How can I evaluate the chances of my paper being accepted by a journal? I have been making an integrated approach and its program on modelling the joint distribution of wind speed and direction (https://github.com/cqcn1991/Wind-Speed-Analysis). And I'm trying to publish a paper to get more attention on it.

However, my supervisor is not very familiar with the field I'm in, and I want some realistic and honest feedback on my work and whether it will be accepted by my target submitting papers. And if not, how can I improve my work to increase the chance.

One way I can think of is contacting the authors of papers I cited, and ask their feedback. But most of them are established professors and I'm afraid I can't get too much help in this aspect. Is there any other alternatives? I truly believe I have made something useful, but getting them published is a really tiring process.

However, my supervisor is not very familiar with the field I'm in

This may not necessarily be a bad thing. Having your article read by someone who's an expert in this specific field can give you another valuable point of view.

  One way I can think of is contacting the authors of papers I cited, and ask their feedback. But most of them are established professors and I'm afraid I can't get too much help in this aspect.

Wrong wrong wrong! Many PhD students suspect that established professors will not care about their work, which is a symptom of the impostor syndrome. If you work is relevant and important in the field, they would be delighted to see it. Talking to established professors is an excellent way for experts in the field to read your work and give valuable feedback. If your program really solves a problem they have, they will use, cite it, and promote your own career.

  Is there any other alternatives? I truly believe I have made something
  useful, but getting them published is a really tiring process

Submit the work. If you think it's good enough, go for it. It will go through peer review where it will be assessed by knowledgeable people in the field, providing feedback (both positive and negative). You should have no fear that someone will steal your work because it's already out there on GitHub.

.


What are assistant professors called in North America? We've had discussions on this site about the German tradition of Prof. Dr., but I'm unclear on how it maps over to the North American academy.

My question, therefore, is whether a North American assistant professor (PhD holding, tenure-stream) would be considered a professor, a doctor, a professor doctor, or some other form when registering for an event there.

In North America, one would only mention an academic's rank (assistant professor, associate professor, full professor, etc) in formal contexts where it is important to describe their exact job title (in a CV, business card, news article, etc).

Otherwise, the word "professor" is used generically to refer to any tenure-stream university faculty members, and in some cases also non-tenure-stream.  For example, "Susan Jones is a biology professor at Harvard."  That would still be correct if her rank is assistant professor.  Or: "The conference was attended by 300 professors from across the country."  They need not all have been full professors.

It is also the word used to address any of these people.  ("Professor Jones, I thought your paper was very interesting.")

"Doctor" is also used as a term of address, assuming the faculty member in question holds a doctoral degree.  ("Doctor Jones, please tell me more about your experiment.")  Whether "Professor" or "Doctor" is to be preferred is a matter of local custom which varies from one institution to the next.  But "Doctor" is not used to refer to the job itself.  You would not say "Susan Jones is a biology doctor at Harvard."

In North America, titles are never stacked.  One does not say "Professor Doctor Jones".


Book recommendations for information visualization? When writing papers, one specific problem is how to effectively organize the data we want to present so as to enable the audience and readers to quickly understand what we want to demonstrate.

I've browsed a very good book before which shows you how to draw figures and tables in academic papers in the "right approach" but seems I cannot remember its name.

If anyone has read any good book on this topic, please recommend their names.

The preeminent author on this topic is Edward Tufte, who wrote "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information". He has a few other books also available on his site (see previous link) that are worth checking out.


Am I morally obliged to report what I judge as self-plagiarism? I tried to search in the previous Q/As, but I do not think my case falls in any of the previous entries.

While looking for a certain topic in my field, I found two papers.
The first paper was authored by authors A, B, C, and D and published in some conference proceedings. The second paper was published in a journal in a year after by authors A, E, D, and C. That is, the second paper lost one author and gained a new author.

The two papers report the same research hypotheses, the same data collected, the same data analysis, the same results. That is, the "numbers" in the papers are the same (even the table contents).

The texts differ in a subtle way. The first paper is entitled "Studying topic T in the domain D". The second paper is entitled "Using Measurement Instrument M to measure T in the domain D". The second paper somehow avoids copy/pasting of the paragraphs from the first paper-they rewrote the sentences. It is a little bit longer than the first one. The authors actually spent some more words talking about measurement instrument M, which is taken from another discipline and it takes 3 minutes of Google Scholar searching for learning more about it. There is even a Wikipedia page about the instrument.

I think that this is a case of self-plagiarism. The second paper does not add anything useful to the first one. Additionally, the second paper does not cite the first one. This ringed a bell.

Please note that in my field, conferences are archived and are often considered more important than journals. Regardless of which venues are more important, both papers are formally considered publications.

Now, am I morally obliged to contact the editor of the journal where the second paper was published? This is not precisely a double publication, nor are the authors damaging me nor anybody else. Still, I feel they did something wrong. Should I instead live and let die?

This is an interesting case that you cite. I think it falls somewhere between 'standard behavior' and 'clear misconduct' (though I am sure others will disagree). Some thoughts and facts:

In Computer Science, even though both journals and conf proceedings count as papers, it is common accepted practice to submit extended versions of proceedings papers to journals. Typically, journals expect between 30% and 50% new content for such papers.
Realistically, many journals (especially ones that are not exactly top quality) are not super-strict with what they consider "additional content". Describing only their methodology in more detail, without providing new insights or results, is certainly very little new contribution, but I am not sure if that already qualifies as misconduct.
That one of the original authors was missing in the journal version is curious, but there may be reasons for that. Presumably, something a little shady has happened along the lines, but it is impossible to tell from the outside. One realistic possibility is that first author A has submitted the conf paper while at institution (1), with help from B and C. D was the supervisor and contributed little to nothing at all, but was added due to lab policy. Now, before submitting the journal version, A moved to institution (2), and has replaced lab head D with lab head E.
What strikes me as very, very odd is that the journal paper does not make clear that it is an extension of an earlier conference paper by citing it (and saying so explicitly in the introduction). This is the one thing that I certainly agree has a very bad smell to it. If I receive such a "hidden" journal extension for review, it is an auto-reject for me.

  Now, am I morally obliged to contact the editor of the journal where the second paper was published? This is not precisely a double publication, nor are the authors damaging me nor anybody else. Still, I feel they did something wrong. Should I instead live and let die?

In summary, I would say the entire case certainly does not look good. That being said, I do not think that the case is blatant enough that you need to feel required to report to the journal editor. To be honest, even if you did, I think not much would happen. Likely, it is not a paper that the journal feels overly proud of, but I do not think that the case is bad enough to warrant formally retracting the paper.


Citing another author’s summary of other works in a journal article I want to use the information from this block of text talking about psychoanalysis:

  Some authors (e.g. Allison et al., 2006 and Turkle, 1995) compare the player and avatar's relationship to a transmission field, as roughly defined by psychoanalysis: the avatar is not in exclusive competence of the player, while not being completely separated from them. It lies somewhere near the boarder of external and internal (psychological) reality.

I am unsure how to put it in my paper. Do I still say that the information is from the article I'm reading it from, or would I mention the authors of that information? Something like:

  Lukas Blinka in his article entitled "The relationship of players to their avatars in MMORPGs" compares the relation of a player to their avatar to that of a transmission field...

The relevant style guide is MLA.

What you need to do is write it so that the author of article is clearly identified as the compiler, rather than the originator, of the idea. For example:

  Lukas Blinka notes that some critics have “compared the player and avatar’s relationship to a transmission field” (##).

You would only include Blinka's article in your bibliography. If I cared to know who those critics were, I'd go to his article to find them.


Are there publicly agreed-on standards or definitions of what constitutes peer review? It seems like a very difficult problem to discern whether a "peer-reviewed" journal is reputable. When a journal claims to be peer-reviewed, is there a commonly-agreed-on definition of what this means? Is there a publicly verifiable process to verify whether a journal is peer-reviewed?

This question mentions "vanity press" as a whole class of disreputable journals, and this question mentions Pubmed and Scopus as authorities on what constitutes legitimacy, but I can't find their standards anywhere. Scopus says they vet articles with an "independent review board," but I'm really looking for an answer about what they verify a journal does.

No, there isn't. Different journals/publishers will have different guidelines.

Here're some examples of publicly-published reviewer guidelines:

Wiley
Elsevier
PLOS One

To illustrate the differences, Wiley's guidelines say "What is the main question addressed by the research? Is it relevant and interesting?" (emphasis mine). Meanwhile PLOS One doesn't care about "interesting". To quote a testimonial: "I published with PLOS ONE because I love the idea that acceptance is based on quality of the work, not whether it's trendy or important in the eyes of a few editors."


Contract signing session etiquette for student coaches I am a first time faculty member straight out of grad school and I have been installed as a director for a "learning center". We hire undergraduate and graduate student "coaches" in the learning center to help students who have trouble understanding concepts in physics or math.

Now, I have interviewed students for the "coach" position and I have to have 10 of them sign a contract. How do I do this? I am assuming that I cannot have all of them sit in a circle and sign the contract? Should I ask them to come to my table one at a time and read and sign the contract with them?

I am unsure if this is really a "question" here and please feel free to re-assign it if it isn't.

I agree with earthling's answer and want to add to it.

Since you have ten of them signing the same contract, there is nothing wrong with first explaining the contract to them as a group. Then, they can ask questions and benefit from the questions each of them asks. Tell them that they have until X date and Y time to sign the contract, that they have to sign it in front of you, and that they should feel free to ask you additional questions in private in case they did not want to ask a sensitive question at the group setting.

Since these ten people will be presumably working together at the same job, there is nothing unethical about them all knowing that they have exactly the same contract.


How to figure out if a certain algorithm has already been discovered or not? Suppose that I make a new algorithm to calculate something. How do I know that the exact algorithm has been found or not? I know that I can check scientific journals to figure that out. But surely checking every single journals available is not a feasible way to figure that out, especially since I'll have to read them before I can tell whether they use the same algorithm or not as the title can only tell the general idea of how the calculation is done. Also many journals requires one to subscribe or pay for their service. It'd be ridiculus to pay huge sum of money just to ensure whether my algorithm has been found or not.

So, how do I figure whether a certain algorithm has been found or not?

I'm afraid I have bad news:

Unless you are writing algorithms for entirely new scientific areas, you can safely assume that every algorithm anyone can come up without being familiar with the literature is either (i) already known, or (ii) inferior to already known algorithms. In other words, since you don't seem to be familiar with the literature in your field, I would think that the chances for your algorithm to be new and better are slim. It may of course be new, but inferior to existing methods, in which case it's not useful.

(The reason for this is that people who are familiar with the literature, have been thinking about these issues for a long time, and know about the limitations of the existing methods, are most likely to come up with improvements. It is unlikely that people who are not familiar with an area waltz in, come up with something, and it turns out to be better than what all of the experts have come up with. It probably happens every once in a while, but it's unlikely.)

This doesn't help you find out whether your algorithm has been found so far. But it helps you determine whether it's worthwhile pursuing this further -- which it is likely not. You are probably better off spending your time reading the literature in the field to understand what others have been doing, what the limitations of existing algorithms are, etc.


Some questions about math postdoc offers I am a math PhD student and on the postdoc job market for the first time. I would like to know how job offer (hopefully) comes and what I should keep in mind in accepting the offers. I am interested in the US job market.

The first question is: When do most job offers go around? I am aware of the earliest deadline (most math department agreed with this).
So I think the early offers go around in January and only the best people get an offer in January. I would appreciate it if someone could tell me about your experience.

Is it appropriate to ask about my application after a certain time? I think once one accepts an offer, one cannot decline the offer. So I may want to send inquiry to the school I want to work for before accepting the offer from some other schools.

I also heard of short lists (for assistant professorship). Could anyone explain how short lists work (I have only vague idea of what they are)? And are there short lists for postdoc positions?

Here's a little more detail about timing of math postdocs offers, since that seems to be a particular focus of this question.  What I'll describe applies only to research-oriented postdoctoral positions offered by mathematics departments in the U.S.  Tenure-track jobs and anything teaching-focused are on a somewhat different schedule, and positions outside the U.S. may be totally different.

Everything is synchronized by the AMS common deadline, because most or all of the top candidates (depending on how strict your definition of "top" is) will have accepted offers by then.  In particular, just about every position will have been offered to someone by then, but many of those offers will be turned down.  Most departments will not set an earlier deadline than the AMS deadline, but they nevertheless encourage earlier decisions if possible.  When a position is turned down, a competent department will try to make another offer as quickly as they can.  Who gets the next offer depends not just on relative rankings of candidates, but also on factors such as research specialty and game-theoretic issues such as perceived likelihood of accepting the offer.  Administrative dysfunction may limit how quickly offers can be made, but it's not uncommon for a department to go through several rounds of offers in January.

In practice, it seems to work out more or less as follows:

A few people get offers in December, but this is rather unusual.  You shouldn't worry at all if you have no offers as of January 1.

The people perceived as top candidates generally start to get offers in early January.  If you make it a couple of weeks into January with no offers, then you probably aren't going to end up getting tons of offers, but you shouldn't feel discouraged.  All you need is one offer you're happy with.

As January progresses, more and more offers are made.  Quite a few candidates, but certainly not all, will get an offer in the second half of January.

If you do get an offer, you should immediately do two things.  First, you should withdraw any applications to (or turn down offers from) places you are no longer interested in, so they don't waste time and so you don't tie up offers someone else is waiting for.  It's reasonable to hold onto several offers at once if you genuinely can't decide between them, but you do this only when truly necessary.  Second, you should write to any departments you would prefer to your current offers to let them know about your upcoming deadline.  The competition may increase their interest in you, and in any case they need to know they'll miss their chance at you if they don't move fast enough.

If you haven't yet received an offer, the second half of January is a good time to make inquiries.  You can do this yourself, but it's sometimes better if your advisor looks into it.  (All you can do is express interest, but your advisor can put in a good word for you and try to find out how things are going through back channels.)

As the AMS deadline approaches, there's a flurry of activity.  Many offers are turned down or accepted around then, and departments are eager to get their favorite candidates before they accept another job, so there's a lot of turn-over for offers.

If you make it past the first week in February without an offer, it's a bad sign.  It's certainly not a disaster, and plenty of strong mathematicians have gotten offers later than that.  However, this is the point at which you need to start taking action, with your advisor's help.  You need to figure out which positions are still open, and make sure they are aware that you are still interested.  It's really useful if your advisor can work his/her contacts to help figure out what might still be a possibility and to make sure you don't fall through the cracks.

The more times passes, the more you need to actively search for a job, rather than just waiting to see what happens.  If you hit March, then you're in trouble.  You can still find a job then, but you need to be open to possibilities you weren't originally hoping for.  For example, there are often late job postings for unpredictable openings, such as a temporary replacement for someone on sabbatical or leave.  In March, you should be applying for every new opening you would be willing to take (and you should have a backup plan for what happens if you don't get a job at all, to help you decide where to draw the line).  This is also a good time to review options with your advisor.  Could you delay graduation for a year, or spend the next year as a lecturer?

I don't mean for this to sound discouraging.  It's certainly possible to get a job quite late in the season, and you might even get lucky and find a really good job.  However, I think it's worth having an overview of what the plausible outcomes are at each stage.

TL;DR: If you are hoping for a research-oriented postdoc in math, don't worry until late January, worry somewhat in February, and worry a lot in March (but don't panic).


Informal vs. formal journal acceptance letter I got a letter from a journal editor telling me that they 'would be happy to accept my paper'; the editor asked me to take care of some minor citation issues (I carelessly misspelled one author's last name and I misplaced the publication year of a cited work.) and then upload the final version of the manuscript to the submission system. Although this letter sounds very certain/positive to me. I am still a bit wary and anxious (after all, this is still not a formal acceptance letter). I quickly resubmitted the final version of the paper to the submission system in the same day. It has been two weeks since I heard from the editor and resubmitted the final file. I know that it's impossible to expect a speedy response. But, in my scenario, how long should I wait to write back to the editor and ask for a formal acceptance letter (or is it even okay/appropriate to do this?) At this stage, should I be worried (about any possible hiccups that may stand on the way of getting the paper published)? Thanks very much for your insights and experience sharing.

You shouldn't worry much.  It's extremely unlikely that an informal acceptance will turn into a rejection, although I suppose it is theoretically possible.  In my experience, this is something editors do to get leverage over authors: authors are faster and more diligent about making revisions when acceptance has not yet been guaranteed, even when they know it is almost certain.

I wouldn't worry about the two week delay or get in touch with the editor yet.  For example, if the editor is in the U.S. the Thanksgiving holiday intervened, and the end of the semester is always a busy time.  It's also possible that the editor is checking with a referee (although this may not be necessary for such minor revisions).  It can't hurt to ask whether the revised paper was received, but I'd recommend waiting another week or two.

Incidentally, asking you to add citations sounds a little odd.  Are these from a referee report, and do they look like important references that you missed?  One unethical thing editors are occasionally tempted to do is to pressure authors to add citations to manipulate citation rates.  (For example, adding citations to their journal or their friend's journal.)  That's not necessarily going on here, but if it is then it's an inappropriate use of informal acceptance to get leverage over authors.


Is it right to cite a retracted research article? I was doing literature review and I came across a paper which is in the area of my interest but has been retracted because of duplicating the figures (technical drawings) of other papers.

Can I cite this paper in my literature review?

Also, is it ethical to work on the topic of this retracted paper?

Dissenting View: You Absolutely Can Cite a Retracted Paper
Research is about telling the truth about facts of reality.  You can cite any fact of reality you want if it is relevant to your research; if someone says something, you can report that they said it.  You can cite a published academic paper; you can cite a newspaper article; you can cite a letter; you can cite a Post-It note or a tweet; you can cite that thing your neighbour said to you over the back fence when he got really drunk that time.
Generally researchers cite claims/information from academic papers as a source of authoritative information that has been through the process of peer review.  However, there is certainly no rule that confines academics from citing information from other sources, including sources that have not been through peer review, or have been through it, but have later been retracted.  There are many cases where it might be useful to cite a paper that has been retracted.  There may be cases where you want to cite something from a retracted paper, where the part you are citing is undisputed, and the cause of the retraction had nothing to do with the part you are citing.  There may be cases where you want to cite a claim that has been retracted, but you still think the claim is relevant despite its retraction.  There may even be cases where you want to cite a retracted paper because you want to talk specifically about it having been retracted (e.g., if you are doing research on how often and why academic papers in some field are retracted).
Now, if you cite a retracted paper, it is proper practice to disclose to your reader that it is a retracted paper, and this should be done in your bibliography where you list the citation details, and should probably also be done in your main body text (e.g., Johnson 2011 - retracted).  If you are citing something from the paper that is a reason for the retraction, you should make it clear to your reader that you are citing a claim that has been retracted (and hence has not passed peer review).
The notion that retraction of a paper precludes you from citing it has several obvious absurdities.  First, it would make research on retracted publications extremely awkward, if not impossible.  Secondly, it would implicitly require that other sources of material that have not passed peer-review could also not be cited.  Thirdly, it is tantamount to claiming that writers/editors have the prerogative to preclude you from reporting what they have written.  If a politician says something scandalous, and then says "retracted!" does that mean you're not allowed to report it in your research?


Is it polite to send an email to check if a proposal has been submitted? A few months ago I prepared the proposal for a national postdoctoral fellowship, and I would like to check if it has been successfully submitted (the guest institution had a deadline we -my possible supervisor and I- weren't aware of until it passed). Do you think an email like the one below is a polite (and not overformal) request for news? Thanks.

  Dear Prof. ZZ,

  I just wanted to check whether you had a chance to submit the XX Fellowship proposal we prepared (an internal deadline of the University of YY popped up at the last moment).

Yes, a polite and simple check-in like you write should probably be just fine.


Did I anger my PI by not sending my data/notes after leaving their lab? Last year I was informed by my PI that the lab was too busy to take on undergrad students. I said that I understood and found another lab that I was interested in to join.

However, I had been working on a project for a year before I left, and didn't get around to sending them any data/notes related to my project after I left. The lab members also didn't ask for any data. So, I'm not sure if maybe my project as a undergrad wasn't that important, or if I was unprofessional. Would it be late now, more than a year after I left, to send in data? Did I leave a bad impression?

I was hoping to ask the PI for letters of rec for grad school, but (1) He has new undergrad students now and I haven't spoken with him for a while and (2) I'm not sure if I left a bad impression when leaving the lab.

So first, it seems a little strange that after an entire year of work, they would suddenly be "too busy to take on undergrad students." Of course I am only speculating, but my guess is that they (rightly or wrongly) didn't think your project was going anywhere and decided to cut you loose. This would also explain why they didn't ask for your data or notes, and why they have since hired new undergraduates. If this is the case, this PI would probably not be a good choice when asking for letters of recommendation.

At any rate, to your questions:

  I'm not sure if maybe my project as a undergrad wasn't that important, or if I was unprofessional.

If they wanted your data or notes, they should have asked for them. I assume there was no directive that you failed to follow, such as "upload your results to the portal every week." So no, I don't think it was unprofessional.

Why didn't they ask for your data or notes? Two possible reasons:

In my experience, first-time undergraduate researchers do things literally hundreds of times slower than I can. So, I would likely start from scratch rather than trying to turn the student's product into something useable. Of course, this will vary by field -- I can imagine that some "wet labs" have very time-consuming processes for which undergraduate data would be valuable (if we trust the undergraduate).
Everyone always has more ideas than they have time. If an idea gets consigned to an undergraduate, it's probably not very high-priority. So, it could be that no one is pursuing that idea, or that a new undergraduate will start from scratch on it.

  Would it be late now, more than a year after I left, to send in data?

Personally, I would not offer. As noted above, this is unlikely to be useful; further, it raises the question of "if you thought I needed this, why didn't you provide it a year ago?"

  I was hoping to ask the PI for letters of rec for grad school but I haven't spoken with him for a while and I'm not sure if I left a bad impression when leaving the lab

I wouldn't worry about not having spoken with him in a while -- everyone is busy. And I wouldn't worry about the data/notes situation. But I would think carefully about the circumstances under which you left the lab -- generally, we don't fire students if we think they deserve a very strong recommendation. But of course there are exceptions. You can certainly ask "Would you be able to write a strong recommendation?"


Asking about how to minimize the effect of a not so good thesis due to abandoning by supervisor without even telling in Phd Application Form A bit of background of the problem->

I am a masters 2nd year student( 4 th semester)in mathematics .During my masters degree I self studied 3 books of number theory because I was really interested in learning it and no faculty in my Institute is specialized in it( most people in my Institute are specialized in Applied Mathematics) . I am in an 3rd world country.

I want to do phd in number theory in Europe. So, for my Masters thesis I wrote to one of professors in a top Institute in my country and she said yes.I visited her Institute in January,2020 for 8 days but she abandoned me and didn't even bothered to tell as she didn't replied my e - mails and despite the fact that she gave me a research paper in January to study and after completing it I e-mail her on 20 Feb asking her to tell me which paper to study now/ problem to work and when should I visit her Institute again . I e mailed her on 29 Feb, 7 March, 25 March, 4April.

In between I began studying papers myself and complleted 2 papers while waiting for her reply. In April I realized she would not reply.

  The situation in my country is miraculously better than other countries in terms of Covid 19  and I am sure she is not suffering from it because I also contacted her PhD student and then her PhD student said that she is in campus in her office . Now, I have studied another research paper and now I will study another research paper if time permits.

Also I am 100% sure that she is not suffering from covid as when I asked her Phd student about her she said she was in office. ( it happended in March) .Then I asked her PhD student to give me her contact number the student refused furiously without giving any proper reason and straightly told me i am not her spokesperson or secretary.

  My Question is -> I am filling phd application forms of various Institutes in Europe so in what way I can tell the admission committee that it's not my fault and I have worked hard on project ( as much as I could) . I had  no guidence. How to present this situation in my CV's thesis part so that bad effect of it is minimized. I was hopeful of writing a really good thesis and ready to work hard, had necessary background but all of it has been nullified by that self centered and shameless professor. Clearly, it was not my fault and she could have told me when she decided to change her mind. Can anyone please tell how to write about it in a manner so that chances of my admission are not further hampered.

Three things:

1) Your angle should be that due to local institutional factors such as expertise availability in your sub-specialist field you have had to pursue your strong interest in number theory with intermittent supervision. Therefore the work you submit largely represents your own drive to pursue this sub-specialty and is the product of your own self-discipline and self-taught knowledge without the high level supervisory input afforded to some other students. This is one of the reasons why you are applying to department x, because the expertise aligns with your passion and you do not have access to it at home. You could even consider saying that you would be very interested to receive feedback on your work as well as being considered for the application.

2) You should also seek feedback anyway on your work beforehand if possible. It does not necessarily have to be a professor and does not have to be face to face locally. I don't know if this is the done thing in maths, but perhaps approach an academic (who you know has done similar work) with a specific question based on your work. You might get a positive response and who knows where it will lead.

3) You seem quite upset about whatever was going on. Relax and let it go, because these sorts of behaviours are encountered all the time (and a lot worse actually). Don't take it personally, you just have to find a work-around. It is what it is, let it go and work around it.


How to know one's way around for PhD in Covid times I'm a physics graduate student in Italy, and I'd like to continue my formation with a PhD after my thesis.
I would like to consider the idea of going someplace, but the problem I encountered is I wouldn't know where. By this I mean, even in the field of theoretical physics, and even in the subfield of high energy theoretical physics, there are a ton of different research subjects and different teams researching them, even finding "the right one" among my professors was hard enough. How am I supposed to find one among many universities in many countries?
When I asked some friends who are doing a PhD away how they did it, they simply said "Oh I don't know, talking with professors and other students, listening to coffee-break chats, this kind of things". As you may guess, the past year (and possibly the current too) has lacked this kind of things.
How should one approach this problem in Covid times? Is there an online list of who is doing what in what university? Is it common to ask "what are your researchers doing" in an email?

I'd like to continue my formation with a PhD after my thesis.
You should have told us why. Think over it. Be ready to answer that question. Only go for a PhD if you can tell why. If you find your own answer convincing.
consider the idea of going someplace...
Excellent. Go to some place where research is decently funded, and where corruption is low. An easy measure for corruption is in the faculty's CVs: did they come from outside, or have they been promoted in-house?
even in the subfield of high energy theoretical physics
Don't choose the prefered subfield of some of the brightest minds, except if you are so brilliant that you can reasonably hope to make some difference in that field. Rather be the clever guy in a down-to-earth subfield. There are fascinating research questions everywhere. Lots of engineering is built on wild heuristics that is waiting for solid physical foundations. In condensed-matter physics, given the incredible variety of material structures, there are much more challenging questions than in theoretical HEP, and much less theoretists per question.
How should one approach this problem in Covid times?
Yes, times are hard. But I see there also a little advantage for your remote applications: as these days everybody has to use electronic means of communication, this brings you in one line with local candidates.
Is it common to ask "what are your researchers doing" in an email?
To whom would you write that mail? Wouldn't they get the impression that you haven't done your homework?
Is there an online list of who is doing what
Of course you can start from faculty lists, then proceed to their CVs and publication lists. But as you are not yet decided geographically, it's better you scan recent editions of high-level research journals, and look for work that is really impressing you. Then contact the authors.
in what university?
In many places, universities are second-tier. Don't overlook the well funded national laboratories and other research institutes outside the university system.


Is getting a second masters in a different technical field worthwhile? If a person has a degree in one technical field and sees and opportunity to obtain another from an even higher ranked university in a field that has great synergy with where they are now, is it worth the time and especially money spent? By worth, I mean would having a second masters be a significant benefit for someone working in industry?

That is the general question. In my case I will have an M.E. in Systems Engineering and about 4 years experience programming in an engineering field. I am looking at a Data Science program at a top university, it would be a year and a half and lead to an M.S. The cost of both is considerable, I am unsure that the benefits outweigh the costs.

A Masters degree is fundamentally different than Ph.D.  Whereas a Ph.D. teaches the general skill of scientific investigation (in some context), as Masters degree focuses on acquisition of a particular set of skills and knowledge.  If it is just the skills and knowledge that you want, it is often possible to acquire them elsewhere as well.

The value of enrolling formally for a second Masters degree thus comes from one of several corollary benefits of formal rather than informal study:

You want to make a career shift to an area where a Masters in a particular field is a pre-requisite or of high salary value.
The formal program will allow you to focus more strongly on skill acquisition, either because of the expectations set by classes or because formal enrollment will provide financial benefits (e.g., some employers have degree program benefits).
The program will give you access to resources (e.g., high-end lab equipment, mentoring by professors) that are useful for acquiring the skills and difficult to get access to otherwise.

Whether the cost/benefit tradeoff is worth it in your particular case is something that only you can judge, but these are good metrics to use for analyzing that tradeoff.


What are my prospects to get a Postdoc position with just 1 publication from PhD? I am a PhD in Mechanical Engineering. I have already completed my 5 years, am writing my thesis and will be submitting my thesis in 4 months. I have published 1 paper till now. That was 2 years ago. Till then, I have completed 3 more manuscripts, but my supervisor does not have the time to go through them and approve them. As a result, I have manuscripts around 2 years old waiting to get submitted and published.

My supervisor is great with meetings, guidance and advice, but she is frustrating me with her lethargy in correcting my manuscripts. This has made me very anxious about my future. My work is quite different than what is being published at the moment in my field. So, I think my manuscripts would still find a place in a reputed journal in my area of research. However, I can't be very sure of that until I actually submit the drafts. Also, I can't just go behind her back and submit the manuscripts as I don't want to sour my relationship with her.

I am not able to apply for a postdoc position as I am sure that I won't get any response without having any published works. I will be submitting my thesis by end of June. I will defend this fall. But, I don't know what I will do next.

I have applied to various industry positions and have got rejections. I don't think that I will land any position soon.

My question is, what are my career prospects at the moment? And what would the best course of action for me at the moment?

I am almost 30, been in school for Masters and PhD for the past decade. I am feeling quite hopeless. Ideally, I would like to stay in academia as I love doing research and teaching. But, I find that future dissolving away in uncertainty.

Except for the difficulties in getting your advisor to respond to you, nothing you say seems unusual. Even that is too common, though. But your age, etc. is pretty typical, or at least not far outside the norm.

But I think that if you can unblock the block that you will be in good shape career wise. Your difficulties with industry could be a lot of unrelated things, and you haven't really tested yourself yet in the academic marketplace.

If you want a career in academia, I suggest you start a search, either as a post-doc or a regular position. You have a lot of work-in-progress to point to which is a point in your favor. I wouldn't wait until you get the block cleared and then something submitted and accepted. It will take to long, but, I suspect, not be judged fundamentally differently than work in progress.

The only issue I see is your "out of the mainstream" research interests. You will need to find a way to present that as an advantage, not a disadvantage. As Apple used to say, Think Different.

There is, I think, no reason to do the two things sequentially: advisor, job-search. Work on both in parallel.

On the advisor front, however, you might want to make it more incremental. Rather than "all these papers", focus on getting just one out the door and then repeat as needed.


How to find a list of most influential or cited papers in a given branch of math? INSPIRE has a list of the 100 most highly cited papers during 2015 in the math archive as well as the one for hep-th. The one for math is probably a bit skewed toward physics, since this "archive" probably means that of INSPIRE, which is known for physics rather than math. Either way, what I'm interested to see are similar lists for each mathematical branch (e.g. math-ag) rather than math as a whole. I've found an old list for math-ph only, but it seems that that's all from INSPIRE. I suppose this sort of data is useful for the situation of the following kind. Let's say my area of interest is far from probability, yet I'm interested in a list of the recent hot papers in probability for fun. Mathoverflow may be useful for learning about hot papers, but it's time-consuming for my purpose, since I want a rather extensive list for each of many branches of math. Elsevier's journal such as Advanes in Mathematics have most downloaded/cited lists, but this is just for each journal of Elsevier only, which is quite limited.

If you are after highly cited work, MathSciNet has such a functionality under the tab  Citations:

You can search highly cited work e.g. by subject or by year but note that citations come in slowly into MathSciNet, so data from a year ago may not say too much yet.


Why do university campuses have glass blowing services? I noticed that my university has a glass blowing service in the same building as the chemistry precinct, supposedly to make the glassware for the chemistry labs. At first I thought this was kind of quirky and I chortled to myself, "man, the chemistry students must break a lot of beakers."

Later I toured a campus overseas and noticed that they too had a glass blower. A quick Google search showed that many institutions have similar facilities. Most of them sell their services too. It seems to be more academically-focused than I first thought; it would be incorrect to equate it with the janitorial service or the on-campus bakery, presumably.

Why glass blowing and not another craft? I'm curious as to what separates glass blowing from other crafts and manual arts that warrants it a dedicated department in an academic facility.

If you make enough use of them, it's cheaper and more efficient to use in-house services. That's why most universities will also have a mechanical workshop, to make one-off items mostly for the physics and engineering departments.

Everything is streamlined: the glassblower is an employee, not a business owner. He can spend more of his time on his products, thus his services are cheaper. The University will also make some profit from selling their services.
It makes things easier for the academic staff, and there's less bother with accounts or purchase orders. For routine jobs (if these things aren't outsourced), just visit the workshop and ask for another 1L boiling flask.
The academic staff know that he will always do a good job: a low turn-over rate means the glassblower(s) develop a strong rapport with their frequent customers, and have a good understanding of their needs. If more jobs are outsourced, this personal touch can be easily lost.

Of course, it seems these days that ordinary items are usually outsourced -- a big factory is more cost effective. It's for the one-off custom items that it still makes a lot of sense to keep things in-house.


What does 0/3, 1/3, 1/4, 1/11, etc. mean in the context of assigned reviews in a journal management system? I have submitted a paper in a mathematical journal 04 months ago. A part of the online system of this journal is showed in the following figure.

I see that, after 01 month, status of "Assigned reviews completed" is "0/3". Next, after 02 moths it is "1/3", after 3 months it is "1/10" and now is "1/11".

What are this means? What should I do in this case? A letter to editor for a inquiry or no?

Thank you for your comments.

My intuitive guess is that it's the number of reviewers who have completed their reviews / been invited to review. The journal invited 3 reviewers in the first month. Two months later, one reviewer finished the review, but the other two either didn't accept the invitation (more likely) or didn't submit a review. The journal's policy is to have at least two reviews per paper, so they invited more reviewers, to the current count of 11.

If this guess is correct, then there's nothing to do except wait. You can also write to the publisher asking what the number means - it can cause no harm.


How PhD classes are different from undergraduate? PhD program is new in our department, and first experience of the faculty members and department head.

Our PhD classes are exactly like undergraduate classes: monologue lecture, strict attendance rule, no discussion, etc.

We are PhD students, and we have not experienced PhD classes before, but our expectation was something different. When we complain, the department replies this is the standard method around the world.

How can we gather some information/evidence that how is a standard PhD class to convince the department?
How the PhD class are actually different from undergraduate courses?

Graduate-level classes are not necessarily any different than undergraduate classes, just more intense and more specialized.  Some graduate-level classes are just exactly the way that you describe.  Others have more of a "seminar" format, in which there is more reading and discussion, and in which students are expected to do part of the teaching---but at many institutions, there are also undergraduate classes like this.

The real heart of a Ph.D. program, however, is not the classes, but the research that students are involved with and should ultimately learn to initiate themselves.  Typically, Ph.D. programs start with a couple of years of intense classes, but then, once students have "qualified" (often by passing an oral or written examination), then classes become largely optional and you are expected to focus on research instead.


In a limbo stage in PhD. How to get out of it? I am in the fourth year of my PhD and I am due to complete in four years. My advisor wants 5 journal papers. I have:

One published article.
Two articles under review with two different journals, one of the articles has previously been rejected 3 times.
One manuscript being checked by my advisor.
Two more works-in-progress, but I seem to have reached a limbo with these  works.

Can someone tell me if my progress is bad, average or good?

When I started my PhD, I would give a lot of effort to the work. I
   would keep track of how many hours I am giving to my work, would try
   to make up if the amount of hours dedicated to my work is less.

Recently, for the past 3-4 months, I am unable to feel that
   dedication that I felt earlier. I can see I am working way less, but
   I can't find a way to make myself motivated to work faster and work
   more.

I am feeling helpless. I am feeling very guilty that I am wasting my time. But when I sit with my work, things go blunt, my brain seems to stop working. I really don't know how should I get out of this phase.

I am failing to get myself motivated to work harder. The interest is dwindling. I wish I worked more hours but I am failing to do so. I want to work harder which I am not able to do now.

Please help me out here if possible.

Advisor info: I do all the work, he just checks the grammar. I do not get any technical input from him. If I talk about how low I feel he would just say, " PhD is like this, don't lose hope". The repetition of these lines does not do any good to me.

Scientific work is always a high stakes gamble. You are never guaranteed to succeed and several failures in a row usually result in a quite depressing state when you lose the willingness to try anymore completely. It is nothing unusual. Here are the techniques that I usually employ when getting nowhere for a long time.

1) Step back and relax. Forget about it all for a month at least. Live your life (I hope there are some things you enjoy besides solving problems, working in the lab, and writing papers).

2) Talk to people in your field or go online (to MathOverflow, say) to see what they are working on and have trouble with. If you are not at the very bottom, there will always be a lot of people whom you can help. Boosts your self-confidence quite a bit.

3) Remember that you are under no obligation ("obligation" is not the same as "pressure") to produce anything or to prove to anyone that you are any good. You came to the parallel universe to wonder, explore, and play. So, just do exactly that. Read something funny in your field, ask yourself some "stupid" questions, etc. Just get the feeling that you belong to the scenery around you and can enjoy small streams and hills before trying to cross a big river or to climb a mountain.

4) Look at Hubble telescope images and try to imagine all the distances, times, and energies involved. That puts you with all your worries, ambitions, and desires in the right perspective. Don't care too much about the problems of something as insignificant as one unit in over 7 billion on some God's forgotten planet in the far corner of some minor galaxy, totally dispensable and replaceable any time. Concentrate on the outside world. You can figure out something about it before your time is over, that is the only game really worth playing in serious, and you are totally qualified to participate in it despite the fact that there always will be much stronger players around.

There are more, but these four work well enough. And, of course, complain about your situation to your friends any time you want. No need to handle everything alone :-)


How do I explain my poor grade to a grad school committee? I'm an Indian student in my 2nd year and I have a subpar(6/10) grade, but that's just because of the school I'm in currently.

I've been a straight A student before university all my life. I'm pretty sure that it's  this school which is super competitive and likes giving extra-hard tests and strict grading which leads me to have a poorer grade, despite knowing/understanding the material. And I'm not the only student who's been disadvantaged here in this manner.

I've interacted with several other schools/students here, or outside India, for example  and I'm pretty sure I'd have a higher grade if I were at one of those schools.

I understand that being challenged is beneficial and the post might just come across as one from a poor student who likes to whine, but my thoughts are genuine. Other factors that contributed to a poor grade are my ADHD and the utter lack of course flexibility.

For clarification, I'm a CS student and I'm talking admissions committees outside of my country(admission to an engineering masters program here takes place differently through tests) - perhaps in the USA/Canada. Are these valid reasons I could get through to them? How?

I've been a straight A student before university all my life.

Great!  You're finally among your peers, who have also been straight-A students their entire life before university.  Finally, schoolwork isn't just a trivial boring exercise in pencil-pushing!  Finally, you can actually test your limits!  Finally, an opportunity to be challenged, to be confused and frustrated---in short, to actually learn something!

By definition, only a small fraction of your class can be significantly above average.  Fortunately, graduate admissions committee know this.  We don't just look at your grades; we also look at the institution that gives them.  A perfect GPA from a school that typically admits weaker students is worth significantly less than a merely-pretty-good GPA from a school known for admitting strong students.  A 3.2 from MIT or Harvey Mudd is worth more than a 4.0 from the University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople.

Do not under any circumstances make excuses for your grades in your graduate school application.  Write about your accomplishments.  Write about your expertise.  Write about the challenges that you overcame.  Present the evidence that you will thrive in your target graduate program(s).  Sell yourself as a mature, hard-working student, ready to hit the ground running.  Do. Not. Make. Excuses.  No matter how unfairly you believe you have been treated, admissions committees will read your complaints as whining, and they will admit some other student with a mediocre GPA from a hyper-competitive school instead of you.


Best way to correct my name in the paper I found mistake of my name in my submitted paper. My paper status now is "our proof corrections have been returned to Elsevier". How can I change the last letter of my name.

My best regards

Yes, don't waste time asking on the internet, but contact the editor as soon as possible. I don't know what the line "our proof corrections have been returned to Elsevier" mean exactly, but if you had dealt with production staff already (so, the article has been handed over from the editor to the publishing staff) you may also contact the production staff. More practical: Use the most recent communication channel that the journal used to contact you (could be the submission system, an email from the editor or an email from somebody at the production staff).


Can a recruiter contact a postdoc's recent supervisor who was not listed as a reference on the application? P, a postdoc applicant, lists 3 referees (A, B and C) on her strong application.

A knows P's work best and gives a mixed (guarded) assessment.
B knows P's work moderately well and gives a great assessment.
C knows P's work least and gives a great assessment.
S and T, a recent supervisor and a recent employer, are not listed as referees.

Can the recruiter contact S and T for further feedback? On the one hand, they are not listed as referees, but on the other hand, the applicant has not requested not to contact these people.

At least in US academic culture, the fact that P is applying for a given position, or is applying for jobs at all, should be considered confidential.  As such, if you're the recruiter, you should not contact S or T or anyone else regarding P's candidacy, unless you first get permission from P.  (Obviously, you have implicit permission to contact A, B, C, since they were listed on the application.)

Asking S or T for a general assessment of P's abilities, without saying that they're applying for a job, is a gray area.  I would advise against it, since people will tend to infer that your reason for asking is because P is a job candidate.

If you're the candidate, on the other hand, you should be prepared for the possibility that the employer might contact S or T anyway, even though they're not supposed to.

Expectations might be different in different cultures.


What should I do if I find two suspiciously similar conference publications by different authors? In my research, I've found two articles that are completely identical, except the abstract and authors names. They are published on different conferences, with one year between.

What should (must) I do in this case?

The programme committees for the conferences would be the appropriate authorities to contact (it is their responsibility to deal with plagiarism within their conference). This is of course complicated by the fact the conferences are in the past; the current programme committee may have little or nothing to do with the earlier committee, the steering committee may be more appropriate in this case.

If neither are responsive, contacting the publication venue may be required. If the proceedings are published by a journal or reputable publisher, they should be able to resolve the issue (they have copyright laws to deal with!).


How do you measure success to remain motivated in academia? I am currently pursuing a physics major in college. My question mostly applies to those working in STEM, but I am definitely open to hearing answers from others.

Right now, in college, most of the work I am doing involves solving math/physics problems. I have an easy way of measuring my success on this work: if I get the "right"/"correct" answers (or at least one that agrees with my professor's answer), I can say that I am doing "well".

This ability to measure success keeps me motivated. I was wondering what the analog to this in the real world is? When working in academia and pursuing unsolved problems, how do you measure your success to remain motivated? There is no answer key for you to check at the end of the day, so how do you know if you are "right" or "doing well"?

Unfortunately, and as it happens for most jobs, there is no such a thing, or at least, not as immediate and clear as a grade of an exam.

While one can argue that the number of publications, and the quality of the journals\conferences you publish at, can be good ways to measure your worth, this can often be biased by many factors.

If you do not work completely alone, publications are often the result of team work. There are cases where it is hard to see who worked the most, or who gave the key contribution that made the paper be accepted. I have seen people with many published articles move to another group and loose productivity all together. This probably because the previous group supported the PhD way too much and they did not learn from their colleagues. I have also seen the opposite.
Despite everything, publishing papers to journals or conferences (even the best ones) can really feel like a lottery. Usually, when you study a lot for an exam, you are almost certain that you will get a good mark, this is not true for publications on any level. A paper can be hardly rejected by conference A and, instead, accepted by conference B. This can be because of many factors. Maybe conference A was not the suited one, or reviewers just did not like the paper despite its contributions, in any case, as you can see you cannot really value your work on this type of outcome. You can, for sure, improve from reviews, but I would never use it as a way to evaluate yourself.
Depending on the specific topic of your PhD, there are different standards expected regarding the number of publications you should have. Maybe, you just need a couple and, in that case, it is pretty hard to motivate yourself for years with just two inputs (two accepted papers). Moreover, even the best PhD students have to deal with rejected articles, sometimes, even more than they have to deal with accepted ones.

I would also like to add that PhD students are pretty prone to mental illness such as depression, anxiety disorders and so on [1]. In my modest opinion (as an academic), these problems are also caused by the fact that many doctorate students evaluate their worth depending on this hard numbers (number of publications, number of paper not accepted).

Overall, I think that self motivation is a very personal thing. It is up to you to decide what motivates you and what makes you worth.

[1] http://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2018/03/graduate-students-need-more-mental-health-support-new-study-highlights (one of the many)


English lit journals publishing graduate-level works As an MA student interested in pursuing the academic career, I am well aware that it's advisable to have papers published as soon as possible in order to boost one's CV and eventually gain admission to a PhD programme.

Therefore, here's my question: are there any academic journals which routinely publish graduate-level papers about English literature, or at least are willing to accept and assess such submissions? I am thinking of something like those lower-tier journals, often funded by departments, which are able to publish relevant contributions from non-previously established researchers.

Thanks for your contribution.

Theoretically, your status as student, senior lecturer or professor should not matter in terms of publish in a journal. If your idea is original and your research is relevant and situated in the current debates of the scientific community, then try to publish your texts. Talk to your professors or supervisors about it and tell them about your plan. Maybe, they have suggestions and can give you feedback on the text that you have in mind for submission.  Nevertheless, keep in mind, that your term paper or master thesis is not a journal article. I guess, you have to do a lot to rewriting and re-structuring your text that it will eventually become a published article. Moreover, publishing a text takes a lot of time (from submitting to the final version to get an onlinefirst publication, it can take 1-2 years). I don't know in which year of your master program you are, but eventually, the publication might happen after you are already accepted as a PhD candidate ;)

There are probably student-run journals who especially address young scholars to submit their papers. For this, just google...
 Literally, I just searched for it and found 2 websites which might be relevant for you: https://complit.fas.harvard.edu/journalsconferences-graduate-students and http://www.highpoint.edu/urcw/student-journal-publishing-opportunities-politics-international-affairs-law-2/


Writing an Original State of the Art Section When There Are Recent (Meta-)Surveys for the Topic Problem
In many fields, it is customary that every paper has a section describing the state of the art of the field, to give a background and show familiarity with related works. While sometimes, this can mean an exhaustive enumeration of related works in the area, other times it is more useful to reference literature reviews or surveys. However, this can be a problem: If a recent survey of the field exists, there is the danger of plagiarizing the survey. This is even more of a problem with meta-surveys, since otherwise you might just use several distinct surveys (if available).
What I found
For a similar question, one answer proposes referencing both the survey and the original work. However, wouldn't it still look weird if the entire section consists of mainly one reference, that is paired with several others?
Question
Which works do you cite in a state of the art section, when there is a recent and thorough survey for the topic of your paper?

Let me reframe your question somewhat, in a way that hopefully leads to a helpful answer.
It is widespread to think that the purpose of the "literature review" section of an article is to describe "the state of the art of the field, to give a background and show familiarity with related works", as you say. But I would argue that that even though that is very often what such sections do in practice, that should not be their primary goal and that certainly is not the most valuable thing they should do.
Rather than broadly reviewing the literature, a "literature review" section should focus squarely on framing the current article in the context of the literature. It should not do anything more (or less) than that. That is, it should show how the current article fits in the existing scholarly conversation. To do this, it should show what literature is similar, but in a way that clearly shows how the present article is different. In particular, it should clearly show how the present article aims to contribute to knowledge that is currently missing in the literature.
So, coming directly to your question, from this perspective, if there is a recent state-of-the-art review published, there is no problem at all. Such a review should only help you to better frame your own article to show what is close to your work, yet different. Above all, do not try to cite all the existing literature. Only cite the literature that makes your point: your article is different from similar literature and contributes important knowledge that is still missing from the literature.
From this perspective, concerning which work to cite, it is more likely that you would cite the specific original papers that refer to topics that are similar but a little bit different from your own article. You might cite the survey paper as a general source, but citing it does not tell readers much about how similar or different the literature is from your own work. It is your custom summary and citation of each individual paper that is close that would do this. And note that your custom summaries are not summaries of each entire article--that is not very useful, since the survey paper probably already does this--rather, it is a to-the-point summary of exactly in which way each article is similar yet different from your own work. That would be original (since the survey paper does not do that) and would help readers better appreciate the contribution of your own work.


How to write a follow up paper describing a different solution to a similar problem I presented a paper last month in an IEEE conference and now I am writing another paper on the same topic but the method is different. While writing the Introduction and Related Works part of the paper, I have noticed that I am unintentionally repeating my words or sentences. I have no intention to copy the same lines from these sections from my previous paper, but by chance if it comes out to similar, is it considered as self plagiarism?

There are two basic approaches to the potential issues of self-plagiarism in such a case:

First write the paper, then ensure there is no significant re-use of text by going through and paraphrasing.
Embrace the reuse and explicitly declare (with citation) which elements are adapted from the previous publication.

You will clearly need to reference and compare with the prior publication in any case, as this is obviously a closely related work.  As such, your text must be different in many ways reflecting the different context created by the first publication.  Personally, however, I would prefer to use the second strategy and perform a declared reuse of text rather than attempt to arbitrarily paraphrase just for the sake of being different.


Returning to academia after 6 years in industry I graduated with a Masters in 2009 in US. Since then, I have been working as a Software Engineer. I am mostly intellectually bored in professional life and feel I am not learning. The idea of going back to school fascinates me. I don't have it in me to do a Phd but I am very keen to do another 2 years of focused study. I am keen to understand about courses where I can intersect with folks in the similar walk of life.

Any suggestions?

Update: Are there any popular 1-2 year programs in Economics/Finance?

In your case, consider this: what do you have to gain from the additional courses taken? Are you going to apply the knowledge gained in your current job, which you do not find so interesting?

Typically the purpose of universities is to allow students to study for degrees. In your case, that degree would be PhD, but you already ruled it out. If your feel bored in your professional life, the professional life would not support the PhD degree. In practice, you will have to terminate the uninteresting employment to obtain PhD. The other option will be to only take some courses without studying for a PhD, which may be possible too.

Are you planning to take temporary study leave from your current job, or to terminate the employment completely? Check your local laws related to study leave. In Finland, two years of part- or full-time study leave is allowed after 1 year of employment at the same employer, and after 8 years of employment (not necessarily at the same employer), you get adult education allowance which will financially support the studies.

To me, your situation sounds like you have not found the right job for you. I also work as a software engineer, but in a research-oriented environment at the research laboratory of a major telecommunications equipment vendor. I have found the job so interesting that I'm now studying for a PhD related to my dayjob using a part-time study leave.

So, my advice to you: keep looking for new job opportunities! It definitely sounds like your current job is uninteresting, and the problem solution is to find a new job, not to flee back to the university. I have had uninteresting jobs as well. But, to find the right job for you, you have to find out the root cause of the current job being uninteresting. In my case, it was lack of research orientation. If you find the right job for you, you may very well find yourself in the case that you have enough to say in a PhD thesis.


How do I add an article that is already in Google Scholar to my profile? I have authored some publications that are already present in Google Scholar and have citations listed for them, but I see no way to add them to my profile. I see how to add an article with all of the same information manually, but this creates what appears to be an independent (duplicate?) entry for the article, with no citations or links associated. I also see how to get a list of suggested additions, but the articles I'm looking for are not among them.

How do I add an article that is already in Google Scholar to my profile?

Sign In to Google Scholar.
Click on My Profile.
Click on the + button above the article list
Click on Add articles in the context menu


How do I transition from a Ph.D. in engineering to a career in medicine? I am in a Ph.D. program in Engineering and I do probability, statistics and differential equations. My relevant previous works are: Modelling of blood flow, programming using DNA molecules. (But most of things I do, which will lead to a Ph.D. are very mathematical and don't involve any medicine.)

But lately I feel very inspired to pursue a career in Medicine instead. I am planning to complete my Ph.D. (I am from India) and then join a MD program (in USA).

I am interested in the mathematical modelling of living systems. I have read some papers in this area. I noticed some of these papers don't get the maths or physics right at times. I feel I would have the right skills to contribute here.
I am also interested in Bio-medical instrumentation. I have degree in Mechanical Engineering and I feel I would have the right skills for this industry.

I am aware that to be able to pursue either of above, I don't need a MD degree. But lately, I feel very passionate about actually saving lives and working closely with people. It is like a dream that keeps me inspired and working all the time. I want the MD degree.

So I want to know:

Is such a thing possible? Would I be eligible to apply? I am not very well clear about 'pre-med' course requirements.
I am asking specifically about the MD program in USA on mind. However     information about MD programs in other countries, would also be useful.
If it is possible, I want some advice on how to go about preparing for it?

(If you feel strongly the need to discourage my decision, please feel free to do so, giving adequate reasons. I would find that useful too.)

Thanks!

Medical doctors with a previous experience in engineering are indeed in an excellent position to do clinical research involving technology or modelling. From your question it seems like you are more interested in the practice of medicine than research, and that is fine because in some fields of medicine (e.g. radiology) an engineering background is a definite advantage to practice medicine efficiently.

I know 3 people who started (a 6 years) medical school after another degree. Two after a degree in Physics and one after a PhD in biomedical engineering. All 3 are happy with their choice but their situation is not yours. Can you afford to go to school for many more years?

If you do, in North America a previous degree (and engineering is a frequent one) is usually required prior to entering medical school. Med school usually lasts 4 years. Admission criteria vary between schools but the previous degree should typically include the following, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges:

  At a minimum, students will likely complete the following types of courses:

  One year of biology
  One year of physics
  One year of English
  Two years of chemistry (through organic chemistry)

To browse through institutions, you might find this site useful.

At the institution I know, the requirements include:

1 year of biology
2 years of chemistry
1 year of physics
some laboratory experience
1 year of maths (calculus and stats)
1 year of a course requiring writing.
"[being] comfortable with upper-level mathematics (through differential equations and linear algebra), biochemistry, and molecular biology

An additional requirement is that you completed at least one year of university in the USA or Canada.

In Europe it varies a lot. For Germany, Switzerland and Austria, there are no requirements for a previous undergrad degree and it's usually hard to skip years if you have one. Most universities require that you have a high school diploma from a country they recognize. The programs are usually over a 6 years period. They typically involve a lot less mathematics than in North America. You need to be reasonably fluent in the local language.


Exam requires self-imposing a time limit: what should I do when others are likely to use more time? I am enrolled in an upper level STEM class.
My teacher has recently announced that we have a "downloadable" midterm. The midterm is not officially timed, and we have a week to submit it, and there is no way the teacher can track how much time we have used. Now, in class and in a clarification request, it was stated that we have a total time to "work on it" for 3 hours tops, even though we can "look at it" for longer.
I have no clue how to deal with this. A good number of my (normally obsessive/honor code) friends have already told me that they will use more time than what is officially allowed to work on the exam. Based on the sample I've conducted with the people in my year in the class, I would say its highly likely at least 50% are planning on using more time than allowed.
Ngl [not going to lie], I've had to deal with "other people using more than they should be" for at least two of my classes (all of which are online) this semester and I don't want to deal with it in a third. I'm frustrated.
Is there anything I can do?

Solutions I consider:

Students protesting — I don't think anyone is being obsessive about
this mess apart from me.

Confronting the teacher myself — for one thing, I'm not sure if I
am liked by this person (LOL) but I'm guessing if I say "yo there
are students planning on cheating", this person will simply send out
an email stating "don't cheat" to the class.

Notes:

The people in the class of my year already know about all this mess of a situation because I discussed the strange rules in our group chat, so I suspect if the professor sends out an email I can be immediately linked as "the person who prompted the kerfuffle".  also I'll be known as the rat. I don't care too much about my reputation, but nonetheless this isn't super pleasant. I probably shouldn't have done this, I see now that it is kind of coming back to bite.

Certain details have been changed or obfuscated to avoid identification.

I'm estimating likelihood of cheating based on an informal "poll" I gave in a high-effort group chat; to get a picture of this group, its a bunch of overachieving underclassmen who I don't think would ever cheat in normal circumstances. I have evidence of intention to cheat, I am not willing to submit it to my teacher.

What I would hope from my teacher would be that the "time cap" of 3 hours would be removed; this obviously is going to get violated anyway.

I specifically asked the professor whether we "must not" spend more than 3 hours on the test; he confirmed that 3 hours is a hard limit.

The class is graded on a curve.

What I'm probably gonna do:
I don't think I should contact the professor directly, mostly because I think this person doesn't like me that much. I think my solution is just going to be to email this person anonymously and express that I have concretely seen evidence of people intending to cheat, though I'm not ratting out any fellow students, and I'll request that the time limit is lifted.

You’re in an unenviable position and I don’t have clear suggestions how to proceed. But at the very least, it’s worth calling attention to the fact that

your instructor is neglecting their duty to maintain an acceptable level of academic integrity, and

this may rise to the level of being more than just a “feeling” but an actual violation of university policy.

For example, at my university, our guidelines about faculty responsibilities in connection with academic honesty state (emphasis mine):

Academic honesty is an integral part of the University's educational mission. According to the UC Davis Code of Academic Conduct, all members of the academic community are responsible for the academic integrity of the UC Davis campus.
[...]
Faculty are encouraged to promote an atmosphere of honesty in the classroom. For example.
[...]

Use exam and assignment formats that discourage academic misconduct.

Now, to be clear, I’m not suggesting that this is grounds for an official complaint or to ask for the instructor to be punished or anything like that. But the point is, if and when you choose to complain either to the instructor or to other campus authorities (department chair, office of academic integrity etc), citing relevant university guidelines or policies can be a good way of strengthening your case and reminding people that academic honesty is a two-way street in which both students and teachers have responsibilities. When the teachers are neglecting their own responsibiltiies by creating such obvious opportunities for a “thought crime” form of cheating that cannot possibly be detected, they can’t very well expect students to fulfill their side of the bargain.
Good luck! Sorry you have to deal with this nonsense.


Missed a deadline for a fellowship! I prepared a doctoral fellowship application package two months ago but I missed the deadline by a week because I confused the deadline for actual application with the deadline for recommendation letters. My advisors have sent the letters but I missed the application deadline. So I have made a huge mistake and I feel horrible! I am not an irresponsible person so I am in shock and have no idea how to handle the situation.It's the first time I am making a mistake like this and I feel so humiliated. I want to avoid my advisors for a while because I know they've put a lot of work into writing letters for me. What would you recommend? Should I call the research institution and ask if they could make an exception? Or should I just email the package and wait for their response? What should I tell to my professors(If they find out, I will feel humiliated!)?

Thanks a lot!

I would mail the application and contact the institution to explain the situation. If they are willing to make an exception, it's better if they receive your application as soon as possible, and if not they'll just discard it anyway.

Unless, of course, it is explicitly stated somewhere that late applications will not be considered. In that case there's nothing you can do.


Does it look bad if I email multiple professors in the same department at once? I'm currently in the process of applying to grad schools, and I'm emailing profs whose work I find interesting. I always read a bit of their work, and then customize both, the email I send them, and the CV I attach. I discuss their work in my email, and slightly change the listed research interests in my CV to match their interests.

Often, I'll find multiple profs in the same school and department whose work I find interesting. I was wondering it its acceptable to email them all at once. Are there any potential consequences to sending out multiple emails + CVs at once to the same department, all containing slightly different research interests and repeatedly claiming I find the profs' work "fascinating"?

Yes, it does look bad. When people approach me with a generic or just marginally tailored email and do not show that they have at least thought a little bit about how their research interests possibly match mine, I just throw the email away -- if they do not put in the effort then why should I?


Will publishing all my papers in a single journal endanger my career? I am a PhD student with only two papers published in peer-reviewed journals all within the same journal.
One of them was published due to a deal between a conference I was in and the publisher. The other one is a critique of a paper that was published there, hence it makes sense to be on the same journal.
I have two other papers under review in journals. I am waiting for a first review on them for a much longer than average time. In one of them my PhD advisor is also an author. Even though it wasn't peer-reviewed yet, we are already preparing (and submitting to conferences) works derived from it. After waiting a long time for a review I mailed the editors of the journal and they say they didn't find reviewers yet.
Here is my dilemma: my advisor is pushing that I withdraw the article from the current journal and submit to the same journal I have my other papers in, but I am scared this will damage my career prospects.
If one reads my CV, in a job application for example, and realize all of my papers are in the same journal they might just stop considering me. This might damage even more since: (i) the chief editor of the journal works in our dpt (and was my professor in grad school) and (ii) even though this specific journal has good metrics (Q2 in general and Q1 in the paper's topic and higher impact factor than the journal which didn't find reviewers for my paper) I know many academics dislike the publisher, some with good reason.
Will this damage my career? Is it worse to publish again in the same journal than not publish at all? If so, how should I explain this concern to my advisor?

Your first few papers don't determine your career. The answer to the title question is, of course, "it depends". If your research focus is narrow, especially narrow, then there are fewer journals that are appropriate venues and the others won't have appropriate reviewers in their "stable". But continuing to publish in a very low impact journal would have negative consequences, that aren't the case here.
I'll guess that "a paper in the same journal" is a better outcome than "no paper" at this particular point in your journey, so your advisor is likely giving good advice. I doubt that an editor, even one who knows you will bias decisions in your favor if they want to keep up the reputation of the journal.
But, the indicators seem to be positive, not negative; getting published in a good journal.
You can also ask the editor of the journal you submitted to about the likelihood of a decision in a reasonable time frame, saying that if that isn't possible you will "be forced by circumstances" to withdraw the paper.
I'll also note that, assuming everything you say is accurate, that people believe in you and your work. That support alone should lessen your fears about getting a good position in the future.


Should I use my university's letterhead for a cover letter for a job application? I currently teach at University X and am applying for a job at University Y.  Should I write my cover letter on University X's letterhead, or use a blank page?

No. It is you as a person who is applying, not you as a representative for your university. Univ. Y would probably look very negatively on an application on such lerterhead, as would Univ. X. Letterheads are intended for your official business of your position at X as teacher, researcher etc. Applying for a job or for example writing somewhere for your private business is just that, private. You can, however, create your own private letterhead to use for such instances but this should reflect your private standing and show only private address, phone and e-mail.

So keep the official business separate from your private. As alluded to this also applies to e-mail, something most people forget about. It is good to have your own private e-mail for instances such as this.


Would doing machine learning during my PhD disqualify me from becoming a professor at a statistics department? I would like to call myself as a statistician; I have been in statistics programs for seven years now (four year undergrad, two year master’s, one year PhD). I always thought that if I become a professor after my PhD, I would be hired in a statistics department.

But lately I started to doubt the above statement. My PhD research field is machine learning, more specifically I am trying to improve performance of the existing neural network model called “Transformer”, which is commonly used in natural-language processing (NLP) in data science. I don’t know how math-intensive my PhD dissertation will be, but I think my research is going in a direction that I won’t be publishing a lot of (math-intensive) papers in journals like JASA or other strictly statistically oriented journals, but instead I will be publishing in some of the deep-learning journals and attend a few machine-learning and/or computer-science conferences to present my work. My research involves a heavy Python programming, and I see my research as more of data science than traditional statistics.

If I keep on pursuing the current research road that I am on, would this eventually disqualify me from getting employed at statistics departments, since my research does not involve a heavy (traditional and math-intensive) statistical theory? Will I have a better chance, for example, to get hired at an engineering or computer-science department than a regular statistics department with this kind of research background? Would it be possible for data Scientist like myself to be hired at a statistics department? The thought of not being able to get hired at a statistics department amazes me since statistics is the discipline that I studied throughout my entire academic career.

I will be publishing in some of the deep-learning journals and [at] computer-science conferences...My research involves...Python programming, and I see my research as more of data science than traditional statistics...

You seem to be leaning towards a career in computer science, rather than mathematics.

  If I keep on pursuing the current research road that I am on, would this eventually disqualify me from getting employed at statistics departments, since my research does not involve a heavy (traditional and math-intensive) statistical theory? Will I have a better chance, for example, to get hired at an engineering or computer-science department than a regular statistics department with this kind of research background? Would it be possible for data Scientist like myself to be hired at a statistics department?

You are surely making youreself more desirable for hire to computer science departments, rather than mathematics departments.

  The thought of not being able to get hired at a statistics department
  amazes me since statistics is the discipline that I studied throughout
  my entire academic career.

If you're satisfied with the path you're on, why not embrace a change?

Perhaps you can find a computer science department that's like a mathematics department, or vice-versa.


Is doing a 1 year MBA after many years of experience in the IT industry worth it? I have over 13 years of experience in IT industry, but no consistent domain / specialization. I have worked as UI developer, project manager, scrum master, business analyst, recruiter, etc. for few years each. Now my career seems stuck and I am not getting further on the career ladder.

I couldn't go to college due to financial constraint in my early years. I am 35 now, but the itch to attend a regular university is still there. I want to do a regular MBA (preferably 1 year) from a foreign university. (I am a native Indian).

Sometimes I think that doing an MBA might give a kick to my stalled career. But these are my fears / constraints.

I still do not have enough money. My entire life's saving is around 45K USD. Should I do MBA or not? If yes, should I go for an ed loan (saving my current money for unforseen events) or empty my bank accounts (to avoid paying interest)?
If I leave my job now, with current slow economy, what will be the ROI of doing a 1 year MBA?
As per my little research Germany is a country for students (less tuition fee)! If I go for non-US universities (like Germany, Spain, Australia, NZ) I will have to learn their native language to survive there, which needs another 6-8 months.

TL;DR
Please advise if doing a 1 year regular MBA after 13 years of experience worth it? Which universities with good rankings offer affordable MBA?

It seems that you are unsure of what you want from a MBA, besides hoping it might kickstart your career. I think it's important that you first identify exactly what you want from a MBA - your goals. Do you want to gain connections with others in your field? Do you want a job that requires a MBA? After you have identify these goals, ask yourself if a MBA at a certain institution will help you achieve these goals. The degree itself is just as important as where you get the degree. Foreign universities might be cheap, but degrees that come with it might not be highly regarded in the States.

Studying abroad is not the optimal choice in your situation. As a native American, there are plenty of prestigious American institutions willing to diversify their graduation class and scholarships will be available to you - you just have to search or ask for it. Going abroad for only 1 year is definitely not worth the trouble of learning a new language - it will be a distraction to your studies.

I would also disagree with you that the economy in the US is slow. Are there particular reasons why you feel that way?


Should I give a symbolic "thank you, and goodbye" gift to an abusive supervisor? Within one week I shall leave my present institution, where I felt severely mistreated around salary payment and work conditions for 2 years, as a postdoctoral fellow.

The PI who signed my contract (theoretically my supervisor) has played passive-aggressive "not-here" all my stay while consistently demanding honorary, corresponding authorship status in any piece I happen to publish, from any source. In fact I had never heard of this person prior to signing my contract from abroad, over which I was dealing with another local professor. They had made some kind of agreement.

Soon I will leave, at the official end of my contract. I am wondering whether I should give this person a symbolic departure gift, especially in front of the other lab mates. I am not culturally hierarchy-oriented but displaying respect to hierarchy is seen as a strong moral virtue, where I am, in China.

Relevant: I am not staying in China, but I might keep in touch with one or two current lab mates after I leave. I am afraid that an act of offering him a gift will communicate a wish to continue "guanxi" which is his understanding probably means I will forever offer him credit over my work, favors.

Please, what do others suggest?

* UPDATE * 02/04/2018

I have finally departed and left a bottle of fairly good French wine behind, sitting on my desk among the student's office, with a note clearly stating it was for the Professor. With a "Thank You for the opportunity, and provided unforgettable experience to share".

As mentioned, my main objective was to displaying respect for other labmates by thanking the professor in the local hierarchy and presenting a gift.

I had, however, no direct dialogue with this person upon my departure. The final days were particularly tense, where finally the supervisor openly failed to pay for a long-delayed amount of 1k USD of salary agreement. The details of this conflict are described in another question in SE Academia.

Thanks to all for suggestions; I believe this was the best I could do.

I don't know much about Chinese culture, so take this answer with as many grains of salt as necessary, but it seems like the best thing to do here is find out what is the minimum socially acceptable gift you could give the advisor without it burning bridges with your lab and the other people you work with, and then give that. If you can get away without giving anything, so much the better.

If you do find yourself socially obligated to give some kind of gift, when you give it perhaps you could emphasize to the advisor how much you're looking forward to doing your own, independent work as a polite way to discourage any further involvement.

Even if this person demands honorary authorship over your work after you leave, it will be much easier to tell them no when you're not working in their lab. The worst they could directly do to retaliate is refuse to give you a reference or letter of recommendation to future employers, and someone who gets their authorships by abusing their students and not doing any actual work is unlikely to be able to do much damage to your reputation anyways.


How do I talk to my professor about my anxiety/depression? I am 22 years old and I have recently began my first year of grad school. It is very overwhelming. Everyone seems to have more developed thoughts than I do, and all my classmates are 2nd or 3rd year PhD students who speak in metaphors. I have struggled with anxiety and depression for about 5 years now. I have had all kinds of treatment for it. I am currently not being treated for it. About a year ago I decided I did not want to take medicine anymore, and my doctor gave me permission to wean myself off of it. Up until last month I was okay. The way I feel right now I have not felt in two years. My anxiety attacks are prevalent and I am so overwhelmed with sadness I cant get up in the morning or eat. . I have probably about 3/4 attacks a day and because of it I have not been to my class in 3 weeks. I am up to date on all assignments, however, participation is 25% of my grade and I have now missed a total of 4 classes out of 12 overall.

I do not know how to talk to my professor about this. I have crippling anxiety when speaking to professors about my struggle with anxiety due to a bad experience. In my last semester of undergrad, I disclosed to my law professor that I had anxiety in general, and also extreme anxiety when speaking in front of  a large group. He essentially told me that he did not care and I needed to get over it. He also said that if i ever tried again to "take an easy way out", he would fail me. Long story short, I got up in front of the class to present my brief and I fainted two minutes in. My professor laughed and made jokes about me and I decided not to apply to law school. I am forever scarred by this and I am tempted to just take a W in this class, but I feel deep down that the right thing to do is talk to my professor first. If anyone has any advice for me, I would really appreciate it. I am just very insecure about this. Sometimes my depression convinces me that I am not depressed at all and I should just get over it, but I don't know how.

First, everyone feels overwhelmed in grad school, and nearly everyone suffers from imposter syndrome.  It isn't just you who feels like everyone around you is better.  This isn't likely to help with your illness, obviously, but I think every grad student is better off once they internalize that idea.

As @ff524 pointed out in the comments, the first thing you need to do is go talk to your school's disabilities office.  You don't need to go in with a clear picture of how it goes or what you want out of it - you just need to go in and explain the situation to them just as you did to us.  It's their job to help you, and very often that includes facilitating conversations with your professors as well.

You don't have to go to your professor and throw yourself on their mercy.  I understand why you would be traumatized from the awful experience you described, but understand that what that professor did wasn't just wrong, it was likely illegal. Faculty have clear obligations that the disabilities office will help them understand and work through, just like they help you.

You should also get in touch with a mental health professional.  If you're in a new town away from your old one, go to your school's health center and I'm certain they can refer you.

Basically the only "wrong" thing you could do is to continue doing nothing.  Get in and get help right away, and don't feel even remotely bad about doing so.  This is exactly what those resources are there for.