Why are many obviously pointless papers published, or worse studied? In the field I specialize in (I'm currently a moderator of crypto-SE), I see many obviously pointless papers published, often in publications where that costs money. I imagine that's the same in many fields. Why are such papers published, or worse, studied?
Example: there are tens of thousand papers on image encryption, including thousands at MDPI, which has Article Processing Charges. Yet, the subject is almost¹ enough to tell the work is pointless: once digitized, and especially after it's compressed (as almost all images are today), image is data that can be encrypted just like anything else. The International Association on Cryptographic Research correspondingly publishes no paper on image encryption in its peer-reviewed publications; many of the papers about image encryption it references are refutations, and they do not go further than its non-reviewed preprint server.
Worse, I regularly see evidence that students at least think they have no choice but study a pointless paper riddled with errors. In this recent example, the paper attempts to apply an (unstated) Elliptic Curve signature scheme to inter-vehicles communications, but examination shows that the authors failed to find parameters for a usable Elliptic Curve. The paper cites 36 references on the same vein, many comparably poor. The OP ended up writing (in chat) "unfortunately I have no other choice but to study this paper", and I could not determine for sure if it was designated to them as a reference, or was just a poor choice.

Addition: what about the hypothesis that some subfields like digitized image encryption are abandoned as obviously not worth attention by actual reviewers, and flourish precisely for that reason? This particular subfield is remarkable in that it has developed standard patterns for the many articles, and some bogus measures of the efficiency of the encryption. To see what I mean, sample the papers this query returns (at least these all are officially free to read, if not to publish).

¹ I admit we must check that the image is encrypted and decrypted by a computer, and that the sole objective is encryption (rather than e.g. hiding data into an image, that is steganography, or Thumbnail-Preserving Encryption). Examination shows that most articles returned by that query are only about encrypting a digitized image, and many of the others are seriously defective.

Some poorly-run institutions pay people to publish papers.  The pay is not based on the quality of the papers, only the number and possibly other useless information like the indexing of the paper.
Some poorly-run institutions require students to publish papers to get degrees, but the quality of the papers is not adequately assessed.
Some people do not realise their papers are pointless.
Some of the papers that are pointless in your opinion are not pointless to other people.

There are also many good papers.


Assistant Prof. doing a post-doc or MSc at the same time I have a PhD and am a junior Assistant professor in tenure track. I had a chance to do a post-doc at an ivy league school, but accepted the tenure offer from a more teaching and less research school. I want to advance my career, and I believe part of the reason I couldn't get into a research school was my PhD university which is well known but not in US.
I am thinking of doing a part time post-doc or getting an MSc in an ivy league school to help me advance my career (Machine learning/Data science field). Publication in my field take a lot of time and by the time that I have made an established publication stream I will not be as young and ambitious as I am now.
How awkward is it if an assistant prof does part time post-doc on summers (when not in contract) or even during the year?

This is a bad idea. Regardless of the "prestige" of your current institution, you have a PhD and are appointed as an assistant professor. Therefore, doing a post-doc or MS will not advance your career but represent a confusing step backwards in your CV.
Why not instead contact the ivy league lab that offered you the post-doc and inquire about simple collaboration? You get to still help with the research and get out (hopefully) top-tier publications, they get to save the salary since they're not employing you. If things go well, maybe there could be joint grants in the future where your summer salary could be covered, or possibly including buying out some of your teaching load to have more protected research time.
I don't have direct experience, but I have some colleagues at teaching-intensive universities, and if you can involve your undergrads in your research and are able to put out high quality papers in respectable journals, the university will likely be willing to go out of their way to facilitate you and you could be on the fast track to early tenure.


Should I retake GRE given my situation about university deadlines? I recently took GRE and got a score of 310 (Q164 V146 AWA3.5). I think i can really improve this score because i made a lot of silly mistakes in quant which i realised after the test. I want to apply for MS in CS at USC for which Jan 15th is the final deadline. I have 2 options:1) take the test on Jan 2nd  and send the scores to USC. Not sure whether the scores will reach them on time. 2) Take the test on Jan 10th  and miss the USC deadline. However, this will get me a better shot at other universities.

What do you think i should do?

I don't have any strong opinion about which date is better for you.

I also don't mean to be unkind, but you should first address why it is that you make "silly mistakes". Your question here is full of them.

But I imagine that one cause might simply be that you rush through things without taking the necessary care. The solution is to slow down a bit and consider what you write or answer before reacting.

If someone is brilliant but sloppy they may have less of a future than someone else who is competent but methodical.

But, apologies. I'm not trying to be mean or insulting.


How do I reference something I've referred to, but not directly quoted. Or do I? I'm writing a report and I've used a website for some of my research. I haven't directly quoted anything from the website but you can tell that's where I got my information from if you know what I mean.

I'm required to use APA 6th referencing.

The answer to the question, "should I reference X?", is almost always yes.  It is proper to reference sources used in your research even if you don't use direct quotes and regardless of referencing style.


change of study plans within ABET accreditation Currently, I am working in a CS program that has decided to follow the ABET accreditation. The problem is that we are about to implement a new study plan for the next year, which is more suited to the outcomes that ABET asks for an accreditation in CS, because the current one has some drawbacks. The question that I have is which study plan should we present to ABET, the current one and state that the new one should be enclosed into our continuous improvement plan? What about the graduates that we have with the old study plan, should we assess them or wait until we have graduates with the new study plan?
Any help?

The best answer that can be given here, as JeffE suggests, is to ask ABET. I have had good a good experience with getting clarity regarding questions that are specific to my program's situation.


Getting a coder to perform triangulation I am a PhD student currently working on a qualitative study. I have analysed my data and few reviewers have advised me to get another coder to code my data.

My data include video recording of about 40 hours. So analyzing those data would take minimum 80 hours in my experience.

Currently I am finding it difficult to find another person who can dedicate that time for coding my data. What are the common ways that PhD students follow to get coders to code their data?

Your reviewers are right! Having multiple coders is a best practice for this type of work. You could try to recruit:

Other PhD students (trades are best - I will code for you if you code for me).

Masters students in your same lab (may offer trade, co-authorship if they want to help with paper more generally, or payment)

Masters students you have taught (usually would offer payment)

Advanced undergrads who you train extensively (would likely offer payment)

To find these people, you could try to send an email on your department listserv. Additionally, many professional societies have listservs and you might be able to find other PhD students that way. You could also use social media to tap your network.


Is it appropriate to bring to an editor's attention non-ethical publishing that can't be directly proven? The situation concerns ephemeral facts, that can't be proven to an department outsider.
The sole two authors of an accepted paper have virtually no contribution to the result, but both hold prominent positions of authority within the department and are on top of that have close family ties with each other.

The main theoretical research was done by two computer scientists and the experimental setup & execution by a whole team of software engineers. Both groups are routinely engaged in R&D, but are affiliated with a company, that is owned by the two authors.

These affiliations are nowhere stated in the accepted version of the paper. And there is no chance that anyone will publicly come forward for fear of retribution. So, there is literally no physical evidence.

However, I feel that the conditions warrant that the editor of the journal that accepted the paper be made aware of the circumstances.

I stand to gain nothing from either accepting or retracting the paper, nor am I employed by said company, but I am affiliated with the department and feel that such behavior corrupts out department and science as a whole.

So the question is whether it is appropriate to write an email to the editor stating the above and additional information?

Contacting the editors may not have an effect at all. They simply cannot tell whether your accusations are facts or are just made up.

If you really want to do something about this, you should rather write to their institute or university and inform them about the suspected scientific misconduct. They often have specialists nowadays who will try to resolve such issues. Be prepared to be asked for proof.

Please note, that it might be completely valid to only have these two authors: authorship is not automatically gained by implementation work but rather by significant contribution to the paper. Please check which criteria must be fulfilled in your institute or field to become an author of a paper.


Can I live off post-docs? I'm currently a theoretical/mathematical physics PhD student in Brazil. I still have little more than a year until my PhD finishes, and as far as tradition goes, it's soon time to look for a post-doc position somewhere.

Brazil has recently suffered a coup d'état, with its legitimate president being replaced by a puppet. One of his most significant measures was to reduce science funding to almost zero, guaranteeing the best Brazilian researches would leave the country. In the end, staying here is unfeasible for a scientist, which means I'll be applying to Europe. I am also an European citizen, which means I can stay there for as long as I want.

Now, I'm also a very active climber. Climbing pretty much shapes my life in almost every sense. I love travelling and I'm used to spending almost nothing so that I can climb as much as possible. I was talking to a friend today about a plan of going for as many post-doc positions in Europe as I can, preferably near places I can climb, and keep my routine of climbing & doing physics - that is, I want to avoid dealing with the mess a fixed position comes with: classes, bureaucracy, etc. In the end he said that this plan would not work after the third or fourth post-doc: I would become too expensive to hire due to accumulated degrees, and people would only find hiring me advantageous if I were extremely good. The point is that he himself went for 5 post-docs, and I know people who went even further. They quit because were offered a fixed position and took it... But can I live like that "forever"?

It will be very difficult to do so. Several European countries have rules about how long someone can be employed in "government" positions without a permanent contract. For instance, in Germany, if you do not have a unbefristete (permanent) contract after a given time, you are required to leave university employment. Other countries almost certainly have similar rules, as mentioned in the comments.

Now, there are positions above the postdoc level where one can remain indefinitely. For instance, in Germany, there are positions like the Akademischer Rat or Oberingenieur or außerplanmäßige Professor, who act in a secondary role supporting the head of an institute. Such positions involve substantially more administrative work than a postdoc normally encounters, but are also not subject to the time limitations. In other countries, such as the US, you can have "soft-money" positions that go by titles such as "research assistant professor" that are not formal tenure-track positions, and are dependent on the supervising faculty and the RAP raising sufficient funds to "pay for itself." I know multiple people who have had careers in such positions.


How does one balance between working on a research problem and writing up the results? I currently have two months before I have to submit my master's thesis (its a one-year program in the UK) and just finished data collection. Analysing the data is a time consuming process and I'm starting to worry that I don't have too much time to write my dissertation. Will it be better to prioritize the analysis (and actually get some reportable results) or to get cracking on the writing once and for all (since our final grade would ultimately be based on that)? I feel like an even split between the two would be best but its hard trying to find the right balance. Both require very different mindsets. When writing I need to be in a quiet place where I can slowly churn out words and read (or skim) papers I come across. Analysing data happens in a noisy lab where distractions are everywhere but ultimately work gets done at the end of the day.

At this stage, should I just focus on getting the analysis done with (which could take weeks since its highly exploratory in nature) or should I try to somehow come up with a strategy to accomplish both?

Do everything you can to reduce the exploratory nature of the data analysis.

Plan exactly what results you are going to need for your manuscript, what the tables will be, what the figures will be, how they will be formatted. Then when you get to the data analysis, you can be extremely focused, concentrating only on what's essential for your work.


Where to Address Issues With Bad Class Formats A little background info: So I'm in my second year of studies at a state university in the town I live in. I'm specifically going to school for computer science. As I said, I'm in my second year, but I've been programming since I was 14 and was recently accepted into a research group (not trying to brag, this will be relevant...).

The school I attend uses the flipped class format for its computer science courses. Every computer science course I've taken has used this format and in all cases the classes have been terrible. In my first year, it really didn't stand out to me as much since these were intro classes, and as a result were really easy for me. But this past semester, I'm taking two classes, one that's almost entirely new for me (Logic and Algorithms), and one that's new in places, but I was really looking forward to (Operating Systems and Networks).

In the logic class, there is no material except a terrible interactive ebook; I understand very little, and one of my friends said the same until he went and found materials from another university that actually explained well. In the OS class, the only material are pre-recorded lectures (which are very high level, whereas the tests and exercises are much more in depth). The only way I've been able to understand the OS class is by buying a text book (which is labeled as optional). Even though I love computer science and do well at it, because of these flipped classes, I'm doing the worst gradewise in these two. For perspective, I'm also taking Linear Algebra, and I'm very close to an A in this course; math has always been one of my worst subjects, and this class is taught in a traditional format.

I have friends and know people in these and other comp sci courses, and we've all been saying the same things (some of which brought it up before I even mentioned it). I have one friend of similar skill level in basically the same situation, and another completely new to computer science whose taking the first introductory course (which states that it assumes you are entering it without prior knowledge), and she says nothing makes sense from this course because the material (and lack thereof) is so bad. On top of that, me and many of my friends commute an hour one way to school (and some of us work part time jobs, myself included), and its really frustrating to basically drive an hour to do homework on material that doesn't make sense during a period that could be spent explaining it. Flipped classes really do net out to more time spent than traditional classes.

I apologize if this comes across as a rant, but I really would like to know if this is worth addressing, and with whom. I feel like it will be like talking to a wall, but I would like to at least say something. I feel bad because I have such a terrible attitude toward my studies at this point because I'm so frustrated. Course evaluations came out last week, and I absolutely ripped these classes, but I would like to maybe send a letter to someone or something.

TL;DR: you could write a letter to your program director. However, success may be elusive, since the situation may be constrained by forces outside of the control of you and your lecturers.

It is worth addressing. The official course evaluations are the appropriate place for this, so you have taken the right approach. However, depending on the situation at your university, it may be the case that nothing you can do will make an impact on the situation. This is because the situation may be forced upon the lecturers through circumstances beyond their and your control.

Consider the following example. I am the responsible lecturer for a data mining course at my university. Teaching is 30% of my job, with 50% dedicated to research and 20% to project management. I am teaching this course in the traditional format, which I would prefer to keep doing. Last year, 134 students followed my course, and I survived (with positive student evaluations). This year, 312 students showed up, and I am barely hanging on (with student evaluations pending). Purely trying to keep up with the barrage of student questions in my inbox is eating up all my time. If I keep the course format the way it was, there will be absolute zero time for me to fulfill the non-teaching 70% of my responsibilities.

At my university, I am forced to write a formal reply to the outcome of the official student course evaluation, explaining how I will address the comments in next year's edition of the course. Hence, these evaluations matter at least a little. However, if I decide to refer to videolectures instead of ever teaching a plenary lecture again, the following will happen. My student evaluation grade will go down. The extra time I free up by eschewing lecture preparation, I will dedicate to writing another grant proposal. If the proposal gets the funding I request, I will get tenure. If I don't get that funding but my student evaluation grade remains high, I might get tenure. My situation simply does not provide me with any incentives to keep students satisfied; in fact, if I were to keep students satisfied, I actively reduce my tenure probability.

If your lecturers have mixed responsibilities like I have, it may be the case that their job parameters are set up such that student evaluations are not relevant enough to them. If not, then your success still depends on what value your university attaches to course evaluations. No success is guaranteed.

So what can you do?

definitely keep filling out those course evaluations. This builds up to a paper trail of things being wrong in your programme at large, rather than being a problem of individual courses;
ensure that you get the education you desire. If the course doesn't provide you with the education, you should use your time at university to get it yourself. Form a study group with your friends, acquire the books or other materials to teach yourself the subject. It is of course far from ideal to have to do this yourself, but if your university does not develop your skill set, you can still develop your skill set. Acquiring this optional text book you talk about, for instance, is a good move;
if you have a set of coherent complaints, showing consistent shortcomings across multiple courses and lecturers, and these complaints are shared between a substantial number of students, bring the complaints to your program director, as a group. The program director should address problems with your program as a whole, that span beyond a single course.


How to reference to a statement that itself is referenced by a paper other than original paper? When I read a statement in a paper that is itself derived from another paper, how should I reference it when I use it in my own article? Should I reference the original article or the second article, or both?

You should read the original article and afterwards cite it. Don't omit the "read"-step since the secondary source might have introduced an error.

BTW: You should read all the related posts, e.g. How to reference studies mentioned in a paper without having to read the original papers?


TVöD pay scale for 1st year PhD in Bayern In my contract, it says salary is according to "TVöD level 13". Can anyone tell me which table belongs to this category from all the tables in öffentlicher-dienst.info. There are many TVöD tables and I don't know which one is mine.

My tax class is 1 and working hours is full time and position is in Bayern.

Thanks for the help in advance!!

Here is the table.

You have to look at row E13, which is the standard monthly pay for PhD students with a full position in Germany. The first column is for the first year, then you advance to the second column at the beginning of the second year, and to the third column at the beginning of the fourth year.

Those are values before taxes. Clicking on the number leads you to an online calculator that estimates the value after taxes.

This amount is paid 12.5 times a year: one salary per month plus an additional half salary in November as Christmas money (Weihnachtsgeld/Sonderzahlung).

The above is valid for doctoral students with full positions, which are common in engineering. It is common in many other fields to have partial positions (50% or 65% of a position). In this case, the contract will specify a reduced number of hours per week (20.05 or 26.65 instead of 40.1 hours per week in Bayern) and the corresponding percentage will be applied to the salary before taxes. The percentage after taxes will be higher due to a reduced tax rate: there are online calculators such as this one that estimate this value.


Does being an older PhD applicant for U.S. universities mean there is less chance to be accepted with funding? I have heard this idea many times.

So, is there any truth to it?

Does an older applicant, say, 10 years older than the typical undergraduate, with equally impressive qualifications, get accepted to PhD positions in American universities without funding?

If so, what is the reasoning behind this decision?

If this idea has some truth to it, wouldn't it be age discrimination?

In my experience as a grad program director, there is zero truth to this rumor. Funding decisions have nothing to do with the applicant's age. Nor is having worked outside of academia for years a disadvantage -- we often look very favorably at students who bring with them substantial life experience beyond a college education.


University's motivation for having tenure-track positions Suppose I used to hold a tenure-track math position at a R1 institution, but then I was denied tenure. Assume I do not care about job security (and never cared) and I would be more than happy to keep working under the same conditions and would work just as hard as I worked before tenure denial. The question is: what are the reasons why the department would not be happy to keep me (under the same conditions)?

Some hypotheses:

Me working at the department is beneficial for the department at any given point of time. If this is true, then they should be OK with me remaining in my present position.
Accepting someone for tenure-track is a calculated risk the department takes (because it can not judge purely from the post-doc record whether one is going to be a great researcher or not). Now that my tenure-track is over, they have figured out that I am not good enough and it is beneficial for them to kick me out.
For an average person, the possibility of tenure is a strong motivator. It is beneficial for the department to have someone who has been promised tenure at any given point of time but it is not beneficial once the person knows they won't be given tenure. I am just a weirdo who happens not to care.

In most jobs in industry, new employees go through a probationary period during which they can be let go (fired) for poor performance without the protections and benefits that more experienced employees might get.  If a new employee isn't working out, then they'll be let go during this probationary period.

In higher education in the US, the (customarily at most 7 years long) tenure track is an extremely long probationary period tied with policies that (in the name of academic freedom) give tenured faculty very strong protection against being fired or laid off.

When a tenure-track professor is denied tenure, the university has decided that they're not doing well enough in the job to justify a lifetime commitment from the institution.  There are significant costs associated with recruiting a replacement, as well as significant consequences for the morale of other junior faculty,  so these decisions aren't made lightly.

Allowing a tenure track faculty member to continue as non-tenured faculty member after you've denied them tenure has problems.  In addition to lowering the morale of other tenured and tenure-track faculty, it runs afoul of the guidelines for tenure promulgated by the American Association of Union Professors (AAUP) that say that tenure must be granted after seven years of service.

It should be noted that the tenure system is in a significant decline in the US.  More and more, teaching and research work is being done by people in non-tenure-track positions and the number of tenured faculty is declining.


Is copying standard definitions from e.g. ICD without quotes considered verbatim plagiarism In  textbooks published by my faculty staff members, Authors often include definitions from WHO or ICD using passive speech (... is defined as ...)

Is this legal?
Is copying these standard definitions without quotation marks considered as
verbatim plagiarism ?

Definitions straddle a line between things that clearly require attribution and things that are "common knowledge" and do not require attribution.  For example, if I write on my own that:

  influenza is a viral disease of the respiratory system that causes fever, aches, and other symptoms

then I need not attribute any source, because this is common knowledge.  On the other hand, if I copy verbatim the Merriam-Webster definition:

  a common illness that is caused by a virus and that causes fever, weakness, severe aches and pains, and breathing problems

then even though it's almost identical, I need to attribute the source because they aren't my own words.  For such simple and widely accepted information, that attribution might not need a formal reference or even quotes, e.g.,

  The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines influenza as a common illness that is caused by a virus and that causes fever, weakness, severe aches and pains, and breathing problems.

Quotes would be better, but the attribution is still clear, so it's a minor problem at worst.

Now, how does this apply to the situations that you have described?

First and foremost, if the definitions are being taken from standard references, the link to standard references is valuable for students to know, so from a pedagogical point of view they should be included even if it weren't strictly necessary.
If a large number of definitions are being presented specifically as the professor's own work, when they are not, then it is clearly a case of plagiarism (albeit a particularly banal and pointless one).
If, on the other hand, they are being presented more generally as "information about the subject", then it is more of a grey area.  They should be attributed, but informal material like course notes is often treated quite sloppily in practice, and it is likely to be perceived as a shortcoming to be corrected rather than a serious issue of plagiarism.


Do I need research experience to be admitted to a highly ranked mathematical physics master's? I am a third year student doing my bachelors in both physics and mathematics at a German university. Since I am really interested in theoretical physics and mathematics I am thinking about doing a masters degree in mathematical physics. I am very interested in Mathematical Quantum Mechanics and, even though I haven't had courses in it yet, in QFT and General Relativity.

I'm thinking about applying for Part III of the Mathematical Tripos in Cambridge. It's probably quite hard for a German student to get accepted in Cambridge, isn't it? So my question is:

Do I need research experience, papers or something like that? At German universities we don't really do research or write papers in the bachelor studies of theoretical physics or mathematics (apart from the bachelor thesis itself).

Having research experience will certainly help your application to an elite program.  However, it is definitely not a necessity.  Moreover, the graduate faculty at top institutions are used to fielding applications from all over the globe; they should be reasonably familiar with what kind of preparation students from Germany will typically have.

However, if you are serious about pursuing graduate studies, only applying to a small number of top programs is not usually a good approach.  The top programs frequently need to reject a significant number of totally qualified applicants, simply because their space is limited.  I would suggest that you apply more broadly if you want to ensure that you can get into a top program.


Job search advice for possible PhD dropout I am considering dropping out of my PhD program, which I am halfway through (pre-proposal), and am applying to full-time jobs. My plan is to go on a leave-of-absence for a year, and afterwards either return and finish my PhD, or quit my program permanently. Even if I finish my PhD, I plan to leave academia, most likely for finance. I'm applying primarily to quantitative analyst positions to give myself a better idea of whether I want this as a long-term career. And, if I get a job and still enjoy it after a year, I plan to formalize my PhD dropout status.

I have a solid publication record in a very relevant area, so my research skill is an important part of how I'm selling myself. But I don't know how to discuss my current situation in my cover letters and interviews. The honest answer is a combination of burnout, personal/family circumstances, and cynicism over my research. But is saying this unprofessional? Also, should I leave out all discussion of my situation in my cover letters, and just wait for interviewers bring it up?

Way too many personal details may look unprofessional. You might try something like

  I was not satisfied with my progress in academia, and I do not want to lose any
  more time by trying. I believe I can fully utilize my productivity and develop myself better in the industry, by the help of financial means.

This is both honest, motivational, and looks less pretextish.
Not everyone will care about what you lived in your personal life.


Lack of available reviews on scientific papers It is common practice in computer science to have papers peer-reviewed, however this is often not made public and after the paper has been published it is hard to find ANY reviews on the paper. There will always be mistakes in scientific papers and if someone points out the flaws in a simple manner in a review it could save everyone a great deal of time. Some things are of course too complex or subjective, to be put into a single paragraph, but there are plenty of things that can be pointed out.

My question is why are there no reviews included on sites like ACM or IEEE? Papers sometimes have thousands of citations, but not a single comment or review has been linked. Or are there simply no reviews and comments available? Does the conversation and discussion take place somewhere else?

Usually the issues pointed out in a review have been corrected by the time the manuscript has been published, so old reviews wouldn't really be relevant to the online version.

Critiques of published articles are sometimes prepared, if one thinks the issue is significant enough; they're usually published as "Comments" or "Responses" to the article in question. However, since they're normally also peer-reviewed, they won't simply be appended to the article, but instead have their own independent status.

As for the reason why more articles don't have reviews and commentary associated with them—it takes a lot of time to do so, and that's time that can be used to make progress in one's own research. And there isn't much incentive right now for such efforts.


How to email professor with group concerns about class? I'm currently taking a 20-25 person graduate-level course in Computer Science. It's about 60/40 theory/implementation, which means the discussions in class tend to be a bit more abstract that the typical undergraduate course.

I've recently talked with a few of the other students in the class, and we've all noted that it's become particularly difficult to ask questions in class for three reasons:

The professor moves very quickly and jumps back and forth between slides.  (We're less concerned about this - it's a pain to follow, but that's grad school, and we're all willing to learn outside of class if necessary.)
There's a core group of about 5 students who sit at the front of the classroom and are constantly asking questions.  Normally, none of us would mind this - however, they tend to interrupt the professor and talk loudly over other students (especially international ones).
When someone other than these 5 students does ask a question, those same 5 students usually interrupt the professor and try to answer it themselves - frequently in a way that we feel is more confusing than if the professor himself was to try and answer it.

We have nothing against this professor or these students - they're interested in the field, which we understand - but with midterms approaching we're concerned that our understanding of the material is less than we would like.

I'd like to email the professor and bring up these concerns - I had planned on doing so anyway, but then the other students asked me to do so too because (1) I'm not international and (2) I'm (for lack of a better word) loud when needed.

What I'm not sure is how I should email him.  Should it be an anonymous email from one of my dummy accounts?  Should it be a group email in which I cc the other students? Should I mention names or not? I'd appreciate some guidance on how to do this such that it will be best received.

I think e-mailing him essentially what you wrote here is fine. You are respectful and understanding of everyone involved, and have legitimate concerns. I think an e-mail would be very likely to get a favorable response.

I think it is fine to e-mail from your institutional account, but if you prefer anonymity I think it is also fine to sign up for a Gmail or Yahoo account or something and e-mail from that.

Probably best not to mention names.


How can I find out whether I am permitted to re-use an online questionnaire in my own research? So, I get this page's link: User Interface Usability Evaluation with Web-Based Questionnaires from my friend. I want to make one of them as Questionnaire for the design I made for Academic Research. But I'm confused, is that only an example, a guideline, or can I use the Questionnaire as it is? Is there any license for those questionnaire? I've tried to read the page, but don't really know if there's something like that.

The script doesn't seem to have a license but says, "question.cgi is a free script for administering user interface usability questionnaires on the web." In other places on the page you linked to, the authors encourage reuse. If you are unsure or unclear, you can contact the authors.


I've been rejected from every research program/professor I've applied to for summer. What do I do? I'm a sophomore biology major. I'd like to be in a research lab, but am willing to do anything related to my major: interning for environmental consulting, working for the state epa, etc. The issue is EVERYTHING I've applied to and every professor I've emailed has rejected/ignored me. I'm staring down a long, empty, lonely summer at the same minimum wage job I had last year. I'm panicked and depressed at the prospect. Please help. What do I do? Is it too late to find something?

Edited to add: I have 2 weeks until I'm done with this semester and summer starts

How are you writing your emails? Make a list of your interests and match it to professors and their area of research. Be clear when you email them as in:

Introduce yourself succinctly and explain what your technical/major related background is, what your interests are (ideally match this with the lab). Perhaps related classwork/projects would fit here.
Read up the research the professor/lab has done, even if you don't understand everything. Mention specifically what papers/projects interested you in the email.
Ask to have a conversation with the professor, i.e "I'd like to learn more about x and the lab's work in y, would you have time to meet to discuss this blah blah".

Overall, keep the email short but make sure each sentence has a purpose. You might not always get a response, or maybe they won't have space and only have time for a conversation. But hey, you at least made a connection and can always try another professor after. Maybe stagger your emails from your first pick to second etc, and you could title it as something related to 'interested in undergrad research blah blah'.

Worst comes to worst, be specific about the classes that you take in an upcoming semester. Pick professors whose labs you want to work in and work hard, go to office hours etc. I can't see you failing in that scenario. Depending on your major, perhaps you could also work on a personal project during the summer and be able to showcase the project/skill in the upcoming school semester.

Lastly to add I'm not a professor, but I maybe wouldn't hire/accept a summer-only student unless  they already had some skills. Its just a fact that when you're earlier in your major, it takes longer for you to get up to speed and running. Something that could take you a week will take someone a day maybe. Professors know that and are willing to invest in the student, but you in turn should be willing to return that investment, and show that you are willing to work during the year etc


Possible for ABD (all but dissertation) to return? Can an ABD (all but dissertation) return to the university to redo the dissertation? If yes, how do they proceed?

ABD isn't usually thought of as a final status. Most people don't leave their university ABD. Most people spend a couple of years in the program, having passed quals, taken all the classes, and proposed a topic working on their dissertations. At this point, they are colloquially considered "All But Dissertation" because that describes what they've done so far not an official status. Every university will have a policy about what happens if you leave while ABD, and most will have some mechanism for coming back in reasonable time (not decades later) and finishing. Ask your advisor and graduate school or coordinator.


How to cite the content of a zip file? How would you cite the content of an archive file?

Inside this zipfile (141MB, if you care to download), there is a notes-file (in the split directory) which contains some useful information. It belongs to several papers, yet this information is a detail I have not found in the papers.

I previously asked at tex.stackexchange, where @Johannes_B recommended to better ask here. Google for citation archive etc. did not yield results. Or should it just be left alone and not cited?

As @earthling said

  If you are unsure, cite it to be safe.

This relates to How should I cite presentation slides?, yet unlike that question, this data is publicly available and meant to be accessed.

Looks like what you are actually citing is the software (which happens to be zipped), not the zip file itself. Obviously, how to do this this depends on what citation style you are using.

The according to the APA style blog,

  Use an individual’s name in the reference if he or she has proprietary rights to the program. In all other cases, create a
  reference as you would for unauthored works.
  After the title, in brackets, provide a descriptor for the item. This helps the reader immensely.
  If the software is available online, provide the URL rather than the publisher name and location

While the MLA Style Guide says

  To cite software, use the following form:

  Epi Info [computer program]. Version 3.2. Atlanta, GA: Centers for
  Disease Control and Prevention; 2004.
  Intercooled STATA (for
  Windows) [computer program]. Version 7.0. College Station, TX:
  StataCorp; 2000.

  Software need not be cited in the reference list if it is mentioned
  only in passing or is available without charge via the Internet (eg,
  shareware or freeware).

Whichever citation style you are using should likewise have guidance posted for how to cite software.

Edited to add:

Similarly, you should be able to find citation information in your chosen citation style for "citing datasets". Some examples are given At the MSU library site as well as other library sites. The APA, for instance (according to the above link) gives

  Unpublished raw data from study, untitled work

  Basic form:  Author, F. N. (Year). [Description of study topic].
  Unpublished raw data.

  Example: Smith, J.A. (2006). [Personnel survey]. Unpublished raw data.

Further edited for second follow-up question:

The University of Oregon Library website gives some general guidelines for citing any sort of data source:

  Citation Elements

  To be most effective, a data citation should include at least the
  following elements. The utility of these elements will depend on the
  research discipline, source data center/repository, and data format.

  Responsible party (i.e., study PI, sample collector, government agency)
  Name of table, map, or dataset with any applicable unique IDs
  Name of data center, repository, and/or publication
  Analysis software, if required
  Date accessed
  URL and/or DOI/DOI link or other persistent link


Good practices for skipping chapters when reading Assuming I am reading a textbook/paper or any kind of rich material and then there is a point where I feel that the chapter I am reading is unnecessary or insignificant (I can get back to it later if I am wrong) or at times unmotivated or boring, what are good practices to skip such chapters?

(Assume Math/Engineering books)

How do you make sure that the content you skipped doesn't get in the way of the subsequent chapters? (i.e. Skipping does not carry any drawbacks)

I'm usually backtracking, i.e., I try to read a subsequent chapter, then I usually discover that there are some definitions/concepts that I do not understand, so I go backwards to look these up, and, once I've understood these notions I can resume the reading of the subsequent chapter.


What to do when a referee asks for changes I am not willing to make? I have submitted a paper later that was reviewed by four reviewers. I submitted my revisions to all reviewers. Three accepted the review, while the last is still asking for modifications.

The problem is that the reviewer is asking to measure the performance of our work using performance metrics that were never taken into consideration before in the literature (and our problem is well studied - at 30 references !) ..

These performance metrics would require a complete Master Thesis.

Is it fair to judge a paper based on performance metrics that were not taken into consideration by the authors at the first hand ? (noting that none of the previous work considered these metrics) ..

I hate to say it, but the reviewer seems to be reading a paper about my problem for the first time ever, and some of the reviewer comments are contradicting.

Note: I am sorry if this have been asked before. I could not find any thing related.

In your question, there is no mention of an editor for the journal to which you have submitted your work. If you disagree with one or more of the reviewers, there is nothing remarkable about that; it is common, a review is an educated opinion about your work, supposedly based on facts. Normally you would provide an account for how you have met the comments (as you seem to have done) and in the cases where you disagree, you provide an account based on facts and reasoning why you think your way is better than that of the reviewer. It should then be up to the editor, not the reviewer, to decide whether your revisions make the manuscript acceptable or not. In some cases the editor will request a second round of reviews, this is normal, particularly if the revisions have been so substantial that the manuscript is quite different from the original.

This is what I see as a relatively typical way for a review process to take place.


Why do top universities prefer candidates with work experience for their MBA programmes? Most top univerities in the world prefer candidates with work experience for their MBA programmes.Why so?

It is always better to do an MBA when you have some practical knowledge of how an organization works. If a fresh graduate joins an MBA course, she might understand the theoretical aspects, but might not be able to relate the knowledge to real life situations. A person who has worked for sometime will definitely be able to understand the workings of an organization better and will be able to connect theoretical concepts to the way an actual organization functions. Possibly, that is the reason why most top B-schools prefer candidates with work experience.


Special character from an arXiv paper title displayed incorrectly in Google Scholar Recently I uploaded a paper to arxiv.org, the title contains the letter (α), I wrote it in latex form $\alpha$ in the website, it recognize it and it is displayed correctly, but when the paper is indexed in Google scholar, it appears as $\alpha$ in the title, any idea how can I fix this?

arxiv Link

Google Scholar Link

I suspect that Google Scholar is getting the page title from the metadata of the arXiv page, which has the following title metadata (look at the HTML page source in your browser to see it):

  [1509.00976] In-Band $\alpha$-Duplex Scheme for Cellular Networks: A Stochastic Geometry Approach

The good news is, you can edit how your own papers appear in Google Scholar.

Create a Google Scholar account if you don't already have one. Then sign in to your account.
Click on "My Library."
Then click on the paper in question, click on "Edit," make your changes, and hit "Save."


At what point do you remove undergrad / graduate awards and honors from your CV? Like most academics, my CV gradually gets longer, as each year I add new information.  Rarely do I go through and remove information that seems no longer relevant.
I realized today that my CV still contains lists of academic awards that I earned as an undergraduate and graduate student.  It seems unlikely to me that anybody still cares about those awards at this point, and frankly it feels silly to still be listing awards I won 20 years ago (or more).  Is it time to delete those?  Or should I preserve them, since they are, after all, part of my record?

tl;dr: Does anybody care, in 2021, that I was a Marshall Scholar in 1994?  At what point in one's career is it appropriate to remove undergraduate and graduate awards and honors from one's CV?

I will never remove my IMO medal from my CV, and that is a high school award.
Even if you are extremely successful later in your academic career, you probably want to keep awards for the signaling to prospective PhD students, if you think the award correlates positively with academic ability.
If you think the award in question is unrelated to your academic success, you should maybe remove it, and vice versa: if it's something prominent and you remove it from your CV, you signal it is not important to you.


How can I apply a Computer Science degree towards a career in a research-related position of another field? I'm not interested in becoming an academic.  Rather, I'm interested in opportunities for a Computer Science (or related) major to work in research, either in industry, but also particularly in academia, and particularly in fields where CS skills/knowledge could be applied to social sciences (or cognitive science). This includes anywhere from simply being a programmer that happens to work in a research setting to doing actual dirty work with computational modeling that may even require some domain knowledge of the topic at hand.

My problem is that I don't really know what sorts of opportunities exist out there and how to get to those opportunities.  I'm not opposed to getting a graduate (master's) degree in a specific field, getting research experience, and developing broad expertise around a subject area.  In fact, that could be great.

However, I get the impression that in academia, you center your research around highly specific areas and that becomes your life.  To be honest, there is not one highly specific area of interest that I have (at least not yet) where I would be passionate enough to dedicate and invest such a huge portion of my life towards studying and researching, not to mention I don't want to tie myself down to any specific subject nor the poor job market of academia (sucks, I know).

I'm more interested in breadth and the ability to work on interesting projects.  Part of the reason I went into Computer Science was because of how applicable it was to many fields.  While I find Computer Science and programming to be incredibly engaging, my heart truly lies in the study of people, and it would be a dream to merge the two worlds together.  In some sense, you could say I would love to work in academia without becoming a full-out-academic, by leveraging my background into another field.  But I would like to make it a viable career path.

A random list of subjects/areas/words to capture my interests: cognitive science, computational models of narratives/belief/reasoning, agent-based modeling, complex systems, social network analysis, human computer interaction.

I know a field like bioinformatics or computational biology is pretty huge, and I've often read about ways to enter those fields (e.g. be a CS person who enters from the outside and picks up the biology knowledge as they go along, or someone who has done biology research their whole career and is now learning and picking up CS/programming skills to assist their research).  I'm interested in opportunities to be more of the former, for the reasons I have outlined above.  Though I would say, the more I can wet my feet into the domain area, the more preferable.

What paths can I take?  What are some emerging fields?  What jobs exist and in what numbers?  How can I get there?

I merely skimmed through your post, but from the title already I find the answer to be straightforward and very interesting. As a CS student and having done plenty of research, I feel that CS is a great field but other fields are equally interesting. CS will allow you to inject yourself into more or less anything you like. The simplest example is simulation, even though physicists and other specialists are usually hired to automate all the formulas and programmers merely implement, you could easily have those specialists show you everything you apply and have them explain it to you. Then you just go on to simulate something else and pick up knowledge from another field.
Even more obscure and theoretical things can use CS, a simple example is artificial speech, combine it with AI and you could get into interesting concepts. However simulation also could apply, with some more difficulty, to sociology.
I find that game programming is a field that allows one to get into anything he likes, loop up the term serious games, they are games that are made for training professionals and are often used by the army or corporations. Try some out and see what skills are needed from non computer related specialists to get an idea.
As for getting masters degrees and such, you can go for many different ones that combine sciences, creating a chain between them. You do not necessarily need to specialize, if you invest serious time and effort you could prove to the world that you specialize in just applying CS to anything.
About Job opportunities, often it is helpful to create your own, you can find people interested in a specific area that are willing to help you out and start up your own project, this will help in more than one ways, first is that you might actually get something good out of it and eventually make a living from the project, second is you get hands-on experience which goes straight to the CV and proving you are serious about this, and third is that this may well attract academics and professionals to call you in for collaboration.
I personally have more or less the same problem, I am mostly into CS, am aiming for game development, but I am immensely fascinated by economics, forensics, chemistry, engines, history, even shipbuilding, so I have started making my own games. It has payed off very fast, I get to become a microsoft student partner in October while I have had a proposition from a professional to collaborate - even though on a small project.
Finally, you can fill in your spare time with online courses, I picked up forensic science on Coursera, from the university of Singapore, it takes little time, I've learned many things from different fields and it shows you're more into learning tons of stuff than just getting something satisfying and then lying around. A master of course is worth a thousand of these as the rest of the community here told me, but it's fast, fun, effective, and it's worth something.
Hope I helped, sorry for the length of the text, felt that it was necessary to cover your questions and show as much as possible of the immense flexibility imaginative people have with CS. Cheers.


Incorporating results of supervised student theses in own thesis During my PhD thesis, I supervised the creation of Bachelor's and Master's theses. The official supervisor was always my own PhD supervisor (since I am officially not yet allowed to do university-level teaching on my own), but in practice I did almost all of the supervision. Topic and technical approach were usually my ideas (and related to my own thesis topic) and I coached students closely during implementation, analysis and writing. These were research-level theses, so the students simply lacked prior knowledge and experience to come up with really useful conceptual contributions.

I am now in the process of writing up my own thesis. What is the correct way to incorporate these results - which have already been written about in student theses but not yet published - in my own thesis? Essentially, all of the relevant technical details were proposed by me, so I really don't feel like it would be fraudulent to include these in my thesis. However, I must, of course, give credit to the students. Would it be fine if I simply add an acknowledgement in the corresponding section of my thesis and cite the student's thesis? I for sure don't want to be accused of plagiarism in the future for doing this.

I'm in an engineering field at a German university, if that matters.

Be explicit.

Write very carefully what ideas were yours, which experiments were yours and which were not.

So for exapmle:

  I observed the results of the experiment, from which I hypothesised that X might be true. Fooing that bars would reveal if this was true. Ms Jane Undergrad fooed 8 bars, revealing an expessed of buzzed widgets in some conditions (Figure Y). In a parrallel approach, 8 nature wotisits were collected and the nozzle lengths measured (experiment conducted by Mr. Bob PGT Masters). I analysed this data using the SuperWiz alogrithm and concluded that the hypothesis was true.


Becoming a referee if authoring mostly in large collaborations As we all know, in the average academic field a researcher who authored relevant papers in a field, may be asked to serve as journal referee. Relevance is typically judged by his contribution to the field - the number and quality of his/her papers (h-index) as metric for expertise, and direct submission to that journal as a metric of understanding publication dynamics and relevance for the journal.

But how does this work in large collaborations (hundreds or more) where authors are listed alphabetically, every author sign all papers (making h-index useless) and the paper submission is not performed by the key author(s) but rather handed over to a committee?

Being asked to be a reviewer means that people think your scientific opinion is likely to be valuable.

Authoring papers in an area is only one of several ways to be noticed in this way (and, in my experience, not the best way). Other ways of being noticed include:

letting people in your professional network know that you are interested in reviewing papers
asking your supervisors to delegate sub-reviews to you
participating in conferences and workshops
organizing scientific events
giving seminars or other talks

In most areas, there is always a need for more prompt, thorough, and constructive reviewers. Thus, if you are at an appropriate point in your career to begin reviewing (e.g., at least a senior graduate student or postdoc), then people who know you will likely be interested to start delegating work to you as soon as you express interest, and performing a few good reviews will start more and more people looking your way to provide input, as your reputation spreads through the network.


Is joining a lab that publishes infrequently, but in high impact factor venues, bad for academic career? I am accepted into the PhD program at my local university. My interests match the interests of many labs there. The lab that I am interested in has hard working people but do not publish often because they are focused on high impact articles only.

Will my career ambitions be better served by declining this offer to try to matriculate at a more prestigious program with more productive labs? Even if that risks me not matriculating into any program?

You can evaluate the likely impact of the lab on your career prospects by looking at where the alumni of the lab have gone in their careers, and comparing it with where the alumni of other labs have gone.

Really, though, you should choose the lab which best combines people that you will enjoy working with and a subject that you will enjoy working on, in the ratio of those two that most fits your social preferences. No matter what else, your career will be best promoted in an environment where it will be cultivated by good peers, good supervision, and work that you are actually interested in.


Should I self-impose a word limit for a journal article abstract The author guidelines for the Journal of Computational Physics do not specify a word limit for the abstract, saying only that it should be 'brief'.  But should I impose a word limit myself?  I have heard that some indexing services can truncate overly-long abstracts, though I've not come across evidence that this is this case.

Yes, you should limit yourself because the goal of the abstract is to be short.
Now, where to put the limit?

A good idea would be to look at recently published articles in this journal and note their length.


Uploading online all Data used in thesis? For my Ph.D work I used large volume of data which can not be put into my thesis. So, I am planning to put all this data online, so that other could download freely and cross check my work. It would also help future scholars to do the same work conveniently in future. Providing data online used for research is not commonly practiced in my country. I just want to know is it right(also sensible) to do the same? Won't it lead to any complication in future?

Can you also please tell me what is being practiced in other countries like USA and UK regarding data?

[Note : all data is downloaded from free sources so does not involve any copyright issue]

In general I think this is a good idea, but it might depend on your area. This way others can verify your method and compare it to yours. At least this is how it is used in for example Computer Vision and Machine Learning.

Some examples:

Online image database (University of Edinburgh
Different data sets of the University of Texas
Computer Vision test images (Carnegie Mellon University)
Microsoft Research Image understanding

Some theses with a dataset published:

Doug Downey's PhD thesis
Soo Ling Lims' PhD thesis
Toine Borgers' PhD thesis

Professor S. Rüger from the Open University UK, wrote in How to write a good PhD thesis and survive the viva (for a PhD in the computing subject):

  Some value in a PhD thesis is drawn from careful
  experimental design. It is best practice to only change one parameter at a time; to use datasets that are publicly available or at least make datasets available; to describe experiments in a way so that they are reproducible; and, particularly in Computing, to set up experiments in
  an automated batch fashion.

You however have to make sure that you are allowed to (re)publish the data on your web without violating any copyrights (even if it can be downloaded for free), otherwise you can just link to the external data set.

Edit: also see this question about Publicly Available Datasets.


Safely negotiate a salary for a PhD offer - Germany I have recently received an offer from a group which pursues topics I find very motivating and whose equipment is above average for my field.

The salary offered is 50% of the German TV-L E13 salary, which I think is acceptable by academic standards. However, all other offers which I have received are 65% of TV-L E13, though all of these other groups pursue topics which to me are slightly less interesting. To give you a bit of background, 50% has been the standard for a long time, but since a couple of years ago most groups in my field are deciding to award their PhD employees 65%.

I am very motivated by my particular interests, and had the salary been equal for all offers I would have taken this one without question. Sadly, the situation being as it is, I am quite split. Additionally, the professor made it quite clear that I would also have to get involved in teaching (not all other groups were as forward about this) - which I do not mind in the slightest, but which I think would give cause for extra consideration when calculating a salary. Regarding the professor's interest, he seemed very keen to have me on board, but also very confident I would take his offer.

I would like to ask whether he could accommodate for 65%. But, since I am yet to decide, I would not like to lose the offer or put great strain on our future relationship if he refused.

The way I see it, academic culture treats monetary interest with a certain disdain, and I would like to ask you how I could best formulate my request.

FEEDBACK: I have followed the advice offered here, and stated in an email to my prospective PI that I had received better paid offers, and that I would ask him if he could increase the pay, though I am aware of how difficult this could be for him. He took some time to reply (which initially gave me cause to worry), but apparently now he managed to arrange for 65%. I would encourage any of you to follow the advice presented here; and do try to negotiate as long as you do it very respectfully!

One of the mods here is a professor in a german university, I think he is able to add a better answer or at least confirm or discard mine.

Some considerations:

As far as I know, many german PhD students, at least in CS, are actually employed full-time, which I assume means 100% TVL-E. In that sense, both 50% and 65% seem somewhat on the low side to me. At the very least, negotiating for 65% does not seem so unreasonable that it should offend anybody.
However, don't be too disappointed if your negotiations go nowhere. I have heard from multiple people that academic salaries are oftentimes entirely unnegotiable in Germany (though not always)
German PhD student salaries are internationally quite on the high side (also if you take costs of living into account), so even if you cannot negotiate, 50% might still be ok compared internationally. That being said, the question is always if the salary is enough for your standard of living / circumstances. If you have a partner and two kids, maybe 50% simply does not allow you to live. If you are alone and live in a dorm, maybe 50% is plenty.
In germany, some amount of teaching is usually part of the job. That the one professor told you this before is a good thing. However, there is teaching and there is teaching. I have certainly seen groups where teaching load could add up to about 75% of a PhD student's work time. This is obviously terrible (independent of money issues). The hard part is figuring out whether this is the case in your specific group. The best way is to ask one of the current PhD students.
Don't be too afraid that you may annoy your future professor. In my experience, the entire "academics frown upon money issues" is a bit of a show. The same professors who says such things at the same time have no quarrels at all negotiating their own contracts or department budgets. If your future professors gets annoyed by you mentioning that you have a number of better offers, you should likely go somewhere else anyway.

Now, for the actual negotiation, I would follow moriary's remark from the comment - simply mention (friendly and non-threatingly) that you are torn on accepting the offer, as you have counter-offers at 65%. As said, nobody should get annoyed by that. We are all adults, right?


Should I include "visiting" in my visiting assistant professor, or just call myself assistant professor? I have a visiting assistant professor (VAP) position, and that is how I list myself on academic sites like ResearchGate and LinkedIn. I have on more than one occasion, however, seen that people in VAPs will list themselves only as "assistant professor," in things like email signatures or on websites.

Is this acceptable? Because of course if that is acceptable or expected to some degree, I would probably do the same to make myself look better at surface level. My first impression is honestly just that it is just upselling for the sake of students and other correspondents though, and my guess is that it would make a bad impression to do so and have search committees seeing that on a website or whatever after they get your CV with the VAP in an application.

Is this a wrong impression or should I update all my online statuses?

[Edit: just to clarify, I was not asking for permission to lie about my status. I have never altered my title nor really planned to, but given what I observed I felt it was still a question that could be clarified. As you might expect, the observations I was talking about come from junior faculty colleagues at my institution, so I was unsure of the typicality of such behavior.]

I agree with you.  People expect websites, email signatures, etc, to have accurate job titles, and there is a major qualitative difference between "Visiting Assistant Professor" and "Assistant Professor".  Dropping the "Visiting" unintentionally is careless, and intentionally dropping it to "upsell" (i.e. mislead) is unethical.

(You might as well say, as long as you're dropping words, why not just make yourself a full "Professor"?)


Follow-up project on a paper in submission I submitted to a journal a fairly novel psychology theory in the form of a manuscript that our research group put together. I am the first author and did most of the research. The paper is currently with a journal. I see the first reviewer has returned his report. We are waiting for reviewer two.

My next follow-up project would be to create a type of questionnaire to measure the theory. My key question: Should I start working on such a project before receiving comments from the peer reviewers on my initial project/submission? Couldn't the peer reviewers/editor ask for major revisions which would affect my questionnaire?

My PI has continuously been asking me for the project status but I've been telling him: I'm waiting to first hear back for comments from the "main psychology theory" before building a questionnaire. Is this the correct way of doing things in academia - my approach?

I think you should never delay your projects based on unsure events. The referee report may take a long time, and you'll have wasted precious time. Also, it's unlikely that a referee will change your mind about your own work. You probably know what the questionaire should look like by now.


How to find a job without recommendation letters? I am currently almost homeless and without job. Can someone please help me in right direction of finding an academic or non-academic job? Minimum salary will be acceptable.

I hold a PhD in mathematics. I am 43 years old and I am from middle east but citizen of a European country (Germany). I have been away from academia for 4 years (mostly to take care of parents) and I can not get any recommendation letter.

I can teach and have experience in teaching most mathematical topics up to PhD.

I have been applying for many teaching jobs around the world with no luck. With no recommendation letter my applications don't go through.

I also have a few unfinished research projects.

Edit: addendum in response to Buffy's answer.

  If you are just four years past finishing your doctorate it isn't too late to re-connect with your previous professors, and maybe your advisor. If you wait much longer it will be, however.

In fact I got my phd before I was 30. So it was, relatively, a long time ago. Contact with my previous professors isn't a possibility.

  Another thing, not very palatable, is to get some low-level position in a decent university where you can do more than is required by the job.

I have tried applying to many "low-level" positions but recommendation letter is a real obstruction.

  Further down the list of suitable options is to look at good secondary institutions, rather than universities. There are many of them that find people with doctorates to be very desirable. The job is mostly teaching, and mostly introductory subjects, but it can pay the bills.

Secondary institution as a high school? I am trying to find a position in a high school too but a "license or teaching certificate" is needed in most cases and in my situation it takes time and money to get that.

  get connected to a research group so as to get some papers into publication. Initially they might be joint papers, of course.

I have a few publications which I guess are relatively good. I try to publish preprints too. But it is getting hard because I will be out of money very soon.

What surprises me is that when I look at my cv it doesn't look extremely bad but still I have got not even one interview or any offer. And asking people in the subject to write recommendation letter has not been successful.

I was hoping maybe someone with similar situation who managed to solve his/her problem can help me by sharing a bit of his/her experience.

The situation is difficult so the solution may also be difficult. I can offer only a few suggestions.

If you are just four years past finishing your doctorate it isn't too late to re-connect with your previous professors, and maybe your advisor. If you wait much longer it will be, however. The best way is to visit your old institution in person and spend a couple of days talking to people and reminding them of who you are. You can also talk to them about research ideas - theirs and yours. But you can also let them know why you have been away and that you'd like to get back into academia. If you were once well regarded then you still are, but they need a reminder. Such a visit might be the best "vacation" you've ever had.

Another thing, not very palatable, is to get some low-level position in a decent university where you can do more than is required by the job. If you can let the tenured faculty know of your skills and interest, maybe you can be given interesting tasks that will lead, after a while, to good letters of recommendation. It may not be possible to work up from a low level position to a better one at that university, but you may be able to leverage it for a position somewhere else.

Further down the list of suitable options is to look at good secondary institutions, rather than universities. There are many of them that find people with doctorates to be very desirable. The job is mostly teaching, and mostly introductory subjects, but it can pay the bills. If the place is also located close to a good university, you can make yourself known there and try to get connected to a research group so as to get some papers into publication. Initially they might be joint papers, of course.

But don't let your age be a deterrent. You will get older no matter what you do. Many people don't start their career until your age, in fact. But take a long view into following whatever opportunities present themselves, always with a view to a higher level position.


When is asking for an update on PhD admission status appropriate (given international flight prices) I am a US student who has applied to physics PhD programs while aboard on a Fulbright Scholarship in the Netherlands.

Based on the dates of open houses last year, I will be heading back to the US for the week of March 14-21 to attend graduate open houses.

Physics PhD programs allot roughly 500 dollars per admitted student for travel expenses for them to attend the open house. This was totally sufficient last year when I attended open houses as I was in the US.

Hypothetically, if I get into Brandeis on February 20th, buying a plane ticket to Boston from Amsterdam 3 weeks in advance would be doable — roughly $350.

However, hypothetically even if I got into USC later today, a plane ticket to Los Angeles would still mean money out of my pocket.

If I submitted my applications to December 15th deadline programs around December 5th-10th, is reaching out for an update around February 1st too pushy?

The general rule for you is that you can ask. It would be good to explain in any request that you need to arrange international travel and that finances are an issue.

But the general rule for the university is that they may be very constrained in what they can tell you. There may be rules or agreements about deadlines and about giving out information early, even if it is available. So, you may not get much of an answer and it would be very unlikely to get an early decision.

Graduate open houses are useful, but perhaps not necessary in every case. Make reasonable plans but stay flexible and expect that things can change. Money out of pocket probably isn't your most important consideration.


How to list co-first authors and co-second authors? I am aware that, on a CV, when listing publications that have co-authors, they are usually denoted using "*" symbol, but what if there are two sets of co-authors? For instance, there 3 co-first authors and 3 co-second authors. In that case, which symbol do I apply to first co authors and which symbol for the 2nd co-authors?

I don't have space to write this out in worse, I can only list it, so I want a clean way to do this.

Like @FuzzyLeapFrog writes in a comment, you could use any symbol in your CV as long as you explain it, e.g. in a footnote. There is no clear standard as far as I know. Personally I'd use a parenthetical remark to point out that I'm a co-first author, but you say there's no space. In that case, I'd just use whatever symbols are commonly used in papers to denote affiliations or co-authorship in your field. Often this means typographical symbols called daggers that are used to denote footnotes after the asterisk has been used. The order tends to be

Asterisk: *
Dagger (or obelisk): †
Double dagger (or diesis): ‡

In case you really want to go overboard with it, Wikipedia has a few suggestions for a fourth symbol, but there is no real convention for what the fourth symbol should be. Also note that the dagger symbol is sometimes used to indicate that the author passed away, so you may need to take some care with that in some contexts.


When Applying for Postdocs Should GPA be on your CV? Lets assume your GPA is very high, say 3.95 or higher, at both your undergrad and graduate school institutions. I have always included it while applying to summer research programs and internships while still in my PhD program. But this is probably inappropriate on the postdoc market right?

Perhaps this question is somewhat subjective, but, after checking out some other questions on this exchange, I didn't think it was overly subjective.

Mark Meckes's answer only considers academic postdoctoral positions. In such cases, he is correct: undergraduate and graduate GPA's do not matter.

If you are applying for non-academic postdocs, however, the situation is very different. At large research centers—particularly those managed by corporations, such as essentially the entire US Department of Energy laboratory system—hiring is done by corporate employees, and must be approved by several layers of management. Several of the national laboratories even have strict GPA cutoffs for their employees, regardless of the length of time they've been working post-graduation!

Consequently, if you're applying for positions only in academia, then there's no need to include GPA. However, for anything outside of an academic setting, it can actually help to do so.


Adjunct offered and accepted a Full-time 1-year contract, then told to "disregard" by HR staff I am having some trouble getting a straight answer from my school. At the start of Fall I was offered a 1-year Full-time (FT) Temporary position by appointment letter approved by the school President. I previously have been an adjunct and a FT Temporary by appointment letter at my school. I accepted and noted a date-of-service error which was quickly corrected and a second President-approved letter was issued and I accepted. I was in the middle of interviewing at 2 other schools but like it here better so life is good! My payroll system updates to the higher pay and all my other online indications change to the new appointment.
Not so fast — when I mention the appointment to my Dean I quickly then get an  email from an HR staffer telling me to "disregard" the appointment letter. My payroll status reverts back to a job from a year ago  since my Summer adjunct contract had completed. I ask what happened and get the runaround. I have not received any formal cancellation or rescission of my appointment letter — when asked HR tells me they have no process to do so.
With Fall ready to start I ask if I am going to get an adjunct contract since I am slated to teach a Physics class in a few days — and I don't get one until the end of the first week — I told my Dean I was very uncomfortable teaching without contract but I did not want to cancel class and penalize the students.
I corresponded with the Director of HR with multiple questions and with my Union — the Union President met with the Director of HR and arranged a Zoom meeting with the Outlook meeting invitation (from Director HR!) stating

This meeting has been scheduled to discuss contract processes and answer requestors questions regarding issuance of contracts.

and asked for supporting documents which I provided. I also asked for an agenda and was told again

This meeting is for you and [name] to discuss your specific situation and the questions you submitted regarding contract processes.     You submitted questions, and they are meeting with you to answer them as well as address any concerns you may have beyond the questions you submitted..

And when I got there I was told that no questions would be answered, only later in a letter. When I stated this was not the stated intent, I was further told both: we have answered your questions,
AND [strangely] we won't be answering every single question. When I challenged that and said "I feel like I was fooled or tricked into the background for having this meeting" I was told that I offended them.  I took very detailed notes and transcribed them that night and had them reviewed by another attendee for accuracy.
I then received a 20-page letter 10 days later from Director, HR that stated "on behalf of the College" we have answered all your questions and closing the conversation with HR:

As you consider this information, please address any further questions about the appointment letters or adjunct contracts you received with your Dean, [name of Dean].

It further stated that my Academic Division was where the appointment letters (twice!) originated. When I communicated with my Dean I was told that the Dean has asked HR to amend the letter since the appointment letters did not originate in the Division.
So I think I am stuck between the two. The Union is thinking about it — what do you think I should do?
I went from a full-time gig to 1 class so my pay is down by about 2/3 — I was able to get another job at another school nearby for a quarter to tide me over. I feel bullied, discounted and ignored.

You're receiving the runaround because someone at your university breached a signed contract. Since the payroll system updated, that means that the contract was processed, so it can't simply be taken back or invalidated because HR sends a "Disregard" notice.
It sounds to me like the Dean didn't want you to make additional money, so somehow convinced HR to send you the "Disregard" notice and draw out the process.
Or if not the Dean, someone in the hierarchy decided you were making too much and decided to cancel the deal, thinking that you do not have the time, money, and energy to pursue legal remedies.
The "Disregard" notice is meaningless as a matter of policy & law unless it's specifically authorized by other university documents, so what happened to you is probably a violation of law, although only the Union & an attorney (or the Union's legal counsel, if one exists) can determine that.
Universities treat people in your situation like this all the time because they--like so many employers--wager that they'll get away with it. They don't treat tenured faculty members this way (or, at least, not tenured faculty members who put up a fight).
So, the harsh truth is that you may have little recourse beyond what you've already pursued.
Good on you, however, for fighting that fight.
As someone else mentioned, you may not want to work there anymore unless the university makes this situation right.
Otherwise, you'll simply be treated as an exploitable, disposable employee whom they'll shortchange any time it suits them.


How Credible Is An LOR Without A Letterhead for MS in CS? I am currently applying for masters in CS. My undergraduate main project, which was later made into an IEEE publication, was done under the guidance of an assistant professor, who is currently pursuing her PhD abroad. Being a student at present, she would be unable to obtain a letterhead from her university. With what degree of credibility would such a recommendation without a letterhead be viewed by admissions committees? Also, will the current credentials of my recommender (PhD student) cause the LOR to be reduced in value? My target universities are in the US, Canada and Europe.

I am the Graduate Coordinator for my department (mathematics at the University of Georgia).

In general I absolutely do not care about the letterhead of recommendation letters.  In fact, the electronic system at my institution gives writers the option to fill a(n unlimited in size) box with text, so a lot of our recommendation text does not come in letter format.  Moreover, when I write letters for students, I usually do not trouble to use the university letterhead (having observed hundreds of others doing the same practice).

However, your current writer was an assistant professor and is now a PhD student.  In my experience that is quite irregular, unless the recommender already had a PhD and is now pursuing a PhD in a different academic field.  The status of the letter writer does play a role in how we evaluate the letter, and I think many faculty would devalue a letter for a graduate student that comes from another graduate student.

So I think this is case in which official letterhead would be helpful, if it can be honorably procured and used.  Getting a letter from a former faculty member is not really any worse than getting a letter from a current faculty member -- after all, in many cases they are writing about a former student.  If the letter writer was legitimately an assistant professor at the time they worked with you, then of course they can say that.  They should also mention that they are not currently faculty at that institution and provide a means of being contacted (email should be fine).  I am not completely confident about it, but at the moment it seems to me that the writer does not need to say that they are now a PhD student elsewhere -- it is not directly relevant to the evaluation and may cause the letter to be devalued in a way that is not necessarily fair to the student.

Another possibility is to get the requisite number of letters from "real faculty" and include this letter as an "extra one."  If that is not technically possible with respect to the admissions system, you could arrange for this person to send the letter to the chair of the admissions committee, or you could ask for her to write a letter jointly with a "real faculty member" at your institution.


Is it wise/ethical to take up a TT position with a desire to leave? I'm currently deciding whether to take up a tenure-track faculty position. It's a good position (R1, top-50 department in USNWR ranking), but I'm not very excited about it. In particular, the location is not to my liking. So I would seek to move elsewhere if I took up the position. That is, I would conduct another job search in 2-5 years.

This seems to me to be potentially unwise (as I have been told that it is hard to move between TT positions) and it also seems potentially unethical.

My alternative is to do another postdoc and try the job market again in 2 years or so. That also seems potentially unwise, as I have no idea what the job market will be like then and I may end up with even worse options. I'm also worried that I'll start to look "old" as a candidate, as I'm already 2 years out of my PhD.

I have talked to a few people. They have given me conflicting advice and they are not particularly able to relate to my situation, so I want to ask for some other perspectives.

My specific questions:

1) Is it unethical to take up a TT position with a desire to leave it? I.e. would it upset people when I end up searching for another job.

2) When evaluating TT candidates, does it look better to have 2 more years of postdoc or a few years as an Assistant Professor?

3) In general, is a second job search usually more/less successful than the first one? What factors might determine this?

No, it is not unethical. When you accept a job, in academia or anywhere else, you imply a commitment to do the job in the immediate, short-term future, and nothing more. What that means exactly is somewhat context-dependent, and in academia that minimum period is usually interpreted as one year.

Leaving a tenure-track job after only one year may leave people at your department a bit disappointed and potentially sour your future relations with them a bit, but I have never heard anyone argue that doing so (or even having the intention of doing so) is unethical, and don’t believe a reasonable person would adopt such a position. All the more so with a plan of leaving after 2 years or more; I simply cannot see how this can offend anyone’s moral sensibilities.

As for whether such a plan would be wise: it may or may not be, but your explanation of what’s driving your doubts about this makes me think you are overthinking the matter. It is no harder in general to move from one tenure-track position to another tenure-track position than it is to move from a non-tenure-track position to a tenure-track position. Depending on the precise circumstances, it may be harder, or less hard, or (most typically IMO) would be exactly as hard. Everything depends on how attractive of a job candidate you will be 2-5 years in the future, which is a function of how attractive you are now and what you’ll be doing between now and then. One particular factor that could actual play in your favor is that already having a tenure track position in an R1, top-50 department could give you a stamp of legitimacy that would make other departments of equal or lesser (or even slightly higher) stature more inclined to view you as a strong prospect for hiring.

Finally, another thing to consider is that, while you think you don’t like the location of the place where you have the current offer, your opinion about this might change in the future. People generally tend to overestimate the extent to which they can predict what their future selves will want. Which is another reason the whole ethics question here doesn’t really apply in my opinion - you should reserve your ethics-based doubts to actual actions (which in this case are also okay ethically given what you are considering doing), and not to tenuous intentions that may or may not ever translate into actions.

Good luck!


Do professors in Germany have other payment than their standard salary? I checked the salary scale for a W3 professorship position in Germany. The annual income is about 75K Euro which seems pretty low for someone managing about 20 people. Is there any other payment beside the base salary? For example, some additional payment from DFG/EU projects or for supervising students?

As Dirk writes, W3 only gives the Grundgehalt (base salary), which varies by state. As a public servant, you will automatically get a few hundred EUR on top if you are married and/or have children (Familienzuschlag). Note also that in some states (Bayern, Hessen, Sachsen), your W2 or W3 Grundgehalt will currently increase in two steps after 5/12 or after 7/14 years.

You can supplement the Grundgehalt with various Zulagen. These are pay increases, not one-time bonuses. You can get Zulagen either for a set period (befristete Zulage, i.e., a temporary one), or for the rest of your working life (unbefristete Zulage).

You can negotiate so-called Leistungszulagen (a performance bonus), for instance if you manage to get lots of third-party money, publish a lot, or supervise a lot of dissertations, or similar things. You typically discuss multi-year targets with your dean and/or university president or chancellor.
Some German states (Brandenburg, Bremen, Hamburg) currently give you a non-trivial Grundleistungszulage without any preconditions.
You may get Funktionszulagen if you hold particular offices, like being the dean or managing a larger group, or managing a specific institution or institute.
If you get an offer from a different university, you will start haggling with both the new university and the one you are at. Both usually want you, so both will offer you a Berufungszulage (a "job offer pay increase", at the university that extended the offer), or a Bleibezulage (a "staying pay increase", at the university that tries to keep you). In contrast to industry, this kind of haggling is normal. (In industry, if you get an outside offer but stay in exchange for a higher salary, your manager will usually assume that you won't stay much longer.)

As a brand-new professor, you may be able to get a small initial Berufungszulage, but most other Zulagen will only be negotiatable after a few years.

The Deutscher Hochschulverband is a good place to look for additional information. This is basically a union for professors and almost-professors in Germany, and they offer coaching to their members. Very much recommended in your first (and subsequent) salary negotiations - they know what you can reasonably demand and what not. A membership is definitely worth the dues. They also publish the pay scales currently here, in German, although this link will likely rot over time.

In addition, you can get additional money from outside sources:

You can have consulting contracts in industry. You will usually need to clear this with your university, and your outside commitments will likely be capped at 8 hours per week or similar, but this can of course still mean serious money.
If you are a professor at a medical school or a Universitätsklinik, you will be able to see private patients and take home some of their payments, although this has been getting less lucrative in recent years, with the clinic keeping a larger cut from younger professors. You could set up your own practice on the side, but this would again be subject to limitations set by your employer.
As Wrzlprmft notes, you can get a little money out of the Verwertungsgesellschaft Wort, or VG Wort - see some information in English here. It essentially disburses monies as payments for people using your copyrighted works (they get their money from various sources). It's a very German institution. This will usually not be a lot of money, especially if you publish with a lot of coauthors. Here is what Academia.SE knows of VG Wort.
However, if you do publish a book, you will be able to keep any payments from the publisher. This will again usually not be a lot, and it's not specific to Germany.

Finally, note that a professor in Germany is a Beamter (public servant). This means that you pay far less in social security contributions, since you by definition can't lose your job (so no joblessness insurance contributions), and the state will pay your pension (so you don't need to contribute - although saving for your old age is still a good idea). The state also pays for part of your medical bills and those of your dependents (Beihilfe), and since you are a good risk (see above on not losing your job), you will get good deals on remaining health and other insurance policies. Bottom line: out of 75k EUR, you will take home a larger fraction than if you earned the same amount in industry.


I wanted to apply PhD in Clinical Psychology, but my research activities and research interests are a bit different A bit background about myself after finishing my bachelor degree in Psychology from a private university in a developing country. I worked at my family business for a couple of years before realizing that I wanted to become a clinical psychology scientist and part-time practitioner.

Research activities in clinical psychology field in my country is sadly not too active and rigorous compared to other branch of psychology. Most of the lecturers in clincial psychology are much interested to become a practitioner, thus research activities was so low in the clinical psychology field. However, luckily, by the time I became interested in the clinical psychology research, a suicide prevention (SP) organization with quite high research activity was founded and I became a part-time researcher for the organization.

Currently, I am planning to apply for a PhD program in Clinical Psychology in the West (specifically USA or Canada, because UK, Australia, and New Zealand PhD Clinical Psych programs rejects bachelor holders from non-English speaking countries, I cannot speak German or other European native language, so I will not apply there) because the reason mentioned above. However, my biggest problem is that I wanted to do research in marital and sexuality issues, but most of my research experience is heavily related to suicide topics. What should I do?

The good news is recently a lecturer from a different from mine graduated from a PhD Clinical Psychology abroad and she seems to have certain interest in marital issues topics. Should I approach her to gain up experience in conducting research in that topics? However, I am rather difficult position because I have to balance my obligation in my family business and SP organization. Also, she seems to be very busy and she said that it would be rather difficult to accomodate my research project.

I don't know anything about your own educational system and I can't speak for "the West" in general, but in the US you shouldn't have any particular difficulty, other things being equal. In fact, having some research experience in the general psychology area would likely be treated as a plus no matter what the focus.

In the US, it is possible, in general to be accepted into doctoral programs with only an undergraduate education and very little if any research experience. You also don't, in general, need to specify a specialty on entry, but choose one during the first years. Such programs normally have some course work to fill in gaps.

The path, for the US, actually, is to apply to programs that interest  you, or, at least, contact departments at such institutions and discuss your qualifications and interests.

The European system is different, and I'll let other speak about it. But I will guess that the research process isn't vastly different between the experience you have and the degree you seek. That is an important asset. That process can be widely applied and tailored to specific areas.