How can we promote better writing skills in academic education? This question may be too wide or in some perspective perceived as unclear but covers a key issue (for me) in academia, namely, academic writing.

Students start their academic career with varying skills in writing. Often, and this the case in my department, there is no thought through progression to go from beginner through novice and proficient to expert level (the latter perhaps in graduate school) or some such scale.

My question is therefore how to get students to progress in appropriate steps through an education. In other words what is a reasonable progression of writing skills through an education. I am looking for suggestions of appropriate expectations for, say, an annual or semester wise increase in difficulty or complexity of exercises with the aim of learning academic writing skills through an education including graduate school.

In my lab, we were required to produce three-to-four page white papers, including figures, every time we presented at a lab meeting (approx. every 6 weeks).

This had two significant effects. Firstly, it forced the student to write down their progress, which was invariably ridiculously useful when the student actually started writing their thesis. Staple together a few of these sections and the methods, and often a good part of the background, was written for you.

Secondly, it gave everyone a chance to practice their professional writing in a casual lab setting. No one felt threatened and everyone improved. We would even review the articles being written by the lab professor, as there were always improvements we could suggest to him as well.

I strongly recommend this practice.


Contacting professors for PhD supervision past the formal application deadline of the university in USA I am interested to do PhD under the supervision of a renowned professor based in the USA. But, I have missed the formal PhD application deadline for the university.

Is it possible to do PhD in the USA by directly contacting the Professor requesting supervision and also mentioning motivation of the PhD, past research experience and academic performance in this email (things asked in a formal application)?

In the US this would certainly be unusual and at many universities, impossible. Admission to doctoral programs is done by a committee and there are cost implications for admitting a student. Space is needed, if nothing else. An individual professor, most places, has little control over that.

You can ask, of course, and there is no issue with exploring options with the professor.

But in the US there is more than research involved in a doctorate. There are, at least, qualifying exams. And most students require advanced coursework in order to pass the exams. This normally occurs before the serious dissertation research begins, or at the earliest stages of exploration. Many students don't choose an advisor until they pass comps, since failure means you will be asked to leave.

But, another option, provided that you are good enough is to state your case and show that you are a worthy "independent researcher" who wants to work with the professor now on some ideas and that you will be applying later to the degree program. Some professors might find that interesting, others not. It might depend on where they are in their own career and how generally busy they are with their normal duties.

And, I'm going to guess that you aren't alone in this wish and that your query might just get lost in the mass of others. Think of a "renowned professor" as a kind of magnet for such interest.


How do you keep up with (non-periodical) conference proceedings? I am an EE & CS graduate student and IEEE is a typical and well-known associations.

I am getting papers published in Transactions, Journals Magazines, etc... via RSS feed. For example, IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing has a feed published once a month.

So far, however, I couldn't find a way to get a list of conference proceeding papers when they are published. As a conference proceeding is not a periodical publication, generally, there is no such feed things. Therefore, I have to wait and check everyday until it is published. (Some conference provides papers when conference is being held. But in general, it takes two or three months from the conference to be published.)

Furthermore, USENIX has a feed, but it is not a feed about published papers. USENIX does not provide any feed even for the periodical.

In such situation, how do you keep up with the recent publications?

I don't care about the recent publication. I search them on demand.
I keep up them manually. (You are a very diligent person. :-> )
My organization (university, company) has a sort of curation, curator.
None of them. Other ways.

I am not sure about EE, but for Computer Science, most of the venues you would usually want to track are listed in DBLP. DBLP itself does, as far as I know, not offer a subscription service, but (behold the beauty of open data) somebody else has built RSS feeds for DBLP.

This would allow you to use your favorite newsreader to keep up with conference publications the same way you are already tracking journals.


Should I leave my PhD? I'm a PhD candidate in Industrial Engineering and currently in my fourth semester.
I passed my qualifying exam in the second semester. Till then I was a TA and I was fully funded by the department. starting from the third semester they started giving half stipend which drags me into endless financial issues in my life. I talked wih my advisor, graduate program director and the chairman, but no one exlplained me why that happened. I'm  not the only PhD student having the same issue in my department. I can't concentrate on my research and day by day I'm becoming a debtor.

I find it very difficult to approach my advisor. When ever I wanted to meet him, I have to take an appointment and he'll give a date in a month. Once we had a research meeting and that was the only one for these two years. When I see my senior students, I feel like they are used to this way.

Should get a Master and leave the PhD?

How long do you have to run on half stipend ? How much debt will this rack up ? Do the maths and work out whether its worth it or not .How much extra income will you be able to get in industry with the PHD ? If you are just going to get a job like most people do then you really must weigh this thing up .If you want to return to the fold so to speak and become a lecturer then the PHD must be finished come hell or high water.


How can I join a university class conducted online as a non-matriculating student during COVID-19? I'd like to join a class at a university, as a non-matriculated student, that I can participate in online, due to COVID-19.  I already have a PhD (in a technical field), and am looking to take a class outside of a technical field, with the goal purely being personal intellectual enrichment.  Many universities are moving classes online due to COVID-19, which makes this practical.
I'm not sure how to go about doing this.  It's easy for me to find classes in the field of interest (Middle Eastern history) in various university catalogs, and it's easy for me to see if the university is holding it online or in person.  But I haven't been able to find out which universities will allow me to participate without being a degree seeking student.  I'm not tied down to any one university or any one particular class, but rather any class in my general area of interest that I can fully participate in.  I know that the application deadline for the upcoming semester is very soon (for cases where it hasn't passed).  Can you give me guidance on:

What types of schools will allow such participation?
What is the application process like?
How do I find these?
How do I go about doing this?

Note that I know there are a lot of open classes, MOOCs, Coursera, etc., but that's not what I'm looking for.  I'm looking for the full structure and engagement of a full university class, with papers that will be graded, and the like.

To clarify:

non-matriculated means here "not seeking a degree", only (full) participation in a class
I am happy to pay tuition for this class
I'm located in the US

What types of schools will allow non-matriculated participation?

I'll skip this part, because honestly it was news to me that there are universities that don't do this.  Usually the emphasis is on job-related courses.

What is the application process like?

Very simple, if you can pay.  They want your money.

How do I find these?

Look for a "school of continuing education," "university extension" or similar.  If you do not want something job-related, you might look at programs marketed to retirees.  In some places, such as those with a shortage of classrooms during teaching periods, this may be easier if you look for summer courses.  Availability of classrooms is not, of course, relevant for online courses.


Coming from a "No Name" University outside the US, what are my chances for admission Background Information
           I would soon be graduating with an engineering degree from a "no name" university somewhere in Nigeria. My performance during my degree was above average. I am hoping to apply for a PhD program in US.
The professors with whom I interact with regularly (with PhD's from schools in the US), have been giving me a resounding warning about applying to schools that clearly do not want and will never admit me because of the school's unpopularity and country of origin. One particular professor told me that Bachelor's degrees from this part of the world are not at all trusted and treated with disdain. I know lot's of schools encourage everybody to apply, but the exchange rates are not friendly, and I don't want to burn the scarce resources I have
QUESTIONS
1. Does country of undergraduate study matter to the graduate admissions committee?
2. Do schools in the US give off hints that applicants from certain backgrounds need not apply?
3. With the difference in educational standards, do I stand a chance at all, even if i find a school willing to admit me?

At least in my department/school in the U.S., we have several individuals from African countries studying for doctoral degrees. I'm a little concerned that there seems to be a disconnect between what you say about your performance (above average) and what your professors are saying (no one would want someone like you, possibly because of where you studied).

As far as I can tell, most schools in the U.S. encourage individuals from diverse backgrounds to apply for their programs, including graduate school. So, I would not make a blanket statement that your country of origin and/or background is an immediate disqualification.

Regarding your academic background, even U.S. colleges differ in terms of academic programs and rigor. That is why the graduate school admissions process involves many different parts, including standardized test scores, interviews, and/or letters of recommendation, that help the admissions committee get a more complete picture of you and how you may fit within the program.


Status of "Reviews Completed" in a springer journal We had submitted to a springer journal (field: Bioinformatics). Two reviewers reviewed the paper and both strongly and unequivocally recommended publication after a few minor changes, e.g., grammatical, a few small clarifications and change of background colors (from black to white for printing purposes). The editor seemed to be very happy about the reviews as well. However, in the tracking site it displayed 'Major Revision' probably as a norm - though frankly there was nothing major in the suggested revisions and both reviewers actually used the term 'minor' in their reports ! It took us no more than two days to do all suggested changes and resubmit. The second round of review has now taken little more than a month, out of which the status was 'under review' for last two weeks and 'Reviews Completed' from last two days. I have never encountered this status before elsewhere so wonder what it means ! Is it similar to 'Pending decision' or indicative of something more than that ? This is my first communication as a corresponding author, so, not to mention, am a bit tensed.

This means that in the next couple of days or so you will hear from the editor for the decision on your manuscript. Basically it means what it says: the journal has received the reviews, the editor is reading them and preparing the letter with her/his decision to send you.


How does being in academia help researchers I have read about many great researchers in various fields who were not involved in academia throughout their lives. Some were involved in academia only part of their life, but almost invariably, their greatest work came after a period of solitude and isolation from others. In fact, most great mathematicians, for example, were rather isolated figures. Bernhard Riemann and Isaac Newton come to mind, but others like James Clerk Maxwell were also isolated during their periods of research. More recently, Andrew Wiles isolated himself for around 7 years and didn't speak about his work to anyone while he was busy solving Fermat's Last Theorem. (I have mentioned only mathematicians because those are the ones I have read about the most.)

Hence, I am failing to see how being in academia/a university position aids one as a researcher, practically speaking. It seems as though the greatest research must come from within the individual due to an intense and personal love and desire for the subject, rather than due to collaborating with others or being given a better position or whatever. In fact, such things seem to be the opposite: detrimental. They would make the person focus not on the subject but on paltry things like gaining more and more money or a better reputation.

My question is simply: How does being in university position (e.g. professor) aid the researchers who are at the highest level in their field? I do not mean being involved in academia, because one can be involved (eg attending seminars and lectures) without having a position (please correct me if I am wrong, as I myself am not actually in academia).

Beyond the obvious benefits of financial stability, one must also consider the possibility that not all researchers are solitary creatures. This is especially true in the non-mathematics parts of STEM fields, which frequently require collaboration to achieve meaningful results.

Moreover, there is the additional issue of the amount of work that one person can get done relative to the number of ideas and projects that they want to explore. For instance, right now, there are about a half-dozen different project ideas that I'd like to work on, and I could probably come up with a dozen more if I had the time and space to do so. But I only have a finite number of hours that I can work, which means that I have a few options:

find people who are willing to work on those ideas by getting a grant and hiring graduate students or postdocs,
do it myself, or
leave the work undone.

The last option is unappealing, and the second is basically impossible without burning myself out after a few months. So that leaves the first option, which is difficult to do if you're not affiliated with some sort of research institution.


Is it lawful for a fellowship linked to a permanent faculty position at a British university in the STEM field to only be available to females? The internally funded Anne McLaren Fellowships at The University of Nottingham state in their eligibility that "Candidates for the Anne McLaren Fellowships must be female and pursuing a career in a STEM subject". (link) One of the benefits of the fellowship is

  The linking of the Fellowship to an indefinite academic post, subject to performance against a high-quality threshold and the continued right to work in the UK

What this means is that fellows will be presented 2 contracts. The first is a 3-year fixed term research only contract with a start date mutually agreed upon by the university and fellow. The second contract is a permanent research and teaching contract with a start date immediately following the end of the first contract. The second contract has stipulations regarding if you get terminated during the first contract (e.g., due to a loss of the right to work in the UK or performance issues) then the second contract is also terminated. There is no hiring process at the time of the second contract.

The Equality Act 2010 protects people from being treated less favourably because of their gender during recruitment. Section 159 of the Act does allow positive action (e.g. favouring an underrepresented group in a tie-break) but as those not classed as female are completely excluded from applying then this appears to be unlawful discrimination not positive action.

It could be that The University of Nottingham has a general exception due to being a charity.  But then it would need to be included in the aim of the charity and the  University's Charter of Incorporation contains "16. The University shall treat students, staff and other people solely on the basis of their merits, abilities and potential, regardless of gender".

In the UK, there are a number of fellowships exclusively for women (e.g., L'Oréal WISE fellowship). The Equality Act of 2010 allows for positive action outside of recruitment which these fellowships likely fall under. The Equality Act of 2010, however, does not allow for positive action in recruitment (apart from giving preference for equally qualified applicants).

The Anne McLaren Fellowship is a little strange in that it is a fellowship that is linked to a permanent job. If you view it as a fellowship, it legal positive action. If you view it as a job, it is illegal positive action. I think the key thing is that when the school is making a decision about the job, the gender of the applicant is not considered. It is obviously very relevant to the school that the applicant has a fellowship as generous as the Anne McLaren fellowship, but the fact that the fellowship is limited to women does not matter in the hiring process. So the Equality Act of 2010 is likely not being violated.

Providing fellowships that only women are eligible for may go against the university charter or may be illegal in some other manner, but I do not think it runs afoul of the Equality Act of 2010.


Do certificates for "Outstanding Reviewer Contribution" matter? So, I have recently received a certificate of outstanding reviewer contribution from a good and well-known journal in my field. I admit that I did not even know these things exist until now.

  Do these certificates carry any prestige? Does it makes any sense to include it on my CV? Or, equivalently, at what point does it make sense to include this achievement?

I expect that the less senior I am (i.e., PhD student) the more it matters, but what is the point that it becomes white noise on one's resume?

My initial thought is "NO" (in the sense that nobody in any hiring committee would care). On the other hand, given the constant struggle to find decent reviewers, maybe this carries some signal about my responsibilities towards the community. But I would like to see opinions in this matter, if any.

There is little significance, if any, attached to “good reviewer” commendations. You’re generally being hired for your research or teaching contributions, not service. The only thing that such an award shows is that you do make significant contributions in service, which demonstrates you might be a “good neighbor.” But that’s all that it shows, and not mentioning it will certainly not hurt you.


Final paper submission while NOT attending the conference I'm the corresponding author of my accepted paper in a conference. I won't be able to attend the conference so one of the co-authors will attend and present the paper.

Now for the final paper submission, I have to make a full registration for the system to let me upload the final version.

Should I register and upload the final paper while I know I'm not going to attend? I know that only the corresponding author can submit the final version.
Is it possible to register and then somehow transfer my submission to my co-author who will be attending or he needs to make a separate registration?

Mohammad, your co-author can attend the conference on your behalf, as he/she is also the part of that paper. However, it's better to contact the convenor/organizer of that conference. It depends upon their policies whether they allow it or not.


Is it normal to spend a whole day reading and writing about a single paper for a literature review? I'm not native speaker and I'm doing a lit review at the moment. My Question is it normal to spend a whole day reading and writing about  one paper? So I read the paper deeply and then write about it. The process takes more than 6 hours.  Is that normal or should I try to double that?

Just to expand on Peter's answer, there is a saying on the University of Canberra's Academic Skills Centre: Reading and Remembering regarding academic papers:

Academic material is not meant to be read.
It is meant to be ransacked and pillaged for essential content.

Particularly, some of their advice for reading academic texts may be of help in helping you with the time taken to read and summarise the texts that you have, specifically before you start reading, have a question already that you want answered and very importantly, to optimise your time in reading academic papers:

If there is a summary, a conclusion, a set of sub-headings, or an abstract, read that first, because it will give you a map of what the text contains. You can then deal with the text structurally, looking for particular points, not just reading ‘blind’ and so easily getting lost.

I always have a subject-based dictionary on hand as well.


Publication database backend for academic web sites My institution currently tracks its members' publications by sending them an email every six months and then manually compiling publication lists from the replies. I am looking into updating the organisation's web site, and I would like to implement a system where users can maintain their own publication list on their academic web page. This data should go into a central database, so that we can (for example) easily pull up the last six months' worth of new publications for reporting purposes.

My question is whether there is a standard solution to this problem: is there any free or commercially available software that will allow us to set up a user-editable publication list system with a database backend?

If it's relevant, we're looking at using Wordpress as the backend for the whole site, with one of the many "user profile" plugins being used to create the individual personal pages. (This is all being done on a shoe string budget.)

This sounds like a job for an institutional repository (though you don't have to publicise its existence as such...)

The two most commonly used open-source packages for repositories are ePrints and D-Space, though there's a few others. Anecdotally, D-Space is somewhat more complex to set up than ePrints, though I've only got experience of the latter.

Both have comparable levels of functionality, including metadata feeds/export, and it should be easy enough to export material into a Wordpress site - I've certainly seen it done, for example in this rough proof-of-concept. I'll see if I can find a more polished example.


Adding an Author After paper got accepted in a conference? I have submitted a paper to a conference, but some one in lab help me after the paper has been submitted. Can I add them as a third author if the paper got approved to be appear in the conference ?

I think that in almost all cases this would be fine. But you should contact the conference (or program) committee chair immediately to get confirmation. Better to do it early than to be disappointed later.

This would especially be possible if the conference gives you a chance to revise the paper after review and comments by reviewers. Many do this.


Submission procedure for letters of recommendation I intend to study for a Master Program in the US. I'm from foreign country, so I don't know what's the procedure to submit letters of recommendation.

My initial guess is, the ones who write the letters for me have to submit it (otherwise it would be meaningless to submit it myself). But I wonder, do I have to create separate accounts for sending the letters, or I have to send my application account to my writers? If so, can I create accounts for them, because they are very busy? Finally, is it possible to submit same letters to multiple universities?

Consult the application page of the school you are applying to. Most institutions make it pretty clear how letters of recommendation are to be submitted. From an ethical standpoint, the letters should never pass through your hands, just as your transcript should be mailed directly from your undergraduate institution without going through you.

If the application process is completed online, as most are these days, you will have to provide email contacts for your references. They will receive emails from the application system on how to proceed. Their access to the system should be generated automatically. Neither you nor they should have to create accounts for them.

If the institution is insistent on using snail mail as the means of submitting information, then provide each of your letter writers with an envelope that is already addresses and has proper postage. That way your letter writers can seal the envelope themselves and drop the letter in the mail.

It is possible to submit the same letter to another institution. I have read some letters that were clearly done that way (e.g., addressed to a different institution, describing the candidate's aptitude for an unrelated position, photocopied, or dated five years ago). I would not do this. Submitting identical letters to multiple institutions (and it is usually obvious, because a good letter is tailored to that institution), implies three bad things about you:

You are too lazy to ask for new letters of recommendation.
Your letter writes did not know about the second application, so their comments are not relevant.
You didn't trust your letter writers to write you a good letter for that position.

Just ask your letter writers to write new letters to each institution. This second letter will not be written from scratch, so it won't be as much work for them. Likely, they will edit a letter they wrote about you previously to create a new letter specific to the new institution or position.


Math postdoc: 'endowed' postdoc vs. ordinary postdoc It seems that most of the job advertisements for postdoc positions in mathematics (in the US) on mathjobs are named positions (I.e. "Smith visiting assistant professor" or something like that), and each department offers a very small number of such positions (usually between 1 to 4). But when I check the webpages of the relevant departments, it seems that they usually have something like 20-30 postdoctoral researchers, and most of them are not named postdocs.

What is the common way to apply for those ordinary postdoc positions? (I can't find them on mathjobs and I know that math postdocs in the US are usually not hired by a PI)
When you apply for a named position on mathjobs, does it mean that the hiring committee will automatically consider you also for the ordinary postdoc position?

I hope it is not true that most mathjobs postdoc ads are for "named postdocs", because these exist mostly at very elite places: I am not aware of more than a dozen of them altogether.  Generally there are on the order of 100 postdocs you can apply for at mathjobs.

Anyway, mathjobs is quite good at separating out various kinds of positions.  At my institution we currently have four different mathjobs ads including two different kinds of postdocs.  Of course you need to read carefully and understand the differences among all these positions (not all of our applicants do so).

I can go in and look if you insist (really; it's not a problem), but I strongly suspect that if you are only finding "named postdocs" then you are not reading carefully enough and missing the other postdocs offered by the same departments.  The vast majority of math postdocs really are available on mathjobs; I can't even think of another place that advertises these positions in any quantity.
It is possible, but I wouldn't assume so.  Again, mathjobs allows you to tailor your application to multiple positions at the same place.  For instance you may use the same recommendation letters but submit different cover letters, and you might submit a teaching statement for one position and not another.

If you have any questions about this, feel free to ask at the department of interest.

Added: Thanks to Noah Snyder, who pointed out that the "dozen" above is not accurate.  In fact that is the answer to a different question, namely how many departments offer postdocs under the name "Firstname Lastname Assistant Professor".  I would be interested to know which departments offer "named postdocs" of one kind or another.  I think it is more than 12 and less than 50.

Actually, I just checked, and 36 out of the top 55 math departments have named postdocs.  So probably there are about 50 altogether.


Is there any evidence of a benefit to distributing documents to students vs taking notes? Suppose you teach a course in which you display slides. Two approaches exists:

distribute the slides (or any document that summarizes the content of the slides);
rely on students to take notes.

[EDIT: When I say "distribute the slides", it does not imply that taking additional notes is forbidden. It simply means that the documents are available for students if they need them. The question is whether this policy encourage student to rely more on the slides than they should (reasoning "I can read the course whenever I want, so I don't need to listen carefully in class").]

Is there any evidence of which is better. I am searching for evidence that could solve the following situations (list not exhaustive) without relying on personnal taste/preferences:

you don't have a lot of experience in teaching and you want to build an opinion on the subject
you share a class with an other professor, and one of you think slides should be distributed, the other not

Suppose that there is no problem of copyright, etc.. Class level may be a parameter (e.g. undergrad vs grad).

The question here is related, but no answer seem to provide evidence other than experience or testimony, which are not strong evidences. A study from education sciences, pedagogy or something similar would be much better. I suppose such study exist, yet I can't find such a study on google scholar or similar sites.

There is contradictory evidence I think on whether for the general student, providing materials is beneficial or not.

For example, a study finding a benefit in providing notes:
Raver, S. A., & Maydosz, A. S. (2010). Impact of the provision and timing of instructor-provided notes on university students’ learning. Active Learning in Higher Education, 11(3), 189–200. https://doi.org/10.1177/1469787410379682

A study finding that providing notes is detrimental:
Weatherly, J. N., Grabe, M., & Arthur, E. I. L. (2003). Providing Introductory Psychology Students Access to Lecture Slides via Blackboard 5: A Negative Impact on Performance. Journal of Educational Technology Systems, 31(4), 463–474. https://doi.org/10.2190/KRW7-QHFY-AY3M-FFJC

Lots more on google scholar.

However, i think it is better established that providing notes is beneficial to those with various specific learning difficulties (SpLD) like dyslexia and dyspraxia (although I don't have the evidence to hand) and we are required to provide materials to this group of students. Given the large number of such students in a modern classroom, and the effort it would require to distribute materials to only this group, it is easy just to give it to everyone.

I tend to provide my slides, before the lecture, but  - my slides contain little to no text, meaning some notes must be taken. I also draw a lot of diagrams during the lecture, that are represented as blank slides in the pre-lecture notes.

After the lecture I provide the slides with the blanks filled in, and my speaker notes.


What can I do if the terms of my adjunct contract are not what I was led to believe they would be? The situation is as follows:

Once upon a time, the university where I have served as an adjunct decided to bring me on in a fixed-term role spanning a single academic year. This was to get them out of a low-manpower bind due to medical and retirement cases with some of our tenured faculty. The idea was a reasonable salary with benefits. So, classes start, and I have no contract. One pay period goes by, then two. Finally my contract comes through after much back-and-forth between the administration--which I'm to understand is heavily associated with our business school--and our department head. Result? Reduced from a single year to a single semester to avoid the benefits package, and reduced pay because they say they cannot retroactively pay someone who didn't have a contract during the intervening time. Given my history with this institution, I'm not at all surprised by this, but this is something of a new low. Yes, it makes good business sense to acquire labor for as cheaply as possible, but it also sends a bad long-term message that I am not valued as an employee. What, if anything, can I do about this?

First of all, consult a lawyer before doing anything.

If you were to leave in the middle of the course, that will cause havoc, that they won't probably want. Since they are not paying you for the work, you are under no contractual obligation to fulfil anything (but consult the lawyer), and can leave without giving them notice.

Now, you may find unethical to leave your students hanging like this, but the mere threat that you are willing to do it, may get some wheels spinning to give you a decent offer.

Another option to consider is whatever anti-slavery laws apply in your jurisdiction, since you are working for free; and anti fraud, because you are working without a contract. Furthermore, since you don't have a contract, you are not covered by the insurance, and if anything were to happen during your lecture, there is trouble. Think who would have to pay for in case, for example, a projector caught fire and ruined the classroom.

If your oral agreement is considered a contract, you can't do this; but then they would be acknowledging they have to abide by these rules.


Prospect of pro-bono/voluntary work with current advisor after graduating with PHD As an international student in the united states, I am legally allowed to work for 12 months, extendable to 29months for STEM fields, after graduating with my PhD (or masters degree for that matter) without having to change my visa/student status.

Now, I am looking for post doc opportunities in the US at several univerities but unfortunately none of the PI's respond to any queries OR application material that I send them for opportunities advertised on their websites.

I am seriously considering working voluntarily, without pay for my current advisor after I graduate in Dec 2012 with my PhD in Mechanical Engineering.

I am legally allowed voluntarily as part of the optional practical training period available to me after graduation.
I intend on doing my post doc / work pro-bono in the US because, lets face it, my home country doesn't really do much research and the pay grades are about $140 a month for fresh PhD graduates whilst I earn several times more as a grad student here in the US.
Visa regulations make it horrendously difficult to move to an other country for post doc opportunities and it is easier for me to continue in the US as I am alreadly legally here.
I am planning on writing a couple of proposals with my advisor so that I may grow my own post doc
It is an absolute pleasure working for my advisor and I wouldn't mind doing it for free for the mental stimulation that it provides (although I wouldn't want to work for free forever teeheehee :P)

How should I approach this situation? I am planning on requesting him to retain me on a pro-bono thingy as I genuinely like the direction my research has taken since I signed up with him 3 years ago!

Has anyone else encountered such a quandary?

I think it really depends on how long you plan to work without salary. If you apply for some grants in the next months, and you'll get the answers for instance in February 2012, I guess it's ok to work without salary for a couple of months, but only because you're expecting something specific. But I wouldn't recommend being in such a situation if there are no concrete expectation, because, in addition to the fact that you might need money to live, it can also be psychologically difficult, for both your advisor and yourself (maybe it's just me, but I would feel bad asking someone to do some work without any salary, even if this person is willing to).

You say that visa regulations make it difficult to move from one country to another, I don't know which country you come from, but having a PhD usually makes the process quite easier, especially coming from the US. You still have more than 6 months to find a postdoc, you would be better off with trying to get a job somewhere, meet new people, do something different and in the mean time, work with your current advisor on a proposal that would allow you to come back with some funding. An important aspect of a postdoc is to demonstrate your ability to cut the apron strings with your advisor, and to show that you can work with other people.


Am I responsible for that my PhD adviser does not have any fund or grant and as a result it really limited my research? I'm a PhD student at my fifth semester in the US. From the beginning of my PhD program, I didn't have sponsored graduate research assistantship from NSF or NIH. I was just on my PhD adviser's startup grant for two semesters and after that I got a job in another department of our university. Right now, I don't take money from my PhD adviser for almost a year and half (so basically I'm a free PhD student for my adviser!). By the way I'm not the US citizen or permanent resident in order to apply for NSF or NIH funds directly by myself so my options regarding funding are really limited or even I would say I don't have any option to get a fund by myself.

As a result, I built my PhD research based on open source available softwares as well as data sets, which I found it initially just by my research without my PhD adviser help. Besides that we don't have any fund, also we don't collaborate with anyone which again limited our options. This relying on open source softwares and data sets is really limited my research, cause the amount of data that I could use for my research is limited to those open source datasets and I don't have access to any other datasets, which might be available in other research groups, because of the problems that I mentioned earlier. The type of data that I need for my PhD research is related to medical images, which is not available easily everywhere and as a result it's really hard to find it as a open source dataset (I was lucky that I found at least one open source dataset!).

Let's say, I processed all the currently open source available data out there and analyze them and answered my research questions. But the problem is: there are several people out there, which are famous people that they are emerged in the field that I'm working on for years and have a big project from NIH or NSF that give them an access to some private datasets that are 10 times bigger than mine. Of course this bigger datasets increase the accuracy of the model that we are trying to work on as my PhD project.

Recently, my PhD adviser compared my accomplishments to these research groups that are engaged in big projects from NIH and NSF for years and said: by using your current open source datasets, it's really hard to say something in this field. I think it's not a fair comparison. Even our recent results with smaller dataset size shows comparable and to some extent better performance than other available models out there. Also, we studied several aspects of our research questions, which did not even touched by other people. So my question is: Am I responsible for that my PhD adviser does not have any fund or grant and as a result it really limited my research? How can I deal with this situation?

In general, this is bad form on the part of the advisor and your committee (shouldn't be approving thesis topics that are not viable if funding is not available). As a PhD student, you are in training and potential stumbling blocks should be made clear to you.

For example, for my PhD I worked in a lab where I wanted to do field work in another country, but my advisor didn't have funding for this. I decided to go ahead with this part of the project, partially using my own personal funds, as well as cobbling together several small research grants to cover these costs.

So I would recommend to you that you investigate research funds that might be available from your department, institution, scientific society, foundation, or other non-federal source. Funding begets funding and you absolutely have to be successful in getting grants to be a successful academic.

Additionally, it seems odd that an advisor could take on a student with no funding in the lab. That would not be allowed in my department (biology sub-field at a private, R1 university).

Finally, to your last question: I think you are correct and it is unreasonable to compare the contribution of a single graduate student with "famous" well-funded labs! The contribution to your field during your PhD can be modest- that's ok- but it has to be good science, so I would focus on how to make sure that you are doing the most rigorous and sound research with the resources you have available. And get to writing grant applications! Good luck.


Leading an Academic "Book Club" Short form: How should one lead a collaborative "book study group" amongst one's peers, particularly when the leader does not have deep prior knowledge of the book?

Long form: I'm an undergraduate CS student† (rising junior).  In the remaining time before I graduate, I thought it would be a fun idea to read a volume of Knuth's Art of Computer Programming each semester and work some of the problems.  Since I know others in the department might be interested in studying this work, I decided I would organize a "book club" where we read ~40-50 pages a week and then meet up to discuss what we read and/or solutions to exercises that we have solved.

So, my biggest question is: Besides solutions to exercises in the book or clarifications on what we read, what else should or could be discussed during our weekly meetings?

There are plenty of resources online about "how to lead a book club," but they all primarily focus on literature/story analysis, etc., not something suited for scientific writing.  Many book clubs will have a time where they read a chapter aloud, which also is not applicable to Knuth's work.  I feel as though I'm searching for the wrong term when I use the phrase "book club."  Is there a standard term for this form of study group that I could use in searches?

Furthermore, I have not read AoCP before.  Thus, I don't have a strong basis of knowledge upon which I could draw to guide discussion.  Obviously, a great solution would be to get a professor or grad student who has read AoCP to act as a mentor for the group; however, I do not know if any have done so--assume for sake of this question that such a mentor is not available.

†I know that issues facing undergraduates are generally off-topic here.  However, I believe this situation could also be faced by a grad student or a postdoc--the primary difference would be the difficulty of the source material they are studying.  I simply mention my background so readers may understand where I'm coming from.

I ran one of these a few years back. Here's what we did:

Start by publicizing the idea with your friends/colleagues and setting up an initial meeting. You'll get a sense prior to the meeting whether there's interest. The more advertising you do here the higher chance you'll actually have a showing at the first meet.

At the first meet, re-state the purpose—group of people working through the ideas in the book—and decide the meeting cadence (weekly, biweekly, monthly). This is important; reading through books like this take time, and for the group to work it's critical that people actually read the content and come prepared to discuss questions. You need to give enough time to let them read, and not so much that they'll forget what they read.
On this note, we also split the book up by chapter (we were reading [Elements of Statistical Learning](http://statweb.stanford.edu/~tibs/ElemStatLearn/, chapter splits made sense there). You may decide to split by topic or whatever else. The main idea is to ensure that everyone's on the same page, and comes to the next meet prepared to discuss the same content.

During the break, read up on content. As the group leader/organizer you may want to take notes on what you read to prompt discussion (itemize points covered, questions you thought of, points for discussion). Send out one or two emails reminding them about it.

At the first meet, come with discussion points and be prepared to lead a discussion, as it's likely no one else will take the lead. You don't have to be an expert, you just have to lead the conversation and bring up talking points. If you're not comfortable in this role, find someone who is and make sure they come to the meeting.
I recommend you keep the meeting at 60 minutes or less. If the first one is a success the rest then just wash, rinse, repeat.


Making sure I'm in good terms with peer researchers and not making enemies I'm a student that started doing CS research not too long ago, and I'd like some advice on making sure I'm in good terms with my peers. I've been helping another student's project (in my field, the first author is usually the author. I was to be the second author because it wasn't my project, but I'm also very interested in this research direction), but I feel that my contributions are not appreciated, and I'm often blamed for bad results. Just as an illustration, one such situation is, when I come up with an idea (e.g. finding algorithms, relevant papers that we can use in our research), the other student would pretend as if they knew about it already and tries to explain it to me as if I've never heard of it before, and takes credit. Then when I implement that idea as we discussed,  s/he seems happy with it, but later when it turns out to be not exactly what we wanted (either another slightly different method performed better or his/her advisor didn't like it), I'm blamed for introducing that problem.

And I also feel that, while I'm interested in solving the same problem, I want to approach in a different way (s/he wouldn't accept it in our current project for reasons like, there are other more important things we should be working on, and so on. and I can't argue much because it's not my project). I understand that I shouldn't simply victimize myself, and it could be a different story from someone else's perspective, but regardless, I think I started seeing how there are politics in academia and how researchers can act petty and selfish, and I want to avoid that as much as possible and focus on having fun doing research and growing my career.

If I wanted to leave a project and do similar research in my own ways, is there a wise way to do this without accidentally taking credit for anything I didn't do or giving the impression that I'm trying to steal the research? I would simply cite the work we did together if there was a paper, but there is no publication yet because we couldn't finish on time, and I don't really see it being completed this way. In addition, we found out recently that there are other papers that solve this problem or part of this problem in a very similar way. I could take a significantly different direction for solving a different problem under different assumptions, but I can also see that backfiring and giving the wrong impression.
What are some potential source of unwanted politics/conflicts that beginning researchers should be aware of in general?
If you've observed students that ended up not being able to collaborate well, what was your perspective, and what did they seem to be forgetting?
If you've had conflicts or ended up not being in good terms with another researcher, how did it affect your career, if it had a long term effect?

Starting a collaboration comes with commitments. If you work together with someone, you cannot just walk away, because the other members of the team have invested a serious amount of work, which might depend on your contribution. So usually the only thing you could do is to finish the project and avoiding starting a new one. The latter might be difficult, because people trying to exploit you can prove quite clingy. However, as I read your question, you are in a easier situation:

  In addition, we found out recently that there are other papers that solve this problem or part of this problem in a very similar way.

Face it, your project is dead. You might get a publication by applying your method to some variation of the problem, but this is neither good science nor good for your career in the long run. So cut your losses and do something else. Ending the project can also be used as a pretext for ending the collaboration, which apparently did not work out.

While you are certainly right that scientists are as selfish and petty as everyone else, quite often both sides in such a conflict feel exploited by the other side. If you tell your collaborator every idea that comes to your mind, while s/he thinks things through before communicating, s/he will think that you leave all the hard work to him/her, while you will feel starved of necessary information. So a collaboration can end in a disaster, even if all people involved behaved exactly as they expected the others to behave.


How to write a sincere reply to a very positive reply from a professor? My roomie has recently been applying for PhD programmes. He's particularly interested in the one led by prof X, so the other day he sent an email presenting his research experiences and showing his interest in prof X's research. He got a very positive reply from prof X today:

  Hi XXX, Yes I am planning to accept PhD students this year. I strongly encourage you to apply... please indicate theory as your interest and/or mention my name as faculty of interest in your application.

This sounds like great news. So my roomie decides to reply and tell X he's really enthusiastic about applying to this programme. But neither of us has any idea what would be an appropriate way to do this. Would simply writing like "thanks for your help prof X I will definitely apply!" be too short and not show enough enthusiasm? Could anybody give some advice?

Thank you for your reply, Professor X. I am happy to hear that you're interested in taking on a PhD student for next year, I will definitely be putting in an application for the position. I look forward to hearing more about the project in the future. Regards, me.

You don't need to throw them a parade, but take a little more time to email them something other than just,

  Thanks a bunch!


How many external reviewers is typical for a tenure case? If someone is on a tenure track in a science or engineering department at U.S. institution (Tier 1, if that makes the question more focused), and it is time to review his case to be tenured and promoted to associate professor, what is a typical range for the number of the external reviewers for his file? Does the number vary if the case is for professorship promotion?

The actual number varies by institution and, frankly, does not matter that much.  The real questions are:

Are you known in a community?  Do people in your academic community generally know of you and, more importantly, your work.
Does the university want to keep you?  It is always possible to find people who will write either effusively positive or cynically negative reviews of anyone and everyone.  Such reviewers are generally known to people who seek their reviews.

The first question is loosely tied to the visibility of your research, and the second question is loosely tied to your value within the university (often including teaching, grant funding, collegiality, and the like).


Medical student being cut out of a project by fellow unbeknownst to supervisor At the beginning of an academic year I approached a physician at my school and requested to do a research project with them, as I was interested in their field of medicine. The supervisor was agreeable, and paired me with an international fellow to work on a small project together. I don't believe the fellow had a choice in this, so in a sense I was forced upon her.

Throughout the entire year I attempted to get more involved with the project and the fellow consistently cut me out. I collected about 1/4-1/3 of the data but she often wouldn't tell me when new charts would come in and would do them instead of me. I would often email her and she would not respond, and at one point she purposely switched direction in a hallway to avoid me.

I consistently asked for more work and conveyed I wanted to be involved with the writing process. Despite asking, I was never cc'd on emails to the supervisor and not informed about many meetings with the supervisor. When I emailed the fellow to schedule a  meeting to talk about the abstract writing she emailed back and said she had already written it but asked me to do a literature review chart for the paper which I did within two weeks.

At this point in the year I was very concerned about the supervisor's opinion of me but did not want to complain about the fellow. I finally managed to attend a meeting with the fellow and the supervisor which was very brief but I did not get a negative reaction from the supervisor. I sat down with the fellow after the meeting and requested to PLEASE write the introduction for the paper over the summer. She assured me yes I could, and to take my time as we wouldn't be finalizing the paper until after the summer. She also told me she would update me over the summer with the statistical analysis etc.

I recently contacted the fellow to ask for an update as I was about to start writing the introduction and she told me she had written the paper as it was due September 1st and already sent it to the supervisor for edits.

My concern has nothing to do with authorship but purely for my reputation with the supervisor. Residency programs are notorious for asking around about students they are interested in. Although I am no longer interested in this speciality, I am frustrated that the supervisor may think poorly of me when I fought all year to be involved. I am unsure of whether I should approach the supervisor about this or let it go, as she has given me no sign that she has any ill will towards me.

You should tell your supervisor you were disappointed there was not more work for you to do.  This will ensure your supervisor knows your viewpoint.  There's no need to suggest that the fellow was deliberately preventing you from contributing.  It's not clear what the fellow's motivations were, so it is hard to be sure if they should be discussed.  Stick to your own actions, which are directly relevant to your reputation.


Multiple references to the same author but without a date In a thesis using the “(Author, Year)” citation style a problem arises when the date is missing. Then Citavi for Word just writes “(Author)”. Now in case that there are several undated sources from the same company, all of them become “(Company)”, which is ambigious. If there was a year one could simply do “(Company, 2019a)” and “(Company 2019b)” to resolve this.

What shall one do when there is a missing date and there are multiple sources? Shall one just use “0000a” and “0000b” for the date?

You can use the same approach as for multiple sources from a single known year, adding an additional letter. For example one way of writing it would be "(Company, n.d.-a)" and "Company, n.d.-b)", where 'n.d.' is short for "no date". Adapt as needed to meet the requirements of your citation style. The hyphen is required for the APA style, for example, but might not be universal:

  Also remember that if you have two or more “in press” or “no date” references with the same authors in the same order, you should use lowercase letters—a, b, c, and so forth—after the publication date and alphabetize the references by their titles (excluding A, An, and The; see p. 182 in the Publication Manual). The only difference between these types of references and references with publication years is that “in press” and “no date” references contain a hyphen before the a, b, and so forth:

  American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. (n.d.-a). The knowledge . . .

  American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. (n.d.-b). A strategy to . . .

  Schafer, G., & Plunkett, K. (2011a). The power . . .

  Schafer, G., & Plunkett, K. (2011b). Task complexity . . .

  Schafer, G., & Plunkett, K. (in press-a). The rapid learning . . .

  Schafer, G., & Plunkett, K. (in press-b). Sometimes a child . . .


Asking previous advisor for a better letter of reference I recently applied for a national scholarship at my university. My application was accepted internally as one of few to be sent to the organization hosting the scholarship. However, the people screening applications at my university were slightly concerned about one of my reference letters from my last advisor, and sent it to me to show me what he wrote (I'm pretty sure those letters are supposed to be confidential, but that's beside the point). A brief summary of the letter is that I'm only slightly above average, and 1/4 of the letter is about his previous research accomplishments. I can't change referees since my application has already been screened. My question is, can I ask my previous advisor to improve his letter of recommendation?

You can certainly ask, and might be successful, or not. It is impossible to say. But a better approach might be for the scholarship people to ask the professor for a better letter on your behalf, explaining the reasoning and perhaps the fact that his is an outlier.

Having an advocate may be more effective in a situation like this. Another professor might also prevail upon your advisor, but it would be impossible to hide the fact that you'd seen the letter.


How much do grades from beginning of bachelors impact PhD admission? Do low grades in standard 12 and first year of bachelors (including a few repeats) hamper the admission to a PhD course in Europe if one has a research paper published and a masters degree in relevant discipline with decent grades?

This may depend on the country as well as university/institute. You should have a look at the corresponding websites, as most information regarding PhD admission can be found online.

For example, the TU Munich website [1] states:

  Results are considered to be above average if studies were completed
  with an average grade of at least 2.5, or at a minimum passed with a
  grade of “good.” In exceptional cases, your above-average
  qualifications can also be proven through academic work (e.g.
  publications) completed after your course of study.

This means that your bachelor or earlier grades to not affect PhD admission as a hard citerion. However, when you hand in your application the professor will have a look at ALL your grades. It is his/her finial decision whether to accept you, so all your grades might have an influence on the outcome.

Personally, I have experienced that having publications beforehand helps a lot. Thereby you prove that you have at least a basic understanding of scientific work. This may give you an advantage compared to other applicants.

[1] https://www.gs.tum.de/en/applicants/application/requirements/


I'd like to use a figure from a paper; what's the best way to do this? So, I've seen a really nice figure in a paper; what's the best way to 'get a copy'?

Will it be on the publisher's website?
Do I need to draw my own version?
Email the author?

And, finally, how does the answer vary for (a) those wishing to republish the figure in their own work, (b) those not wishing to publish the figure e.g. for student coursework.

Unless the paper is available under a very permissive license, such as Creative Commons Attribution, you will need to seek permission.  (There may be other legal possibilities, such as fair use or fair dealing, but that's a little subtle.  See this story for more information on that.)

The copyright owner is the person you need permission from.  Who that is will generally be marked on the published paper (often it is the publisher, and sometimes the author).  If the publisher holds the copyright, then it is still polite to ask permission from the authors as well, although this is not legally required.

Big commercial publishers will often have a department for dealing with this, typically with a name like "Permissions".  If you can't find such a department, then you can try just writing to the journal in question (look at their web page to try to find e-mail addresses).

If you are lucky, they will quickly approve your use of the figure.  If you are not lucky, they will ask for money.

  And, finally, how does the answer vary for (a) those wishing to republish the figure in their own work,

There are definitely legal issues here.

  (b) those not wishing to publish the figure e.g. for student coursework.

If you never make the work available to the public, then it is hard to imagine that the copyright owner will ever learn about it or complain (and they would look foolish if they tried to sue someone for using their figure in a homework assignment).  However, you still have a moral obligation to cite the source of the figure.


Should I mention a published paper in a disreputable journal in my resumé for admission to a PhD scholarship? I want to be admitted to PhD studies at a foreign university with a scholarship.

I was in a team of four members authoring a paper, whose senior member (who is a professor) corresponded the publication himself from initial to final stage without letting us know the journal name. After the acceptance, he told us the journal’s name and we found that it is not listed in Thomson Reuters / ISI and its claim of an impact factor is fake. It is not even showing a DOI of the paper. Now we are thinking as if our whole struggle was useless.

Please advise whether I should mention the paper on my resumé for PhD scholarships admissions or not.

I understand your conflict.  On the one hand, you have produced a manuscript detailing your hard work.  On the other hand, you don't want to appear associated with a fake/predatory/otherwise questionable journal.

My suggestion is that you do include this work in some form in your CV. For example, you might have a few sections:

1) Peer-reviewed publications

2) Publications in-press

3) Other work / manuscripts / manuscripts in progress, etc.

If it were me, I might consider including this paper under #3, potentially withholding the journal name if I felt so strongly as to question whether it might even be called a journal.  Alternatively, you might include a note underneath that line item stating "submitted to non-peer reviewed journal without author's knowledge".  While this would be fairly strange to see, it would at least offer a discussion point, while giving you credit for work performed.


How is the Dutch degree/diploma title structure for VMBO-HAVO-VWO? I am reading about the Dutch education structure, and noticed the name of the diploma for Secondary Education is divided into 3 main areas, VMBO (vocational), HAVO (high-school) and VWO (pre-academic) But how do you write the degree-diploma title? Do you separate the diploma from the main subject of study (the major in the States) or write the diploma plus the subject of study/major all together as one? Specially for VMBO that is separated into NLFQ (Dutch qualification framework, 1-4).

If I understood correctly, you are asking how one would put the title of ones Dutch secondary education on, for example, a CV.
A little introduction for those not familiar with the Dutch education system. The Dutch secondary education is split into three levels, depending on how smart the child is: vmbo, havo and vwo. Children start secondary education when they are about 11 or 12. Vmbo (nominally) takes four years, havo takes five years and vwo takes six years.
Vmbo
Vmbo is further split into four levels: vmob-b, vmbo-k, vmbo-gl and vmbo-t, also called mavo. Students can choose a specialisation. In Dutch these are called 'profielen', literally 'profiles', but a better translation might be 'subject clusters'. It is important to note that these specialisations are not a single course, but are a combination of courses that are followed in addition to some mandatory base courses (such as Dutch). Vmbo-b, -k and -gl have 10 of these profiles, vmbo-t has 4.
On a CV, you would write the title as the sublevel, e.g. 'Vmbo-t'. In brackets, or underneath it, you could write 'Profile Economy', but this is not part of your diploma title.
Havo
Havo has no sublevels and has 4 profiles. The diploma title would just be 'Havo', for the profile see above.
Vwo
Vwo has the same 4 profiles as havo. Vwo is split in two levels: atheneum and gymnasium. Gymnasium students take ancient Greek and/or Latin courses, atheneum students don't.
As a title you can either use just 'Vwo', or use the sublevel, i.e. 'Atheneum' or 'Gymnasium'. Especially gymnasium students often opt to do this, since it is seen as the higher level. For the profiles, again, see above.
PS
Al the abbreviations of the school levels are written in lowercase, except when at the beginning of a sentence.


Are all papers published by ACM indexed in DBLP? Will a paper accepted by a new conference, whose proceedings will be published by ACM and indexed in Ei Compendex and Scopus, also be indexed in DBLP?

In particular, will the proceedings of ICCBDC be indexed in DBLP?

I think this question can be answered via DBLP's FAQ, specifically: What are the criteria for dblp to index a journal or conference? In a nutshell,

DBLP has a venue application and review process that seems to be applied to each newly included venue,
During this process, a set of minimum standards for newly included venues is considered. One of these standards seems to be inherently fulfilled by conferences published in the ACM digital library: ''All full-texts of contributions should be available online (either openly or as a paid service) in an established digital library.''
There are no guarantees for (timely) inclusion: ''Please note that beside the eligibility of a publication venue, the workload and the resources at dblp are always a limiting factor for the inclusion of new venues''.


Is it bad to apply to one PhD program with the intent of leaving for another (more prestigious) one? I'm in my senior year of undergrad. I messed up a little bit academically this semester - not seriously, but enough to be confident I wouldn't get into a top 20 math PhD program. So I wanted to work on improving my CV for a year or two and then apply to the top 20 PhD programs (kind of like this person). I was thinking of this year applying to 2nd-tier schools for either a Master's or PhD program, then if I'm excelling really well in my first semester, applying to 1st-tier math PhD programs at the end of that semester. The main question I have is whether I should apply to the Master's or the PhD programs at 2nd-tier schools.

At first it seemed like a no-brainer to apply to the PhD programs at the 2nd-tier schools in order to receive free tuition and a stipend (which usually don't come with Master's programs). But then I was worrying if it would be looked down upon by both the university I am at and the one I am applying to if I am "quitting" one funded PhD program in order to join another. I especially felt concerned after looking at this answer, which describes a PhD as a "long-term relationship... an expensive and rare opportunity." Should I avoid applying to one PhD program with the intent of leaving for another (more prestigious) one? If so, should I just apply to Master's programs at the 2nd-tier schools this year?

This would be wrong.

The reason the PhD is subsidized, while the master's is not, is because you are making a longer-term commitment to the university, and they expect to benefit as an institution from your PhD work.  You would be accepting this under false pretenses.  In my opinion, this is just wrong, apart from whether it harms you or not.  You should not enter into agreements where you never intend to hold up your side of the deal.

It would also not work as well for your plan.

I think it will be hard to produce evidence, based on 6 months or a year of a PhD program, of your improved academic performance.  But you could actually complete a master's degree in a year's time, and that would be something that would really help admission into a PhD program.

Leaving shortly into your PhD program is definitely frowned upon.

Universities actively try to stop this from happening.  For example, they usually do not allow people in PhD programs to convert their work into a master's degree after a year or two of study, precisely because people would try to take advantage of this loophole to get a free master's.

This will look bad to the institution you are leaving.  I'm less certain about how the institution you are going to would view it, but it seems a potential negative there, as well.


Can I write a template just like the Elsevier LaTeX template? A scientific  institute wants me to write a LaTeX template just like the articles which are published on the ScienceDirect website, in other words, the institute wants a template like the following:

Is it OK to do so with regard to copyright issues?

If you check it on Elsevier web page, it clearly states that modification of the manuscript template is totally ok and they provided the download  link.

On the other hand, there are also some other templates that are specific to a journal that is stated to be ethical if you ask the editors' permission.

Check the page out to get more instructions and useful information.


How to help reduce students' anxiety in an oral exam? Oral exams can have various pedagogical benefits in certain circumstances, but can also make some students feel anxious. After watching several students nervous-sweat their way through such an exam, I'm looking for ways to help them.

How can an instructor help students relax and feel less nervous during an oral exam?

The following assorted suggestions stem from standard procedure at my department, which has a long-lasting experience with oral exams, and positive experiences reported by fellow students suffering from anxiety.

The exam begins with the student giving a brief elaboration of a topic of their choice (within the subject of the course). They can talk uninterrupted for a while, and then the exam gradually shifts to question-and-answer mode on this subtopic, probing whether the student actually understood what they are talking about. This has several advantages:

The student knows how the exam will begin and they can prepare the first few minutes. This avoids anxiety due to uncertainty.
The student is not dropped into interactive mode instantly, but gradually.
The student knows which topic will be examined first, they can prepare for this, which boosts confidence.
Not related to the question, it allows the examiner to estimate how well the student can structure the chosen topic (which usually goes hand in hand with understanding) and put it into the context of the course’s subject.

Do not ask questions that require long and elaborate answers, but go step-by-step, guiding the student if necessary, but only if necessary (so they have room to shine). For example, do not ask:

  Please tell me about [central result of course].

Instead ask a chain of questions, allowing the student to answer each of them, and adapt them depending on mistakes the student makes or similar. For example, the questions could be as follows:

  What does [central result of course] state?

  Why is it so important?

  Under which conditions does [central result] hold?

  Why is [some necessary condition] necessary?

  Why does [some sufficient condition] suffice for [central result]?

In a typical case, these questions are raising in difficulty with the first questions being something that every serious candidate should be able to answer without much thinking. This allows the student to get some confidence and get tuned to the topic before the questions become more difficult. Also, this avoids the impression of time pressure and the student knowing that they have to get to that bit which they are not confident about, even if they can score by explaining a lot of basics before that.
If you ask questions where the student shall apply their knowledge and which require some thinking time, do this after they succeeded with some simpler tasks and announce that this is a advanced task and that they have some time to think. This avoids fear of failure and gives an extra boost of confidence if they succeed.
Give positive feedback whenever you can. This does not mean that you should be drowning the student in praise, but rather avoid fuelling their anxieties by forgetting to let them know that they are correct when they are.
If the student makes a mistake in their elaborations, let the student finish first, assert what was correct and then remark or possibly ask about the mistake. For example, if the student is elaborating on some equation and made a sign flip, do not remark upon it right away, but let the student finish. Then praise what was correct and ask them to elaborate their reasoning for that sign again. This has the following advantages:

It doesn’t break the student’s flow by interrupting their elaborations and lowering their confidence due to the mistake.
It gives the student an opportunity to detect the mistake themselves, e.g., by detecting it due to a follow-up problem.

Announce the examination mode beforehand as much as reasonable, to reduce any uncertainty due to an unknown situation as far as possible.


I gave up on a PhD because of time management, shall I try a second time? Background

A year ago I gave up on my (first attempt at getting a) PhD because I could not stand the needed time management.  I am a mosaic autist but I do live with it without major issues.  My only apparent problem is that I get emotional very quickly at anything that goes differently than planned, i.e. I do not like surprises and I recover (emotionally) very slowly from surprises.

Do not get me wrong, I have been often praised for my talks and seminars.  I have worked in industry for years and I can live independently alright.  The only thing that I always need to do is to plan things in advance, and plan them extremely thorough.  I need to admit that questions and answer sessions after a talk are pretty difficult, but I can manage with enough preparation.

I gave up at my first attempt at getting a PhD after a year in.  After that time I got so emotionally distressed I could not continue.  This happened dues to simple disorganization of the environment I was in, for example:

I needed to change office three times during that period;
switched (university) email systems two times;
all courses for the PhDs were announced with only two days of antecedence;
courses were canceled with hours of antecedence if there were not enough people attending;
reports were not scheduled, my supervisor literally popped in my office and asked for a report within a week (not once, a couple of times);
some (internal) talks were to be prepared on an short (a day or two) notice.

(By "courses" I mean small lectures available to the PhD students as Learning to use the Library or Statistical Methods, and yes they were mandatory)

I understand that a PhD is a training exercise, where one learns to do research.  Therefore learning different things, performing talks and writing reports are things that I definitely need to learn over the course of the PhD.  I just could not perform any of it with a decent performance because my mind was distressed with things appearing and changing too fast.

I did raise the fact that I need a more stable environment with my supervisor and with the administration.  Yet, the only answers I got were along the lines of: If every other PhD student can deal with this you can deal with it too.

I gave up just before my 1 year report.  I really wanted to write there:

  I did almost no research work because you did not allow me a moment of breathing to do any actual work!

(Of course, I did not write that)

The Question

A year has passed since I gave up on my PhD.  Recently a friend of mine which does a PhD in a different institution showed me a programme topic that I would love to work in (a very similar topic to my original PhD).

My question is.  Is it common for PhD programmes to be disorganized and everchanging?  It is very likely that I will find an unstable environment in the new institution?

My original institution (which I explicitly omit the name here) was within the top 100 of several world rankings.  And my (possible) new institution is way below in these rankings.  I need to admit that I do not believe in these rankings, but, nevertheless, I am very afraid that my previous endeavor may repeat itself.

This all happens in the UK, in the field of computer security.

Career note: I am not planning to follow an academic career.  In the field of computer security it is common to get to a PhD and then work in research labs that perform bug hunting and security analysis.  Labs that are not part of academic institutions in any way.  It is true that a PhD is not strictly necessary for such positions but it is very common (some 70% of people working in computer security labs do have a PhD), and I would like to advance in that career path.

I understand that a PhD is a training exercise, where one learns to do research.

In a way, your misunderstanding is that you think that doing a PhD is strictly training you how to do research. I think it is more accurate to say that a PhD trains you to be an academic - and dealing with this kind of "instability" is part of that, the same as learning to do university teaching, dealing with the administration, networking, presenting at conferences, and all the other things professors do.

As for whether you are likely to see the same issues again in your new PhD, I think they break down into two categories:

  I needed to change office three times during that period,
  switched (university) email systems two times,
  all courses for the PhDs were announced with only two days of antecedence,
  courses were canceled with hours of antecedence if there were not enough people attending.

I am sure that many, if not most, universities are better run than that, and I feel you have a good chance of not experiencing that in another university. Even better, since you know somebody in your new PhD programme, you can ask her or him whether any or all of the above examples also happen there.

More problematic are the latter items on the list:

  reports were not scheduled, my supervisor literally popped in my office and asked for a report within a week (not once, a couple of times),
  some (internal) talks were to be prepared on an short (a day or two) notice.

This is exactly how, in my experience, the vast majority of research groups are organized, and if something like an ad hoc report to your supervisor, which is in the grand scheme of things rather trivial, stresses you emotionally, I fear that you will indeed not be very happy in academia.
Let me give you some examples from my own PhD:

Close to all my thesis meetings were ad hoc. The usual pattern was that I was getting coffee (the machine was next to my advisor's office), and my advisor would "incidentally" come out of his office and ask me how my thesis is coming along. I think I had 3 scheduled meetings with my advisor during my entire PhD.
On multiple occasions during my PhD I was at conferences, and my advisor figured out that he could not be in a side meeting that he promised his input for and sent me instead, often with less than half a day of advance notice and no preparation except for a pat on the back. In one or two cases, he even forgot to tell the other meeting participants that he would not be coming, meaning my first order of business was telling them who the heck I am and what I was doing there.
My PhD advisor once went to a project review meeting, for which I prepared (parts of) the material for him. Despite asking for it I never heard feedback, so I assumed it would be ok. The night before the meeting, 17:00, when he looked at the material the first time, he discovered that it was not at all what he expected, and I ended up redoing large parts in an all-nighter.

Unfortunately this will also not really change once you rise to higher levels of seniority - I am now a senior postdoc with my own research group to lead, and my work life still consists of plenty of surprises that need to happen right now. Some examples:

On the ~ third day of my current job, I was asked to fill in the next day for a lecture unit in a topic I had 0 expertise in because the head of the department had to leave to an urgent meeting.
I am currently working on a very important personal grant application that is due in a month. I loudly proclaimed to everybody that cared to listen that I really wanted to focus on this in the next month. Despite, I have been asked to lead an audit for a multi-million dollar software project, been taken to multiple surprise meetings for a transfer project that my department is running, and have been asked to give a one-hour talk next week in a high-profile event that my department is organizing.

(of course, all of the above are exceptions rather than the rule - most days I get to work and do exactly what I planned to do this day; however, I got the gist from you that these kind of unexpected workloads could ruin your concentration for more time than what they actually take)

So, to answer your titular question:

  shall I try a second time?

If you have found an industry job that does not lead to this kind of emotional stress, I would suggest you think long and hard before leaving it. I will be personally very surprised if you find academia to your liking, based on what you described.


How to select a dissertation committee member wisely? I'm currently developing my dissertation proposal, and am in the process of choosing my committee members.  I have heard that one should carefully choose their committee members, since they ultimately judge if and when your PhD work is done.  As far as I can tell, a committee member should at least have some expertise in my research topic.  I'm sure there's more to it than that, but I want to know what other qualities should I look out for?  What qualities in a committee member should I avoid?  I imagine these other qualities are subtle and difficult to judge at first.  Nonetheless, how do I know if they are a good fit for the success of my PhD?

First, ask your adviser.  He/she likely knows more about most of your department faculty than you do.  You don't have to do exactly as you're told.  But if you don't, this should be an intentional choice on your part, and you should have a good reason for that choice.  Beyond that, I see at least 3 broad areas to consider.  You want committee members who will

strengthen your professional network: introduce you to potential collaborators, and possibly help with your search for a postdoc or tenure track position; and/or write a letter of recommendation for you
give valuable feedback on your work: you think they'll actually read your thesis (you might be surprised how uncommon this is), and might have something constructive to say
be easy to work with in the defense process: likely to be flexible on the date of your defense, and likely to sign off on your dissertation without demanding lots of changes (fitting into 4 schedules besides your own can be a nightmare; it's nice to have a few committee members who are easy to work with on this)

Which of these contributions you value most will depend on what you're hoping to do after your PhD.  If you're looking to move into industry, many of your professors' contacts may be less valuable to you than if you hope to stay in academia.  Do you plan to stay research active? In the field of your dissertation?  Practically, you may have limited options.  At the very least, you should weigh 1, 2, and 3, and estimate how you think each candidate will contribute in each area.


Providing syllabi far in advance A student from another university is planning on taking a class I'll be teaching this fall and will be doing it as a transient student. Apparently, in order to have their transient status approved, they need a copy of the course syllabus, and so requested it from me by email.

I don't normally finalize my syllabi until a few days before classes start — certainly not five months in advance —, and the course itself is not one that is identical each semester so I don't feel comfortable just sending an old syllabus. (And even that wouldn't exist if it were a new class or a special topics class)

It seems odd to need the syllabi so early — AFAIK the normal process is for his home institution to review the syllabi after taking the classes to determine credit given.

So two parter:

Is this a normal request that somehow has just never come by me before?
If it is, how do you handle for courses that don't have syllabus ready to go?

It's not so unusual in the U.S., for example when the student is coming from abroad, with their own funding, for one semester or so. I've had to do this a handful of times in 30+ years.
I approximate a syllabus, and in a cover-note say that it is approximate. There's no real loss in doing some part of that work months in advance, hopefully.


How to respond to a PhD supervisor? I have contacted a potential PhD supervisor and he sent me back that I appear to be a motivated and interested student but  his funding does not allow him to supplement a student at PhD level. However, I have my own funds, and I intend to fund myself through my PhD studies for 1 year. How do I raise this issue formally with him?

If a professor says "my funding does not allow me to supplement a student at the PhD level," he is explicitly saying that he cannot take on another student due to lack of funding. It's implied as a prospective PhD student that you are simultaneously looking for funding when applying to schools and/or contacting potential advisors.

That being said, you have mentioned that your situation is different than the norm. By all means, reply back thanking him for his consideration and bring up the fact that you have your own funding and exactly how long you plan to self-fund yourself. Perhaps he will be able to take you on, perhaps not.

Personal side note: Before responding to him, make sure you are certain about self-funding, even for a year. It costs quite a bit just to attend a PhD program, let alone to live during that year. There's a reason that the expectation of PhD programs (or advisors) is to offer funding to their accepted students. As a student, handling graduate-level studies and research can be stressful; handling money issues on top of that can sometimes be too much.


Comp Sci PhD Admissions: How often are Skype interviews requested? I am applying to several computer science PhD programs, and several professors who I mentioned in my statement of purpose have reached out requesting Skype interviews. My question is: how often are these requests made? Should I be very encouraged or is this standard procedure for almost all qualified applicants?

Time is one of the most valuable resources for professors – I know no one who just offers interviews for fun.


Ok to independently investigate questions of interest to previous advisor? I am a Ph.D student in Mathematics, and during my undergraduate career, I worked with a professor on a certain topic (topic X, if you will) that strongly interests me. I have now moved to a different institution for my Ph.D studies. This summer I collaborated with him on a paper in topic X, although the collaboration seems to me mostly one sided (as in, I did virtually all the work, and am even unsure as to whether it is ethical for him to be an author of the paper).

I understand why the professor could not prioritize our work because he is really, really busy with other projects in many topics and with his own advisees. Nevertheless, I feel that I am at a point where I could start working independently on questions in topic X that are very interesting to me, and I think his supervision is no longer necessary. Therefore, I'd like to begin working on these questions by myself, or perhaps in collaboration with other people in the area.

I also have a very friendly, advisor-student (though he's no longer my advisor) relationship with this professor that I would not like to lose. Would it be, in some sense, a betrayal to his interests if I start working independently on questions that he is interested in solving too at some point? He is usually very "territorial" about his research projects, and I'm not sure whether he would feel offended that I want to work on these questions by myself, because I think he expects that it would be a collaboration.

Go ahead and work on the project on your own.  The fact that your former advisor introduced you to the general topic does not give him veto authority over where you will go with the topic in the future.

Having a former advisor who is interested in the problems should be an asset, not a liability.  If you find an interesting result, you have somebody more knowledgeable and senior in the field who you can show it to.


How to avoid writing a grant with an advisor My postdoctoral adviser would like to co-write grants; however, I am at a stage in my career where I believe it would be better for me to write grants on my own. I will soon be faculty (in 5th of postdoc and on job market) and to my knowledge it is important to demonstrate that I have an independent research program and obtain funding to support it, rather than to gain funding with a former adviser, which will lead to question marks about how much of the ideas are mine. Cowriting grants would also limit my ability to use the same ideas that are based on my work in future independent grant applications. I have also been explicitly advised by others who have worked with my adviser that he has in the past written grants that very strongly build on the independent work/ideas of mentees. I know that my adviser can do this if he wants, but I don't want to help him do it or enlist as a co-I. Any suggestions for how to decline without ruffling feathers? I would like to maintain a good relationship with him.

Short answer #1: Talk to your adviser about these things. Tell him that you wonder how joint proposals will be perceived and get his perspective on things.

Short answer #2: Remember that it's easy to write proposals, and hard to write winning proposals. How are you going to learn what to say and not say in a proposal? The easiest way to learn this skill is to work with someone who has done this many times and who may have been on review panels many times. I have reviewed many a proposal by junior scientists in my lifetime where it is clear that they mean well, but have essentially no idea what to write in a proposal that can be funded. That may be your fate if you write by yourself, unless you have an experienced mentor who is willing to help you with it.

As far as demonstrating independence: If you're already on the job market, then this proposal will not be funded before anyone will look at your file anyway, so it's not going to make a difference one way or the other. It might make a difference come time for tenure, but that is so far in the future that you will have plenty of opportunities to demonstrate your independence till then. And for the moment, any funded proposal is better than no funded proposal.


Does it amount to plagiarism by supervisor? I have been working on an idea for last 2 years almost independently along with other research works. My advisor did not believe in my work much initilally, so I did not get an RA for two years even after requesting. Recently, I am getting encouraging results with some specific examples and scenarios with good hope for success to solve a complex problem using that idea. I have not published the work yet. Initially, my advisor was not interested in the idea partly because the work is not his area of expertise and insisted that I spend my time in other research projects with a senior colleague. I pursued it with my interest in spite of RA support, but with new results and potential benefits of the approach my advisor became extremely interested and even described the work as the next big idea in our lab meetings. I am happy about it or maybe he says it to make me happy.
However, recently I encountered a situation which was difficult for me to comprehend. I found my advisor present a perspective paper along with many other renowned experts in the field, proposing and highlighting the approach I have been working on as the future direction and visionary in the field along with other important developments in a conference. Even though I was not a co-author in that paper and my work was not cited or even acknowledged, I consoled myself as my advisor was alluding me that he was promoting the idea; it was an advertisement of the work (of course with out any acknowledgement).

As he was not the first author of the perspective paper and there is a possibility that first/other authors can make claim of it, he asked me to file an updated technical report in the department before the  paper is published. It looked to me like he wanted to promote himself among his colleagues with that idea with out acknowledging it to me before the audience and greater scientific public where it matters.

I happened to attend the conference as a PhD student, and found that the presenter of the perspective paper (whom I don't know) presented more than half of his talk on my idea with my slides that I shared with my advisor, and there was no acknowledgement or mention of my report or work. It was even worse to see that some of the terminology that I planed to use, was disclosed and few misinterpreted while explaining.

Even then, people really seemed to liked the idea and the approach and many are convinced that the idea is going to impact the field. While I saw a very drastic change in the way my advisor treated me recently, but what really made me sad was when my advisor asked me to refer to this perspective paper (to which I was not a co-author) in my impending submission (on the idea).

I feel like it was unfair but I don't know if research is done this way in academia or if it is perfectly legit to do something like that. I decided not to cite the perspective paper with possible consequences. I just wanted to know how other students handle such situations effectively and if such a thing is a common practice.

Edit: I do have all email traces and even a previous publication explaining part of the idea and a recent technical report submitted to the department with the complete idea.

UPDATES

June 2014:
I have continued with the situation I described above honestly because as a student I hardly have any options and as suggested by many that it would be an academic suicide. But, it had impacted me severely, mostly because I believe that any good idea I will bring to the table will be stolen or misrepresented and there will be cleaver manipulations to take ownership of them. I will take two steps forward and three steps backward. I could hardly perform in my potential. I will let you know my ordeal soon and many thanks for your kind help and support.

As far as I understand the situation, it seems to me that your advisors' behavior is borderline, even if likely on the wrong side of the border. Since it does not look like a very clear and frank misbehavior, even if you are perfectly right it would be tremendously difficult to prove it beyond doubt. In case of doubt, you could end up being seen more as the trouble maker than as the one who came up with that great idea; the surrounding people to whom you could complain (department head, etc.) would hesitate a lot to go against tenured faculty when the misbehavior is not crystal clear, etc.

With this in mind, I would strongly advise you not to confront to wildly with your advisors. You can (and should, as advised by Shion) discuss with them the fact that you are uncomfortable with the way they presented things, with the use without permission of your slides, and so on; but always let them a way to discuss it calmly. If they feel cornered, there will be little chance of the situation not degenerating into a conflict, and it would be very difficult for you to survive professionally a conflict with your advisors.

You could cite their perspective paper in a way that friendly makes explicit that the idea is yours. Your aim should be to get decent credit for your idea, even at the cost of letting your advisors benefit from it: think about what you have to gain or loose first, rather than about what they have to unduly gain or what you can cost them.

If everything goes smoothly, you can get into a good position to build on your idea, and be on track for your career.
Once you're a respected tenured faculty, you should remember this episode and be supportive of young researchers.