Do I have to cite sources for my opinion when it was formed by reading other people's opinions? (undergraduate) So I'm new to university and have written like 5 papers in my life, please help!
So basically the scenario is, I have a paper about a certain topic which I know nothing about. So I do some research on it. After reading a lot about the topic I form an opinion on it. The problem is that my opinion was formed based on reading a lot of other people's opinions. For example, I will read a lot of academics argue one thing, and I will think "oh that makes sense, I agree!" so when I write my paper I will be of the same opinion.
So the question is, do I have to cite the sources that led me to my opinion when I state my opinion?? Or phrased differently: Do I have to cite the people that agree with my opinion?
For example, if I write:
X because of Y. And this specific author also agrees with this. <- in this case, do I have to use in-text citation for the first sentence?? Should I write something like:
X because of Y (author, year). <- because I feel like in this case it does not sound like I also agree? It just sounds like I am describing what "author" thinks. How do I add my own opinion to this?
Please keep in mind that these are undergraduate level papers. Up until now, I have been writing entirely descriptive papers (with "someone argues this and someone argues that" and my grades have not been great :( ) without offering my opinion because I was so scared that it would be plagiarism to agree with someone's opinion without citing (since it may be considered to not be an original opinion). Again, I will cite the other authors that agree with me after stating what I think, but my question is if I have to in-text cite them when I state my opinion.
I am a confused and lost freshman and with the pandemic I can't even go to campus and talk to a librarian about this, so if anyone could help me I will owe you my life, thank you.

I would reexamine what you mean by "agree with my opinion." Consider for example:

Einstein proposed the Theory of Relativity, which has been widely accepted by the scientific community and has withstood a battery of experimental tests over the last century [cite]. I agree that this theory is correct.

This last sentence is a little bit ridiculous -- your opinion is altogether irrelevant (unless you are an esteemed physicist). The is true in other fields -- saying you, as a student (or even me, as a professional in a different field), agree or disagree with Mark Twain or Charles Darwin or Thomas Aquinas is almost comical.
On the other hand, facts are facts regardless of who says them, and you are entitled to an "academic opinion" even now. So consider, instead, this much stronger paragraph:

Newton's laws of kinematics were widely accepted for hundreds of years, and have been experimentally verified many times [cite, cite, cite]. However, Einstein's recent work argues that Newtonian kinematics does not apply at very high speeds [cite]. Recent work with cathode rays [cite] seems to support Einstein's findings.

So in this case, you are clearly arguing that Einstein is correct and Newton is wrong (i.e., "your opinion" is that you "agree" with Einstein), but you do it with facts and logical reasoning, without ever mentioning "agreement" or "opinions."
Now you had asked specifically about making a choice -- what to do when experts disagree. Even in these cases, you can present your analysis without ever mentioning "agreement" or "opinions." Consider:

"Jones argues A [cite] while Smith argues B [cite]. While there is no clear answer, Adams makes a compelling case for B [cite], noting that _. Indeed, in light of Adams' arguments (particularly his ontological argument), Jones' position seems wholly untenable.

In the above, it is clear that you "agree" with Adams and Smith, and your claim that Adams' case is "compelling" is very much an opinion (one that you will need to defend in the paper). But you never use the words "opinion" or "agree," and the citations take care of themselves.
Nor are you limited to discussing others' ideas; you can also raise your own ideas:

"Jones argues A [cite] while Smith argues B [cite]. While there is no clear answer, the only verifiable evidence is the exponentially rising CO2 levels. Recent results [cite] have only strengthened this body of evidence. Given the extraordinary success of this prediction, Smith's position seems superior to that of Jones.

In the second and third sentences above, you are presenting your own, novel ideas or analysis, and there is no need to cite anyone. Again, you are very clearly agreeing with Smith, and you very clearly have an opinion, but you never use those words, and the citations take care of themselves.


Academic progression in Germany, what happens after a postdoc? What is the next step? As a follow-up to this question, I am wondering whether or not there are intermediate positions between a postdoc and a tenure in the German academic system.

I was told that there isn't really a step up from postdoc (like an assistant professor) until you get a professorship (for which you have to do habilitation among other things). If I understand things correctly you can be a postdoc for 12 years (?!) in Germany, and if you're successful (and lucky) you can get a professorship.

Is this accurate? Or are there more intermediate positions? Specifically I noticed there is a "junior professor" position, which would seem to fit the bill. What are the differing qualifications of a junior prof (W1) and a senior postdoc (either E13 or E14)?

I was told that there isn't really a step up from postdoc (like an assistant professor) until you get a professorship (for which you have to do habilitation among other things).

In Germany, there is generally a greater variety in career paths than, say, in the US, where the vast majority of new full profs have been assistant profs at some point. It's indeed common to go from post-doc to professor (W2 or W3) directly. Other options include a junior professorship (W1), and a "research group leader" position, based on grants like the Emmy Noether and the Heisenberg stipend.

Habilitation is still mandatory in some fields; others will accept "Habilitation-equivalent achievements", like a strong track record in research and teaching.

  If I understand things correctly you can be a postdoc for 12 years (?!) in Germany, and if you're successful (and lucky) you can get a professorship.

The 12 years probably refer to the Wissenschaftszeitvertragsgesetz (WissZeitVG). According to WissZeitVG, you cannot be employed more than 12 years as a scientific assistant, which includes both the pre-doc and post-doc phase, without a specific reason. However, there are various exceptions, including field-specific ones (in Medicine it's 15 years), personal circumstances (you get an extension for each child), and the case that the research institution is willing to hire you permanently (which almost never happens).

  What are the differing qualifications of a junior prof (W1) and a senior postdoc (either E13 or E14)?

A junior professorship is similar to an assistant professorship in the US. The main practical difference is that most junior professorships (90% or so) are not equipped with a tenure track, which makes them considerably less attractive. However, there is now a trend to change this situation towards more tenure-track junior professorships.

In comparison to a post-doc, a junior prof will usually have more teaching duties. The benefits of a junior professorship are the higher prestige, the usually higher salary and the longer time span, typically 6 years (with an intermediate evaluation after 3 years).

Junior profs may also be offered more freedom to build their own research profile. But this really depends on the interpretation of the associated department and research chair, and should be brought up as a topic in the hiring process. I've seen both "glorified post-doc" junior profs that were hired to bring special knowledge to some larger research group, and post-docs who were given the opportunity to build their own small research group.


Why do PhD students do research for other people’s research ideas? I’m a research assistant with an idea for a new study.  I’ve started my literature review, however a couple of people have said to me there are plenty of PhD students who would be keen to help with the research.  Why would a PhD student want to do research on a topic that’s not potentially of any interest to them?

If they want to help, it implies that they are interested. Multiple people can work on research projects and get a benefit from them.

I've helped on numerous projects and ended up getting a name on the resulting research paper. I wasn't able to use that research in my PhD thesis, but any job applications look a lot stronger as I have experience in a good variety of projects.


Citing non existence of a novel idea Can someone please help me out here?

I have a research proposal to present. I had a novel idea to present.
First things first, I googled the idea and could not find it anywhere. So far so good. So I wrote down in my research proposal that 'No system had implemented (insert my idea here)...'.

However, when I peer reviewed this writing to a friend, he strongly suggested me to cite the above sentence 'No system..'

My doubt is how do I cite it? I did not find the idea anywhere.

Is my choice of using this sentence 'No system..' wrong?

It is perfectly fine to write "to the best of our knowledge" -- assuming you really made a thorough search. It is especially important that you look up all research papers that try to solve similar problems and confirm that they do not use the idea you propose (maybe in disguise). If you find something broadly similar, cite it, and discuss what makes your idea different to the one you found.


I am part of a “study team” that authored a paper. How do I list in in my CV? I was a member of a study team that produced a couple of research papers.
The authors of the paper are, for example:

  Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, John Smith and The ABC Study Investigators

In the acknowledgements, it reads:

  The ABC Study team consists of members from Harvard University (James Bond, Thomas Harper, David Price, and Jason Jolly)

(Suppose that my name is David Price.)

Can I list such papers in the publication list of my CV?
If not, how can I show that I participated in these research papers?

In PubMed, my name was listed as one of 'collaborators.'

Consortium authors are authors as well, just much less "important" authors than the main authors.  The situation is in fact quite similar to being in the middle of a large author list (e.g., one of my papers where I am 12th out of 32 authors).

As such, you should list the paper in a way that is clear, transparent, and easy for a reader to understand its stated authorship.  Put the paper in your CV with the authors just as they appear in the standard citation, then add a note at the end of that citation that says you were part of the consortium authors.  Following your example:

  Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, John Smith and The ABC Study Investigators, "Totally Awesome Science," Journal of Irreproducible Results, 12(6), pp. 406-453, 2012.
  (Member of ABC Study Investigators)


What's the point in hiring assistant professors instead of more experienced professors? I wonder what the upsides are of hiring assistant professors instead of more experienced professors.

I am mostly interested in US universities and computer science departments.

For example:

Their salaries are far lower. (The discrepancy varies by department, high in the physical sciences, low in economics and business.)
In fields that receive startup packages, their startup packages are far lower.
Many schools cannot hire a proven superstar, but they can take a gamble on a bright young scholar and help her develop into a superstar
This doesn't apply in my department, but you could imagine that a disfunctional environment the senior faculty might like having junior faculty around to take advantage of: make them teach the big intro classes, do the unpleasant service work, etc.
Junior faculty often bring new bleeding-edge skills that are hard to find in senior faculty.
A range of career stages within a department creates long-term continuity.

I'm sure others can come up with a number of additional reasons.


Vacation Days of Assistant Professor in Canada I may apply for an Assistant Professor (AP) position at York University in Toronto, Canada. Since I live in Europe, I would like to know how many vacation days are available in this position. For example, what does an AP do in those weeks where no classes take place? Does the AP have to go to the office or can he stay home? Thanks for your answers!

How much vacation time an assistant professor gets is answered by the collective agreement in force at York U. According to a comment above, that's 4 weeks. These are days when you can do whatever you please.
Obviously, there are constraints regarding the time when you can take this vacation, as pointed out by some comments.

More importantly your question suggests that there's potentially vacation whenever there are no classes. So for one thing you may need the time between semesters to develop your teaching material, but also an Assistant Professor is not a teaching-only position, it's research/supervision + teaching + typically some admin duties.

Finally, note that in many Canadian Universities there is a summer term with classes going on between may and August. So you could very well end up teaching all year around; there's typically about 3 to 4 weeks between the end of classes for one term and the beginning of the next (and that time includes exams and marking).


How much unfinished work and unexplored ideas should one share in a presentation? Background: I am a fourth year math graduate student working in differential geometry in the US.

I'm currently preparing a presentation for a graduate seminar at my university, and today I met with my research advisor to go through my outline.  Shortly into our discussion, he became rather serious and expressed concern about my inclusion of unfinished work and unexplored ideas.  While they only make up about 5–10 minutes of my hour-long talk, he was worried that I'm not sufficiently protecting my IP from theft.  He went on to say that this is a much more significant concern at conferences where I would know very little about my audience members, but he still wanted to exercise caution.

I don't disagree with him, but that led me with the following questions:

In my personal opinion, I work in a rather dark corner of my discipline.  I don't intend to contradict my advisor, but is this a legitimate concern?
Obviously the risk is venue dependent, but would there be any forum in which I would be completely safe?
How nervous should I be to discuss ideas with people who ask questions at the conclusion of my presentation?  Do people ever go "fishing" for ideas?
Should I be more careful speaking about "unfinished work" or "unexplored ideas"?  Does one carry more danger than the other?
Since publishing is such a drawn out process, is there some point before the release of one's results that they could be given as part of a presentation?
Finally: Is there any way to say how much should I feel safe sharing?

Any responses to these questions or related comments are much appreciated.

tl;dr: Light is the best disinfection.

If you work in a relatively small sub-area, and know all your potential colleagues and collaborators, you can decide for yourself how likely is that some of them can "borrow" an idea from you and publish it as your own. Your personal intuition about your the situation in your particular case is much more relevant than a general discussion.

However, you can also consider the following facts to help you make your decision:

Publishing process in Maths usually takes much longer than in Physics, Chemistry, Engineering, or related "hard" areas. It is not uncommon for an article to be in first review for 6-9 months, and it is not uncommon to have 2 or more review cycles. Are you really ready to keep your findings secret until the paper is published?
If some ideas were shared among a small circle of colleagues, and two of them claim that they "own" the result, it is actually more difficult to find out, who was the original author, and who pretends to be one. On the contrary, if the pre-print is made public, and the ideas are presented on a large international conference (in a room with more than 10 people), than there are more witnesses who connect the idea with your name, and it is less likely that someone will dare to stole the authorship (but still possible, of course).
An important task of your supervisor (as any supervisor) is to ensure that the work will be eventually published; and as you know publishing is time- and effort-demanding. By expressing their concern, your adviser in some form encourages you to publish these ideas as soon as possible, which is a completely legitimate request. In fact, if one shares a good idea on a conference, but then never publishes it, someone else definitely will, sooner or later.


Is it reasonable to leave a PhD if your supervisor leaves the university? I am a first year PhD student in Physics in a very important university in Germany. I started five months ago and unfortunately my first advisor is moving to a company. The university is important, but I actually chose to be there mainly to be supervised by her. She is well known in this field.

The topic is not my favourite one, but it is interesting and I've been working hard since the first day that I started.

However, I don't know why, the second supervisor is not considering me as a PhD student. In fact, we haven't had any meeting yet. On the other hand, I have a good working relationship with the third one.

At this point I don't know what I can do. I'm frustrated and sad since now I would like to make a different choice. Since it's my first year, I'm considering to move to another university even if less prestigious of this one. I'm here alone and I would have the possibility to be with my boyfriend.

By living this situation, maybe, I don't have the possibility to have a clear reasoning, so I need your help and advice in order to make the best choice possible. I'm considering to:

Complete this year and move to another university next year in order to: (1) work on a more interesting topic, and (2) have the possibility to stay with my boyfriend.
Remain here with few moral and supervised by professors that I didn't choose.

EDIT. I'm following the precious advice below to make a more general question. I remain of the idea that I'll consider only the two options above. Anyway, for me, and other PhD students in this situation, it'll be very useful to know other similar stories. With regard to this, I'd like to understand if it's reasonable to leave a PhD when your supervisor leaves the university. In particular, when you decided to apply for a particular university only to have the possibility to be supervised by a great professor, well known in his/her field. Unfortunately, differently from other stories where a supervisor moves to another university, in this case she leaves the university to move to a company. From other threads I understand that it's fundamental to maintain a good relationship with your ex-supervisor, since when you're already a PhD student and you decide to move, a reference letter from your ex-supervisor is critical since a transfer has to be highly justified.
Finally, I love this field and for me a PhD is the right pathway to follow, but at the same time I'm scared because I don't know if a PhD transfer is easy to achieve.

2nd EDIT. Maybe the bold sentences are too personal and a good answer cannot be given. So, I'd like to update the question in: Is it reasonable to leave a PhD and apply for another university if your supervisor leaves? In particular I'm trying to understand if the fact that you leave the PhD in a university can badly influence the application in the new university.

First thing: There is no such thing as "PhD transfer". (At least in Germany.)

I don't know your university, but is the cases I know, you do not start any official PhD in the first year, but only later. Usually, you make an agreements with some advisor about the PhD thesis, working contracts and so on, and sometimes you enroll as a PhD student, but in most cases there is no official file at the university (but this may change in the near future…). At some point (where I am, usually in the last year) you fill in some form with which you start the official process of graduating (Eröffnung des Promotionsverfahrens or something similar).

So, if you haven't started the "Promotionsvorhaben" formally, you can quit and start new at any point.

More practically: You should discuss your options with your advisor. She is the right person for this. She may have suggestions how to proceed, e.g. she knows people who would like to take you as a student, she has a direct line to these people and will get a response quickly. She may help you to judge the possibilities that you have at the university where you are and she may also know you, your strength, and your preferences already.

Finally, I find the notion of "important university" a bit odd. There are some universities in Germany with a bit more overall prestige but there also also many not-so-well-known universities which are top at specific fields. So, the university name does not mean too much.


interdisciplinary Phd programs in philosophy and computer science (AI, ML)? I have a BA in philosophy and I'm working on an MS in computer science specializing in "Interactive Intelligence" (a blend of HCI, AI, ML).  My end goal is a PhD in philosophy but specializing in AI.

A quick Google search hasn't revealed much that fits this.  Would cognitive science be a better fit?  There's Stanford's "Symbolic Systems" major but not much else.  Anyone aware of a program like this?

I suggest that you don't need a "program" but rather a school and a professor who is willing to be flexible and let you take the lead in large part. Maybe a couple of advisors in different fields. I think there are a lot of top institutions that can afford such flexibility and Stanford is likely one of them. But you should probably pursue this individually and in person.

I'll note that doctoral programs are normally pretty individualized in any case, and often a student needs to take a lead if the topic is not completely within the expertise of the advisor.


Is it reasonable to report another student for cheating when it has no impact on me? I currently am studying on an Undergraduate Maths course, in my third year. At my university there are various modules from which students can pick to make up the required number of credits for the year.

5/6 of my circle of friends take a particular (popular) module which I do not. Recently, they had a piece of coursework due for submission. They had about two weeks to do it, and the submission deadline has now passed.

One of the students, with whom I am friends, has informed me that she took pictures of her answers and gave them to another student (with whom I am not friends) three hours before the deadline, because that student had done little/no work and was going to fail. This was not a group piece of coursework, and she essentially gave the other student her answers.

I'm not entirely sure why I'm so upset about this, considering I don't take that module and it has nothing to do with me. I have my personal opinions about the student, but I feel like that shouldn't be relevant to the situation.

I do want to report this as cheating, but I'm also well aware that it's effectively hearsay. None of the others of my friends (who do take the module and who are also aware of this incident happening) has reported it.

I'm wondering whether it may even be out of line for me to report this incident, given that I have absolutely no evidence in my possession of what happened, and I do not take the module, and I wasn't involved in any way.

Is it appropriate in these circumstances to report what I've heard to the lecturer of the module?

As others have already mentioned, cheating is wrong and it's the right thing to speak up when someone commits a wrong. It may also indirectly affect you when someone cheats (eg. through grade inflation).

However, by reporting the cheater you are also implicating your friend who passed on the photos and facilitated the cheating. Your friend might feel upset (and perhaps rightly so) that you didn't put your friendship above some general (and perhaps minor) moral obligation. I caution that your obligation to report is not unconditional in the sense that you have to accept a disadvantage for yourself, such as a spoiled friendship. Moreover, I would argue that you also have an obligation of loyalty towards your friend; whether or not that 'trumps' your obligation to report depends on how close your relationship is.


Doing two Bachelors before Masters degree? I currently study for my B.Sc. in Media IT. I easily could finish a second Bachelor if I do one more semester. I want to do master's degree in Media IT afterwards.

I'm already 23 and in the third semester, since I finished an apprenticeship as a software developer before. Is it useful to start my master's with 26 and probably finish it when I'm ~28?

Giving a perfect advice is not possible, but consider:
Those skills are searched for, a semester more could be explained. You should bevable to do so, ideally by being able to show your learnings applied. Any projects in parallel? When asked, mention them. Show why a good knowledge plus experience makes you different.
I ended my university diploma in CS when i was 27, and added a PhD afterwards. I never regretted learning more by drilling some deeper holes than usual. And from the afterwards jobs, I got really well paid.


Why don't authors include in their publications the duration of the research? I've noticed that most papers do not say explicitly (or at all) how much time did the research take. This excludes certain types of studies, such as epidemiological studies that usually say that the study's cohort was followed for some-and-some months etc., but what I mean is that in most papers there is no actual indication of how much time the study\set of experiments took.
I believe this type of information could be useful for readers, especially for readers that would like to perform similar experiments for their own research.

So why is this information not required from authors?

(I realize that it's sometimes hard to pinpoint the date when a person begins and finishes a research project, but it could still be useful to give an approximation in months. This way a reader could get a better estimation if such a project is reasonable for their own research, at least from time investment considerations.)

In a paper I wrote 35 years ago, I remarked that there ought to be a strong connection between a certain pair of concepts. After doing nothing with that idea for a long time, I recently worked out the connection, in a few days. I'm about to start writing this up, but first I had to check the relevant literature in order to cite it properly. One item was available only by inter-library loan, and the time spent waiting for it was roughly similar to the time spent actually proving the theorem. If someone asked me how much time it took to do this research, I could truthfully answer "a few days" and I could truthfully answer "35 years".

Furthermore, neither of those answers would be useful for my readers, because confirming my result will not involve repeating experiments but rather just reading and checking the proof in my paper. How long will that take? Maybe an hour or so for an expert in the relevant area, but much longer for someone unfamiliar with the area who needs to read a lot of prerequisite material first.

So I'd say that, at least in mathematics, information about the time required for research is likely to be meaningless and useless.


Paths to specialize in antique book and manuscript conservation and handling I am not sure whether this is the best place to field this question but I assume Academia is a reasonable fit. If someone is interested, initially as a hobby, in the collecting, cataloguing, rebinding, and conservation of old books and manuscripts what would be the best path to pursuing those activities in a more professional venue? How do people specialize in book handling and conservation?

From a hobbyist perspective say someone collects old Scandinavian Literature over 100-200 years old and engages in the study, preservation, and cataloguing of such books for posterity (these days one may do this individually with such digital online archiving projects as Project Gutenberg and Archive.org - sometimes accompanied with OCR for easy indexing of the text online). If such a person was interested in doing that more often in some formal capacity how would they pursue that?

Does one have to study Conservation Science and obtain a degree to handle documents for institutions that have rare and antique book collections, or say for museums that need periodic restoration of books from page yellowing and foxing? Could one alternately volunteer for a library that has a rare books department and enter in from that avenue? How does anyone end up being a manuscript conservation specialist? Surely the U.S. Library of Congress has people who do such things. And what title would they typically hold?

Book conservation, restoration, and preservation are parts of library and information science. I suggest that you look into accredited masters programs in that field. In the US, the American Library Association is the accrediting body.


Is it possible to get into a top-10 engineering graduate program without publications? I would like to know if it is possible to get into top 10 engineering schools for MS/Phd program without any publications?

The admissions process for graduate school is complicated. I am not aware of any admissions committee that requires prior publications to be accepted. Admissions decisions are not so much based on the presence/absence of publications but on the extent to which the application demonstrates an ability to conduct research. Prior publications can demonstrate an ability to conduct research, but do not necessarily guarantee it. The lack of publications does not mean you cannot conduct research, but does mean you need to demonstrate research potential in another way (e.g., letters of recommendation).


Is it recommended not to have a figure on the first page of an IEEE journal article? I have been browsing through a few IEEE journal articles and couldn't find an example where there was a figure on the first page of the article. So I tried to find the rule that explicitly forbids the authors from including a figure on the first page, but I couldn't find such a rule either. Here's one of the links where I looked: Preparation of Papers for IEEE Transactions and Journals

I am specifically seeking a clarification of such a rule (if it exists) for the IEEE journal article and not for conference publications (or even letters or tech notes).

To the best of my knowledge, there is no such rule.  It would be problematic to put a figure in the first column (which is tightly compressed between abstract and copyright blurb), but a figure at the top of the second column is fine. However, due to the way that document preparation is done for IEEE publications, it is highly unlikely that an author will end up with a figure on the first page unless they specifically choose to do so.

The reason is that in the IEEE format (both conference and journal), one rarely gets much beyond the introduction in the first page, and certainly never in the first column.  IEEE papers are mostly prepared with LaTeX, and as such, if you use the normal figure placement, your figure will tend to end up at the top of the column after the column in which it is set and referenced in the source.  Since it's quite rare to have a figure at the beginning of a paper's introduction, then it will be correspondingly rare to have a figure on the first page. Complementarily, an author who chooses to have a figure on the first page will typically need to move the figure significantly forward of its reference in the text in order for LaTeX to choose to place it at the top of the 2nd column.  Most IEEE journals work directly from the author-submitted document rather than doing significant layout work by the journal, so if the author didn't put it on page 1, nobody else is likely to either.

Thus, we have the emergent phenomenon you've noticed: because the defaults and tendencies in article production for IEEE make it unlikely that a figure will appear on the first page without author intervention, most papers have no figure on the first page.

Personally, I like to intervene, because a figure on the first page really helps an article pop out to a reader and be more memorable and intelligible.  I suggest that unless you have good reason to do otherwise, you do the same.


Question concerning proofs of theorems in defense PHD thesis I would like to ask this question:
-Do we have to present the demonstrations of the results (theorems in mathematics) found and published in a scientific journal the day of the PHD defense  or it is enough to present the results only? Thank You.

That will depend on circumstances. Typically you will be examined by a committee of (mostly) professors in your field during your defense. The defense itself may be open to the public or not. Most of the committee will have read, or at least skimmed your dissertation.

Exceptions abound. Some committees have an outside member from a completely different field. Some are private with possibly a public talk before or afterwards. Some defenses are not just a defense of the thesis, but a defense of your entire understanding of the field.

You need to speak, primarily, to the committee. It may be that a proof is required. It may be that a proof is too long to give in such a talk. You should be able to, at least, give an outline of the important proofs and to say what, if anything, is novel about them.

In some mathematical work the theorems themselves are the most important thing. In others (quite a lot, actually) the proof methodology is more important. That is to say, the "what" vs the "how" of the thesis. Make sure you understand which it is (and if that is the case) and that you spend most of the time on that. You have to give a solid overview also, of course.

Get advice from your advisor on this. He or she will probably know your committee members and how they behave at a defense. Are they passive, are they active questioners, are they skeptical of everything? Are they generalists who want an overview or nit-pickers who want every detail?

If you have an outside examiner, be prepared to give reasonable "layperson" explanations of all of the basics that underlie your work. There is a story, perhaps apocryphal, of a candidate in Chemistry being failed after giving a good talk and writing a good thesis because she couldn't adequately explain Ph (acidity) to an outsider after using it extensively in the talk. She studied that so long ago that the simple explanation just escaped her. (This may be a bedtime horror story told to candidates just to scare them before their defense.)

On the other hand, some defenses are really just a celebration by the faculty of the wonderful work that they do in producing such fine candidates as yourself. Possibly ending with Jerez (Sherry).


proper grading fairness when certain questions dropped on exam I had a 135 question final exam. The Professor decided 11 questions were problematic. For those 11 specific questions, he gave points to all students if they missed those questions. If a student got them correct no extra credit was given. Some students got more extra questions than others if they missed more of the 11. Is it unfair to not award the entire class same amount of wrong questions?

This is a common complaint.  Anytime a professor relaxes a requirement, the students who achieved it are unhappy (turn in time for a paper, whatever).

As far as those questions, it is not clear if professor decided they were wrong, ambiguous or just too hard.  In any case, what he did had the impact of removing them from any relative ranking (which is why the screams from those who got it right).

I wouldn't get outraged over it.  Sometimes there is no perfect answer. (Consider also the possible damage from leaving the questions in if they were flawed in some way.)  Just get over it, work hard, keep doing well.


Should I include the names of my Master's and PhD supervisors in my CV? Next month I will be graduating from university in the UK with a Master's degree in Astrophysics and in October I will be starting my PhD at a different UK university.

I have seen some academic CVs that list the PhD supervisors that person had, alongside the usual information such as the institution and start/ finish date.

I suppose the advantage of including your supervisor's name on your CV is so that a person reading it can get an idea of the kind of work you're doing (if you don't have any publications of your own yet and if they know what your supervisor's research interests are) and how you fit into their network via the supervisor.

As someone with currently a very short academic CV, is it ok for me to include the names of my Master's and PhD supervisors? What are the advantages and disadvantages of doing so?

Note that I know who my future PhD supervisor is.

Additionally, your supervisors might have written you letters of recommendation for grad school (or could in the future for other grant applications). Thus, mentioning your former supervisors is a form of acknowledgement and transparency for other researchers or research institutions.  I totally agree with the former comments that in 90 %, it won't harm you.  In case you are completely unsure, you could ask your former supervisors whether they are okay with it (but I would be surprised if there is an academic scholar who says no)


Publons - is it a serious thing? Recently several different, unrelated publishers suggested on their websites to join Publons, which is meant to acknowledge referees for peer-reviewing submitted manuscripts.

Publons even suggests to forward them emails to add all your past review work:

  We've set up a process to make populating your review record as easy as possible:
  Search your inbox for "thank you review manuscript"
  Forward those emails to reviews@publons.com
  We'll verify and add your reviews to your profile (without showing their content or the title of the manuscripts)

This all sounds very iffy and hence my questions:

Given their suggestion to forward [confidential] emailexchanges between journal and reviewer, is Publons a scientifically ethically sound initiative?
Not a hoax?
If it's ethically OK and not a hoax, what will it yield scientists in the long run, other than a  verified referee record? Isn't reviewing expected from every researcher?

Related question on academia SE: Is it worth creating a profile with Publons?

Here is their current web page, which in contrast to the Google+ page you linked to appears to be up-to-date.
Although this is the first time I've seen this site, my impression is that it's ethically okay and not a hoax. That said, it also seems quite unnecessary to me, and I would not bother to use it.

What will it yield scientists in the long run?

--  I would estimate:

With about 2% probability, the website will catch on and become popular. Probably this would be at the insistence of university administrators, who are often looking for new ways to measure and evaluate the performance of faculty.
The website will yield another hoop for researchers to jump through, and possibly (as the website claims) to increased recognition of researchers who do an unusually good job of peer review.

With about 98% probability, the website will largely be ignored, and the net effect on the scientific community will be nil.

In general, I would advocate ignoring advice originating from commercial publishers; personally, I would only consider using this site  if I were urged to do so by scientists in my field or by administrators at my university.


How widespread is sharing of slides/assignments among educators? Often, when taking a course at the university level, I amuse myself by Googling phrases from the instructors' slides, assignments, and other materials. I have found, without exception from any instructor, that the material is more or less identical to some resource I can find online, often course materials posted by a professor at a highly prestigious university (e.g. Stanford). In some cases I will find material that is 10 - 15 years old; other times it is undated. Sometimes I can find the same material posted by a dozen different professors at a dozen different universities.

A few times in the past, I've entertained the idea of reporting the professor for possible plagiarism, but I've never followed through on it because

If the material is undated, there's no way to know who published it first
For all I know these slides and assignments can be purchased from vendors. I have occasionally had a professor use a complete course package, where the publisher of a textbook also offers the assignments and tests to accompany the textbook.
I have been unwilling to risk having to re-take the course, if the instructor is suddenly fired mid-semester for plagiarism

(In some cases the materials are sprinkled with enough informal language that it's obvious that they were not purchased from a vendor.)

Since it seems like all of my professors get all of their slides and assignments from somewhere else, I am curious how common it is to share course materials between instructors. Do college professors commonly purchase their lesson plans and assignments from vendors? Do instructors and universities share premade courses with each other?

It is common for college professors to use teaching materials from outside sources. There is generally no an expectation of originality when it comes to teaching materials.

  Do college professors commonly purchase their lesson plans and assignments from vendors?

Many textbooks come with a set of slides, distributed by either the publisher or the author of the textbook (often for free). Instructors may choose to use these exactly as they are, or adapt them. Some books come with other materials too, including assignments.

Personally, I often don't like the textbook authors' prepared materials and prefer to develop my own. But that's my preference.

  Do instructors and universities share premade courses with each other?

Yes, this is also common. I have shared my course materials with instructors at my own university and at other universities. Many of my course materials are hosted online with an explicit Creative Commons license allowing others to use them.

I have also participated in projects that received NSF funding specifically to develop course materials and other resources to share with other instructors.


My new advisor didn't reply to my email, is it a sign that she doesn't care? I am a 2nd year graduate student in physics, at one of the top 20 universities in the US. This semester, I am supposed to start a research project with a professor who agreed already to be my thesis advisor.

So, I emailed her at the beginning of the semester -10 days ago- but I didn't get a response yet. Nothing. I emailed her again yesterday and I hope for a response. I tried to go to her office, but I couldn't find her. She comes to the university only to teach and then she disappears.

I am really worried. Is this normal or is this a sign that the advisor doesn't care at all? Should I try and change advisor? She is a top scientist but I am very disappointed...

Flippant version: It is normal AND it is a sign that the advisor doesn't care at all.

Less flippant version: I would wait a couple more days. Then, if still no response, I would ask around to see if the professor is sick/having a major life crisis/etc. If not, then I would conclude that they do not meet a reasonable standard of availability, and I would choose to work with someone else. There are few things more depressing in academia than colleagues who drop the ball and ignore you, especially when they are senior to you and you rely on them to make progress on your work. Life is too short to be working with someone who is not interested in working with you.


Handling plagiarism as a TA To give some background, I am a TA at UCLA for a lab class. They submit their assignments to TurnItIn, which you may know highlights any text pulled from another place.

I made it clear that they are not to work together and that no text in their reports should be found "anywhere else in the universe."

After the first week I caught a group of two plagiarizing. I repeated the "your text should not be found anywhere else in the universe" talk. I gave a long speech about academic honesty and such. One of the plagiarizing students dropped the class herself. I didn't take action on the other, besides a stern talking-to.

This week, two more students blatantly copied chunks of the other's paper. Whole paragraphs. I couldn't believe it -- I had just explained to them the week prior how easy it was to spot plagiarism. I brought them outside class one at a time and asked them what happened. I showed them the highlighted TurnItIn gradereport and their reports side-by-side. They each said they worked together, but didn't copy (slim chance. And still against the rules.)

Now the issue:

The professor that oversees my class doesn't have time to talk to me; hence I am here. He has given me two options: do nothing, or report them to the Dean of Students. If I do the latter, the punishment will extend beyond their grade -- they will probably fail the class, or even be suspended.

I want to punish them. But I don't want to ruin their undergraduate lives. Is my professor right -- I only have two options? (I cannot find any school-specific information about this.)

Or is there a better, less obvious way to handle this?

Update:

I talked around. It turns out that this kind of violation is serious, but it's not going to destroy their life. The Dean of Students people tend to be pretty reasonable when it comes to sanctions from what I hear. So I'm reporting it to them.

This sounds like "I want to punish them but not really". Fact is that these students have cheated even after multiple warnings. You are not teaching little children. Responsibility and accountability are important and adult students should have both.

If you are sure they plagiarized the only correct course of action here is to report them. It is then up to whoever handles such issues to assess the severity and appropriate punishment.

The students knew the risks of plagiarizing and decided to do it anyway. Giving them a milder treatment now will encourage other students to behave similarly since the consequences become less severe.

Note: are you sure the students copied from each other or is it possible that they are using the same source?


Is it acceptable to list unpublished papers in a PhD application for computer science? I have a couple of papers that are works in progress or in the submission process. Can I list under my publications list (and clarify they are not yet published but on the road to it)?

Yes, this is done routinely; provided, however, that these papers are clearly marked as "currently under peer review" or "submitted for review" and specify the journal. If the paper has passed peer review and us merely awaiting publication, it can be marked as "to appear." If the paper has not passed peer review,  it should not be labeled as "to appear."

Best regards and wishing a swift publication process.


Are women overrepresented in the field of child development studies? I have the impression that many female scientists, especially after they gave birth to a child, start to develop a research interest in the learning, growing, and developmental behaviors of babies. I got this impression because over time I heard about a couple of female university professors and industry scientists doing research about babies. I personally know 0 male scientist whose research interest is in this area.

I'm wondering whether this trend I see around me is real, and thus wondering: are women more represented in the subfield of child development (or developmental psychology) than in the broader field of psychology?

I'm concerned, and intuitively don't like this (possibly imagined) "trend". I think it may encourage some people to think that female scientists just pick up certain research topics and don't want to touch others. I also see this "trend" as a destruction of many years of effort encouraging women in the "hard-core" science and technology.

Males have historically outnumbered their female counterparts in the field of psychology, but this has changed in recent years. According to the American Psychological Association

  Psychology, once a man's profession, now attracts mostly women. Data from the 1986 APA report, "The Changing Face of American Psychology," and the National Science Foundation show that the percentage of psychology PhDs awarded to men has fallen from nearly 70 percent in 1975 to less than 30 percent in 2008. (The data do not include PsyD degrees.)

Not only are females over-represented in psychology as a whole, they appear to be even more over-represented in the sub-fields of developmental and child psychology. This article from the APA states

  In developmental and child psychology...female PhD recipients outnumber men by more than five to one.


Do Academic Titles Matter in CV? I am a teaching assistant and I am writing a list of instructors that I have assisted.

Should I go with full titles such as Assoc. Prof. Dr., Asst. Prof. Dr. or is it enough to write Dr. only.

I have encountered many CVs that only uses Dr. no matter the person is either assistant professor, associate professor or professor. I think people only write Prof. instead of Dr. if the person is a Professor Dr. What is the right way to do it?

The same question applies to writing names of project supervisors, thesis advisers, references etc.

The country I will send my CV is Sweden.

I suspect that this is strongly culturally dependent.  In the American tradition of egalitarianism, my C.V. has never had any titles in it at all, following the example I saw amongst my older peers and professor.  On the other hand, I suspect that a German C.V. might be much more particular, since academic titles are considered important enough to be protected by law there.

My suggestion to you, then, would be to look at the CVs of people with a position similar to that you aim to obtain, and to adopt the style that they have used.


How Might The Pedagogy Of A PhD Supervisor Differ From That Of An MSc Supervisor An MSc and PhD are quite different both in terms of the length and the expectations placed on the students undergoing the program. First, let's just assume that the 'students' I reference below are hard working, want to be in their programs, and make an effort to be a good mentee.

Trying to put myself in the shoes of a supervisor, and all else equal, I would expect (in the general sense) more from my PhD students than I would from my masters students - although I recognize there are probably instances where supervisor expectations might be similar, but I doubt they would expect more of a MSc student than a PhD student.

What I am curious about is how a supervisor might approach their end of the student-supervisor relationship from a pedagogical point of view when the student is a PhD student in contrast to being an MSc student. For example, what values or attitudes might a PhD supervisor try to impart on their student that might not be warranted for an MSc student, or what type of expectations might a supervisor place on their PhD student that might not be appropriate to place on the MSc student?

I say pedagogically because I think the question can be answered without needing to reference a specific field. I'm not sure if it really matters or not, but if you think it does, one can use Canada-US as a place of context.

While some might view the question to be ambiguous, I think it is relevant enough for the forum because it can help shape a healthy student-advisor relationship.

I think that one of the largest differences between advisement of a PhD student and a MSc student is found in what the end goal of the degree in question is.

In my field (Math/CS), most MSc students are trying to augment their undergraduate education with a bit more experience and higher level topics. It is an extension of the undergraduate education. Yes, there is a research component, but that is not usually the main focus of the degree in my opinion. The focus is more on application of advanced concepts in an existing sphere of solutions.

On the other hand, a PhD student needs to learn to be an independent researcher. They need to be able to develop new and novel techniques, all with decreasing levels of guidance as they progress through the program.

Advisement of the respective degree programs would follow what I have outlined above. A MSc student should be aided in augmenting their existing knowledge; a PhD student should be guided towards independently led research.


How to deal with poor scientific articles that seemingly reached the right conclusion? I am writing a paper and some of our findings validate the conclusions from an already published peer-reviewed article in a respected journal. We also find things that differ.

However the authors of the paper uses techniques that are not ideal for making their conclusions, and furthermore, some of their data look particularly weak to me, i.e. I do not find that they substantiate their claims. For example, there are immunofluorescent images that simply look black.

How do I discuss and reference a paper, that seemingly come to the right conclusions, but do so in a manner, I am not sure about?

I am writing a paper and some of our findings validate the conclusions from an already published peer-reviewed article in a respected journal. We also find things that differ.

That is all good and normal.

  However the authors of the paper uses techniques that are not ideal for making their conclusions, and furthermore, some of their data look particularly weak to me, i.e. I do not find that they substantiate their claims. For example, there are immunofluorescent images that simply look black.

Often (especially when it comes to experiments) the choice of technique is down to what is available to the authors, and what their expertise is. This is generally understood, and it's left for later papers to improve on methods, analysis, data, etc. In fact, an earlier less-than-perfect publication, while not great for the scientific record, helps position and justify your own paper.

Also note that it's possible they had better data than made it into the published figures. Sometimes the picture quality deteriorates during the publication process, sometimes the authors do not know how to make high-quality graphics, and sometimes there are outright mistakes. It might be worth reaching out to them asking for more details.

  How do I discuss and reference a paper, that seemingly come to the right conclusions, but do so in a manner, I am not sure about?

It's best to be sure before directly criticizing the other work. If you're not sure, it's usually better to focus on presenting your own work in a good light by positioning it relative to the other work. It sounds as if you are in a good position  to do that here, perhaps writing something like "System X has previously been studied using technique A [1]. We use technique B [2], which has better time resolution and allows for more precise control of property c." This construction can be adapted to discuss the claims where you agree and disagree with the other work. Basically focus on your own work first and foremost, and argue why we readers should trust it over the other one, not why we should distrust the other paper.

I'll add the caveat that this obviously breaks down if you come to wildly different conclusions than in the existing literature. In that case there's no way around directly addressing their flaws, but then you really want to be sure.


First impressions: CV or research statement? When hiring PhD students, what document is used most frequently for a 'first impression': the CV or the research statement/statement of purpose?

Context: I am currently in the process of applying to several PhD positions. A constant factor seems to be the necessity to submit both a CV and a research statement-like letter. As I can imagine professors who get a lot of submissions cannot read all submitted documents entirely, I was wondering which document would be used more as a first impression, and which one as a more detailed insight into the candidate?

The first impression is, ideally, when you first talked with a prospective adviser and/or researchers in the department or lab before applying. Some people have small interviews (such as by phone or Skype) before application time, and it varies by person whether or not anyone will have even seen a statement or CV before/during this process. This naturally varies by region and field, but this is not uncommon in the US.

Naturally this is not always possible, in which case you'll just have submitted an entire application packet and have no control of the first impression - so literally anything you submit with the package could be  the first thing a member of the admissions committee sees.

The typical routine is that an administrative department (generally "admissions" or a "graduate studies" coordinator) collects all the materials and puts all the information into files. Admissions committees then generally split up the applicants into sets and distribute them to individuals on the committee, with usually 2-3 people reviewing each applicant. It seems this particular handling of the process is very common (I've heard it from dozens of people in different fields throughout the US).

The first read varies by committee member, and it seems that absolutely everyone has their own weightings and order in which they review packets. Some professors say they think the  personal/research statement is silly and the first thing they look at is the reference letters. Meanwhile some say they look at the reference letters last, as they want to see what the candidates own words are and then only see if the reference letters agree with that image. Some people think the CV tells the true story, while others think the CV is little more than a laundry list and nutshell reminder of what's listed in the other materials. Some professors have been reported as saying "I only accept people I've already worked with in the past" so the application materials are really just there to make the bureaucrats complain less, and pre-selected candidates need to just not screw up too badly on anything.

So in the end, in writing your materials you cannot assume any proper ordering whatsoever - everything has to be suitable if encountered first, last, only, or not at all!


Can I submit a paper to a conference if I have presented it at another conference earlier but it wasn't published in proceedings? Can I submit a paper to a conference if I have presented it at another conference earlier but it wasn't published in proceedings?
Last year I submitted my work to a conference and it was accepted as a long paper, so I thought it was going to be published in the proceedings, but it seems they have a loophole in their rules. Long story short they they didn't publish the long paper. They published my other abstracts, but not the long papers due to this awkward loophole. I was planning to submit to a journal, but with the reviews and revisions, it will be a lot different from what I have right now. Can/should I submit the paper to another conference instead? One that will actually publish?

I am aware that in some fields conferences are the main repositories for new contributions. I don't know how it works and I do not want to enter into this aspect.
In other fields* conferences are rather venues to disseminate and discuss results and ideas, and, at the best level, doing it in a more interactive fashion than the one permitted by papers.
Moreover "political" motivations play a big role. Note the quotes... It can simply mean an authors is curious of meeting others, or seeking collaborations.
This means that

the same talk maintains its practical novelty for an indefinite time. It is up to the authors and to the organising committee to decide what is worth a presentation;

one can desire to enter in, or present to, a slightly different community.

As such, if your research is in *the other fields and you think you should submit you can surely do it.
Often one encounter the opposite problem. Namely the author already has a paper (paper or proceeding) and is barely interested in attending /presenting, while the committee asks for a paper to be published. This is a problem easily circumvented (everyone knows that it is not the case of self plagiarism) but it seems even not existing due to the loophole (?) you mention.
Summary: hard to say if you should. Most likely you can.


Nervous about submitting a paper - what if I made a mistake? I'm an undergraduate and I've taken part in a summer internship. Part of the internship was writing a paper based on a model we developed, which we're hoping to submit.

The paper is "finished" now, and so we're ready to send it off for peer review. I'm really nervous about this as while I've checked over the code time and time again there's always the chance I'll have made a mistake somewhere which might not get picked up on.

How do people cope with this? If there is a mistake that I haven't identified, and isn't picked up in peer review, how damaging will it be if someone else identifies it later on? I'm kind of nervous given what I've heard about retractions and breaches of ethics.

To the best of my knowledge the model is working, and to my knowledge the results it is generating are correct.

(Upon @Massimo Ortolano's kind suggestion:)

Your issue is not even about "retractions", much less "breach of ethics", if you (and all your co-authors, and advisors/mentors) are acting in good faith. "Making a mistake even with due diligence" cannot be a punishable offense, or no one at all risk-averse would ever do any new work/research/etc. In other words, it's not like a school course where there is some "ultimate judgement" and "absolute standards". In this regard, many school systems from kindergarten through high school (the U.S. name) through undergrad school (the U.S. name) cultivate terrible reflexes, yes.

That is, even if you did make some sort of serious mistake, it's not like it "goes on your permanent record, and a letter is sent home to your parents, and you'll be 'grounded' for two months". The paper just gets rejected (if the referee detects your supposed error!), and hardly anyone in the world knows about your gaffe... whether or not it is upsetting to you personally. People have to "go out on a limb" (English idiom) to make serious progress, and this oughtn't be punished.


How can teachers reduce student suspicions in discrepancies and irregularities of grading? From experience, many teachers dislike it when students compare grades, but that often shows the discrepancies and irregularities in the grading system. What other methods should teachers implement in order to keep grading transparent and fair?

Consider the following situations in your answer:

Curved Grades
The possibility of an error in grading, which leads to an imbalance in the grade distribution.

Some teachers immediately assume that just because a student wants to compare papers that he/she is just interested in increasing their grade. This is not the case! Some teachers make mistakes so instead of brushing it off, by assuming that students want to "grade-lawyer" or the like, they should consider the possibility that an error has been made. The goal of this question is to reduce such responses.

Something I used to do (I no longer teach) was to grade in such a way that there should not be an issue if any student compared his/her graded test with any other student in the class. And this certainly happened in my classes (indeed, I sometimes did this myself when I was a student), from the first classes I taught in 1983 to the last classes I taught in 2005. By the way, I taught math. I suspect the methods I describe are much easier to carry out in math than in some other fields, such as literary criticism or philosophy.

Something I started doing after a few years of teaching was to photocopy my solutions/rubric sheet and handing a copy of it back with each student's test. Before this, I often handed out solutions to save class time (and office hour time), and at some point I realized I could save even more of my personal time by simply handing back what I had already hand-written for grading purposes, without bothering to rewrite (or type) it again in a neater form. The solutions I used for grading purposes were often brief, but for rubric purposes I would always include steps that I expected some students to miss, so it actually worked fine with most students when they consulted it to see what they did wrong or how to correctly work the problem. And for those places where I was too brief for a particular student, they tended to consult with their neighbors sitting next to them and together they almost always managed to figure things out, so I tended to only get the less trivial types of questions. As for the rubric, what worked best for me was to treat the rubric as a "work in progress" in the sense that I made grading decisions whenever a certain type of error showed up, rather than trying to anticipate them in advance.

One policy I had and which I often reminded students about was that they should never be afraid of asking me about a question for fear that their grade could decrease. If they saw anything that seemed to be an inconsistency in grading (and this only happened on very rare occasions because I tended to document for myself almost every kind of mistake made as I graded tests), then I wanted them to let me know. If in fact I did make a mistake, then my mistake would never lower their grade, but it could increase other students' grades if my mistake was an inconsistency in how many points were counted off for a certain type of mistake on their part. Also, if I saw on a student's paper brought to me where I made an oversight by not counting off for something incorrect, then I would mark in ink a correction (so the student wouldn't at some later time think what was incorrect was actually correct) and include a comment that this was found after the tests were graded.

One issue I used to often see students and teachers arguing about was points taken off for correct answers that were obtained by not entirely complete work. I learned early on that this can cause trouble when trying to justify your grading to students. The most straightforward way I found to handle this was to simply design problems whose solution requires all the things you feel are important, and of course often reminding students when working problems in class prior to a test what type of work is acceptable and what type of work is not acceptable. For example, the standard elementary calculus method for determining the global maximum and global minimum of a continuous function on a closed and bounded interval involves finding the values of the function at the critical points (where the derivative is zero or undefined) in the interior of the interval and the values of the function at the endpoints of the interval. So if you give a problem where both extrema occur at the endpoints, or both extrema occur in the interior of the interval, then the student could get the correct answer using correct (but not entirely complete) mathematical reasoning by only considering the critical points or by only considering the endpoints. The way to fix this is to design the problem so that one of the extrema is in the interior and the other extrema is at an endpoint. Better still is to arrange it so that there are at least two critical points, with at least one critical point lying outside the interval and at which the function's value is greater than the global maximum on the interval or less than the global minimum on the interval.


Graduate coursework for graduate admissions I’m a rising senior in a mathematics program, and I’m planning to apply to top US schools in maths in the fall. I’ve completed most of my undergrad coursework requirements, and I’m looking into what I should take for the fall.
I have a choice between Graduate Analysis I or Undergraduate Complex Analysis. Now, I find both of these to be very interesting, but what do graduate schools think when they look at my transcript? Will it be more advantageous to have the graduate course listed on there?
If I take the graduate course, it’ll also open up the sequel Graduate Analysis II in the winter.

The answer strongly depends on the programs you apply for. As a very general statement, I would say that getting a good grade on a more advanced/challenging graduate class is better than getting a good grade on an undergraduate class.
Grad classes carry several benefits in terms of the signal they send to prospective admission committees. First of all, they show that you are ready to handle independent studies and the advanced material that is given in these classes. Moreover, graduate classes tend to be smaller and offer more intimate interaction with the lecturer on a topic that they care deeply about (they probably involve their own research papers in the class) - this means you get the opportunity to receive a good reference letter from someone who can personally attest to your capability to handle graduate level material.
All of this is premised on the assumption that you can get a similar grade on both - failing (or barely passing) a graduate class sends a very bad signal to admission committees, as opposed to doing well on an undergraduate class.
So - be sure that you are indeed ready for the class, and the types of materials covered there. Good luck!


How to interact with difficult supervisors after graduation? I submitted my dissertation after several years of working. I will have my defense soon, and I reported what I am going to talk in the defense. However, my primary supervisor now refuses to give further advice or comments because he said he had spent a lot of time editing my dissertation. In addition to that, he also asks me to refrain from interacting with my second supervisor because the latter person also spent a lot of time for my doctoral dissertation.
I am not on good terms with my primary supervisor. He is fed up with me because it was very hard for him to supervise me. With my second supervisor I am on good terms personally, to the degree that he likes to invite me to have some coffee. However, since it seems that he is reluctant to advise any people, he might want to cut ties with me as well.

My question is, how I should interact wisely with these people, especially after my graduation. I do not need their advice for the moment because I can prepare for the defense by myself. However, I may be going to feel awkward if they will cut academic ties with me. I am not sure what exactly will make me so; however, I think I should not cut the ties because I see that most PhD holders around me still interact with their former supervisors.

For your information, I am an international student from Asia in a European country and going to work at a university in my home country after getting a doctorate. My supervisors are leading scholars in our small field in humanities. So, I will have some opportunities in which my papers will be reviewed by them.

Sounds like their issue is that they don't want to spend more time on your defense. They don't have an issue with talking to you in general. So just prepare your defense without asking for help from the supervisors which don't want to help. After you graduate, feel free to write back as you normally would. Just not about the defense.

Just as a remark, I don't get how your other supervisor wants to help you but your main supervisor doesn't want you to ask his help. Presumably the other guy is a free adult, and can make his own decisions. If he agrees to help you, why would your main supervisor object? It's not taking any of his time, and if your defense is better and makes you more likely to graduate, that's good for him too.


What would be the difference between the public and private graduate schools in US? Okay, so back in my country, the difference between private and public colleges is pretty visible. I have worked in biotech labs of both kinds and know that there's a lot of restrictions on using costly instruments in private colleges whereas we get a lot of liberty to get hands-on lab experience in public ones and sometimes they even encourage the person to conduct independent research without any external interference and to let the person fall and learn. In an internship at a private research lab, I had to ask them multiple times (more than 10 times) to let me use a PCR just once (as I needed it in my project thesis) during my stay there for a good two months. They were doubtful about "someone new" manhandling the instrument despite me having been rigorously trained to set-up that machine in the past (You'll be able to comprehend the annoyance if you have a biology background.) This was one incident and I certainly do not wish to rant about the other ones here. This year, I would be applying to US universities for doctoral studies. I have never been to the US, but I have applied to both category. Should I be concerned about such incidents occurring there in private institutions? Also, here the government institutions are highly reputed and have a very stimulating environment much better than any private institutions.

I have found a similar question before here, but I feel that people mainly talk about funding issues here.

For graduate school, there are generally few differences. A couple potential factors:

Funding and other resources may be easier to obtain at private schools. On the other hand, there are rich public schools and less well-off private schools. The other factor is that public schools are often larger, so they sometimes have better shared resources (e.g. computing clusters).
Probably the biggest difference is the undergraduate make-up, which only affects you indirectly. At larger public schools you are more likely to TA as a graduate student, which is both good (easy to get TA funding) and bad (may be harder to avoid TAing).
Some public schools have unionized graduate students/teaching assistants. Almost no private schools have these unions. Whether this is good or bad is an open question.
In very rare circumstances, public school funding can be affected by political winds. There was one recent high-profile case where a large public university's budget was severely cut over a couple of years, but I can't think of any other recent cases. This is extremely unlikely, but possibly a factor if future cuts are being discussed.

The type (public/private) of the graduate program you go to is unlikely to make a major difference in your experience. What matters much more is the quality and characteristics of the program, which is largely independent of public vs. private. Each department is unique, and it's worth closely researching both the research being done and the culture that exists there when choosing where to apply to and where to go.


Does red-line curve denotes better result in a graph? In a colloquium, an eminent senior professor showed a graph from a peer-reviewed journal (published by some other group). The graph contained three curves:

black dots (blurred)
black line (blurred)
red line (thick and bright)

All these curves in the graph reports the same property (obtained with different methods).

When talking about the graph, the speaker mentioned, "Since the authors thought that this data (by pointing the red line) is most important, they have used red line"

My question is, is there such practice of using red-line to highlight good results in research articles?

Note: I ask this question because, in Origin Software, the first and second curve are, by default, black and red. If those colors are used, it may given an impression that the red line graph is the better result (compared to black line graph).

As far as I know, there is no well-established standard. The only universally recognized guideline is "use colors that are well visible, also when printed on black/white (if it's an article) or displayed on a beamer with bad colors (if it's slides)".

I think the most likely explanation is that the speaker was joking.

Personally, in my talks I like to use what I dubbed the "Star Wars light-saber color coding": the 'good guy' (new algorithm of which we are trying to show the merits) is in blue, the 'bad guy' (leading competing algorithm) is in red, and green and purple are used for additional variants (with green=good-ish and purple=bad-ish). But that is also a joke and not a standard.


Should you highlight an editorial written about your research article in your CV? Some journals invite well-known academics to write editorials about the "best" articles featured in that issue. I just had an editorial published alongside a paper I just put out. Should I highlight this somewhere in my CV? I didn't write the editorial and it's not exactly media coverage, but I'm a young academic, so I'll take anything I can get!

You'll likely include a list of publications sorted by publication type (e.g., book, book chapter, edited book, journal article, ...), you can add a list  headed "Media coverage", "Press coverage", or similar.


Many short papers or one big paper for a math postdoc? As the title says, I am a math postdoc. I am working on a project, which I expect will result in a long paper (60-100+ pages, I am not really sure yet). As I work along the way, I am getting results, which are probably interesting on their own.

I wonder if it would look bad on my resume if I will have many short papers (say, of less then 10-15 pages)? or having many papers at this stage of the career is good for me?

Should I balance between these two approaches? What are you thoughts on this, assuming I am interested in getting a tenure track position at a research university?

This really depends on the situation, and I suggest you consult with some colleagues/mentors/your advisor for your specific case.  Here are a few points to keep in mind.

If these results are completely separate, then it makes absolute sense to break things up into separate parts, then assemble the various needed results for the endgame of your project.
If you're just continually improving results, it may not be worth while to publish every little improvement, particularly if they will not go into good journals, but you might want to look for natural breaks.
One great paper is better than many mediocre papers, but at this stage you should equate a few good papers with one great paper.
There's no general rule for how much you should publish, but a good rule of thumb is to aim to have at least decent 1 paper/year since you graduate.  Keep in mind, that papers always take longer than expected, and the refereeing time is generally long in math (particularly more so for longer papers), so the sooner you can submit, the better.

So you should take into account the rest of your publication record, a conservative estimate of how long the project will take, and what quality of journals you can publish in if you break things up in to parts versus keeping it as a whole.  If you can break things up and still publish in good journals, then I would say this is the safer way to make you a good candidate for tenure-track/second postdoc positions.

Edit: I just realized I didn't directly address the OP's second paragraph.  It's not bad to have many papers at this stage if those are good papers (though it can initially look suspicuous if you have many more papers than your peers, and most don't appear in good journals).  In some fields, it is normal to  mostly write many short papers (and for certain subjects, all papers under 15 pages would be strange).  What's most important is that people think you are doing good research, which will come primarily from letters of recommendations and secondarily your list of publications.  So while you should think carefully and seek advice from colleagues on how to publish your papers, but one long paper versus a few short-medium papers will probably not affect your application too much if they're accepted by the time you apply.


Publishing vs. putting work online under a free license Suppose a work (a book with abstract math research) is presented as LaTeX source under a copyleft license available at a public Git hosting service.

Will scientists be reluctant to cite such a work, because it was not published "officially"?

Having asked this question, I mention that in my opinion that publishing under copyleft in a Git repository is a better means to hunt errors than traditional peer review, because everybody can track and patch errors in the book. But will this real security convert to enough sense of security of academic community?

There are two separate questions tangled together here.  The first is whether scientists will cite something that has not gone through a traditional peer review process, and the second is whether a copyleft / open source repository project is a good way to manage such a non-traditional publication.

To the first, the answer is most certainly yes.  Many non-peer-reviewed publications are not just cited, but highly cited, particularly technical reports and standards.  These do not undergo peer review, but if they are useful to people, they will cite them---sometimes thousands of times.

For the second, well, consider the fate of most free and open projects, whether on GitHub or elsewhere.  Almost every project of this type dies quietly in the dark, because nobody notices or cares about it.  Some, of course, succeed, and a few have massive impact.  The question is: why should anybody care about your project?  If they do, then copylefting in a git repository is no better or worse a way to manage the document than any other way that communities manage non-peer-reviewed documents (though make sure you do it with a CC license, not a code license).  If they don't then the technological or ideological elegance of your approach will make no difference.

The bottom line is: you are focusing on the technology, rather than the community.  You need to understand how your work will interact with your community, and then the technology is a secondary issue that will follow from that interaction.


Overcoming a profound basis of underperformance as a freshman Relevant background:

Freshman at large public research university, pursuing Engineering/Applied Mathematics dual major.

Labeled 'gifted' after neuropsych evaluation in Elementary school. Processing speed about 2 standard deviations lower than other subscores, this may have contributed to learning maladaptations that have become evident in University.

K-8: Programs where I got A's and B's without actually making the effort to learn the material. Never a straight-A student, usually got discouraged when my (also 'gifted') peers did stuff more quickly than I could, decided I didn't like what I wasn't good at.

I got a few A's but mostly B's in high school math, where I completed up to Multivariable Calculus, in which I received a B.

This semester I took Linear Algebra & Differential Equations (1 course) which comprised 2 midterms and a final. I got an A on the LA midterm, didn't have much trouble with that. However I got a D on the DE midterm; it turns out I can't integrate worth a damn anymore. My final grade is TBD, but I'm guessing I will earn a B in the class.

The cruel irony is that by the time I realized I enjoyed math I also handicapped myself to learning it.

Question:

Has anyone here been in or witnessed an applicable situation? It feels as if I've dug myself a hole that may not be possible to get out of regarding future math classes.

The cruel irony is that by the time I realised I enjoyed math I also handicapped myself to learning it.

I've had a somewhat similar experience so I'm going to describe it in a few words. Perhaps it will be helpful for you.

When in school I was labelled "gifted" as well. I was a member of a club for children with math aptitude and participated in competitions but never put in any effort. Eventually, after entering university, I realised that research is what I really want to do. That is the most important thing, I believe. I would have been smarter if I studied seriously in school. Sometimes I regret not doing it. However, it's in the past, it doesn't really matter, it's not relevant to the present situation. You have a goal and your current skills as starting parameters. What happens next is up to you. From your background section I got the impression that you think about what you could've done a lot. My advice: think about what you can do instead. Right now you're in a perfect positions to study what you like! Some people face a lot more difficulties.

Now to address your actual question.

  Frankly, I don't quite know where to start relearning. Where would a starting point be?

I don't think you actually need relearning. Judging by your grades, you have a pretty good grasp on the material. If you really need to sharpen your skills do some exercises from a textbook. What I think you should do (it worked for me) is pick up a book/ online course / seminar on the topic you are interested in and just start learning. Whenever you encounter something you don't remember from the classes go back and refresh this knowledge. Eventually things you really need from those courses will become second nature (and this way you can avoid deliberately solving boring exercises).

You edited the last part out but it did indeed sound like the impostor syndrome. There is a ton of people with imperfect knowledge in academia, both students and teachers. More importantly, you're only a freshman. Even if you don't get into that cool project next year there will be other opportunities. You have a lot more before you than behind you.


Postdoc contracts in US - signing an initial one which is superseded by different online one? Is it usual for postdocs (I'm in the US) to sign one contract with the department and then have to accept a notice of appointment online which supercedes the initial one signed?

I signed my postdoc job offer before moving to the US to take up the position and then when I arrived in the country I had to accept what turned out to be my actual contract online which differed from the original one (different start date and end date). This second one stipulates that it supersedes any previous documents signed or verbal agreements given. This has now happened again after a year in the post. A pay rise which was agreed to start on one date has now been pushed back a fortnight on the second document which I am now expected to accept.

Is this normal? Is this fair? Any advice appreciated.

From the OP's comment:

  When questioned, I was told that this is what the contract is now.

Hmm.  Most of the point of a contract is that it cannot be unilaterally changed during the period it applies to.  So you can absolutely insist on the old contract -- in fact, just by not signing the new one -- but the last six words of the previous sentence are key.  If you signed a one year contract but have the expectation (or even informal agreement) of longer employment, then refusing to sign the new contract could place your future employment in serious jeopardy.

You are really not being treated properly, but you have to decide whether it's worth it to take action.  I couldn't be completely sure, but it sounds like you are saying that you signed a contract for a certain salary and are now being asked to sign a contract to cover the same employment period for a lesser salary.  Isn't that kind of the gold standard of unacceptable (and of course, illegal) employer behavior?  If I were in that situation I would not be willing to sign a contract lowering my own salary.  I would do my best to work the situation out amicably, but I would understand that this might lead to a parting of ways between me and the university.

In case it's not obvious, this is definitely something to discuss with both your supervisor and the department head.  Their attitude might be "We know it sucks, and there's nothing we can do about it" but even so you should get their advice and, if possible, their support.


Is it okay to suggest a Professor Emeritus as a mentor when applying for US mathematics postdocs? Consider a typical mathematics postdoctoral position in the US that is assessed at departmental level and open to applicants from all research areas. Suppose that applicants are required to indicate one faculty member whose research areas overlap with those of the applicant. What would be the effect on the candidate's standing, if any, upon suggesting a Professor Emeritus particularly if the professor has the best fit concerning research interests compared to existing faculty members?

Here is roughly the way it works in my department, and I imagine this is fairly typical for math research departments in the US.

People apply for postdocs.
The faculty review applications.
Faculty who are interested in certain candidates push for them.
Some committee and/or the chair decides on a ranking of the candidates individual professors are excited about.
Offers are made.

For 4, typically getting a postdoc for an emeritus professor will have very low priority, and unless the emeritus prof is active, they probably wouldn't push for you anyway.  I believe that emeriti typically don't even have permission to look at applications.

However, I think it's a little weird that they require you to name one faculty with common interests.  I don't remember ever seeing this when I applied.  (Is it exactly one?  If not, you could mention regular and emeritus faculty.  If so, maybe that is to assign that faculty member to review your application.)  My suggestion (say if you can only name exactly one) is to choose a regular (non-retired) faculty member, but possibly mention the emeritus professor in your cover letter.  If you think the emeritus professor is still active and would be interested in having you there, maybe send them an email to let them know you applied.  Then they might discuss your application with other faculty.


Are PhD scholarships and assistantships taxable? I'm currently in the process of applying for various scholarships to fund my PhD.

Many scholarships mention explicitly the approximate amount per year of the scholarship. This is usually the amount excluding tuitions, so the amount mentioned is intended to be a stipend to cover living expenses.

I've never seen it mentioned anywhere, nor could I find a definite answer of this online: will this stipend be taxed? E.g., should I subtract a certain percentage off the scholarship amount that's mentioned, to calculate my real monthly income? Does this depend on the country the scholarship is given in, or are there international agreements on this?

I'm in the initial stages of setting up my PhD programme, therefore I'm in contact with professors in New Zealand, Australia, the United States and Canada, so ideally, answers to my question apply to any of these countries. If it's relevant: I'm a dual citizen (European/American Citizen).

Taxation does depend very much on the country, as well as the type of award you receive. The amounts similarly vary from nation to nation. To give two examples:

In the US, scholarships and fellowship stipends are taxed as ordinary income. However, in some cases, for externally funded awards, you need to be careful, as the university might not withhold taxes. In that case, however, you would need to make estimated tax payments, as you are still responsible for paying the tax "on time!"
Don't forget that your tax burden may also include state and local income taxes, depending on where you live. Making matters even more complicated, cost of living fluctuates wildly: you're probably better off with a $25,000 award in the midwest than a $35,000 or $40,000 award in New York City.
In other countries, the system can vary. In Germany, for instance, graduate fellowships are not taxed, while "standard" graduate positions, which are considered employees of the state, are taxed. At the same time, however, people receiving the taxed positions receive health benefits and pay into the social security system. Stipend recipients are responsible for their own health insurance, and do not accrue time in the social security system.


struggling with procrastination, looking for strategies and ideas I am currently in the writing phase of my thesis. Factors related to and unrelated to academia are putting me under "nice" amount of pressure. it became much harder for me to concentrate on reading or writing and always end up procrastinating much of the time.

What are good strategies to get back on track in regards to managing my thesis work? When should one consider psychiatric counseling?

Don't try to limit procrastination. You have already tried that and it  didn't work. Instead, limit the time that you spend writing, but during writing time, write and do nothing else.

The limitation of your permissible writing time should feel like a real constraint. Ideally, when the time is up, you should feel strongly inclined to write 'just one more sentence'.  Don't. It's best  to stop mid-sentence, as this makes it easy to get going on the next day.

The duration should also feel doable. Forget about 'making up for lost time'. If your are a heavy procrastinator with strong  anxiety, start with half an hour or less. Three hours should be the maximum if you schedule daily writing sessions, which I recommend. Remember to take breaks during which you move away from the desk. The 'pomodoro technique' can be useful to divide time into manageable chuncks of writing/working and rest/recovery.

Don't ever allow yourself to write once the allotted time period has expired, until the following day. You might waste scarce writing time by procrastinating once, perhaps twice, but probably not more.

This is how I finished my PhD thesis.

Regarding counseling: Consider counseling or therapy if you feel depressed, anxious, or have trouble sleeping for more than ten days in a row.


I peer reviewed a paper and found it to be sound - technically and language-wise. How should I write the review report? I reviewed a research paper and found it to be well-written with no technical or language issues. How should I go about writing the review report for the paper?

If I write something on the lines of "the work is well-written and well-presented" and keep the review report succinct, I am worried that the editor might think I did not review it critically.

Just being well-written and correct is not enough. Why should someone read the paper? What are the new things that we learn thanks to this work? Why is it exciting, interesting or useful? Why should we care about it so much that it should be published in a journal? How is it advancing science? What was the state of the art before this work, and how did this paper change the world?

In your review, you should explicitly recommend either acceptance or rejection. If you recommend acceptance, your review has to convince the editor that the paper is indeed worth accepting. (Similarly, if you recommend rejection, you will need to convince the editor that the paper should not be accepted.)


How to state an unfinished PhD on a CV when applying for another PhD? I'm considering on applying for another PhD position, since I am not very happy with my current one, how should I state this on a CV?, could I just put it as being "research assistant"?. I am afraid to put I'm a current PhD candidate as that might look weird in the application.

Just be honest. Don't make up titles for yourself that you haven't actually been granted. "Graduate student at University X" is honest enough. Note that before you are actually accepted your complete history is likely to be known in any case. There are plenty of good reasons for leaving one institution for another.

The new institution will want to know why you are leaving the old one. If your reasons seem valid then there shouldn't be any issues. A potential advisor will want some assurance that you will be a good person to work with. He/she may even want to learn something from your current advisor if you have one.

But you needn't put all of that on a CV.

You do need to account for your time spent in the current situation, of course.