Am I disadvantaged by declining authorship? I have seen many discussions of authorship conflicts, which usually relate to a substantial contribution not being recognised, or a more senior supervisor insisting on co-authorship.

However, I am in the opposite situation: I have been offered co-authorship on a paper (currently in preparation for journal submission), and my contribution so far was very small. I am aware of the ICMJE guidelines on authorship and in truth my contribution to the acquisition/analysis of data probably wasn't "substantial".

Ethically, the right thing to do is probably to decline co-authorship.

(In fact, I am included on a previously published paper to which I made no contribution. My PI included me: he argued that I contribute to the group's work on this subject as a whole. But it does not feel right!)

But, I feel that many people would not decline... therefore if I decline, I will have one fewer paper on my CV than somebody who would accept. In the long run, presumably this puts me at a disadvantage to people who accept such co-authorships, e.g. this could include people I will be competing against the next time I apply for a job (I am an early postdoc).

Should I accept co-authorship and live with the slightly guilty feeling? Am I disadvantaged if I decline?

Note: I am particularly interested in the career implications of this decision/future decisions like this, and what is the "norm" - rather than answers that just apply the more "theoretical" criteria for authorship (such as ICMJE).

Declining authorship is quite common among my collaborators. There are cases when you disagree with the paper and you do not want to assume responsibility for what is written there. Declining authorship is the right thing to do. I assume that in your case, you agree with your coauthors. In this case, you did the right thing to decline authorship when you feel that your contribution is too small, even if this could be a disadvantage to you.

I declined authorship twice so far (and I don't have that many publications). In both cases, I felt that my contribution was too small to warrant authorship. In the second case, I didn't agree fully with the paper, but I was involved in the experiments leading to the paper. In both cases, however, my coauthor(s) insisted of including me. In this case, I tried to contribute more in ways I could, such as by reading the draft thoroughly and giving constructive feedback that would improve the quality of the paper.

There are different ways your potential employer assess your publications. Some base it on the total number of papers and citations you authored; in this case you could be at a disadvantage if you have fewer papers than you would have by not declining. Some do not care about papers you are not a first author of (in my field the first author is assumed to have performed most of the work); in this case it does not matter if you have more papers or not.

However, in a job interview, your potential employer might ask you about your specific role in a paper, especially if the paper turns out to be highly cited (I was asked this question before). If you are not able to give a satisfactory answer, this could be a disadvantage instead of an advantage to you.


Should I respond to editors about unprofessional review? I think I am in a very similar situation to this question, with the exception that my submission has been refused.
I do not want to start a flame, but to me, one of the two reviewers didn't took the necessary time to do a proper review.

The first reviewer made a thorough summary of the paper, and explained in an extremely clear way what were his/her doubts and which parts were not strong enough.
The second one looked like a baby plugging his hears and screaming "It stinks! It stinks!".
He only attempted to make a point that resulted to be wrong since he was substantially criticizing how an algorithm works (Random Forests), even though it's empirically demonstrated to be effective.

Now, based on the constructive critiques of the first reviewer I refined the manuscript and attempting to submit to another journal. What I can't stand is the behaviour of the second reviewer.

Generally speaking, is the idea to respond to the editor about the bad (where bad is like in the linked question) review(er) a viable action, or should I just ignore all of this and go on?

Frustrating as it is, this is something that happens to many authors at some point, and the simplest solution is to shrug and move on.  The editor probably already knows that the review is sub-par, and has decided to move on anyway.  Arguing with the editor at this point is not just attacking the reviewer, it's attacking the editor's professional knowledge and judgement.  It's not impossible to have a good outcome from responding, but it's unlikely.  Even if you do get a positive response, the editor would simply send it out to a new set of reviewers, so even the best-case scenario has you starting all over anyway.  Find a new journal and send it there.

That's assuming that the review is genuinely completely useless.  From your description, I'm not convinced.  The reviewer may be wrong, but it doesn't sound as if their process is completely wrong; there is a specific reason for the rejection, it is based on something in your paper, and the fact that there is empirical support doesn't seem like a strong argument in your favor. Before you resubmit to another journal, you should seriously consider how to deal with that issue.


Could I submit an abstract for a conference prior asking my supervisor permission about it? I would like to submit an abstract for a poster presentation, I'm just worried that if I tell my supervisor before submitting, she might say I shouldn't do it, because she rarely wants me to be away from the office. So I was thinking on submitting the abstract and once I'm accepted telling her I've been selected for presenting at that conference. What do you think about it? Would this be a good strategy for attending a conference when having a strict and closed minded supervisor?

P.S. Our research is not about any kind of product or patent we're developing for a company, so no privacy issues apply in there.

Yes you could.

I'd strongly suggest you not do it.

Your supervisor has a lot of power over you - they aren't someone you want to upset.

It is unfortunate that your supervisor is not supportive of you trying to seek out conferences to present at, but you should address that issue with them rather than try to go behind their back. I would suggest trying to find another supervisor before I would suggest trying to undermine the authority of your current supervisor: there just aren't enough positives for you on that path.

Note that if your supervisor deserves authorship on your work, either omitting their name as an author or submitting without the approval of someone listed as an author could be considered academic misconduct. In some fields, authorship by only a student without their supervisor is common, but if you aren't in one of those fields you should be especially careful.


Is it possible to find a PhD position in social sciences without having letters of recommendation? I am a European scholar. I would like to do a PhD dissertation in USA on an original and unpopular subject from a social science standpoint. I would like to empirically investigate the subject, which means I need a not-very-rich grant for this research.

I would like to know if I can get a PhD position in social sciences with a   scholarship/grants in USA based on my research proposal and with no references.

Also, could you point me to resources to find potential american advisers and possible equip of research just digiting keywords of the topic I am interested in, please?

It really does not matter where you come from. In general, to apply for a PhD program in the U.S., you need: application letter, resume, reference letters (usually 3), master's degree (mostly required), transcripts from bachelor's and master's program, and GRE score (many programs require it). In addition, TOEFL score if your native language is not English.

Most of the time, if you are admitted to a PhD program in social sciences, you will be granted with assistantship / scholarship at the same time. Mostly, it's an assistantship, which means you will teach or do something else for the department. The stipend of the assistantship usually is only enough for you to live, not for your research study. If you need funding for your research study, you have to invest your own savings, or get research funding from the department or other grant institutions, which is not easy to get.

For the resources, use Google or Google Scholar to look for related publications or scholars. Actually, it is a good strategy to contact professors for the research topic first. If a professor is interested in your research topic or finds you competent during the discussion, it will increase the possibility for the professor to accept you to his/her program. But, be carefully prepared, don't send email before digging into the literature.


What are the legal ramifications of citing scientific articles for producing commercial software? I am a sophomore student building some software with friends that are heavily based on various articles about distributed hash tables, networking, and various topological mathematical concepts. Since we do plan to sell it after completion, we are worried about potential legal obligations of citing our sources (from different scientific journals)

If we cite some professor, will they be entitled to all our work, perhaps even lay claim to profits and or have the right to sue for copyright infringement? Obviously, I am not asking for the nitty gritty details, but a general rule of thumb.

Is copying theories from scientific journals a big bad idea. Or is it "public knowledge" kind of and I have nothing to fear.

Summary

Does citing scientific sources for your program entitle the researchers to some intellectual property? Am I legally bound to them as if I were to a Lady Gaga if I used one of her songs in my videos?

The knowledge in the articles is for all to use, what you can't do is to copy text. There is a fine line if the article contains e.g. code listings and you use a fragment, or if you take pseudocode and rewrite it in your favorite programming language, that might be a copyright violation. I very much doubt they'd go after you, in any case.

I'd say that citing the articles is very good practice, somebody (even yourself in a year or so!) trying to understand the code later will thank you.


Positive review from an additional (third) reviewer (endorsing the 2nd reviewer) against a negative review from the 1st reviewer I submitted a manuscript to a well-known journal (in education) and got two discrepant review results from two reviewers: one very positive (minor revision) and one negative review result (suggesting the editor to reject my submission). In spite of this, the editor gave me a major revision decision. I revised the manuscript; but the reviewer that gave me a negative review was still not happy after reading my first round of revision.

After seeing this, the editor thus invited a third (additional) reviewer to re-review the paper (during the second round of review). The third reviewer gave a very positive review endorsing the positive review from the second reviewer, and noted that "the submission is very insightful". The second reviewer did not gave further comments (hinting that s/he is probably happy with my revision). In this case, what do I expect next? I believe that I will never able to convince the first reviewer, although I did manage to revise the manuscript in full compliance with his suggestion. I believe that my second major revision will still sent back to all the three reviewers. If the first reviewer is still not happy, will the editor adopts the views from the 2nd and the additional reviewer? I personally feel that it would be unfair if the additional reviewer's view is not considered. By the way, I found that the third reviewer's comments are generally easy to tackle with (most of the comments are only asking for clarification).

Please advise based on your prior experience. Thanks very much.

It would be strange for the editor to solicit the third review and then not even consider it: that sounds like a waste of at least three people's time.  However, as to how this will affect the final decision: as Nate Eldredge points out, the editor is not obligated to go with two out of three.  In fact an editor may go against the recommendations of all the reviewers, and this certainly happens sometimes, especially in our day in which so many journals have "very high standards."

Buffy says "Anything here would be a guess."  I agree, and here is my guess: if the editor solicits a third review and the third review is really positive, then the editor is likely to accept your paper unless the first reviewer comes up with new, relevant, significant negative comments.  (Why?  Because, again, the editor could just as easily -- and in fact, more easily -- have rejected your paper after the first two reviews.)

However, in some hard-nosed decision theoretic sense, you don't need to know the answer to this question, by which I mean to say that you will find out eventually and until then you have done the optimal thing.  If that doesn't cheer you up: look, if two out of three reviewers are really enthusiastic about your paper, then even if this journal doesn't accept it, some other, similar journal probably will.  Congratulations on your good work.


My assessor is giving me spelling advice - but he's wrong I'm writing the thesis on which I aim to graduate with a bachelor's degree. I've got an incredibly nice assessor, whom I sent part of it, and he gave a lot of helpful feedback on structure, relevant and irrelevant details, et cetera.

But he also suggested that a word is spelled wrong, when it isn't. Now, this isn't just any word; it is the name of the product I am creating as an IT student. Not the proper name, because that would be exempt from spelling conventions, but the generic name with which I refer to it very often; like, several hundred times, scattered over not just my thesis but all the relevant documentation.

This isn't a question about the spelling itself - the word is in Dutch anyway. But I want to know if I should be adopting his wrong advice because it comes from the person who is going to grade me; or engage in spelling debate which can come across as pretentious. It doesn't help that I'm a language nerd and that this isn't something to be settled with a single link to a dictionary; the term itself is a new compound, and there are specific rules for forming those that I consciously followed.

First of all: ask for a third opinion, just to be sure you are right.

Anyway, the nice thing about science people is that they are usually convinced by evidence, even when it goes against their previous thoughts. Write them a polite, respectful e-mail explaining why you think you are right, and pointing out reputable grammar sources to back you up. Show that you have done some additional research. There are good chances that this will work.


What training is appropriate to get to help students deal with stress? I often have undergraduate students in my office who are clearly under considerable stress.  These students are usually first years who are making the transition from high school.  This goes beyond the "school is lots of work" stress into the "I'm about to break down" level.  The university does have a counselling service that I almost always refer the students to, but they are often booked up and it takes a while to get an appointment.

I am not interested in becoming a therapist, but I would like to know some techniques for helping students through this sort of problem when they are in my office.  Things like how to get a student to calm down and how to get them to start working to solve their problems.

What types of training should I seek out to help me with this?  I'm not even sure what the right field of study is, so I'd be starting from scratch...

It is admirable that you are trying to address this on your own, but I would recommend not trying to solve it yourself by trying to find resources. There are complex ethical and legal (like FERPA in the US) issue.

There are likely other faculty, staff, other students who find themselves in the same situation -- wanting to know what to do but not knowing where to go to learn. Graduate students also often find themselves in this position when teaching undergraduates

So why not try to address that issue for all of these groups? You say that your university has a counseling service. So why not ask that service if they would put on a one-day or half-day training course for any university member who desires to learn how to respond appropriately to students in need. My university does this, and it has been extremely successful. They even have separate sessions depending on the context in which you interact with students.


Aren't professionals from different countries the same? I am a college senior in America. I was born in a very poor country, not in North America nor in Europe. I recently visited my home country and encountered a teacher from an elite high school. He told me that teachers from top high schools often have access to high school-leaving national exam papers ahead of the exams.

I also remember that when I was in high school(in my native country) a lab tech told a group of us, that students from even poorer schools in the countryside, who only saw equipped labs on the day of the national exams, often had their grades "boosted".

The high school teacher I met also told me that in addition to pure merit in national exams, exam graders also considered quotas when assigning grades ie how many slots do they need in med/engineering schools.

Are there any resources you would recommend that document and explain the motivations behind such practices? Of course, if I go to admissions officers of colleges in my country, they would tell me that all admissions and grading is based on pure merit only.

Where can I get the "real skinny" about such things?

Leaders in developing countries often travel abroad for medical treatment. Privacy considerations aside, isn't a physician/engineer from (insert your favorite third-world country here) just a good as his equivalent in Germany?

CLARIFICATION
I apologise if my question has confused you. There's a book called "Comrade Einstein". It describes systematic discrimination against Jews in Russian math departments. Link is here. Other similar books have been written, but I don't have them nearby. If I was a Jewish parent living in Russia, a book such as the above would make me want to send my children elsewhere. And, if anyone asked I would at least have some documentation, that would make a plausible defense of my belief and not make me look paranoid.

Are there any similar books, reports etc that deal with "3rd-world" countries?

Since the treatment of professionals of all kinds is highly variable by country and partly determined by long lived cultural factors, there is no place to get a definitive answer unless someone has done some research on it.

In some cultures, parts of India come to mind, professors are very highly regarded as they can provide a boos upwards in a stratified country. I've had students literally kneeling at my feet (just for lack of chairs) in my office. When I expressed discomfort at that, some students from India said that, no, it feel perfectly natural to be kneeling at the feet of their guru.

In some other places, professors get spat upon.

However, to say things are equal is a mistake. Often a good education depends on an institution having a lot of money for, say, laboratories, as you note. It is harder to get qualified to a certain standard in poorer places than in richer ones, just because of available resources. I suspect there is a positive correlation between the quality of education in a country and the economic well being there. It isn't perfect, of course. Even in the US, the quality of pre-college education is suffering from want of resources in spite of the US being a fairly rich country.

But cultural differences can also lead to bad effects such as discrimination. Some well qualified medical doctors, moving to the US, find that they aren't allowed to practice medicine and the path to a license is very arduous.


Interpreting academic applications' timeframe requirements Based on my limited experience in academic job search, most advertisements for academic positions (it seems, more often the faculty ones) include phrase, similar to the following:

  To guarantee full consideration, applications must be received by
  DATE.

I am curious about the strictness of that requirement, in other words, what "full consideration" really implies. The requirement seems to be relative, but to what extent? Moreover, I'd love to hear your advice on best strategy, if any, in terms of applying to positions, where the specified date has already passed, but the position advertisement is still active. Just ignore the requirement and apply? Are there any differences in that regard between faculty positions and postdoctoral positions? Is there anything else that I need to know?

@kimball is partly right in that applications may also be considered later than the deadline, in particular if you know someone in that department who can speak for you.

On the other hand, many departments start building consensus for candidates even before the deadline. For example, many departments have deadlines in mid-December for full files, but members of the department know many of the candidates and start talking about them to their colleagues long before that. (Between the mid-December deadline and early January, nothing much is going to happen anyway.) If an application appears on the date of the deadline out of the blue, it will be considered, but human nature being what it is, it may be difficult for this applicant to supplant a candidate whose file has already made the rounds within the department and has been found to be a good match.

In other words, while there really is no reason not to send an application after the deadline, my recommendation typically is to (i) send the application well before the deadline, and (ii) tell your friends in that department that you applied there so that they can talk to their colleagues about your files before other candidates become lodged in their heads.


Updating the arXiv version of paper after it is published in ACM proceedings Before submitting my paper to one of ACM's conferences, I uploaded the earlier version of the paper on arXiv. The paper has now been accepted and published in ACM proceedings. I plan to update the arXiv version of the paper with the final version of the paper that has been published in ACM proceedings. I wanted to ask if:
1) Am I allowed to do this?
2) Do I have to make any changes to the format of the draft. i.e the paper contains a copyright block from ACM now.

When granting licence to ACM, I did NOT opt for open-access. Also the paper was published in 2018.

According to the ACM Copyright Transfer Agreement, you are allowed to

  Post the Accepted Version of the  Work on (1) the Author’s home page,  (2) the Owner’s institutional repository, or (3) any repository legally mandated by an agency funding the research on which the Work is based, and (4) any non-commercial repository or aggregation that does not duplicate ACM tables of contents, i.e., whose  patterns of links do not substantially duplicate an ACM-copyrighted volume  or issue. Non-commercial repositories  are here understood as repositories  owned by nonprofit organizations that  do not charge a fee for accessing deposited articles and that do not sell advertising or otherwise profit from serving articles.

So, yes, you can update your manuscript on arXiv with the accepted version but you should not use the published version (version of record), i.e. the one with the ACM copyright. Remove the ACM style by, e.g. using another style sheet in LaTeX.


Using a list to explain symbols used in an equation? In papers, the symbols explained in an equation are usually explained like this:

δ(t) = tan⁻¹〖ke(t) / vf(t)〗,
where δ(t) is the steering angle, e(t) is the closest point between the path and the vehicle, v(t) is the vehicle’s velocity and k is the gain parameter.

By contrast, textbooks often explain mathematical notation in a list-like format, e.g., like this:

δ(t) = tan⁻¹〖ke(t) / vf(t)〗,
where

δ(t) =  steering angle
e(t) =  closest point between the path and the vehicle
v(t) =  vehicle’s velocity
k     =   gain parameter

I consider this more legible, and I was thinking if I could use this in my scientific papers.
Is there any reason not to do this?

In some journals there are page limits, and so your first example becomes more relevant. But I agree your second example is more readable.


writing a brief description of yourself I have just started my first job in a company as an engineer, I was asked to write a brief description of myself which will be sent to all the staffs.
Could you please provide some template? how we can write an interesting autobiography?

edited: Having said that some humor or random facts can be included in this bio.

I would recommend asking whoever is asking you to do this for a past example. Different institutions have vastly different styles -- e.g. some places might be OK with including some humor or random facts in your bio, whereas other places are all business.

That said, you can always get some generic examples by googling "bio examples".

(Also, since this is a workplace question, it's probably more appropriate for https://workplace.stackexchange.com.)


Referencing Non-Equations ("See Eq. (15)/See Ineq. (15)") When I write something like

x is a stochastic function of y:
    x ~ N(2y, 3)                      (1),

how do I refer back to that... non-equation?  Do I still put "see Eq. (1)" although (1) is not an equation?

It seems that the right thing to do will depend on what's conventional in your field.  In pure mathematics, it's standard to refer to all displayed equations, inequalities, etc. using just numbers in parentheses (for example, "using (2.1)", without specifying there whether (2.1) is an equation).  You could add a descriptive noun if you'd like to emphasize it (e.g., "using equation (2.1)"), but you don't need to.  If you do add a noun, it could be considered strange to refer to anything but an actual equation as an equation.  This style of referencing displays creates no ambiguity, since citations use square brackets and all other numerical references have an attached noun or symbol to indicate whether they refer to a theorem, section, etc.: [1] is a citation, (1) is an equation or other display, Lemma 1 is a lemma, Section 1 is a section, etc.

The system described in the previous paragraph presumably doesn't apply to the author of the question, since abbreviations like "Eq. (1)" or "Ineq. (1)" are not standard in pure mathematics, which suggests he is in another field.  However, it's worth keeping in mind that conventions vary between fields, so there won't be an absolute answer to this question.  To know for sure what would look reasonable, it's important to know the context (i.e., the audience for the paper and where it might be published).


Are non-first authors less likely to be invited for peer review? In fields where the order of authors matters (e.g., health and medical fields), does the order of authors of published papers generally affect how editors choose peer reviewers for new submissions?
Can someone who has never first-authored a paper, but is listed as a non-first author in many papers (with several other authors), be invited for peer review?
Is there any relevant published data?

Certainly someone with no first-author papers (or indeed no papers at all) can be asked to act as a reviewer. However, I think it is relatively unlikely, if only because it can be hard for the editor to be confident what expertise that person actually has (perhaps they're the statistics guru and don't know anything much about reaction pathways in biochemistry...). In contrast, it is a reasonable first assumption that the first author of a paper is broadly capable of reviewing similar papers.
Of course there are exceptions: the editor may know the individual personally; the individual may be recommended/suggested by someone else; they may have a strong reputation in their own right without ever authoring papers (e.g. if they are a specialist lab technician).


Proof of proficiency in mathematics Apologise if this question isn't relevant to this forum, I tried my best to look for similar questions but couldn't find one.

I am a computer science major enrolled in a not-so-renowned university in India.

I am in my pre-final year and have taken four math courses. While I did well in the first two (got an O grade i.e the highest grade possible), due to some personal problems, I got a D and a C in the next two courses. Unfortunately, my university does not have a provision to retake the courses.

My eventual plan is to apply for grad school in fields such as machine learning where they require a strong math background.

My question is: how can I show that I know the required math for the courses beyond my uni courses?

One way I thought was of doing MOOCs on the subjects and uploading my solutions to them somewhere? But the general consensus which I found here was that MOOCs don't hold much value when it comes to showing proficiency in a subject.

What are some other ways in which I can demonstrate my proficiency in the subject?

Thank you.

EDIT: The courses where I fared poorly included the following topics (since it's an engineering course, we don't have specific courses like Linear Algebra or Statistics - we instead learn an overview of mixture of a few math subjects each semester) - Fourier Analysis, Laplace Transform, Vector Algebra, Complex Variable and Mapping, Z-transform, Complex Integration, Matrices, Probability, Sampling Theory and Mathematical Programming.)

Unfortunately, there's no way around crappy grades (other than explaining what happened in your personal statement). But as far as showing that you are competent in these subjects on a grad school application you could:

Do a project which would clearly require knowledge of these topics.
Take the Math Subject GRE and do well, assuming you're applying to programs which care about the subject GREs. The risk here is that what's covered on these exams isn't a perfect match for your integrated courses, but there is a lot of overlap.


Asking the professor to advocate my application in admission committee? What should I write in an email to a professor who encouraged me to apply after applying for the Ph.D. program? I want to ask him to advocate my application in the admission committee. But, I am not sure how I can do that.

Notice that pretty much 95% of the time the faculty "encourage" applicants to submit an application, unless it's an obvious bad fit. This is to say, if he says "don't apply," it'd be a strong evidence not to; but if he says "please apply," its meaning can range from neutral to highly positive.

A less risky way to partially achieve your goal is by setting up an environment for that conversation between the committee and the professor to happen without asking the professor to do so. One usual way to do that is: i) contact the said professor and ask if you can mention his name in your personal statement; and if yes, then ii) in your personal statement, mention that:

  ... the conversation with Prof. So-and-so was very encouraging and
  reinforced my desire to study in this program,

or anything along that line. Don't exaggerate, don't write anything that's untrue. If the committee does need extra input, they may approach the faculty member.

Let's say, you submitted the package already without doing the above, then the best you can do right now is to contact the professor and i) thank him for the time and encouragement, and ii) tell him that you have submitted an application, and that your desire to enter the program remains very strong. That's it. Do not ask for any favor as this behavior can be viewed negatively. If you truly did leave a strong impression, the faculty member may mention your portfolio to the committee.

And lastly, don't feel despair if this does not happen. An individual faculty member's input rarely makes/breaks the deal. One of such possibilities is if you're financially sponsored by the person (Aka, if he has a lab and a grant to fund your study, then his recommendation is essential.) In other cases, I'd guess most of the decision would still be based on your academic records and research-related experience.


Goal for 20min. presentation at math conference I've been invited to give a 20 minute talk at a mathematics conference in a couple months.  The audience members all work in my field, so they will be familiar with most of the terminology and background.  I have plenty of material to pull from a preprint I've already submitted to journals, and it seems I have two reasonable options:

Option A.  Present everything to communicate the over-arching theme of my  research.  I could provide several very minimal proof sketches along the way.

Option B.  Present one very interesting result (with its lemmas), with more detailed proofs.  I could then "sprint" through some related results at the end, or avoid them entirely.

Which will be most valuable to the audience members? Which will make me "look the best"?

If you have one very interesting result, then I would go with focussing the talk around that. The alternative of trying to cram multiple topics into a 20 minute would be very difficult because that's not a lot of time. Your talk is more likely to be remembered if you present one very interesting result.


What is the etiquette for asking a professor I don't know to suggest universities for me? Because of the current political situation, I cannot apply for a PhD in the USA. There is a very remarkable professor on a U.S. university and I want to ask him to suggest for me other universities that are good to be considered.

I want to know your opinion about this.

And, if you agree, how can I state my request?

I would advise against it.

I don't think most people have in their heads a list of "good universities in my field".  When advising students who they know on where to apply for grad school, they try to recommend schools based on everything they know about the student, their interests, talents, constraints, etc.  For a student who they don't know and have never met, this would be hard to do effectively, and I don't think most people would really be interested in trying.

If you send such an email, I suspect you will either get no response, or a brief "Sorry, I can't help".

Instead, I would suggest that you talk to a faculty member in your field at your own university, someone who knows you well and whose opinion you respect.  They would be a much better source of advice for you.


Some co-authors unresponsive when I asked for consent for submission to biorXiv In short - wrote an article, sent the manuscript to all co-authors and asked for consent for submission and for feedback, if any. After most of the co-authors replied, I made some small tweaks to the manuscript that improved it, but I'm still waiting for consent from 2 co-authors. I sent the e-mail 2 weeks ago, and that should be enough time for them to at least acknowledge they received it, right? All other co-authors replied within a few days.

What makes this especially interesting is the fact that the 2 co-authors that didn't respond were the ones not actually super involved in the experiments, they just provided the transgenic model that I experimented on. I included them as authors on the first (published in a journal) paper because my PI told me we should include them because of that and ok. But now they aren't responding at all, so I'm wondering how to move forward. Remind them? When? Just submit without their consent? Remove them from the author block (and risk a clash with the PI)? I want to submit this, but have no idea what to do.

2 weeks is a fair amount of time, so yes, remind them. You could also write something like "If I don't hear from you by [time] I'll assume you consent to submission", or "I'll submit this by [time], if you have any objections please let me know before then".

That said if you have a PI, you might as well ask them what to do. There's no reason not to, especially for contentious decisions that might lead to bad feelings.


How should I prepare e-prints (pre-prints and post-prints) of already published papers? I am about to embark on the publication of pre-prints or post-prints of about a dozen papers that have already been published in peer-reviewed journals. I plan to use the SHERPA/RoMEO database to decide whether to publish a pre-print or post-print, and when it is appropriate. I have backed up the published papers at both the pre-peer review and post-peer review stages.

These documents will be lodged primarily with my institutions repository, but also on a personal website and perhaps academia.edu. Due to my field of research, arvix is not appropriate.

I am aware that I may need to make some modifications to the manuscripts before lodging them as a pre-post print. For example, it seems appropriate to link to the canonical, published version of the paper on the cover sheet. But I am unaware of what other changes I may need to make to the manuscript. A checklist of modifications to make would ease this process and help me to avoid missing things.

What steps should I go through to prepare a manuscript for publication as a pre-print or post-print?

UPDATE: I've made an example post-print here. Are there any concrete improvements I could make on this, or important things I'm missing?

One thing I suggest is do not put up the paper in submitted-manuscript form. You are free to change from double-spaced (if that is the case) back to single spaced (or as appropriate); you can put figures and tables where they belong; you can use a nice typeface; you can even change the referencing style to a one you like better.

Use the version that incorporates changes suggested by the referee if at all possible. My guess is you didn't sign away rights until after you made said changes and sent it back to the journal -- or this may have happened, and it may be that the original submission came with agreeing to terms that include all rights in various versions of the paper in the case of acceptance - I hate these types of journals. In any case, knowing your field would help regarding advice here.

This website can help you find out if you are allowed the post-referee-comments version: http://rchive.it/ (it uses Sherpa/Romeo data), but the ultimate answer will come from the journal website.

This will make your paper more pleasant to read, and help dispel the myth that preprints are ugly.


Complete financial statement as the part of scholarship application I'm applying for a scholarship whose application consists of a financial statement, in which I have to breakdown my income and expenditure to show how I manage my money. As the scholarship aims to help me paying for my living expense, I wonder if I should include it in my statement, i.e. assuming that I am awarded the scholarship and present how I should use it.

No. They are asking about your current financial situation, as ff524 implied in a comment.

What is required in this situation is a relatively detailed budget listing current sources of income, and current spending. Since you are applying for the scholarship, no one will be surprised if this budget reveals a gap between the income and the projected expenditure--this is your financial need, and the whole purpose of applying for the scholarship is to have the funds needed to 'fill in the gap'.


Number of pages for a Cover-letter to apply to postdoc position A friend and I are arguing about the number of pages needed for a coverletter, to apply to postdoc in electro-engineering.

Usually, the postdoc offer (what I called a job offer) says up to 3 pages.

My friend fills the 3 pages for the coverletter.

To me, he should stick to one page , presenting himself, his work and why he is the most qualified for this position like any regular jobs actually.

I feel I'm right but as I do not have much experiences applying to postdocs, I cannot validate my claim.

Any insights are more than welcomed.

Please follow the link. Everything is properly mentioned as follows.
http://www.nature.com/scitable/ebooks/english-communication-for-scientists-14053993/118520525#headerAndCitation

The structure of a letter written for an entry-level position will differ from the structure of a letter written by a master's or Ph.D.-level researcher.
Typically, a more advanced position will require a lengthier cover letter.
In all cases, however, remember that your readers are extremely busy. Therefore, keep your letters from extending beyond two pages, unless the job advertisement specifically requests more details about research or work experience.


Quoting instrument prices in a scientific paper I’m writing my first scientific paper as a PhD student and it’s a comparison of 6 different instruments that measure precipitation. The instruments differ massively in terms of cost, and their performance is inherently tied to that. The discussion seems pointless without giving the reader this knowledge. Simply saying “low cost” or “relatively high cost” doesn’t quite cut it for me.

I realise I’m entering risky territory, but how might I quote the price of these instruments in the paper? The separate companies do not actively publish this information, you must request a quote. Am I breaking the law or simply pissing off these companies if I attempt to publish this data?

One reason why usually no definitive prices are publicly communicated is that the manufacturers compete against each other when bidding on a tender, where e.g. one lab might ask for quotes from several possible sellers. It would be a disadvantage for a vendor, if their competitors would have knowledge about the specific prices.

Apart from possibly releasing undisclosed information about the prices, another difficulty that I can see with publishing those numbers is that the prices might differ significantly depending on who is asking for the quote and the intended use. Industry customers might have to pay different prices than public institutions, non-profit organizations or individual persons. The instruments might further be discounted depending on how many one would purchase. Also, prices might change on rather short time scales and not be valid anymore after as short as a couple of months.

Therefore, you should take into consideration that any price information available to you might not even be accurate or generally applicable to the audience of your paper.


Do I have to do research at the college I am attending to get into a good grad school? I am currently an incoming freshman, starting a physics/math double major at UMass Boston in the fall. Over the summer, I started an internship at the Harvard Laboratory for Particle Physics and Cosmology that I really love and intend to continue doing throughout the school year.

I'm actively contributing to the research being done and I want to continue working there as long as I can. I understand that doing some level of research during undergrad is basically required to get into grad school, but it is necessary that it be at the same school that I am attending?

Should I be focusing more on opportunities at UMass Boston? Or does it not matter where I do the research, as long as I do some sort of research for undergrad?

Thanks in advance for any help you can give me!

In short, the answer is no, it doesn't matter where your research experience is.

If anything, I would say that it is more beneficial to have experience outside your undergraduate institution than inside, as this gives you the opportunity to meet many more potential collaborators, exposes you to new ideas and different research cultures and will hopefully give you a wider knowledge of your subject and academia in general.

However, if you're intending to continue at your current institution as a postgraduate student, then it would be wise to try and do some kind of research project (your course may require a final year dissertation, thesis, project or similar) with a current member of staff. This means you get to know them and more importantly, they get to know you and will remember your name when your application for postgraduate studies lands on their desk.

If a professor already knows you as a hardworking, reliable undergraduate from that summer project you did with them, they're much more likely to take you on in the expectation you will also be a hardworking, reliable postgraduate (in comparison to the stranger's application next to yours on their desk). Even if you don't intend to apply at the same institution for postgraduate studies, having a supervisor who can write you a strong reference is always a bonus.

Make the most of any research opportunity you get, and good luck with your studies (cosmology is a good choice!).


I want to be the sole student author on a poster, but my advisor wants to bring on other students I am in my 2nd year of my Ph.D. program and I want to submit a poster to a conference that will be held this spring. I brought up this idea to my advisor; she agreed, however she wants me to ask a few members from the lab to join in and help me do the work. My advisor is very positive and nice, and believes in constant collaboration among all members of her lab.
The problem is that I came up with this idea myself (using my advisor's data that she shares with all lab students), and already wrote a full research paper on it for a class project when I was in my first year. I got significant results, and aced both the assignment and class. Everything is already done - the lit review, method, results, conclusion, discussion, abstract, references, tables, etc. Although I am the youngest (rank wise) student in her lab, I definitely have a lot of stats and research experience and feel that I am more than capable to do handle this on my own.
This will be my first poster, so since the work is done, I honestly just wanted my name and my advisor's name on it. She also knows that I did this for a class project. All the other students in the lab are older and have plenty of poster experience. Since I had a toxic Master's thesis advisor at my previous school, I'm always careful of giving my opinion. I don't see any benefit of adding authors to the poster, and I don't really believe in adding your name to something unless hard work was put into it. Even though my current advisor is not toxic, I'm not sure how to bring this up to her without her thinking that I don't care about others's success. Thanks for your help in advance.

Depending on how your lab works and how collaborative the work is, you may be right or wrong in this.
However, I suggest you keep a few things in mind. Fighting with your PI is seldom a way to academic success and having the good will of your supervisor probably has more value at this moment than having a poster with a small number of authors.
Also, the supervisor may, actually, be trying to get some of the others an interesting project with which they can boost their learning. Is it possible that she has done this sort of thing for you in the past? For others?
I'd suggest that you might just ask her for her reasoning in this, without appearing to be argumentative.
But you are probably (not necessarily) better off in yielding on this for the sake of your long term goals. Don't let short term goals interfere with the bigger - longer term - picture.


What is the proper method of citing from a video I have been thinking for a while, some time especially nowadays, you want to cite some interview, documentary or any such material available online as a video or audio. For example I am writing about a cure for AIDs, and there is an interview of some famous scientist on the issue on YouTube or other source, and I want to refer to some part of that interview actually say 15th minute and 23rd second.

Is there any proper way for referencing such?

It might sound odd to use video material as a source, but this is a frequent issue in modern History, to name one area of research. 20th-century propaganda is an example of a topic that would include primary sources that are videos, posters, or radio material.

The Havard citation includes guidelines, see here for a guide from the Open University. From page 33 on video sources:

  The Apprentice (2008) BBC 1, 14 June [Online]. Available at www.bbc.
  co.uk/iplayer (Accessed 16 June 2008).

On page 55 on (unpublished) interviews:

  Interviewee, A. (year of interview) Unpublished interview conducted
  by Interviewer Name, date of interview.

If you have the time, you could transcribe the interview yourself to make it easier to trace back the source. A good term to google is "Harvard Referencing for Visual Material". (Or whatever the appropriate referencing style is for your publication). I would cite it as an interview that you accessed online. The more you know about who conducted it, the better.

Imperial College London have an even more extensive guide on this, see page 12 here:

  Example:  Kirk, T. Interviewed by: Picard, J. News Night Live. (24th June 2001) 10pm Channel 6.

My approach would be to see which referencing is most common in the area that you work in, to ensure consistency.

Edit: including time-stamps:

  [...] the contribution of water damage can be seen at 2m33s in to the
  video (BBC, 2009).

See page 14 here.


How much help with coursework is acceptable? If a university student is set coursework, this is generally a very uncontrolled method of assessment. Lots of different sources can be used to draw knowledge from and often if it's a technical exercise and not a research one citations are explicitly stated as not required.

My question is thus, where would the line be drawn regarding the amount of help that a student gets with their assignment before it becomes plagiarism?

A few examples:

Asking for help solving a question online.
Asking for help from an expert in their field.
Collaborating with other students on the course.

It depends. Some teachers want all the work to be that of the student and disallow any assistance. Some allow assistance only from teacher or TA (to control amount of help). Some have liberal allowance for collaboration.

Just ask the teacher what is allowed.

I would just be rather strict with yourself.  Like don't call it "help" when you are just copying.


How to appropriately emphasize the importance of consulting more to a student? I'm a PhD student and a full-time researcher in my uni. This year I was assigned with supervising of one Bachelor's thesis. My PhD supervisor invented a topic, which is really interesting, but a really difficult one for this level (combination of quantum chemistry and neural networks).

Student, who assigned for that, has a programming background, so he doesn't have much experience in mathematics or a theoretical computer science. Nevertheless, I believed he can catch up and I had some literature prepared for him.

At first he didn't contact me for the first several weeks, which made me pretty nervous and I wrote him a polite reminding e-mail with a consultation suggestion. He came and we agreed on some plan. Several weeks later, on our second consultation he showed just a little real progress, but I still considered it ok, believing, that he's studying the underlying theory beforehand.

The problem is now, that he didn't show up since and I had to contact him again, only to find out, that he was too occupied by his job and that he will be writing e-mails with his progress.

So, I'm afraid, based on his behaviour, that he tries to appear independent and to develop the software for the thesis on his own. That could be a real problem as he will progress too slow without any guidance (he has NO previous experience with his topic, except programming skills).

So, my question is - how can I politely persuade him to communicate with me more often? I really want him to successfully finish his thesis, both because of my "score" during PhD and because I would otherwise feel guilty of ruining someone else's career.

I have a completely different background, I'm in the lab very often and so are my students. Still they can become quite independent and it can be hard to keep an eye on what they're doing exactly.

Suggesting to communicate more and persuading them to ask more questions is (in my opinion) the wrong way to approach your problem. You cannot expect a bachelor level student to learn - all by himself - both running a project and the science that goes with the project. Maybe that could work for the top 1% of students.

I'd start having weekly meetings, and then it's your job to ask them questions, teach them stuff and keep them on track. Suggesting someone to ask questions doesn't really work, so you should really ask questions yourself that force them to communicate about the project.

Really sitting down and discussing the project will lower the barriers on both sides. Your suggestions won't sound like orders, and there will be no e-mail record of their silly questions. Start slow before you start having any real expectations.

At the moment I'd be surprised if they even started with the project.


What can I do, being on a Tenure-track position and noticing that the promised start-up package, course release and ... were just false promises? This fall I started a tenure track position. They offered me a very good start-up package. Half of it was state money for buying equipment and the other half was for course release, research assistants, travel and etc. Also I had a promise for spouse support and that had huge impact on accepting the offer (unfortunately this one was not written!).
Now, I see that the only thing I can use is the state money which is more than enough. However, the equipment is not the only thing I need. Obviously, I need students for my research too. It's my second semester and they  have not even sent me my written contact yet. Their false promises have put me and my family in a very difficult situation.
What can I do now? What are my rights? Obviously, I am not planning to stay here. But cannot leave off without doing anything. I do not want other families go through the same situation as me! Other faculty members have almost same issues but no hope for any change.
Note: for the start-package I have an email as proof. Also, initially, the university was required to pay equal amount as state money to new faculties.

My strong advice is that you take an offer from a better school and just do what is needed to get through the year as best you can. If the place is as bad as this then you, with little institutional power behind you, aren't going to make a difference. You will be stomped like a bug. I was once in a bad situation (perhaps not this bad) and went for the door by the shortest route possible, simply saying goodby to the insanity. It worked out fine. As in your case, I wasn't going to get anything from any other action.
In particular don't say things that might come back to negatively affect your own career. Suing them might be an option, but it requires a hard talk with a lawyer first and threatening it isn't going to get you a positive outcome.
I realize this is hard advice to take, but you have a good option and you don't want to do things that antagonize people and that will cause blow-back on yourself.
You are fortunate to have a good option. Take it. Others aren't so lucky.


Should I include papers on a PhD application if I was not the primary author? I've come across the following question while filling out an online PhD application.

How many conference or journal articles have you published?

There is a paper published for which I am the tenth author listed. Is it appropriate to include this paper in my total #?

Yes, include it. It should be on your CV also. Tenth author can mean a lot or a little, but it is still an author. In my field, with your name, you would probably be listed near first, but if your family name was Waters, probably last.
But the important point is that you are an author of anything published under your name.
And certainly don't restrict it to primary author only, though you might want to highlight those in your CV.


How to answer questions in a conference talk that I should know the answer to, but don't? In a few days, I will be giving my first conference talk. I have only spent less than a year in the field, and the talk will be attended by several well-known researches, who are familiar with all of my advisor's work and all of the other literature in the area as well. Of the people in the room, it is probably them who will be listening most intently -- but it is also them who I feel the least well-equipped to answer questions from.

The questions I am most worried about will be about related work. Take it as a given that:

I clearly should know the answer to the question, because the related work is very relevant at a surface-level. Indeed, my advisor is familiar with the work and has told me to try to be prepared for any questions about it.
But I don't know the answer, because I failed to sufficiently prepare. Or, to make some excuses, maybe I am relatively new to the field and have not had a chance to read every paper in full detail. Of course I have tried some to read through this work, and I have gotten from my advisor some idea of how it compares, but I am not nearly so familiar as I should be.

It seems likely that a poor response to such a question will make me come across as incompetent, unfamiliar with related work in the field, and even unfamiliar with the context of our own work. Similarly, this may damage the reputation of our research itself. How can I best respond to such a question, so as to minimize the damage?

It will depend on the research field but there are ways to get out these situations quite well, in most cases. I also don't see any problems in admitting you don't know the answer.

Usually you won't get questions exam like style. No one will ask you:

  What's the formula for calculating XY?

Here some types of questions I've heard a lot before and some simple answers you can give without talking about the subject:

  Have you tried to use this approach?

In that case you can answer with

  No we have not but thank you for your input, we will look into this!

If the question is:

  [Name] has used this approach, how does it differ from yours?

You can, again, simply answer with

  I am not familiar with this work but I will look into that.

The following question is tricky:

  I think there might be a problem with this part of your work, can you comment on this?

Here of course you somehow have to defend your own work and this is the part you should know. What I would do is ask the person who asked the question if I understood it right (a lot of the time that's a problem) and then if you still don't know the answer you can eitehr go with something like before

  We haven't investigated this yet, we will have to look into this in detail, thank you for your comment.

or you shift the whole discussion to a more "private" setting:

  This is an intersting point, maybe we could discuss this after this session? (in view of the time)

This is quite common to do and usually there's only time for a few short questions.

The same is true for a question like:

  Why did you use this method?

where it's easy to shift the discussion to after the session.

Whatever you do, don't try to hide the fact that you don't know the answer with strange answers. At the last conference I attended a speaker answered every question with:

  This question is spot on, but the project is still ongoing and there's a patent filed and I don't know if I can reveal that right now.

Which told anyone in the audience: that guy has no clue.


What is expected from a graduate-level term paper? From what I have seen, many graduate level courses (in physics) in the US involve the submission of a term paper for a large percentage of the overall grade.

Wikipedia talks about term papers as:

  A term paper is a research paper written by students over an academic term, accounting for a large part of a grade. Term papers are generally intended to describe an event, a concept, or argue a point. A term paper is a written original work discussing a topic in detail, usually several typed pages in length and is often due at the end of a semester.

While the description is fairly self-explanatory, it doesn't talk specifically about graduate courses.

Is original research expected in the term paper? An answer here seems to indicate that this isn't the case for undergraduate courses. Is this statement applicable for graduate courses as well?

  If these are not much more than a term paper, then one person can probably do this by putting the assignment together on paper or in email and only answering questions during normal office hours. These kinds of assignments have clearly articulated goals and guidelines and apply techniques as laid out in lectures and homeworks.

Alternatively, is the term paper supposed to be like a short literature survey/literature review?

If I understand correctly, the student is usually free to choose a topic of his/her choice provided it is approved by the instructor beforehand. Sometimes, the instructor may also suggest a list of topics with references.

I'm primarily interested in answers relevant to physics courses.

I asked a professor this question once and was told that it depends on the professor in question and should be posed to them for specifics. There isn't a "standard" for what a term paper/project might be. A mechanics class might want you to analyze a specific scenario, using techniques learned in class, while another class might want a survey of modern topics.


If I fail PhD, what is the appropriate way to present myself in CV for jobs in industry? I am in a terrible situation. My two supervisors said that my thesis (about to be submitted) is borderline because I do not have any published paper (two submissions only). It is because I tried hard to submit A/A* journal.

My program does not need the paper though, but it sorts of culture and expectation in Computer sciences where everyone normally has a published paper.

I did think about quitting before or resorting to a Master, but I cannot do that anymore because I am in my third year in an Australian uni.

Edit: Got a job that is willing to pay me a Ph.D. salary before having my Ph.D. result. In my CV, I did mention that I had submitted my thesis, but not know the result yet. And yes, they asked why I move to industry? The reason was that I want to acquire industrial experiences which will be more challenging that can result in real-world contribution.

You can put "admitted to candidacy" or "all but dissertation" or something like that in your CV.

In the the interview, you can say that you got a lot out of your studies, but that you've realized that the academic life is not for you.  Be prepared to give one reason if necessary, and choose something as a reason that makes you look sympathetic, for example, "I found out I like working on real world problems, more than on theoretical problems that have no connection to the way people actually interact with computers."  I made that up -- it's just an example to give you an idea how it's possible to present oneself in a positive light.

Don't let them get the idea that you were extremely close to defending when you decided to leave, or that you failed the defense.  Let them think that you broke up with your department, not that your department broke up with you.

But take the high road when speaking of your department.  In other words, don't wash any dirty laundry in public.  Don't say anything negative about the department or anyone in it.  If they press you for more information, just go into broken record mode.

The easiest way to pull all of this off is to imagine that a year or two have gone by since you left the program, and you're talking to them about something that was a minor headline in last year's newspaper.


Send link to a document/draft instead of attaching it to mail When sending a mail to a professor/ academic, is it OK to send link of a document/draft/preprint instead of attaching it to the mail? What is the convention?

The reason is, if you attach it,  it takes some space in the mailbox of recipient. Thus, the recipient might delete it to save space, after some time.

In my experience, the key concern about attachments is not the amount of space they take on the recipient's computer (most people have big hard drives these days), but whether they will cause your message to fail to be delivered.  There are two issues that I frequently encounter in which attachments cause problems with email:

Most mail servers have an upper limit on the attachment size they will allow.  At the moment, this is often seems to be no more than 10MB, but I've encountered as low as 2MB.
Aggressive protective software sometimes gets upset about attachments, especially known malware vectors like zip files.

If you trigger a filter like this, your email will disappear into a black hole and, depending on the configuration of the system that ate your email, you may not even know that this has happened. Thus, for any attachment above about 1MB or of an unusual type, I recommend sending a link instead.

Note, however, that links can also be viewed as suspicious, by either software or people, since there's a lot of nasty phishing schemes out there.  Thus, I recommend not using link shorteners and if possible hosting an academic institutional server or on a well-known and semi-trusted service like DropBox.


Hide information from my CV? I'm preparing my application to send it to my dream university (it's located in Germany), and my problem is:
Since I'm coming from a country that facing civil war (Syria), I had real troubles in high school (no electricity power and such things), so I had poor results,So I had entered college I don't like (I want to study CS) also I fall in some troubles with my classmates because I came from a different culture, the general atmosphere was not friendly at all, studying with all that was very hard for me, so I have poor results again, after all I take my decision I left the college and retake the high school exam and I have got ~80%.
So the question is: should I mention that I have 2 high school certificates and I got out the college with poor results or just mention my second high school certificate, is that ethical? and is that will effect on my new university decision?

Just to get the whole picture : I had studied hardly for my second high school exam and I lost a lot of time with no academic results, in other hand I'm a good programmer, book worm, research enthusiasm, I want to continue my studies to get the PhD, I have industry experience in the field, and working on some projects as a volunteer to help my community.

I'm in bad situation and my academic future is depends on what to do now, so any advice are welcome.

Edit (clarification): I'm going as undergraduate student.

I would say that hiding information in anything of this nature - a CV, a resume, and so on - is always suspicious and usually unethical.

I would provide a brief explanation in your personal statement.  Given it has to do with a situation that is unquestionably out of your control, some universities might forgive less-than-exemplary marks.

Getting a masters degree before a PhD could improve your situation further - in this way, you can further prove yourself as a good programmer and book worm who wants to do research.  Naturally the CS field wants more than just these traits, but you seem willing to learn.

Edit: If you're going for an undergraduate degree, all the better!  Simply proving your aptitude should be sufficient.


How do I get feedback after a failed tenure-track job search? This year I went on the job market early (one year before the end of my postdoc). I applied selectively but to about 30-40 positions across a few countries. I had one campus interview. After the campus interview, I asked for feedback and the only information I got from the hiring committee chair was vague praise and that the department just chose someone else.

Is there a better way for me to try to obtain feedback about what happened while I was on the market or about my file? I feel lost on how I can possibly make my file better without a second set of eyes.

I think I have basically three advices (and I feel like you already know them):

Don't overthink it. There are millions of reasons why you may not have been a good fit for the position you applied to, and only a small fraction of them depends on you. Internal politics and unspoken needs play sometimes more than the content of your application. Don't blame yourself, that's the best way to get discouraged without being able to take action.
If possible, get inside feedback. If you knew someone in the department where you applied before applying, you may ask them (preferably in a clever way, i.e., not "Why didn't you hire me?" but "Do you have any suggestions for how I could be a stronger candidate in the future?", as pointed by Kimball). You may not get a honest feedback, you may get a disappointing answer ("Well, actually, the chair wanted to hire the lecturer from the beginning"), but it doesn't hurt to ask.
Look for fresh eyes. If you have a friend or a close colleague in the field, ask him / her to review your application (resume, cover letter, statements), your job talk, your teaching presentation (if there was one), and the list of places where you applied. That's the best kind of feedback you can obtain.

If the search committee answered your cold email with a "generic answer", don't insist. You'll never get more details, except, maybe, in a decade or two, at a conference, in a negligent way, by someone who work there.

Also, you may want to look in a couple of months at the listing of the department: you may spot who actually got the job, and compare your profiles. This information may or may not be useful, but it may to some extend satisfy your curiosity


Applying for a PhD in Engineering. Crappy Undergrad GPA, Good Masters GPA. Help! I plan on applying for a PhD in Engineering next fall. I've already started to make connections with professors at a few schools I'm interested in. Recently I sent a CV to a professor (who requested it) and he responded asking what my undergrad GPA was. I graduated with a 2.7 undergrad, mostly because I didn't find my passion in engineering until I almost graduated. During these last three semesters of undergrad I averaged a 3.5 GPA. After this, I completed a masters in engineering with a 3.6 GPA and currently working on a second masters in engineering with a 4.0 (different branch, more related to the field I want to work in).

I sent him a short narrative explaining the low GPA, without sounding too defensive or desperate, but in reality I am a little defensive and desperate. I also have 5 years worth of professional experience and a professional engineering license. Any word for those who have showed continual improvement, despite initial bad grades?

Thanks.

I would find the second Master's Degree very helpful. First, because its shows that the 3.6 GPA on the first Master's was not a "fluke," and second, because it is actually higher than your first Master's, showing "improvement." And the first Master's shows improvement over your last two years of Bachelor's which is an improvement over your first two years.

In your shoes, I would send people the last six (or five and a half) years of grades. That is your two Master's years of grades. plus the last two of your undergraduate. That's also the equivalent of what someone with four year's of Bachelor's, and one and half year of Master's work will show.

But the most encouraging thing about your record is your steady improvement. Many schools would be willing to overlook a lot of C's in your first two years of Bachelor work, as a result. They're more interested in the last four years of "A" level Master's work, as well as the 3.5 "bridge" in your junior and senior years.


Results Presented in Conferences and Their Publication I'm planning to go a large Earth Science conference (couple thousand attendees expected) that does not result in refereed publications. Some other fields (like Computer Science) have conferences that result in publications, but I'm in Earth Science and it's extremely rare our conferences result in publications. Only journal publications really count.

Questions:

As a student, I have unpublished results that I wish to obtain feedback/input on from experts in the field. But if I present unpublished results, what's to stop someone from stealing my work and publishing it in a journal?
For a different project I'm working on, I published my results in a paper, but I wish to obtain feedback for further work. However, when I submit a conference abstract, I need specify what percentage has been presented or published elsewhere. I hear that if 100% is specified, the abstract will likely be rejected. So it seems presenting published results is unfeasible, while presenting unpublished results is risky (Question 1). So now I'm confused: what do most researchers do?

On 1, if you present something at a conference, there will be witnesses that you presented it there, and you will have documentation of your work products on your computer, in your lab notebooks, etc. If someone does take your work from your talk and try to publish it, you can work with the journal editor when you discover it to prove that whoever it was stole it from you and have the publication pulled so that you can publish instead. You can also contact the employer of the stealer and have disciplinary procedures started against them. Stealing your work is not outright theft in a legal sense, but it is serious academic misconduct, and shouldn't be taken lightly by anyone.

Also, this isn't dangerous. As far as I know, this kind of stealing basically never happens. That being said, if you want to protect yourself even more, write up you results into a paper draft and get it submitted to a journal ASAP. If the work is under review, then you've got a lot more protection from having your work stolen.

As to 2, "I hear" is a bad standard to base your decisions on. Contact the organizers of this conference and ask for their advice. You might even link to the conference so that we can help you figure out what's going on.


Applying to jobs in multiple disciplines. How much does name of degree matter? I'm currently a second year masters student applying to PhD programs but are at a bit of a crossroads and wanted to crowd source some opinions.

My research interests are in a subject studied significantly by people in two different disciplines (I'll call them disciplines A & B). A is strictly in the physical sciences, while B is very diverse and encompasses research ranging from the physical to social sciences. There can be some differences in how each discipline approaches the subject, but frequently there isn't, and people from both generally publish in the same journals, present at the same conferences, etc.

My bachelors is in A and I am in a B department for my masters. I really enjoy my current department, which is small but generally well regarded, and advisor, who is prominent in his field and extremely supportive. Additionally while in a different school, my current University has a world class A department with great people working in my field of interest. There is a some cross department collaboration, and I've taken classes with/have good relationships with the relevant professors in A. As a result it's very tempting to stay with my advisor in geography for the PhD, while also collaborating with people in A on research, publications, etc.

However, when I think of future job prospects in academia I start to get worried. In my country (the US) the job market for A is alot better than B (there simply aren't as many B departments, and A departments are frequently better funded ). And ideally I would like to be able to apply to jobs in both types of departments.

My logical mind wants to say that if your research record is good, you publish in the same journals, present at the same conferences, have people in both disciplines on my committee, etc. that it shouldn't matter the actual name of the PhD.

But I know hiring is not always logical. And I worry I will always have an uphill battle with hiring committees, compared to people with PhDs in A. And going through faculty pages for many departments I see relatively few people with PhDs in B in A departments. And most of those are people from Europe where research on the subject is far more concentrated in B departments. Conversely I see more people with PhDs in A hired by B departments.

So I'm left wondering if I would be better served leaving for a PhD program in an A department (again since my undergraduate is in A, and I have grad coursework/research experience in A , I am qualified). But that of course would mean leaving a great situation with a wonderful mentor, excellent resources, and numerous collaborators.

I know there are potentially other routes to help when applying across disciplines (try to do a postdoc in A).

But wanted to see what other peoples experiences applying to jobs across disciplines were, and if people with more exposure to the hiring end of things had any insight.

Thank you!

Before I say anything else, I want to say that the answer to this can't be easily generalised and very much has to do with the particulars of your discipline(s). Mine isn't going to be like yours and without telling what A and B are, any folks here with direct experience will not be able to offer it.

That said, I have a BA, and MPhil and a PhD in "apples" and for the past 7 years have been permanently employed by an "oranges" department". If I told you what the two subjects were you would look at me blankly as you tried to figure out how there could be any connection between the two. To say that there isn't crossover of people between the two disciplines is an understatement. That said, about 4 years ago I was offered (and turned down) a promoted position in an "apples" department ("oranges" matched the offer), I've had some "apples" departments attempt to poach me, and I'm considered an applesologist among other applesologists still, while mostly passing for an orangologist in those circles. I am now moving to another University's "oranges" department. I'm keen to stay in "oranges" as there is a lot more funding in that field and PhD students that I graduate have a much better chance of finding work than if they were in "apples".

This is the long way to say that if your A and B are close enough that there is any crossover whatsoever amongst the faculties and researchers you are looking at, you are likely fine where you are. I've always found that what research I do and how well I do it is far more important than what discipline is printed on my degree (because seriously, the two disciplines I am set between are like apples and oranges). If your current location gives you excellent support and the opportunities you need to do excellent research, and as long as you keep your network going across both A and B, you should be fine. Generally speaking...


getting a job with a PhD in (pure) mathematics Probably this concern has been addressed several times here but I will give a try to get other people's perspective from my situation. I am feeling sort of hopeless these times.

I am in my last year of my PhD in mathematics and doing my dissertation soon, my research was mainly devoted to algebraic topology and I made some progress in my advisor's particular area. However, I faced some problems during my studies (personal issues) and I never built a strong relationship with my advisor; so I could not finish all the initial research proposal intended for my PhD thesis.

I recently had a sincere talk with my advisor about my future, and he said that my progress is worth for a PhD thesis but it is not anything very surprising that is worth publishing, so I will be graduating with zero publications. He said that my chances of getting a PostDoc positions are really low and that I can not expect a strong recommendation letter from him. My advisor has a few collaborators (from overseas mainly) and none in the local department. He also never supervised another Master or PhD student while I was under his supervision, then I never got a chance to network or engage properly with other classmates. My advisor kindly suggested to explore other options in the job-market besides academia.

I like to explore new things, and in my free time during my studies I attended several teaching workshops, seminars and courses (I got a small degree in "university teaching"), and I am also familiar with Python, R, Matlab and Sage; however, I learn those things for fun and I have never really worked in
a big project using any of that.

I do not know what to focus on and what kind of job should I look for after I finish my PhD

I would like to keep doing research in Math, but my area is not very popular lately and I feel that I have no chances of succeed getting a PostDoc; I also feel that I do not have (demonstrable) skills to perform a job with "real-life" applications so probably my chances getting there are also low. And I do not really know the Teaching job-market, I think that those positions are temporary and it would be hard to find a place that is willing to sponsor a work visa (I am not a US-citizen, and the job market in the third-world country that I am from is nonexistent for PhD's in this area)

Your supervisor is honest, blunt, and very helpful because by ruling out the academic path he's saving you a lot of time.

The bad news is it sounds like you screwed up your PhD. Not getting strong research results, not having diversified your PhD experience (e.g. lack of teaching experience makes it harder for you to get a teaching job), and not having a firm idea of what you want to do after the PhD means you sound lost right now. The good news is, chances are you learned more than you think you did, and those things are applicable to the job market.

First: don't think you have to do research. It is what you've been doing for the PhD, but it's not what you have to do in the future. Just consider this: if you like research + are good at it, why didn't you do better in the PhD? Why weren't you able to complete the initial research proposals, why weren't you able to get publishable results, why weren't you able to impress your supervisor such that he can write a strong letter of recommendation? You might have good reasons for these, and it's up to you to convince yourself that yes, you still want to do research, and yes, you are talented + motivated enough to succeed in it.

If I were you, I'd start examining the possibility that I am not actually good at research and / or it is not what I want to do. Do some serious soul-searching here. You are making a life-altering decision. If it makes you feel bad that by leaving academia you are "failing", don't worry too much about it: there's a good chance that by leaving academia you'll have a more successful life (in terms of material possessions).

Second: go to your local jobs portal (use Google if you don't know what these are) and search for jobs that require a PhD in mathematics. Do you find anything that catches your fancy? For example searching on indeed.com for "phd math", I get this job among many others. Note the requirements:

  Preferred qualifications:
  MBA, Master's or PhD degree in a quantitative field.

  Experience with stakeholder management and ability to influence senior stakeholders.
  Demonstrated knowledge of statistics and data analysis including R programming or other statistical software packages.

I highlighted the most relevant parts. You say you are familiar with R. That means you are in business! You can potentially do this job! If you further have experience with statistics and data analysis (do you?) you're in an even better position.

It's up to you to search the jobs portal for jobs you can do, and then it's up to you to apply. It's true that visa issues might sink your candidacy, but it's also true that because PhDs are relatively rare, you might have skills nobody else will have and therefore the employer is willing to sponsor you. You will not know unless you try.

Do remember that even if you can't find a US employer, you can still work elsewhere. It's a big world out there, and it's not true that third-world countries don't need your skills. Example of such a job in India (admittedly they're not looking for PhD-level candidates, but you could still apply).

Third: once you have an idea about what the options in industry are like, then you can start thinking about what you want to do. Are you sure you still want to do math research? If so I'd talk to your supervisor again about what options are available to you. He's already told you your prospects are not good, so you'll need all the help you can get from him. For example, perhaps you could find a position as a teaching assistant somewhere and do research in your spare time. This will not be easy - doing research while holding a full-time job is very difficult - and it's not likely to be well-paid, but if it's what you want to do, you can try.

On the other hand if you think industry will serve you better, then finish up your thesis & defense and start applying for jobs. Be sure to visit your university's career center as well; they'll be able to help you a lot.


Published article with Inactive DOI I submitted a paper to SciTechnol, I paid the article processing charges. The paper is now published on their website with a DOI which is inactive when checking on Crossref metadata and DOI.org  I contacted Crossref why is that, they replied that the publishing website has not paid their subscription fees to Crossref for a year.
Now, my paper is published but not traceable on SciTechnol.
Multiple requests to withdraw the article failed to bring any answers or replies from SciTechnol.
I am considering submitting the paper to another journal. Is that possible?
Is there a way to get this publication DOI active from my side ?
What are the ethical issues here? Can I take this publishing website to court to claim damages?

Thanks for the interactive discussion. I must say that I learnt a lot listening to you all.
I did not transfer copyright for this open access as I did not sign documents for that. Would this allow me to submit somewhere else since they turning a deaf ear to my request to withdraw the paper?
Searching the paper title on Google, it does come up (but not when using the DO The reason I wanted the active DOI is that it makes referring to paper easier. SciTechnol insisted that the DOI would be activated once I paid the APC what a cheating trickery.
I now read about this FTC ruling, what a revelation. Had I known about this or Beall's list, I would have looked away at that time.
Shayn from CrossRef emailed me back to answer that SciTechnol did not pay their Crossref subs, he made no reference to FTC ruling.
Now, since I paid with a Visa Card, I started a case dispute via my bank. At least to limit the damages

I just want to clarify that SciTechnol's Crossref membership was not terminated due to their failure to pay their subscription fees.  It was terminated because SciTechnol is a subsidiary of OMICS, and Crossref terminated all OMICS members after the FTC ruling against them.


An invitation from Frontiers (Frontiers Research Topics) On 13th August 2013 I received the following email. I  have cut and pasted it below. I haven't bothered to insert back any of the links, but can do so if anyone is interested. I would not normally post private email to a public forum, but this is obviously a form letter, one step up from spam.

At the time I dismissed it as one more attempt by a journal to get me to do something for nothing as usual, but then I got a followup from the same person on 12th February 2014. It is in my experience fairly unusual to get a followup to this kind of invitation.

I thought it would do no harm to ask people here what they thought. I haven't changed my mind on it. I don't see any advantage to the proposed work. They aren't offering any money of course. It is not a publication. It isn't an opportunity to get involved in a collaborative project. It looks like a opportunity to become some kind of unpaid new-fangled Web 2.0 type editor for some kind of new-fangled web research platform. It would probably be lots of work. So, I don't see anything in it for me. I'm not sure what is in it for the journal either.

So, to summarize my questions in a convenient fashion.

Is there any reason anyone one can think of that I might want to be
involved in something like this? Note - I'm by no stretch of the
imagination a senior researcher. Such an invitation might make sense for
a senior researcher, but I don't see why such a person could not simply
create his own web site to showcase his research.
Why is the journal trying to organize something like this? I don't
quite see what is in it for them either. Perhaps just the opportunity
to make money off submissions to an ersatz journal?

  I came across[LINK][LINK] your “SNPpy--database management for SNP
  data from genome wide association studies.” published in “PloS one”
  and thought that it would be an excellent fit for the "Research
  Topics" initiative in Frontiers. We have recently partnered with
  the [LINK]Nature Publishing Group [goo.gl]  to expand our
  researcher-driven Open Science platform, and I would like for you to
  consider suggesting a consolidated topic of the latest research and
  perspectives from your field in a Frontiers journal.

  However please note that our invitation is not restricted to the
  subject of this work. You are free to propose a Research Topic of your
  choice.

  This [LINK][LINK]short video [goo.gl] gives you a better overview on
  the potential of Frontiers Research Topics.

  You may also want to browse on the [LINK][LINK]Research Topics
  homepage [goo.gl] and [LINK][LINK]here [goo.gl] to check the final
  format of a Frontiers Research Topic as an e-book.

  Like in the example above, Frontiers will create a dedicated homepage
  for your Research Topic, where you can manage contributions and
  maintain an ongoing dialogue with post-publication feedback from the
  research community.

  If you are interested in pursuing this project, all it takes to get
  started is:

   - A title and a short description of your Research Topic;

  A list of contributors you plan to contact.

  If you wanted to find detailed information on how to launch a Research
  Topic, please browse [LINK][LINK]here [goo.gl].

  Please let me know if you are interested in organizing a Frontiers
  Research Topic, and do not hesitate to contact me by phone or email
  with any questions. I’m looking forward to your reply.

As far as I can tell, a "Research Topic" is a collection of papers on a specialized topic.  It's basically a special issue of one of their journals, although it's presented slightly differently, and they charge publication fees for the papers.

What really turns me off is the publisher's spamming practices.  I've had exactly the same experience you have: they send what's pretty obviously a form letter (populated with your name and one publication title/journal, seemingly randomly selected) and then some months later send a passive-aggressive reminder asking for a reply.  Maybe this is a coincidence, but I also got a follow-up message from them on February 12, so perhaps they sent out a whole wave of them on that day.  In any case, the fact that they feel they have to advertise by spamming makes me suspicious, and the reminder messages are irritating.


How to politely point out a basic mistake in a published top tier journal when working on some extension of the paper I have found a basic mistake in one of the published paper in a top tier Applied Mathematics journal. I have told my research supervisor about it and he also agrees with me. I found the issue when I was working on one open problem mentioned in the paper. Please suggest what to do.

That depends on the consequences of the mistake. Does it invalidate the main conclusions of the article or is it only a side issue? If the former, you can write up what the consequences are and present the new results as an article an submit it. If it is only a side issue, you can mention it in a footnote when writing up your results for the open problem.

In the former case, keep the tone professional: don't use any adjectives to describe the mistake and certainly not when refering to the authors, i.e. it is a mistake not a basic mistake. Focus on the point you want to make, and let the strength of the argument speak for itself.


What should I do if the professor I intended to work with has moved to a different school? So, without giving out the details about the school. I joined a graduate program at school X, because I was really interested in work of professor Y. I met him during the graduate school visit and I accepted the offer to join school X.

Though Prof. Y did not officially accept me as his graduate student, he said come and meet me when school starts and we can figure out your research direction. Now, when I came to start at this school; I found out the professor Y has left and joined a different school Z.

I don't know what do now. My decision of joining school X was based on my intentions to work with Prof Y. Also, on top of that the school X now just has one faculty working in my interested area.

To be precise I am starting the PhD program now (Fall , 1st sem). I am not sure what my next step should be? I would appreciate any suggestions on the given situation.

Yeah, this happens. :(

I would recommend applying to school Z during your first year at school X. This would be very natural under the circumstances, and nobody (in particular, not those at school X) will think less of you for it.

Further, I'd recommend:

E-mail and ask Prof. Y if he'd be willing to vouch for you with the graduate admissions committee at school Z.
Simultaneously apply to a couple of other programs that might be more suitable for you than school X. This goes especially if Z is substantially more selective than X, so you are far from sure that you'll get in.
Kick ass in your first year at X. This will keep you sharp, enable you to get a letter of support from someone at X, and better prepare you for the program at Z if you go.
Keep in mind that you might not get into Z, or you might find a research area you like at X and decide you prefer to stay. (Another reason to kick ass in your first year at X.)

Good luck to you!


Failed my 2nd Qualifying Exam in PhD. Absolutely devastated. How to proceed? I just failed my 2nd Qualifying Exam in my PhD program. It was supposed to be a 60,000 word paper but it was an incomplete work.
I am in my 4th year at my PhD and my research is in field of humanities. My major is Geography. It is an integrated course, as in I joined as soon as I got my Bachelor's. I am doing my research on a multidisciplinary and very practically useful subject based on sacred forests and urban landscapes (I won't go into details). But, I was going through some intense emotional time for 6 months (June to December 2020-a critical period) due to personal tragedies in my family. Also low funding is also a problem. I am an international student. And pandemic is just making it worse.
Now, I feel absolutely devastated.I am not going to get a chance again at re-exam, and that is fine too. I can understand why they wouldn't want to invest in such a bad student. I do work very slowly, but sincerely and did learn and correct accordingly as my advisor said for this 60,000 word hell. Though I could not do field surveys and data collection due to strict travel sanctions, I tried backing up my research with more literature. The problem here is my research is focused on a more practical part of urban forestry, and it is so niche that there is a severe lack of academic work on my topic, if you don't count ancient scriptures (which is hardly academic).
I realise my mistakes and I am willing to do everything to correct them. I just need some more time. But being told I am not suitable to be a PhD student just based on the incomplete paper (it was just 40 pages long) hurt me more than being told how my research was absolutely useless. I am aware that my research IS useless at current stage, but I had all the future work set up in proper parts so it becomes relevant. I was not sure if I can give reasons about tragedies and poor health because last time I tried that they had said 'so what? even pregnant ladies do phd" and that was that. And that is fine too. But being told I am useless as PhD student was like taking a direct hit on what defined me. It was sort of an existential crisis. The shame and incredible sense of loss is palpable and making me clam up instead of working to get out of it.
I know it is not the end of the world and I am sorry for long sob story. I want to know how to proceed? Is it possible to get into a PhD after failing quals? Or do they dismiss you if you have failed quals? Should I immediately apply to a PhD or gain some work experience before?
Thank you.

I have evidence that it is possible to do a good PhD in a new university after failing to pass qualifiers in an earlier one. In fact, the person I'm thinking of finished at a higher rated university than the original.
However, in this case, it took the efforts of a faculty member (and mentor) of the person to strongly advocate for the candidate's admission and to express complete confidence in their ability. The candidate had a bad experience with many factors at the original place but turned out to be very well respected by faculty at the second.
You have a hard road and it may not be possible to travel it, but look around you for any advocates that will argue for you. If you are currently suffering from burn-out you will need to get that under control. But advocates can help with that, also, just from their attitudes. Having a new advisor in a new place might work wonders if you can convince people of your ability and likelihood of success.