficult to link software to a publication, few authors were publishing code, and it was difficult to data mine journals to assess impact. This is changing, an I expect studies to start emerging based on tools like ContentMine and ScienceToolbox.

[2] Piwowar, Day, Fridsma (2007). Sharing Detailed Research Data Is Associated with Increased Citation Rate. PLoS ONE.

[3] Gleditsch NP, Metelits C, Strand H. 2003. Posting your data: will you be scooped or will you be famous? International Studies Perspectives 4(1):89-97

[4] Pienta AM, Alter GC, Lyle JA. 2010. The enduring value of social science research: the use and reuse of primary research data. The Organisation, Economics and Policy of Scientific Research Workshop

[5] Henneken EA, Accomazzi A. 2011. Linking to data - effect on citation rates in astronomy.

[6] Dorch B. 2012. On the Citation Advantage of linking to data. hprints.

[7] Piwowar H, Vision T. 2013. Data reuse and the open data citation advantage. PeerJ. PubMed 24109559

[8] Howison J, Herbsleb, J. 2013. Incentives and Integration In Scientific Software Production. CSCW 2013.

[9] Howison J, Bullard J. How is software visible in the scientific literature? Preprint available from https://github.com/jameshowison/softcite/blob/master/paper/HowisonBullard-SoftwareCitation-WorkingPaper.pdf?raw=true

[10] "Setting the Default to Reproducible: Reproducibility in Computational and Experimental Mathematics," ICERM Workshop report, with D. Bailey, J. Borwein, R. LeVeque, W. Rider, and W. Stein.


Submitting open LORs as "Supportive Documents" scans? In addition to the 3 LORs for my Ph.D. application, I have requested extra LORs from professors that I scanned & uploaded under the additional "Supportive Documents" of my application.

Obviously, the professors of these additional LORs are fully supportive and aware of their letters being open to me to upload as UNOFFICIAL & supporting docs...

Q:  Since it's customary for applicants to "waive their rights" to LORs, will these extra LORs negatively impact my application since I know their contents???  What is your take on this?  Thanks in advance :)

No one needs more than three strong LORs, especially if that's what's been requested.  I don't think these additional letters will be helpful to you, both because it might make it appear you have trouble following directions and because the non-confidentiality, the fact you're delivering them yourself, reduces their value.


How binding is a PhD application for theoretical vs. experimental physics? Quick background: I'll be applying for PhD programs and most likely want to study theoretical condensed matter (though I'm open to other theoretical and mathematical fields). I find experimental physics alright, but it really doesn't excite me.

I've heard that I should apply as if I'm pursuing an experimental physics track, though, because it's less competitive, and then transition towards a theory group once admitted. Is this sound advice? It came from a rather respected source. Still, I am wary about misrepresenting myself and also concerned about getting stuck in a path that I don't intend to be in.

Any insight into how admission committees handle the experimental/theory dichotomy would also be appreciated. Thanks.

Additional Info: I'm applying within the US as a citizen. I'm finishing a MS in physics at the moment.

I've heard that I should apply as if I'm pursuing an experimental physics track, though, because it's less competitive, and then transition towards a theory group once admitted. Is this sound advice?

Yes, it is, in general. A very high percentage of people applying to physics PhD programs say that they want to do theory, especially particle theory, but in reality only a very small percentage of grad students end up doing theory.

However, the number of people saying they want to do condensed matter theory is probably relatively small, so the usual advice may not apply to you if you're applying to schools that have a strong, established program in condensed matter theory.

  Still, I am wary about misrepresenting myself and also concerned about getting stuck in a path that I don't intend to be in.

Frankly, at this stage you simply have no experience on which to base any such expectations. That's why nobody really takes statements like this on grad school applications very seriously. That kind of statement is not binding in any way, and I doubt that anyone even remembers it once you start grad school. It may be relevant to your application mainly as an indication of whether you were serious enough about that school to find out what their research areas are. E.g., if you apply and say you want to do quantum gravity, but nobody at that school does quantum gravity, they'll probably circular-file your app.

What will typically happen to people who think they want to do theory is that they start their graduate coursework, and they find that there's stiff competition in courses such as field theory and general relativity. If you want to do a thesis in relativity, for example, you probably need to be the top student in the GR class. For condensed matter theory, the relevant course would probably be field theory, since a lot of the same methods are used.

I don't think it's exactly the same at all universities in the US, but at the grad school I went to, there was this initial sorting process based on performance in coursework, and after that students spent the summer as research assistants, which was a further vetting process.

There's just no way to predict the outcome of this process in advance. As an undergrad, you're comparing yourself to other undergrads at school A, while as a grad student, you're comparing yourself to other grad students at school B. Often it's the experience of moving from being a big fish in a small pond to being just one more fish. That's how it was for me, at least.


Where can I learn more about the differences between areas of chemistry at graduate level? I'm a 3rd year undergraduate student studying chemistry, and I'm starting to think about grad school. I've enjoyed the different chem courses I've taken, so it's hard for me to pick a subcategory of chemistry to study.

Are there books or other resources available which describe in depth how the rubber meets the road for the different fields of chemistry? I've spoken with my professors somewhat and I plan to continue doing so, but I would like a text-based resource which I could refer to and look up or research the words and concepts contained in it.

A related, but different question is this: What are the most important factors when considering graduate school in chemistry?

If you are in the EU, most graduate schools typically prefer you to have a Masters degree before applying for a PhD, it is apparently not so necessary in the US. The Masters is however, important for several reasons:

You can see if chemical research is what you really want to do, as most undergraduate programmes have no or very limited opportunity for original research, largely being focussed on equipping you with a set of techniques and skills to enable you to carry out chemical research. I have many friends who were 'all chemistry'd out' after their Masters, and left the field completely (Of my cohort over half are no longer in a chemical field).
You can try out a field of chemistry in a research environment, either one you have come across during your undergraduate e.g. spectroscopy of small molecules, and enjoyed, or one that only really gets introduced at undergraduate level, if at all e.g. supramolecular chemistry.
You can try out a supervisor you are considering working under for a PhD, without the commitment of 3+ years on the line.
It demonstrates to a potential supervisor that you are capable of conducting original research to a good standard. Agreeing to take someone on with no prior demonstration of research aptitude is not something many supervisors would do!

PhD programmes can also vary a lot: Some are longer and have a first 'introduction' year, where they train you in the specific skills you need to complete the programme. This first, often taught year is very similar to the 4th year of an integrated Bachelor + Masters course. Some are just straight research from the start, with an evaluation at the end of the first year, the failure of which prevents you from continuing, and you leave with an M.res or similar. I could go on...

To more directly answer your question, the best way to find out about the differences in day-to-day activity between the different areas of chemistry at PhD level is to try and talk to some current PhD students.

If you have completely free reign and no particular interest, I would suggest you aim to talk to students in most of these categories:

Physical lots of maths, often boils down to applied physics, in my opinion the least 'chemical' of these options. Can also overlap with analytical in areas like atmospheric chemistry or kinetics.
Analytical (physical chemistry typically focussing on spectroscopic exploration)
often overlaps with computational (modelling the behaviour of chemicals on surfaces e.g. catalysts, or the behaviour of proteins and their binding sites, or small molecules as entirely simulated objects, to name a few)
Chemical informatics e.g. developing tools to help statistically analyse chemical behaviours for drug discovery, or to communicate chemical information electronically. Can be a good way into programming with a chemical slant.
Synthetic chemistry this comes in many flavours, organic and inorganic, but most are similar on a day to day basis (see below for exceptions)
Medicinal/natural product synthesis synthetic chemistry but typically much longer hours, often the most internally competitive/'macho' culture in the department
Materials chemistry this can cover a very wide range of specialisations and include engineering and physics too; very dependent on the particular programme. Nanoscience is sometimes lumped in here, sometimes in organic and sometimes in inorganic!

In broad strokes, more physical PhDs can require greater discipline, because you don't have the obvious 'put this reaction on/analyse this intermediate' type workflow and can spend weeks waiting for computations to run/repairs to a piece of analytical equipment etc. It is easier to remain emotionally uninvested in the outcome of an experiment, because you are typically trying to find an answer to a question, rather than produce a specific result. By contrast, synthetic PhDs can have moments of soul-crushing defeat when reactions repeatedly fail, frequently requiring a lot of mental fortitude to keep trying things to get a reaction to work/work out a way round it.

To summarise, doing a Masters first is a good idea, to ensure you want to go the PhD route and improve the strength of a PhD application. For picking a PhD (and to a lesser extent, a Masters) you really need to be able to narrow down your options by some/all of topic, supervisor, location and type of programme.

addition from comments: Here is a link to information provided by ACS for students looking to find out about graduate courses, should be a good starting point.


How can I deal with low-key plagiarism? I am relatively new to academic publishing. However, there is an uncomfortable situation which I have already encountered multiple times by now (about five). It is what I would call "low-key plagiarism". I will explain what I mean by this (completely made-up) term in the following.
I don't have many papers and citations yet, so I tend to check out papers that cite me to see how my work is being used and if the new result is relevant to my own work. In the mentioned occasions, I found that the authors used my work extensively or built directly on it. The way the citation was phrased, however, implied that my result was only tangentially relevant or somewhat helpful. Sometimes the relevance is also disguised by citing further irrelevant literature.
The goal of the authors in both cases seems clear: to mislead a reviewer or readers into thinking the result is more significant or innovative. Of course, an ideal reviewer should spot this. However, in highly specialized fields and if the formulation is sufficiently vague, this is very difficult and does not happen practically.
I am not sure if this should really be called plagiarism. It is the kind of borderline case where, most likely, nobody will bring up the argument publicly. If someone does, the authors will most likely say "but we cited you here and there". No matter if plagiarism or not, it is certainly misleading to reference in this way.
When I find a citation like this, it feels very uncomfortable to me. Especially for interdisciplinary research, people might start citing the newer result and forget the older one completely if the citation chain cannot be tracked properly. This is the exact same effect as completely leaving out the citation (i.e., plagiarism) would have.
How can I deal with this kind of misleading citation practice? Should one just get over it? Should one contact the authors to express disappointment without asking for consequences? Should one fully escalate and demand a correction or bring the editor's attention to it? Should one do it even if the chance of success is low and the chance of hurting one's own reputation by being perceived as petty is high?
Concrete example
As suggested by Dan Romnik, I've tried to come up with a fictionalized example for what the misleading paper might be saying. The example contains three tricks which I have encountered on separate occasions. 1. List citations to hide relevance. 2. Shifting the citation to a supplement and omitting the citation in the main text summary of the method. 3. Attaching the citation to a meaningless side sentence instead of to the main result.
Here is the example: Let the main text contain no reference to the paper, except for a bit in the introduction citing it as previous literature as part of a list citation. Instead, it is stated in the methods that

We derive our main result using some abstract formulation of the method for brevity.

The method summary thus misses the citation, which is shifted to a supplement.
In the supplementary material, it is stated that

Introductory discussion to notation. Eq. (1) coming straight out of my paper. We derive our main result based on this equation by solving some integrals for a special case. This includes a completely standard step, which was also investigated in [1]. Our result is then obtained this way: concrete formulation of the method which was abbreviated in the main text and which is a special case of my method.

where [1] is my paper. Therefore, even if the reader looks in the supplementary material, they will not know that the central Eq. (1) is straight from my paper. The citation is there, but attached to a completely meaningless side-sentence. Of course, a careful reader could go and compare the two papers, but without that, it is not clear how the result was used.
Even if the example is not great, maybe this gives an idea of what kind of tricks I mean. One of those can be accidental; in sum, they are likely intentional and designed to mislead. They certainly do mislead, but are they plagiarism?

I agree with your assessment that this is misleading behavior on the part of the authors. I have run into this kind of behavior myself, including from authors who were famous researchers (and who were famous because they actually did very good work and not because they were good at misleading people about doing good work). It seems like it’s just human nature for some people to feel a need (probably driven by insecurity and lack of self-worth) to play up their own greatness and belittle others’ achievements.
As for what to do, I’d say just keep publishing good work and don’t worry about it. It’s not worth the time and energy it would take to fight such petty misconduct, especially when there is no hard evidence for a dishonest motive. Moreover, the advantage that these authors derive from such underhanded behavior probably does not outweigh the disadvantage of other people looking down on them and not wanting to work with them (I’m willing to bet you’re not the only one who noticed this), so their behavior is self-defeating and self-punishing. And your own contributions are documented in the scientific literature, so in case a dispute ever arises over something important, the truth will will be easy to establish and will come out.


What are the long-term advantages of a US PhD compared to Europe/Oceania? I have applied to PhD programs in ecology in Europe (Germany, Denmark, UK) and Oceania (Australia/New Zealand). Now the deadlines for US programs are coming up and I am debating whether I should apply there as well. Aside from the exorbitant cost to apply to US programs I am interested in comparing the pros and cons as far as career opportunities.
I have ready a MS from a major US university and I will turn 31 soon. My career goals are to pursue a teaching/research position.

Assuming that the potential advisors satisfy my requirements (good publishing track, personable, successful students, international connections) and that there will be funding. I will consider "rest of the world" and USA.

Rest of the world:
- can be completed in three years, in this case I will have gained two years for a possible Post Doc, and also make use of my Masters
- I will be able to just focus on research without being a teaching assistant, from what I understand publications would count more than teaching assistant experience even for a 50%/50% research/teaching position
- it might be harder in case I want to find a job in the US, especially since I will not be located within the country
- there are no obligations to complete courses
- pay rate is generally decent compared to cost of living

USA:
-I am under the impression that with a PhD from a top US institution is well-regarded internationally and would be easier to find a job in Europe or Australia
- the teaching experience could be useful to me as I would like to also be involved in education alongside with research
- there is more time to explore and think about research questions and goals, as opposed to Europe where you join to develop a certain project
- the stipend and the US is very low also compared to the living costs especially on the West Coast. It would mean five years of financial sacrifice
- more chances to perhaps be involved in other projects, it seems there is more of an open research community within departments
- it might be productive to take some classes that are taught by top profile professors

Are the extra time spent and the financial sacrifice for a US PhD worthwhile for my career goals and my preparation has a successful educator/researcher? Will my international mobility be limited based on where I graduate?

I think the key question is: What do you want to do after the PhD?

There are some points that you may consider to choose a programme if you want to stay in the academia. The advantages or disadvantages of the length of these programmes depend on your training/background.

Your background. If you are familiar with the topic you are planning to work on, then you can probably start checking the relevant literature immediatly, in this case a 3 years program may be what you need. But if the topic is unfamiliar to you, then you would probably have to attend lectures and to read textbooks, in this case a 5 years program may be better.
Your CV. A work in the academia usually involves teaching and research. If you have teaching experience, then you can focus on developing your CV in terms of research. In this case I would go for a 3 years programme and get involved full-time on research. If you do not have teaching experience, then you might want to consider a 5 years PhD where you have the opportunity to teach and develop your CV in both lines.
The topic. Some research projects by their nature itself require different amounts of time to develop. For instance if you are going to work on modelling a specific data set vs. having to obtain the samples directly in the Amazon.

Regarding the mobility, I think after the PhD what really matters is your CV. Either if you graduate from Oxford or the University of Tuvalu.


What should I consider when deciding whether to delay an exam? I believe I may have scheduled an exam too early, and I am considering delaying it by a day or two. The material that I would cover fits in fairly well with the earlier material, and not as well with the later material. I can cover the material as is, but barely so, and the students would not have time to digest it or gain experience via a homework set. I have already put the approximate dates of our four exams in the “tentative” course schedule.

What factors should I consider when making this decision, and how should I weigh these factors?

Here are some factors I've thought of:

Whether or not I have time to cover the material in class
How much advance notice is given (Changing the date the day before is probably too late, right?)
Whether or not the students would like the exam to be delayed (I'm guessing they will!)
Department or institutional policies
Whether or not student accommodation services (e.g. make-ups, proctors, alternative formats, etc.) need to be scheduled in advance

Update

I think there are a few things that are clear (some from the comments—thanks!):

It matters whether or not any posted exam dates are described as tentative or firm. Tentative dates are estimates and students should understand that they are subject to change, whereas students may plan around firm dates.
Exams should not be moved to a significantly earlier date. This is not fair to students.
Students should not be tested on material they haven't had a chance to engage with (in and/or out of the classroom) or ask questions about.
Special understanding and grace should be extended to students who miss an exam date due to a scheduled change (especially for short-notice changes). Of course, students who miss an exam for a school-approved reason (e.g. sports/research/bereavement travel) usually have the right to make it up anyway.
If the instructor polls the students offering to make a change to the exam content and/or date, and they unanimously support the proposed change, then there's no reason not to do so.

Epilogue

I polled the students before asking this question. Almost 60% of students preferred moving the exam date back one day to cover the extra material, and about 35% preferred keeping the exam on the same day but having it cover less material. In spite of their preference to delay the exam, and in spite of the dropped material fitting better with the this exam than with the next exam, I decided to move 25% of the content of this exam to the next exam. Thanks to all for the discussion!

Exam dates announced at the beginning of the semester should only be changed with a highly compelling reason. The syllabus of a course is a contract with the students. Even if 90% of your students prefer the delay, if one of your students has to cancel an airplane ticket for a conference visit or miss a wedding, a balance has not been struck.

If I were a student in which an instructor tried to change an exam date as late as "the day before", I would certainly lodge formal complaints with the department and the institution. Please do not do this.

In your initial post, you'd not given any reason to believe that you couldn't simply move a bit of material to the next exam. That is by far the better option.

If for some reason delaying the exam is truly unavoidable, you should feel obligated to offer make-up exam times for students who may be unable to attend.


Filing a patent before collaborating with industries? During my recent research, I produced a little prototype which seems interesting enough for commercialization. I don't have the necessary resources to do it, so I naturally think about collaborating with industries. But in this case, I still would like to file a patent before the collaboration starts. Would this be a barrier for collaboration with potential industrial partners?

On the other hand, would it be useless to file the patent considering the possibility that the industrial collaborators can find ways to circumvent my patent by making non-essential modification? (in which case I don't have the resources to sue them)

As Nate notes in his comment, you should talk with your University's Office of Technology Commercialization, Intellectual Property Office, Office of Technology Transfer, Office of Industrial Programs, or equivalent (just to give a few key words to search for). However, you should be able to just talk with a potential industrial collaborator after signing a mutual non-disclosure agreement that includes the restriction not to exploit each others IP disclosed under the agreement for commercial gain without further negotiation. These kinds of NDA are common in work between industry and academia, and they allow for discussion to begin without everything having to be patented ahead of time. Your university's industrial office (as above) ought to be able to help you draft the NDA. Don't do it without the support of your university's attorneys.


Statement of purpose: how to give motivations for applying to a certain graduate school without stating the obvious or gratuitous flattery? In a statement of purpose (for graduate admission, in mathematics), how can one address the question of "why do you want to attend this university?"  without making it sound like I'm stating the obvious or giving out gratuitous flattery?

In paticular, for reference's sake, I'd be interested in reading some sample statements where this issue is addressed smoothly.

This could be a good opportunity to mention particular faculty there you might want to work with, if there are any such. (But don't go overboard, or say anything that's not true.) In any case, in my experience, these sections generally don't affect decisions -- with the one big exception that if you say you want to come to study geometry, and the committee knows that all 3 geometers in the department are retiring, they might not admit you for your own sake. (Another reason not to say anything that's not true!)


How to define a project/thesis for the Master level? I'm doing my PhD in computer science, and as a part of the PhD program I need to co-advise at least one Master thesis and 2 small Master projects.

Of course I went to my supervisor in the first place, but he told me to find a proper topic to define a Master thesis/project that is related to my PhD and also possible to be carried out by a master student, then he will officially support me. Let's say that he is so busy all the time...

Anyway, I want to define 2-3 MS thesis/projects to see if I can attract students to any of them. But I'm not sure how complex or easy it should be!

Let's say that during my PhD I invent algorithms to solve data driven problems, should I define a thesis in which students should try to devise a new algorithm? or it is too much for them? Or just applying some already tried algorithm in some new data (plus data acquisition) would be enough as the MS level thesis/project?

Also if it is supposed to be related to my PhD, should it be the answer to one of my PhD questions?? then I should do it in the first place, not the student!

I'm a bit bewildered here!

Not much of a definitive answer, but here are some prep works you should start doing:

If you did not obtain the Master program from this institute, gather their program information and understand it first. Key information include course offered (with syllabi if possible), degree audit (to figure out what is required and what is elective). This will give you a general idea of the students' level and capability.
Most theses are submitted to the school's own libraries or at least to their committee members. Check out a handful that are related to your field for an approximated scope.
If Master's defense presentations are open to public, go to a couple and learn about them.
Download the Master's degree program handbook and, if any, a list of instructions and obligations for committee members and skim them for useful information. These documents usually detail the length and specification of the project and thesis, as well as general procedure such as meeting frequency and responsibilities of all parties, etc. Be informed about these details helps a lot on budgeting time and effort.
You mentioned you're co-supervising, and I do hope each student also has at least one faculty member in the committee. Schedule an informal meeting with the faculty chair and ask for guidance. Unlike your supervisor, they have the obligation to care.

As for topics, by the time you have done the above you should have a good idea on the length, size, and depth. But some other tips here may be useful:

Dig out other Master or PhD topics that you might have given up.
Cast a look at your work, look for possible branches that you do not have time to explore. Try not to be overly possessive about these ideas, as you may not have time to actually explore them anyway.
One way is to think about your own thesis's Introduction. Are there any particular matters for which you wish there is a piece of evidence?
Start the habit of jotting down random ideas on handheld devices or a paper note pad.
Be extremely clear and open about the ownership of the ideas and deliveries before the student starts working on it.

Ideally (and I'm speaking from biomedical), the student should be technically capable to carry out 2/3 to 3/4 of the work. Try not to make them learn everything new or they can have integration anxiety and tremendous amount of self-doubt which leads to unrelenting reliance on you or worse, withdrawal.

Do know that (and I am sorry to be blunt) this supervising task is i) not a major determinant of your PhD graduation and ii) is but a small piece of evidence on mentoring that can get you hired. So don't invest excessive amount of time in it. And to achieve so, you need to first establish a  sense of non-possessive attitude (the student is working on his/her Master, not your PhD). Second, the topic needs to be able to help you move along your study, but in the same time it should not be so crucial that if it failed your study will be held up. Third, the student should be able to do a good amount of it technically, and your job is to move them along by i) encouraging them to think and act critically and independently, ii) conducting meeting and communication regularly, iii) providing feedback and reasoned suggestions, and iv) demonstrating all the above three consistently.


Adding affiliation due to a 1-month visit during a salary gap I worked at University A and did a research stay during one month at University B; I was not paid by them, but I got funding (from a third agency) thanks to them for accepting my visit during a salary gap, before going to University C.

About 80% of the paper I want to submit I wrote in my university, but I finished it at University B during said stay, even though my original aim of being at University B was another research topic.

I would like to put U A and U B both as affiliations, since the environment in U B boosted my research (and I don't want to be less thankful than I ought). Is it justified to write both affiliations? Or should I write only University A as affiliation and thank for hospitality to University B and my host there?

I don't think that the effect will be different no matter what you put, but the latter (...hospitality...) version seems marginally more honest. Being a visitor at a prestigious place caries some cachet of course.

I don't think that a one month salary gap is going to be any issue, if it is even noticed. But you will mention the funding agency, of course.


Is the PhD thesis needed for a faculty appointment? I applied for a full professor position, and after the interview, I was asked for a copy of my PhD thesis.

I was confused and want to know if it is the common and normal procedure or happened for me based on a specific reason?

Because, my strong works were done after my PhD, and I didn't know that my PhD project would be used for judging me (frankly, I'm not proud of that project).

One of the general prerequisites in this day and age for a faculty appointment is an earned (as opposed to honorary) PhD from a (typically accredited) degree-granting institution.

Consequently, asking to see either a PhD thesis, a transcript, or the degree certificate is would be ways of ascertaining that you do, in fact, have a valid degree. This by no means implies that only your PhD matters in the hiring process; just that it's part of the process to ensure you're eligible. I wouldn't read too much into this beyond that.


Will my paper be published? I submitted my abstract at MISG-2015 conference at Malaysia. I got a mail stating that it was accepted. Does this mean that my abstract will be published?

Here is your answer
http://www.globalilluminators.org/misg-2015-kualalumpur-malaysia/publication-prospect/
Your abstract and paper if you submit will be published in the proceedings, they are then put into selection for journals, but there is zero guarantee about that.


Clarifying email instructions with advisor I receive sometimes one line instructions from my PhD supervisor on work I need to do and send. Not always clear though.

He sometimes forgets what he had discussed in our last discussion, or does not explain the rationale. Under such circumstances, how do I communicate with him? Redoing done work is I believe a waste of time and energy.

I think you should realize that your advisor is just an overworked human being. He tends to forget things, particularly what you, or other people in the group do because there are just too many things to juggle. It might be that he isn't a great planner and doesn't keep tabs on everyone in the group, but not necessarily.

That being said, imagine you had to do his job. What would your student ideally do to make your life easier and still do good research? I'm not sure about you, but my ideal student would show as much initiative as possible. They would also self-manage themselves. If I ask them to do some work, they would know why I need that work done (preferably from our discussions), how does that fit in their, or our project and would try to do it on time. If they can't do it, for whatever reason, they would let me know as soon as they can so I can think of an alternative.

I personally don't forget what work I assigned, but if I do, I expect my student to remind me that, and the reason I asked for it. No need to redo work. You keep it short, something like:

  Dr. [insert dude's name], I have finished the assignment you asked and sent you an email on [date]. I have attached it again. Regards,

As for you not knowing the rationale for a specific task you get, I think you should try to find out from him when you discuss. Face to face conversation is very valuable because it's easier for him to make himself understood. It's also easier for you to get your information if you are nice and polite.