How to get cited and how to boost the impact of one's work? Six years ago while I was working in a company outside academia, I had been involved in improving a process which was hot in academia. I have developed a new method which, among other notable advantages, improved all previous methods by deriving better results. Although some time passed, today it can still be considered as state of the art.

Despite I was not in academia, because of the quality of the results, I have managed to publish a paper about it in a top journal in that field. I hoped that the paper would get popular, and it would get cited many times, but today, after 4-5 years of being available, to my surprise, the work is still not cited. I see that new papers that come out and that are related, still refer to (lesser) methods, as though mine doesn't exist at all. As I am following the papers in that field, and despite a large number of related papers, I still don't see much improvement over my work, so it's pretty much current.

The paper uses proper keywords and wording (so it's easy to find), the journal is a good one (so people must have seen it), and it cites all other related papers (so I guess that relevant people in the field who have Google Scholar would be aware of it existence if they get notified of new citations). And still the paper didn't take off. The only reason I could think of is networking. Since at that time I was not in academia, I did not go to conferences to get the work (and my name) "advertised". But I refuse to believe that this was the critical factor.

The questions are: How to get cited and how to boost the impact of one's work? And did I do anything wrong?

I am now in my PhD, and I would like to learn how to boost the popularity of my upcoming papers.

I can see a few reasons why your paper was not cited as much as you hoped it to be:

Networking indeed does go a long way towards being cited. In my experience this is especially true for areas where many competing approaches are being published (which, by the sound of it, is true in your case). Even if your paper is published in a good venue, this alone does not guarantee that you will find a critical mass of readers to kickstart the process. Citations are in my experience somewhat viral. Google Scholar, which for better or for worse, is used by many researchers for searching for literature, returns results ordered more or less by citation count. Hence, papers with a few citations on them are much easier to find on Google Scholar than those with 0 citations. Hence, you need to "bootstrap" a bit before citations start coming in more or less by themselves. The best (ethical) way to do this is to network - tell other researchers that might be interested in your paper about it
You should not per se exclude the possibility that you overestimate the value of your contribution. Maybe the things your approach was good at are not valued as highly by the other researchers. Maybe you underestimate the qualities of some papers that are cited over yours.
Even if your paper was really good, maybe this was to hard to see at first glance. In an ideal world, every researcher would strive to fully grok each related paper. However, in the real world (especially in busy fields), you have to assume that a reader will at first only casually browse over your paper (and only really read it if it seems very strong to him at first glance). If your paper does not seem strong at first glance, people will not cite it.
Maybe you are overestimating the value of the venue you published in. In many busy fields, papers published in a "good" venue (as opposed to "the best there is") already have a hard time getting cited. Further, check whether your paper is available with the standard subscriptions that most universities have (e.g., for CS that would be IEEE, Springer, ACM, ... depending on your field of course). There are some non-predatory publishers out there that are simply not available in the subscriptions of many libraries.


Should I inform my thesis adviser about current situation I had unofficially agreed to start working on my thesis during September, with no concrete date being mentioned.

However there are two factors which might delay this date:

Me not being available due to travelling until the end of the month
I don't feel confident about the programming task that has to be done during the thesis, so I want to take a little bit more time to work on some exercises

The problem is that in case that I go there, they might request me to sign for the official thesis registration, which then will impose the deadline when I have to be completely done with all the thesis stuff. I don't want to do this, before being confident that I can proceed easily with the programming, because otherwise the period that I will spend doing some extra programming exercises will be eating from timeslot limited with the deadline.

My question is, should I inform the adviser about these developments, or should I shut up until I come back (and use another 10 days to do some extra exercises) and then go to his office and talk about the official thesis start?
Which situation would reflect best on me? I'm afraid I am causing too much communication overhead unnecessarily and somehow not respecting the time-frames I have agreed myself.

Reason to go to the advisor: I have already verbally promised that I will be around once September comes

Reason not to go: They may require me to sign the official thesis start.

As a rule of thumb, if you tell someone you'll be doing stuff with them at time X, and then change your mind, let them know!

More specifically, I would recommend an email such as:

"Dear Advisor,

we had planned for me to start my thesis in September, but because of REASONS I'll only be able to start on October. I apologize bla bla
In the meantime, I'm planning to do EXERCISES. Please let me know if you have any other suggestions on how to prepare."

I don't see a point in telling this to your advisor in person anyway, and this should keep you safe from being made to sign stuff.


If the class average is too low, do profs usually curve or adjust the grading scale? My prof for my first year anthropology class is new, and I'm having trouble understanding her marking scheme.

Here is the distribution of our class grades:

Exam 1: Median 62%, Top 75% got above 47%, while 25% got above 69%
Exam 2: Median 58%, Top 75% got above 44%, while 25% got above 70%.

We haven't gotten our final exam marks back yet, but I was wondering if this is normal for a first year anthropology course?

When it comes to grading, there really is nothing that can be considered "normal." As for adjusting grades, the answer is a definite maybe. It really depends on the instructor. I do, but many of my colleagues don't, but then they give tests with much higher averages than I do.

Exam grades and difficulties can vary from course to course and from year to year within a course, let alone between departments and institutions. There will generally be an attempt to bring grades in line with "expectations" and requirements of the school. But what those expectations are can vary widely. For instance, at one university I worked for, there was nothing wrong if a third of the students or more failed; at my current institution, it would create major headaches if so many students failed.


How does it affect the treatment of a mathematician's results, if that mathematician was a Nazi? I've been studying uses of quaternions to study various types of orbifolds. The important thing here though is that I came across an absolutely incredible result due to Vahlen in 1901, that apparently received no attention until Ahlfors revamped the idea in 1985 using more contemporary methods. The result is central to my current research. In case you're familiar with the concept, it is the construction now called Vahlen matrices.

The problem with Vahlen, as you may have guessed by the title, is that he was about as much of a Nazi as a person could be. He was in the SA, the SS, accused brilliant Jews of plagiarizing Aryans, helped the Third Reich expunge Jews from the scientific community, etc. He even supported the Nazi party before its infamous rise to popularity.

My questions are:

What is the likelihood that Vahlen's results were neglected due to this political misfortune?
What are some similar instances, particularly in mathematics?
What is the etiquette of discussing a great result by a person who lead a morally reprehensible life?

Regarding the third question, Ahlfors simply writes about his math, which I think is the right way to go for a journal article. But what about a lecture or more general discourse among the community? I would feel weird if I were to give a lecture where I'm praising a guy who may have contributed to the extermination of an audience member's family. I have kind of a dark sense of humor, so I'm likely to mention the Naziism and poke fun at it ... maybe use it as an example for why you have to check everyone's results regardless of their other results.
Personally I would find it funny to denote the Vahlen matrices by a swastika, but obviously this would be extremely inappropriate in a public setting where the intention (of making fun of Nazis) might be misunderstood.

A more specific issue I'm having is that there is a lot of conflict about the notation for Vahlen's discovery, as other notation was developed for 84 years without it. It is an obstacle because we literally have different definitions for identical symbols all over the place. My feeling as that the clearest notation would be to use a $\mathcal{V}$ for the Vahlen matrices (which I have not seen in any papers thus far) and move on, but I wonder if there is a tendency in the academic community to avoid even that. I don't want even an iota of a suspicion of being sympathetic to this man's priorities.

An important note here is that Vahlen's matrices are in the domain of pure math. That means their development had nothing to do with any sort of experimentation, and are quite disjoint from these other aspects of Vahlen's life.

Follow-up, Feb. 10, 2017: This question has been edited to make it more clear what is being asked and to better align it with the chosen answer, after facing some controversy about its appropriateness for this site. Some things that have since been altered are quoted in the chosen answer (and referred to extensively in comments and other answers) because they were evoking debates and conversations on the site rather than just answers to a question.

Follow-up, Sept. 24, 2017: Without naming any names, I wanted to add that some very established mathematicians I've been discussing my work with have unequivocally recommended omitting Vahlen's name from any constructions I use in my paper, specifically because of the political history. As in, don't call them "Vahlen matrices," call them "Ahlfors matrices," and things like that. Regardless of whether or not one agrees with that sentiment, to me it is concrete evidence of Vahlen's Naziism's effect on what credit he might receive for his mathematical work.

I think there is no academic issue here.

  The problem with Vahlen, as you may have guessed by the title, is that he was about as much of a Nazi as a person could be. He was in the SA, the SS, accused brilliant Jews of plagiarizing Aryans, helped the Third Reich expunge Jews from the scientific community, etc. He even supported the Nazi party before its infamous rise to popularity.

I looked into Theodor Vahlen, and I agree that he was a morally reprehensible individual.  But this is irrelevant to a discussion of his work: he proved the theorems that he proved whether he was good, bad, or whatever.  As is well known, the Unabomber is a published mathematician.  His six papers have eight citations on MathSciNet, three of which came long after his capture, e.g. see here.  (Though I do not know for sure that the author of this paper was aware that the T.J. Kaczynski whose work is cited is the Unabomber, it seems likely: the author is an American, and among Americans this name is well known to say the least.)

  I was wondering what the likelihood is that his results were neglected due to this political misfortune. I was also wondering if people know of similar instances, particularly in mathematics. It seems like whenever I look up the politics of a respectable mathematician, they are either nonexistent, or equally respectable. I don't know if we tend to discredit people like this, or if people like this tend to not produce good results, or what.

In my opinion this is unlikely.  There are very famous mathematicians who were, to lesser or greater extents, participaters in the Nazi movement.  Perhaps Ludwig Bieberbach and Oswald Teichmuller are the two leading examples: these are household names in mathematics, and that they were intimately (and reprehensibly) involved in the Nazi movement is also very well known.  (For that matter, I am not convinced that Vahlen's work is so little known.  It is described in the wikipedia article linked to above, for instance.)

In my personal opinion, it is worth knowing when a mathematician (or other academic) has done reprehensible things in their personal life.  Some years ago I compiled a list of "greatest mathematicians" on MathOverflow: I limited myself to choosing at most one mathematician born in a given year, but in some cases I included "honorable mentions."  When I got to Teichmuller, I did not want to use the word "honorable" to describe him, so I wrote "dis/honorable mention."  That was a personal decision (and by the way, I am partially of Jewish descent, so it is really not for me to forgive or forget such things).  But I included him on the list anyway: that he was a terrible person does not influence his mathematics one way or another.

  I'd like to just use a big-ol' script V for the Vahlen matrices (which I have not seen in any papers thus far) and move on,

There is no problem with this.

  but I don't want even an iota of a suspicion of being sympathetic to this man's priorities.

We don't endorse the life of Teichmuller when we talk about Teichmuller space or Bieberbach when we talk about Bieberbach's Conjecture.  We credit them with their work, as we must.

  It would also be hilarious to just use a swastika, but that joke might not be funny to some people (understandably).

I am not laughing at all.  Please do not do this.

Finally, you can read much more about mathematics in Nazi Germany from this book.  Again, I think it is good to know these things.


Is it appropriate for a professor to require students to sign a non-disclosure agreement before being taught? There's a professor at my school that claims to be writing a book. He is requiring students to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) before certain lectures because he wants to maintain certain ideas of teaching his content part of his intellectual property.

I think that part is reasonable (to an extent) since he is protecting his ideas.

What I think is unreasonable is the fact that he requires all students to sign these NDAs, and offers no alternative presentation of the subject matter. Thus if a student does not wish to sign, they end up missing out on lectures that they have already paid the university to receive, and they have a potential of missing out on graded content that is "covered" by the material that the professor is restricting.

Students have no notice that this will happen prior to entering the class and thus are forced to sign if the don't want to withdraw.

No. It’s not appropriate and this is an obvious, blatant abuse of authority. I have a word in mind to describe this professor, but unfortunately am not free to disclose it as I am under an NDA. (It starts with an “i” and ends with a “t”).

Edit: to those asking “why not?”: teaching the class is the professor’s job. He is literally (in the literal sense of “literally”) required to teach the lecture and to allow any registered student who isn’t being disruptive to attend it, without setting any preconditions. And of course this swearing of students to legally binding secrecy is even more absurd than other types of conditions, considering the students are there to acquire knowledge they’ll need to use later in their studies and career. The whole “I’ll teach you but you have to promise not to tell anyone about it” thing reads like something straight out of Catch-22.


What is proper acknowledgment for figure authorship in a book chapter? A senior researcher, with whom I worked a few years ago, is writing a book chapter. He contacted me to ask what was the latest work of our group on the topic of his chapter. I gave him a few links to recent articles and the preprint of an article soon to be published. He followed up by asking if “[you] would have a figure to illustrate [topic of the preprint]… preferably something that does not require copyright authorization paperwork”.

At first, I thought that was a bit much to ask… I had never asked for figures from anybody who was not an author on the paper. But the situation may be different for a book chapter, and obviously I'm glad to share the news of our most recent results. So, I took an hour tonight to make a nice illustrative figure, and am about to send it. However, I'd like to make certain in my mail that I ask for some sort of acknowledgment. So, my question is: if someone designed a figure for a book chapter, how would that person be acknowledged? in the figure caption, e.g. “figure courtesy of X”? in another way?

In the acknowledgements sections, the authors could write:
"The authors would like to thank F'x for providing us with Figure X".

Alternatively, in the caption of the figure they could write "Figure courtesy of F'x."

Both are acceptable, as long as you are happy. I don't think they are obliged to thank you in the paper at all.


What should I focus on when asking for conference travel support? A conference I'm submitting to will be able to offer limited financial support to a small number of participants needing assistance to attend the conference..  The date of the conference is several months after my PhD finishes and I don't know where I will be at that time, if anywhere, so I am asking for financial support.  What should I focus on to maximise my chances?

So far I am mentioning:

The previous edition of the conference (for which I had other funding) was very useful for me.  I presented paper A there (title, reference, I'm 1st author), and got major input that significantly improved paper B (title, reference, highle reuptable journal, I'm second author).  Without my participation in the previous conference, paper B would not have been as good as it became.
The work I want to present now, which is paper C (almost ready for submission; probably published by the time of the conference; title, abstract; I'm 1st author) should be very relevant for the conference (should I send a copy of the full submitted manuscript?)
After the previous conference, I talked to a co-chair (name) and he encouraged me to ask for financial support should I be "between jobs" during the next edition (NB: he also encouraged me to explicitly mention his name, and I will)
My PhD is planned at <date>, and I currently don't know where I will be by then.

Does this roughly correspond to what they likely want to hear/know?  Am I missing something?  Am I saying too much?  Should I focus on one aspect more than another?

(NB: the conference is held every 2 years and is in the field of remote sensing, and it is customary, but not mandatory, to write a non-peer reviewed paper for the conference proceedings)

Its better to be honest and upfront. If not for ethical reasons, then for logical reasons that networks collide and you don't want to be found guilty of a few hundreds/thousands of dollars - which in the long run would be not much.

I was in a similar situation. I sent something similar to what you wrote and the folks replied back and gave me the funding from my new location. The other way to do this would be showing your affiliation as that of the "/". This is a technical fix - since that should get you the benefits of both locations. I prefer this because I am honest about where the work was done, and where I am today.

Hope this helps!


Mathematics application cover letter, one page or two Every cover letter for a mathematics faculty application I have seen is only one page long (I've seen about 20 of those). On the other hand, most books or websites about the academic job cover letter say that this letter should be two pages long. I would like to hear what other mathematicians (especially if they have served in search committees) say about this.
Thank you.

My (limited) understanding is that longer cover letters are more common in the humanities and social sciences.

I've been on multiple hiring committees for tenure-track assistant professors at a mid-tier research institution. We didn't expect two-page cover letters, and for the most part cover letters were quite brief and pro forma. I don't remember seeing two full pages even once, and I don't remember any of the candidates we interviewed saying anything noteworthy on their cover letters. This was expected and fine with everyone on the committee.

There are some situations that might call for a longer cover letter (or at least for you to pay extra attention to this). In particular, I would recommend this when applying to liberal arts teaching-oriented positions. From what I have overheard, my understanding is that, on average, teaching-oriented math departments care about "fit" more than research-oriented departments do. (And moreover, when research-oriented departments do care a lot about fit, they don't seem to expect candidates to anticipate what the department is looking for.)

You might also write a longer cover letter if you can genuinely make the case that you are a good fit for a particular department. Don't BS, but offer good reasons if you have them.

A longer cover letter might be a good idea if your application is in any way unusual. If you are finishing up a postdoc, it is understood that you will be applying to a huge number of jobs, and a brief cover letter is usually fine. If you already have a tenure-track position and are applying elsewhere, or would prefer to work at a teaching-focused institution despite having a research-heavy CV, etc., then you might consider explaining yourself more fully.

Good luck on your job search!


How to choose romanization for non-Latin script in an otherwise Latin script text? While combing through English journal articles and semi-scientific articles, I noticed how problematic it is that in some cases those papers use a romanized, Latin script display of originally Non-Latin script words and expressions. The issue: In my case (Korean), there were several revisions of the romanization system and some of the texts I work with are either (a) older or (b) the authors simply don't comply to the correct romanization standards. Thus it is very hard (at least for me) to derive the original non-latin script (which is my goal) from an incorrect romanization.

Additionally, in many cases it is beneficial or even crucial to have access to not only the Hangeul, but also the Hanja, i.e. Chinese characters. At least that is my opinion.

Because I assert that only if I mention the Non-Latin script (in this case Hangeul/Hanja) "as is", can my academic work be precise, exact and unambiguous.

What do you think about that? Are there any standard rules for such a situation, that are widely used (i.e. expected from students and academics), e.g. in the USA?

Finally: Would there be cases in which you would not use the romanized, Latin Script text version at all? (Assuming that we only talk about a few (5-10) words per page.)

Note: The academic results I produce won't be published in any (international) journal anytime soon, but I still would like to follow the highest standard possible, without sacrificing common sense and preciseness.

For things that you won't publish, you can adhere to a standard you choose, for example writing in the Korean script using LaTeX.

It's difficult to talk more specifically than that because journals have their own requirements, which can have more to do with their typesetting systems than academic rigor.

If a journal publishes your work with ambiguous transliteration, you may be able to keep an alternate copy on ArXiV. (N.B. I'm not sure it's kosher to do this but I suspect it's fine as long as the alternate version is designated carefully.)


Pursuing a Master's remotely while working in industry? I'm currently approaching the end of my undergrad, and I'm faced with a dilemma (my field is computer science). On the one hand, I have  a professor that I've been working very closely with on some promising research, and he's pushing very hard for me to go into grad school. On the other, I have the (extremely lucrative) world of industry beckoning. I don't really have a chance to get into grad school anywhere but with this professor, because my grades are terrible (I'm a better researcher/programmer than student), and I would very likely do it if I wasn't trying to get away from the town I'm going to school in (which is also my hometown).

Being in CS, I know that productive long-distance collaboration and research is possible. My question is, what are the potential pitfalls of essentially doing a Master's "on the side", while working a full-time (or possibly part-time) industry job in a different location?

I think what you're forgetting is that a master's involves a lot of coursework, not just research.

Your idea is only likely to work if the courses are designed to be taken remotely.  Take into account that even when you are attending the classes in person, you had some trouble.  It wouldn't be fair to put you in suboptimal conditions and suddenly expect a strong academic performance.  One might be able to get by in an undergraduate program with C's, but that wouldn't fly in a graduate program.

You're considering a binary choice right now, work full time or work full time and pursue a master's at the same time.  There is a third option -- get started in industry now, and go back to school later on at some point.

By the way, there is no rule that you must be enrolled in a degree program, or even that you get academic credit for doing research.  If you are interested in a research project for its own sake, you can always work on it for the satisfaction itself.

However, it might be wise to wait to get started with such a project until after you see how much time and energy you really have to spare.  In other words, allow yourself to get in the swing of the new job before committing.  Perhaps you could leave things open with the professor you have in mind working with.


Is it acceptable to ask someone for help revising your paper? I am an undergraduate and I was wondering if it was appropriate to ask someone (who isn't an author) to help revise the draft of a conference paper that I am writing.

I am new to writing and this would be helpful to get input from as many people as possible.

It depends what you are asking them to do.

You should definitely ask someone (maybe multiple someone's) to read your paper, give you comments about what was confusing/particularly clear/incomplete as well as suggestions on how to improve the paper. (In fact I would recommend this to anyone writing a paper at any stage, not just an undergraduate.) This might be done by your advisor if you have one, and you should thank them in the Acknowledgements section for their help (and personally too, expressing gratitude is always good!)

You should not ask someone a non-co-author to actually edit your paper and make changes to it themselves. Any actual editing should be done by you or your co-authors, otherwise plagiarism becomes a concern.


How to get an up to date PhD title in Cloud Computing Security? I have got a PhD scholarship in Cloud Computing Security, and its about one year am doing research and literature review in that field. However, I haven't reached any point to start with, I'm a little depressed with that. The problem is my supervisor cannot guide me and he doesn't has a very good background in that field and I can't ask for alternative or second supervisor, because the university rule doesn't allows that.

Any advice on how to choose a topic, as I required to publish two papers in high impact factor (Thomson Reuters) journals before submitting my dissertation?

You have a couple of options, I hope. One is choosing a new topic that your supervisor is more familiar with. He or she is the one to help you with that, so you need to have a discussion about it.

However, while your supervisor isn't familiar with the topic you have, he should be familiar with how to do research and to get quickly to the edge of the known world in any given (similar) field. So he may be able to help you find the resources you need and even respond intelligently to your questions and concerns. The only thing that he can't help you with is specific topical questions (facts and techniques). But he can help you find the places in which you can learn that.

Even if he were more up to date in the field, you would still need to read a lot of papers and work to understand them and the remaining work to be done.

At some point every doctoral student needs to surpass the understanding of their professor. That doesn't mean the professor is of no use anymore, it is just the specific topic that you are then able to teach them, rather than the other way round.


How relevant is a candidate's BA institution when applying to graduate schools in the US? In the American university system, how relevant to the graduate admission committee is the institution from which a given candidate obtained his/her bachelor's degree?

The general answer is

  Very relevant, but considered in the context of the rest of the application.

It seems hard to say more in the absence of a more focused question.  Before you do that, you might try to search the site: I can't say that all possible versions of this kind of question have already been asked and answered here....but certainly many of them have.


Mysterious dashes in transcribed interviews for a dissertation I'm editing a dissertation for APA style. I'm encountering a number of transcribed interviews that appear similar to the following:

I'm very consis-...ah, -consistent...yeah.

The ellipsis issues aside, this is the first time I've encountered dashes as shown above.

It appears that the dashes are cues for an incomplete word in the first part of the quote and for the complete word in the second part of the quote.

True?

In any case, my inclination is to suggest to the author that they rewrite the text by using brackets, i.e.:

I'm very consis[tent] . . . yeah. (If pause and hesitation are not crucial.)

I'm very consis-(pause) . . . ah, consistent . . . yeah. (If pause and hesitation are crucial.)

For those of you who are well-versed in APA for dissertation purposes, would you agree with this or suggest a different way of handling it?

Note: I was not successful in looking for guidance in APA 6th edition and at apastyle blog.

APA style does not cover transcription. You need to ask the author what transcription style they are using (or possibly what software they used). In the absence of author/publisher feedback, you need to pick a transcription style. It is not my area of expertise, but the style I have seen most often is Discourse Transcription.


Is it okay to paraphrase other authors' literature reviews? I am currently writing a literature review for my bachelor thesis and I am not sure if what I am currently doing is acceptable.

My approach right now is to look at about 10 different literature reviews(from different papers) regarding the same topic and take one or two sentences or sometimes a paragraph from each of the literature reviews and put it in my thesis. Afterward, I synthesize the sentences I've collected from other authors' literature reviews and form a new paragraph. Lastly, I paraphrase the new paragraph and cites the original contributors behind the sentences.

Is this considered plagiarism?

Though it is a subtle difference, it seems that you might be rewriting sentences in your own words rather than paraphrasing authors’ ideas. It is difficult to assess your work without specific examples, but it sounds like it is bordering on plagiarism. Others may or not consider this plagiarism, but either way it is bad practice.

Since it is certainly easier to accidentally plagiarize using your method, I recommend taking notes on the pieces you are reading (rather than taking direct quotes/sentences) and paraphrasing your own work. Not only will this lead to a greater understanding and coherence of writing, it will also negate (most) plagiarism concerns.

And as always, cite, cite, cite.


is a 6 years Biology Degree comparable to a Master's Degree? I live in Argentina and we don't have the Bachelor/Master's division. I've studied 6 years of a Biology Degree. Most of my subjects had Lab practices besides the theory/calculus part so my total amount of college was big (a normal subject would have 12 hours/week with a total of 23 subjects). Within the 23 subjects, we have 13 "general to all Biologists" and there are 9 which are "specialization" subjects. Then, if you're going for "neuroscience and behavior" you have to attend "Neuroscience 101" and you can't go for "Plant Vascular System 4".
Also, in order to graduate I have to have research experience and present a written "thesis" (and give an oral presentation) which is consider your last subject. I've worked for two years in a Lab doing this research.
Because I want to do my PhD abroad I'm wondering if there's a way to explain this or have some kind of equivalence. Since there are lots of automatic systems that are ready for you to complete Bachelor + Master I find a lot of trouble to deal with this. I feel that it's too difficult to get to talk to a real person and when you actually do, the person gives you the "go to the website and..."
Any experience will help (specially if you had the same problem and you found the way to deal with it).

You are in a slightly tight but not an impossible to overcome situation.

What you describe relates very closely to the pre-Bologna_Process situation in Europe. People especially in Science- and Engineering-related disciplines had 5 to 6 years Bachelors (usually called Diplomas). When these graduates applied for graduate studies, especially in UK where the BSc in usually 3 years, they found themselves massively downplaying their qualifications. (The situation is somewhat sorted now.) Currently the old diplomas are almost universally accepted as Masters degrees because the retroactively calculation of ECTS points puts them nearly always in the same range as a Masters degree.

When you say abroad you do not specify where.

If abroad translates to Europe then things are quite straightforward. You say you have a Masters and leave things be. Departments are quite used to the phenomenon of "5/6 years of studies". Most of admissions committees will not blink an eye. It would almost certainty good to present it in your CV as "Integrated BSc and MSc studies" or something equivalent, so one can immediately spot it. Your programme of studies is far from unheard in Europe.

If abroad translates to US/Canada I do not have personal experiences; I think it will greatly dependent to the particular university's guideline. (I will be happy to be corrected at this point from a North American native if there is some standardised framework I do not know of). I can tell you for sure that 4-year BSc are not counted as Masters. I know very few people who applied for PhD straight out of a 5-year Engineering degrees from Greece; both them were accepted but they were very strong students anyway so I would not extrapolate based on them. Some others went for Masters (and continued to PhD eventually).

In general, a 6-years degree puts you in a very strong position if you are to be compared with simple BSc holder for PhD admission, probably your compare favourably to most MSci programmes as well. I would not worry much in that aspect. Having strong grades in those six years will be more important than what one equates your certificate to. (Assuming your references, cover letter, etc. are the same.)


Figures of Merit (Erdős number) in Resume/CV I've noticed recently that colleagues, friends, and others seeking employment, have shown, among other things, their Erdős number on their resume/CV.  I've also seen some put down their h-index, or their publication with the most citations (the running tally of citations for that publication), or the Impact Factor journal that they have ever published in, etc.

I know there is a question on just h-index in a CV/resume (so please do not mark as duplicate), but this is a broader question about other figures of merit, especially Erdős number.

I realize that having a CV/resume that stands out is important and can give an edge to getting that coveted position, but is listing these types of things appropriate?

Let me just make clear that I am not endorsing doing this or saying that I have done it, I am just asking if this is common, acceptable, or purposeful.

As a mathematician, I don't view an Erdős number as a sign of merit in any serious way. It's more of a cultural in-joke.

There are over 9,000 people with Erdős number 2, and far more than that with Erdős number 3, so it doesn't really set you apart. So, if you published with Erdős, that fact will be clear form your list of papers, and if you haven't, your Erdős number tells very little about you.

My own Erdős number is 3 (two ways), FWIW.


Uploading assignment answers - for prospective employers? This question is similar to: 'Sharing assignments with a potential employer'
However, it is not quite the same, and does not answer my query fully.
My question is: I have been thinking about ways of sharing my course assignment work with prospective employers. The rationale is that, if I just write 'statistics 70%' on my resume, it is difficult for the employer to know what that means, in high resolution. The employer really doesn't know the level of questions asked, how lenient the marking was, which bits I got wrong, and how that affects my suitability for the job. If I could signpost my interviewer to a collection of work I have produced, they can look in detail at what I understand and don't understand.
However, this has implications for my university, in that (depending upon how I upload the assignments) they might be easier for future students to access and therefore make plagriarism easier.
Could I upload the files to the cloud with password protection and offer to provide the password at the request of the interviewer?
I know this system still isn't perfect, since once the prospective employer has access to the files, there is no way of knowing if they will reproduce them elsewhere on the web or what they will do with them.

Most employers do not want to see your work.  They want to see grades/marks because it is easy for them.  Only bother if an employer asks for it or you work in a field where a "portfolio" is common.
Post only your own work, not the materials provided by faculty.  This eliminates all concerns about plagiarism.  We do not know your university's intellectual property policy.

might be easier for future students to access and therefore make plagiarism easier.

Post the materials after the course is over.  If the faculty decide to give the same assignment again in the future, that's the faculty's problem, not yours.
The purpose of education is to make learning easier, not to make cheating harder.


Plagiarism in semester exam I am in masters and came from a very developing country to EU for study. The classes started online due to covid19 and exams were supposed to be on campus but they started online due to the situation. This was my first exam of the first semester.
I came to EU country for an online exam to save from internet problems. This was the first exam of my life which was open book and online. We were clearly told that you can use all resources you need. Time was short so I used the internet.
There was one practice question that was taught in detail in class so I wrote it as it is. I was not really aware of plagiarism and the rules surrounding it. I copied from the internet and from notes which I made after listening to recordings of lectures because I record lectures during class. I didn't have a high typing speed and didn't use my laptop very often so I copied and pasted. In some places, I used software quilbot to paraphrase and forgot to put references, although they didn't tell me to put them. I also used recommended books and some other websites.
The Professor even mailed us about a question that was going to come in the exam where he just changed the value. I have a habit of learning things by writing on a page so I practiced there and wrote down in the exam. Now I got mail that I had 95% overall plagiarism and 100% in the practice exam with 3 other students of my country and from internet sources. By looking at the paper it can be clearly determined that it is cheating. Even spelling mistakes were also the same but only I know it was just a coincidence, or maybe we came from the same system of education and searched the same kind of things. Despite this, we have different grades. I was the second position holder in the bachelor's project.
So what should I do now? I am ready to give them the paper again but I am worried they don't put strict allegations. I have no idea about this kind of thing. I asked them many times to take an on-campus exam due to my unfamiliarity with computers.

I think you will need to provide more information before anything else can be determined. However, a few pieces of advice can be given
First, try to read up on the plagiarism guidelines of your institution. Reach out to teachers and/or colleagues to get a better sense of how plagiarism works where you are. It is essential to familiarise yourself with the system in delicate situations like this.
Secondly, you claim that you copied and pasted a lot. You also claim that even the spelling mistakes that you made were the same as those made by others. This seems like a clear case of plagiarism, although your institution's views may differ a little. From my personal experience, even if there is an open book exam, you aren't allowed to copy-paste answers. You have to attempt the questions yourself, you can just refer to outside sources for help. Copying answers would defeat the point of a practice exam, thus presumably wouldn't be allowed. It would be advisable to admit this to your professor honestly when discussing the issue with him/her. Lying or making stories could land you into bigger trouble.
Finally, you should definitely talk to your professor, and other relevant authorities about this. Tell them the full story, apologize if you did anything wrong and then explain to them your problems with computers. If they understand your problems, you might be treated more leniently. Even if they don't treat you more leniently, it is unlikely that you will be reprimanded for trying to explain the situation.


Moving from government research to academia I am a mid-career scientist at a government research organisation, and I am considering a move back into academia. My current employer is looking after me very well and I know I am valued, but I have a hankering for more intellectual freedom and more opportunity to work with students, especially graduate students. I've enjoyed the little bit of teaching that I have done.

I have 15 years post-PhD experience and have reached a fairly senior level - equivalent to a level D academic in Australia (perhaps equivalent to a newish full professor in the US). But I have much less teaching experience and a lower h-index than I would expect from an academic at my level. (My h-index is 14 and I am in the environmental sciences). Instead, I have spent a lot of time working closely with clients and government departments, managing people and large projects within my organisation, and working to demonstrate the real-world impact of my applied research. In short: my current employer has asked slightly different things of me than a university would. If I move back into academia, will these things be valued, or should I expect to take a demotion initially?

Finally, I am considering applying for a fixed-term (3 year) full professorship that I have recently seen advertised in a nearby research-intensive university. This would be a promotion if I were successful, but would come with a loss of job security. How would this be viewed on my CV if I were looking for another academic position in 3 years' time? Better or worse than staying where I am for those three years, and getting an internal promotion later?

I can only answer for the situation in Germany (where fixed-term full professorships indeed exist). There are two different situations:

In engineering your route is basically the default route to a full professorship. You do a PhD, go working in a company for five years or more and then apply for professorships. (You may also do a postdoc before working at a company.) In other fields it is not very common to return from outside academia (the only field I know for sure is mathematics and there I don't know anybody who returned back to academia).
For professors at "Fachhochschulen" (often translated as universities of applied sciences) it is similar but not only for engineering but also for other fields. Do a PhD, work in companies, apply for professorships at Fachhochschulen. In fact, for professorships at Fachhochschulen it is even required to have working experience outside academia. However, Fachhochschulen are not exactly research institutions but focus more on higher education in science and technology, preparing people to work in companies. For example, they do not grant a PhD (but this may change in the future).


How many physician-scientists pursue academic tracks? The National Institues of Health (NIH) funds Medical Scientist Training Programs (MSTPs) also known as MD/PhD programs to create a group of researchers whose work more rapidly effects medical practice. For example, they would help to develop new diagnostic tools, drugs, or surgical procedures.

It sounds good, but how many of the students actually pursue this track? Does anyone know of data about the NIH's return on investment besides the somewhat dated data about three New York programs?

Thanks for your time,
Mike

I have no idea how you'd find hard data on the program itself and its results, but as an idle musing I checked how many full time faculty members in the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health's Dept. of Epidemiology held an MD/PhD or DrPH. The department was chosen as a very good department in a very good school with a strong medical school that I'm not affiliated with.

Ten of the 94 listed faculty members were MD/PhD or DrPH's. Little under 11% of the faculty. And that's not including other possible "physician scientists" like MD/MPH degree holders...if you do that the number rises to 23 faculty members with an MD degree in a related, but non-clinical research department. Nearly a quarter of the faculty total.

Of course, this is only a very crude proxy for how many physician-scientists pursue academic tracks, and even the representation of clinician-scientists in research departments will likely vary wildly by said department. That being said, I've met a considerable number of them in my graduate school career, either entirely in academic settings, or balancing research with practice. It's absolutely a viable path, though not an easy one.

As another data point, here is the list of alumni for the UNC School of Medicine's MD/PhD program: http://www.med.unc.edu/mdphd/fps/alumni-1 . That should give you a decent glimpse at where those particular graduates go - it looks like a fair number ended up in research or hybrid positions.


Will it hurt me if my advisor's last name is before mine alphabetically? I'm a graduate student in theoretical particle physics, where the standard is that all author lists are alphabetized. However, even in other disciplines of physics, it's quite common for author lists to be ordered by the amount of the contribution. At some point I will probably be judged by people who are not entirely familiar with the standards of particle theory, and even if they are they probably have subconscious biases towards earlier authors.

I also happen to have a last name that's around the middle of the alphabet. I can feasibly find an advisor whose name is after mine, but the most natural choices (including my current advisor) all happen to be before mine alphabetically. My current choice makes me a bit worried because most of his other students also have names before mine alphabetically. I'll probably have a number of publications with other people in the group, and it's not unlikely that I'll be the last author on most or all of these.

Is this something that I should be seriously worried about? (My heart tells me no, but my brain isn't sure.) Will I have much more trouble in the future than comparable candidates who are listed earlier? Or is it a fairly small effect which is much less significant than choosing a good advisor in the long term?

Yes, there is a subtle unconscious bias. Even in a field where author names are always alphabetical, papers will be cited in talks as Author1 et al, so if you happen to be Author1 your name will be slightly more disseminated.

Is it true? Yes. Is it fair? No, not entirely. Is it a big deal? No. Should you change your advisor as a workaround? No.

The best way to overcome this bias is going to conferences and getting your face and name known to other people in the field. So it won't matter if your name is Aardvark or Zwingli, because people will know you anyway and know that you did some respectable work.

Another thing you can do to reduce the impact of this bias on your CV is adding a statement on the lines of the following sentence that I put in mine:

  "As is common practice in mathematics, the author order is usually alphabetical and does not reflect a difference in contribution. "

(by the way, I can relate: I have been alphabetically last author on 86% of my joint papers).


No rec letters from subject area of master's application I have a minor in the subject I want to get a master's in (CS). Core courses, all excellent grades. I have a major in math. If I get all 3 of my recommendation letters from math people (or possibly 2 solid math letters and 1 stellar letter in a totally unrelated subject), will that look bad to the CS admissions committee? As core courses, the CS classes were all massive lecture halls and I didn't develop personal relationships with the profs.

Oh, it doesn't really matter.
If it is course-based CS master, not researched-based CS master, then a recommendation letter only takes a very very small portion of it, so whether it is from a math professor or a CS professor doesn't differ too much.
GPA is the most important.
One of my friends who worked in the admission process before told me that the first admission step is to filter out students whose GPA is lower than 3.5 no matter which university they were in.


How casual is too casual for a PhD application personal statement? I’m currently writing a personal statement for a PhD application I am putting together and I have the sentence, “Not to be overly dramatic, but when I saw the advertisement for this project I breathed a sigh of relief because...”

I’m wondering whether this sentence is a bit too embellished and casual to have here, because in the past I’ve been told that a personal statement shouldn’t be too formal but it shouldn’t be too casual either.

That sentence already sounds very flippant. Contrary to its name there is very little that is "personal" about a personal statement (and it's definitely not the kind of soul-searching essay you write for college). It's mostly a document to describe your research experience and how the program fits within your vision of a scientific career. You should certainly demonstrate your interest and passion (in a concrete manner devoid of cliches, of course), but I'd rather err on the side of being too formal than the other way around.


To enroll in to a PhD Program at the age of 65 As a retired school teacher, and to become a professor at a university. Is it okay to get into a PhD program at the age of 65 and complete it to become a professor? Or is it too late and I can’t get employed at a university?

The realistic answer is: you can enroll in a PhD program at age 65. However, you are highly unlikely to get a tenure-track professorship after finishing a PhD program at that age. The big reason for this is that you're already above the retirement age, and many schools do have rules about how old you can be and still advise students. Moreover, you probably wouldn't represent a good "long-term investment."

On the other hand, you may be able to obtain a position as a part-time lecturer or adjunct faculty—in other words, for positions where you are not directly supervising PhD candidates.


How to italicize technical which is explained in Introduction but defined in another section later according to APA? I am currently writing a paper, which starts with an "Introduction" which is followed by a "Definition" section.
I plan to briefly explain a technical term in "Introduction" and define it more specifically in "Definition". According to APA, I need to italicize technical term if they appear for the first time. So am I correct that in this case, I only need to italicize the technical term in "Introduction" once?

In general, you should italicize a technical term when (or right before) you define it. And you should define it when it appears the first time. If you don't need to define or explain it, then you are implicitly assuming that your audience is familiar with it, in which case you don't need to italicize it. The difficulty arises here because you are essentially defining it twice, once informally and the second time formally.

I would recommend italicizing the first use in each of the sections. Clearly, you should italicize it the first time you use it. But if you are defining a lot of other terms in the "Definition" section, leaving it unitalicized might make it look odd next to all the other italicized terms you are defining.

This is not what the APA rules actually say, but I would assume that they also believe that informed decisions in exceptional cases should override their rules where it is appropriate.

Another thing you could do is say something like

  we now give a more technical definition of thingamabobs

in the "Definitions" section, and implicitly point out that you've already  defined it, which is why you're not italicizing it.


What is the most accepted time for a pre-tenure move? I am a second-year assistant professor who is hoping to make a pre-tenure move to a school/location that is better for my family. It is not a situation where my current department is bad or toxic, but I think my partner (job) and kids (schools, time with relatives) would be happier elsewhere.

I read a lot of advice which suggests that it is best to make a move before tenure rather than after. However, no one seems to specify when pre-tenure one should be looking. I am inclined to begin looking even before my mid-tenure review because the departments I would be looking in are typically small and I can't rely on the fact that they would have an opening in any particular year.

Is there a "normal," "accepted," or "typical" time to be make a pre-tenure move?

Here are some related questions:

What is a better point in an academic career to move to the U.S.: as an assistant professor or after tenure?

Job search when coming up for tenure

I think the answer is "when you find a good opportunity."  I have a slightly embarrassing amount of experience in this regard, as well as some experience on the other end of things viewing such applications.  My experience is that they will not care where you are in your tenure review process; the advice about moving pre- vs. post-tenure is mostly just because there are usually more internal barriers to hiring someone with tenure (which still happens quite often).


Should you publish a rejected conference paper on arXiv? Imagine you have a paper that got rejected from a top tier conference. You think it is of high quality.

Do you submit the paper to arXiv, or keep pushing for a conference later on?

Submitting a paper to the arXiv does not preclude publishing it later in a journal or in the proceedings of a conference.  In fact, one should not think of a paper which appears on the arXiv as being published. (There's no peer review, for one thing.)

In my community (hep-th, mostly) one always submits to the arXiv first, gathers comments, and only then submits for publication.  Of course, other communities might work differently.

In the fields I am familiar with (maths and physics, mostly), I would submit the paper to the arXiv in any case.  You can then decide how to actually publish the paper.


About similarity Index Regarding similarity index of research mathematics papers, I would like to know what is the acceptable similarity index for journals in average?

I am assuming you mean a turn-it-in type similarity index. There is no acceptable similarity index. Even a 1% similarity index could be the result of an entire paragraph being the same in a long paper. That is not acceptable. It could also just be random matches and not an indication of plagiarism. Even a similarity index of zero is suspicious since it would be surprising for sequence of words to match in a paper and therefore suggests the authors may have intentionally hid something. In other words, algorithmic detection of plagiarism still needs a human to look at it. At the upper limit, a similarity index in excess of 50% is almost always indicative of something wrong.

The key is that plagiarism and copying other people's ideas is not allowed regardless of what the similarity index is.


Not including student who contributed very little as coauthor of paper I am a researcher in condensed-matter physics, and I recently started a research project with another professor, for which I hired a student for a six-month undergraduate internship. The student was under my supervision. During the internship she showed good motivation, but did not make any actual contribution to the progress of the project.

Finally, she started a Ph.D. with someone else. I personally took over the project, taking care of both technical and conceptual parts, which requires a lot of time and work.

I kindly invited her multiple times to double check some of my work, but she had not done anything on the project since the end of the internship.

In the past few months she started having an attitude that I find disturbing. She replies to emails once in a while, proposing new conceptual points to explore, as if I were the student and she was the supervisor. On top of that, she ignores the invitations to double check my calculations, which would require actual work on her side.

Given that she did not make any actual contribution to the project, I am inclined to not include her as an author of any eventual publication. I think that it would be definitely fair to include her in the acknowledgments, but unfair to include her as an author.

What do you think about this? How would you inform her of this decision?

This doesn't seem like an especially unusual situation to me. You had a student for a fixed-term internship, during which time she pursued an angle that did not result in a publication. The student then moved on to other things, and so did you. You kept her informed of your work that is related to what she did as a professional courtesy, but she isn't interested in participating after the internship ends (nor does she have an obligation to). This kind of thing happens often, and nobody behaved badly here...

Do you have any indication that she expects to be a co-author on the eventual publication? (Corresponding with you about the work out of interest doesn't mean she expects to be an author.) She may not have any expectation of authorship credit.

If at some point she asks about authorship, I think you can just gently point out that her work did not lead to publication, and that you started working on the current approach (that did lead to publication) after she left.

If you do get the feeling that she expects authorship but she hasn't explicitly said so, you could say something to her like, "it has been interesting corresponding with you on this, X and I will be sure to thank you in the acknowledgement section of the eventual publication that he and I write." (If indeed you decide that you do want to do so.)


Should you state multiple degree titles in your CV next to your name? If I hold a MSc and a BSc should and I want to show that next to my name in my CV, should I use:

  Sosi, MSc, BSc

or simply the highest one:

  Sosi, MSc

If this is an academic CV (as this site is about Academia), then you should not include your titles next to your name in your CV, but describe them in the "Education" section.


How to handle a PI who constantly threatens to kick me out of their lab? I am a first-year PhD student in Biology and I am currently working in a lab for a very hard-to-please PI (a new PI who started a couple years ago and only just recruited her first few graduate students). I am very interested and excited about this line of research and I really want to do what I am doing. But my PI's way of managing people makes everyone miserable and I am not sure what to do.

Background: Last fall, I rotated in a lab which I really enjoyed working in and generated some great data, but had to leave, along with the other rotation student, because PI had no funding. In the spring, I rotated with a brand new PI, whose lab I helped set up and started on a project, but did not stay in his lab because his management was very poor - was never around, didn't know or care what was going on with projects, etc, and I was also advised to join a different lab by the academic coordinator who said they thought this PI was not "ready" to handle a graduate student. So then, I started a THIRD rotation in another "new" PI's lab and have been here for three months.

This person's research is really great, but their management seems to focus heavily on threatening language and negative reinforcement. They often send very angry emails to the lab. When this person is feeling "iffy" about you because you didn't get fantastic results or you responded to an email too slowly, they will tell you to your face that you are not worth their time to mentor if you don't "try harder." I recently gave PI a sequence alignment, but accidentally gave them the wrong version of the sequence, and as a result, they said they would not be willing to fund me as an RA. PI actually made the same mistake when they did the sequence comparison (which is OKAY! It is an easy mistake to make!), but they were just so harsh on me for the mistake. All their communication with me makes me feel that, despite my good merits, progress or improvements, they disapprove of me or are angry with me. They deal with my labmates in the same way and my labmates have often expressed their worries and stresses to me over this. I should note that some of my labmates are well-accomplished, highly dedicated post-doctoral researchers who devote ALL of their time and efforts to their work. The dynamic in the lab overall is not very good, in part because people feel increased anxiety from the PI's anger or lack of professionalism in expressing themself. It is really a huge distraction from my work whenever PI is talking about kicking me out of the lab. I go from focused on an experiment to panicking about what to do or who I should talk to.

I still respect this person as a scientist, but I feel at times that this harsh style of management/dealing with people is too much for me. I am not perfect, but I am trying very hard and have made so much progress on my work, I just wish PI would recognize this. Almost in my second year of graduate school, and with the school potentially not able to support me with a TA in the future, and with me working in my third lab, I am extremely stressed out by this situation. I feel that, if I do not make it work in this miserable lab, I will be kicked out of the school and then lose my chance to earn a PhD.

What is a good way to deal with this type of advisor and how to keep clam and focused in the lab with this kind of stress? Any advice is appreciated.

Don't walk, run.

This kind of behaviour should be viewed as entirely unprofessional and unacceptable in any working environment; it astonishes me what gets politely overlooked in the academic world. What you describe is bullying. While the work may be exciting, it is doubtful that you will ever be able to flourish as an independent researcher facing daily abuse from your supervisor and suffering the toxic secondhand effect of your supervisor abusing your colleagues. I cannot imagine that after several years of that you will still be able to maintain the same level of enthusiasm for your work, and perhaps for academia altogether.


How often are authors not allowed to send their paper by email upon request? Emailing the authors of a paper is a common way to obtain access to the paper when it is behind paywalls. However, publishing contracts may forbid  authors to send their paper by email.

Is there any research/study/survey that tried to quantify how often authors are not allowed to send their paper by email upon request? I am especially interested in papers written in English.

The RoMEO Journals database contains thousands of journals, labeled with their archiving policy (preprint/postprint/publisher's version):

Except of the database:

That gives an approximate lower bound on how often authors are allowed to send their paper by email upon request, since if an author can upload a preprint/postprint/publisher's version to a repository, they are most likely allowed to send it to someone by email upon request.

Looking at the publishers might give a decent approximation but journals from the same publisher may have different policies, e.g. http://www.nature.com/news/gates-foundation-research-can-t-be-published-in-top-journals-1.21299:

  A spokesperson for Nature’s publisher, Springer Nature, said that most Springer Nature journals do comply with the Gates Foundation policies. (Nature’s news team is editorially independent of the journal Nature.) But a “small number”, including Nature and some Nature-branded research titles, do not.

Related: Am I allowed to share a final copy of my published paper privately?

I will speculate (and I'm guessing that a speculative answer is the best you'll be able to get to such a question) that the answer is effectively never. Specifically, I have never heard of a journal attempting to impose such a draconian restriction on authors, and moreover, I can think of two quite strong reasons why they would not do so:

Any journal that attempts to impose such a restriction is very likely to be blacklisted and boycotted by authors.
The restriction is unenforceable, since email communication is private and therefore a violation could never be detected by the publisher. In the world of dealmaking, savvy dealmakers know* that it is completely counterproductive to insert unenforceable clauses into a contract, since they will surely be ignored and their only effect will be to antagonize your counterparty and drive them to deal with a competitor instead.

* Okay, I don't actually know for a fact that "savvy dealmakers know ...", but since I know it and I'm not a very savvy dealmaker myself, I expect that it is even more obvious to savvy dealmakers than it is to me.

To summarize, if there is a journal forbidding authors from sending their paper to colleagues over email, it's a reasonably safe bet that the journal is a nonentity and can be safely ignored.


When should one apply for a PhD in the UK? In September 2021 I will be starting a Master's degree course in Economics, and I want to pursue a PhD after its completion. The Master's course finishes by September 2022. However this raises a problem. If I want to start the PhD course in September/October 2022, I would have to start applying/searching for funding for the PhD right as I begin my Master's degree, this September. At the same time, if I decide to apply for a PhD only after finishing my Master's degree, I would probably start the PhD in September/October 2023.
On the one hand I would prefer to start working on a PhD programme as early as possible and it would feel like I have wasted on an entire year just for applications if I were to start in 2023. On the other hand, if I start applying this September (for late 2022 entry), I feel like my chances of securing funding or making a good proposal could be lower since by that time I would only be starting on my Masters course, and so would not even have a thesis continue my work on.
At this point, I am open to all advice or experience that people have with this issue. I hope everyone is well and thank you very much in advance for your time, advice and kind consideration. Sorry, if my explanations are a little unclear due to the dating.

Everyone doing a Master's is in the same boat. PhD applications aren't usually due until late January or early February, so that's a good four or five months into your Master's course. This gives you plenty of time to work on the applications and get to know your lecturers to secure a reference letter or two.
Plus, you may end up working on something completely different for your PhD than you did for your Master's so it doesn't really matter how far along in your Master's work you are at the time of applying for PhDs. Furthermore, admissions committees are fully aware of this situation.
Good luck with the applications.


Should I inform the people that I acknowledged in PhD thesis? You write a PhD thesis, in the acknowledgments you thank a series of people from collaborators, to friends, to peers, to professors. Many of these people will never read the thesis so what is the point to acknowledge them? It seems more an exercise for myself. This is different than the acknowledgments in a paper because PhD acknowledgments tend to be more personal and might include friends or people with a non-working relationship that helped in a way that it is not strictly related to the thesis.

Should I send them a copy of the thesis AND mention that I have acknowledged them, or simply let them know in some informal way that I acknowledged them, maybe next time I meet them or sending them a quick email?

It seems a pointless message if they don't know they have been thanked.

Ask yourself, which message do you want to send them?

You do not want to simply inform them about the acknowledgment, you want to THANK them! It's not about your thesis, it's about their help!

How you approach them depends on several factors; do whatever you feel is right.
If it is possible to meet people in person, I prefer this, especially if they have contributed much. If they are further away, perhaps do at least a phone call. You should offer to them send your thesis via email or maybe even give them a printed copy.

In my personal experience, people are always very happy about a "thank you" and it also gives you the chance to stay in contact afterwards.


Ratio of faculty positions to applicants A few years ago for every fresh PhD graduate in Management Information System (MIS), there were three open faculty positions. Then the ratio of graduates to positions dwindled to 1: 2, then to 1:1.5, later to 4:1. Finally MIS departments all over started shutting down or being merged into Management, Operations or other departments and today hardly any schools offer a PhD in MIS.

It is possible that there are still many fields where for every PhD graduate there are 2, 3 or more open faculty positions. Are there any areas with faculty shortages these days? Animal Sciences? Genetics? Psychology? Sociology? Wildlife Sciences? Mechanical Engineering? Computer Science? Statistics? Any field at all?

At least in the US, I can't think of very many fields where there are shortages of applicants for available faculty positions, especially in this day and age with the current economy.

Even when times were booming back in the mid-90's and in the 2000's, you'd still have dozens or even hundreds of applicants for any available faculty position. With the economy still somewhat depressed, you still have lots of people chasing after an even smaller number of positions than before. So I still think that in any viable field of academia, you'll still see applicants outnumbering vacancies. It's only in subdisciplines or departments that probably should not have been separated out in the first place that would end up having gluts of available positions.


How can a senior undergraduate find academic journals in math and computer science? I am going to be a senior undergraduate and am looking to really find the area of research that I would like to be engaged in during graduate-school/senior year. I have submitted one conference paper as a collaborating author (currently waiting for the reviewers) in the area of Social Network Analysis (mathematical modeling) and am currently working on a conference paper in Graph Algorithms.

As you might guess, I am double majoring in Math and Computer Science and would like to pursue a graduate degree in applied math. So far (I haven't taken all the undergrad courses yet!) I have enjoyed Algorithms, Real Analysis, Graph Theory and Differential Equations. In the future I am curious to learn more about Stochastic Modeling, Mathematical Logic, Artificial Intelligence, Complex Analysis, Fractals and Abstract Algebra.

Where can I find current research journals about both the topics I have enjoyed and the topics I am curious to learn more about?
Do any journals have mobile apps (IOS, Android, or Windows) in which they can be viewed?
Where can I find unbiased information about the quality and related-data about journals?

EDIT: Do any journals "stream" (RSS feed) to GNU Emacs? or is there any type of package manager that will automatically download the latest publications? For example, I just found this "package/program" available in GNU Emacs. It is a list of AI publications from MIT up until 2005 (why would they stop then?)

Thanks for all the help! I am at least looking for a copy of a physical journal so I can take my eyes off the computer for a little bit! :)

I would agree that you should mostly be ignoring journals and focusing on conferences, as they publish the majority of new computer science research.

Microsoft Academic Search is a good place to go to get an approximate listing of the top conferences for each sub-field of computer science. Other fields other than Computer Science are listed there too.

Use your school's network to access the ACM Digital Library (this should be free through your school's library), and download the proceedings for the conferences in the past year or two. Find the papers that look interesting to you and then search for them on Google Scholar. You can print them out if you prefer hard copies.

Hope this helps!


Applying to PhD programs as a Masters student with no Internship experience I am a Computer Science Masters student at University of Washington and I am planning to apply to PhD programs in the US.

I started my Masters in September of 2015 and am going to complete it this December.

Since I came from Electrical Engineering background, I had to spend a significant portion of the past year learning the ropes(various kinds of algorithms etc) and in the process also got very interested in research.

I also worked under a professor on a project that received a small NSF grant.

The problem is I don't have any paper publications or internships. I didn't have an internship as I found it hard to crack the coding interviews since I wasn't very skilled in programming back then. Since then I have improved significantly.

And I will also be participating in another research project starting September 1st.

Extending my Masters course is really not an option since the tuition is exorbitant. So I can't take another year and do research.

Will the PhD admissions committee hold it against me that I don't have any publications or internship experience? If so how do I make a good impression on them so that they consider me for admission?

In the UK an internship is not necessary.  In general, an internship is just one way to prove yourself, a paper is another, but good letters of reference can compensate for these.  Generally it's good to have a good mix of skills in your lab.  Don't be defensive about it; just talk about your assets.

On the other hand, if you don't get the PhD offer you want, you might find a research position (or a job) and get some additional research experience that way.  There's always next year for applications.


How to decide whether to referee a math paper? When approached to referee a mathematics paper there are of course a couple of factors to consider in the decision of whether to accept the task or not.

Expertise:

Do I have sufficient background knowledge to referee this paper?
Am I an "expert" in this particular field?

Why did they approach me?

I guess there are two possibilities:

The authors suggested me as a possible reviewer (the authors might know me).
The editor came across my name (either through connection, studying cited papers of the paper at hand, search for similar papers, asking a colleague).

This will mostly just be speculative as editors don't seem to typically reveal such information.

Workload:

The number of papers that I am currently already reviewing. There is only so much one can do without greatly affecting one's own research productivity.

My question is:

How do people weight these factors?

How do experienced reviewers decide on whether to accept to review a paper?

With how many papers to review on the desk do people say no? (of course length of the papers is a factor here too).

That is an excellent question and answering it will help me sort out my thoughts on the matter. Which exactly matches the best reason for me to referee papers: because doing so will likely teach me something.

To go into more details, there are basically two sets of reasons to accept or decline to referee a paper.

I assume here that you feel reasonably competent to do the refereeing; otherwise you should simply decline.

1. Reasons centered on the community.

1.a You want your papers refereed, and for the system to work it needs everyone to participate. It is part of our job, and thus we should do it; the big question is where to place the bar.

A good reference point is to consider the number of referee reports one has benefited from, weighted against the average number of coauthors.
This gives good incentives: it means submitting too boldly and facing rejection might "cost" you to force yourself into one or more referee reports (depending on the journal you submit to). Another common reference point, which is quicker to estimate, is the number of papers you got time a fixed factor that roughly takes into account the number of authors on the paper, the number of referees per submission, and the average number of submission. I would think that a factor between 1 and 3 is reasonable.
Then this reference could be mitigated in several ways.

For example if you struggle to stay active in research, and if lack of time is not the primary reason, then accepting more referee request is a good way to contribute; moreover it can help you get to grip again (see above and below).

Also, since there will be authors who will do less than their share (e.g. because they did a PhD and then quit Academia altogether, not necessarily free riders), each mathematician should do at least slightly more than his estimated share for the system not to get out of control.

So, if you don't feel like it and have some advance in your refereeing with regard to the above weighted reference, you have a good case declining. If you feel that you could do it and you are behind compared to the reference point, then accepting is the proper move community-wise.

1.b Accepting or not to referee a paper can be used as a political tool if you have strong opinion on how mathematical publication should be run. I think it is part of our duties to have a say in this. As a concrete example, you might decline to referee for some publishers whose practice are in your opinion opposed to the interest of the mathematical community (no need to be more explicit I guess, except it might concern more than one publisher). You might also decline to referee because the way you are asked is not correct; as an example if the editor asking me would imply the expected answer in his demand (e.g. "the paper is long and we have a large backlog so we would only accept it if it where really extraordinary"), I could very well only give a quick opinion and not referee it fully, as my time would be wasted if I dive into a paper whose fate is basically already decided.

On the contrary, you might accept in a borderline case in order to support a journal with particularly good practices (e.g. open access without author fees, low-cost subscription community-owned, journal working a new model you want to support, journal having an at least decent proportion of women in its board, etc.).

2. Reasons centered on oneself.

As mentioned in the second sentence of my answer, refereeing is not only a duty, it is also an opportunity.

2.a You can accept to referee because you expect to learn from the process. This is particularly suited for papers lying near the border of your area of expertise; in particular it might be the wrong move to only referee papers which are very close to your own work. Of course, a very technical and difficult paper needs more competence, so you have to weight that criterion against the expected effort and time needed to do the refereeing. If you feel a bit out of good questions to try answering, refereeing papers is a great way to force yourself into looking precisely at new math, which can only help find new directions. You may also find techniques which can help for questions you have no clue about, or it could turn out your own bag of tricks provides answers to some questions left open in the refereed paper.

2.b Accepting to referee and doing a good job at it will make you look good to the editor who solicited you. There is no short-term reward, but in the long run this can benefit you in several ways (being known to be serious could help your papers be taken seriously, at some point good refereeing job can help get proposed an editor position if your own scientific production is good enough). You should mention refereeing in your CV, but it will probably not make a big difference in most cases your CV is needed.

2.c Of course, the main reason to decline to referee is lack of time. You should not jeopardize your own career by accepting all referee request if those are numerous (I personally don't get so many that this argument weights much, but that depends on people and on subfields). If you feel guilty, look at 1.a and you might realize that you already did your share. Big shots can also reasonably concentrate on other things than refereeing "common" papers, and would be more selective (and less available).


Should an intern who wrote most of a paper and where the first author contributed little request to be first author? Background: A little over a year ago, I wrote a paper for an internship (during high school) at a major university medical center. My contribution to the paper was basically everything except conception and some editing/revision (mainly phrasing, not content). The author list, in order, is: immediate supervisor, me, other intern, senior person in group, and PI. The other intern put in about 3 hours of work which were not used in the final manuscript before disappearing to another country and not responding to my attempts to contact. My immediate supervisor, frankly, had very little contribution and is not giving the paper the attention I would like; they took a year to submit the paper (rejected the first time by a reach journal), is taking excessively long to resubmit or get back to me about it, and is usually radio silent.

I have a pretty good relationship with the PI, who seems somewhat aware that my immediate supervisor is not being responsive or attentive. It's from work done during high school, so I don't have very much experience with these politics.

Can and should I ask the PI (or someone) about changing the order of authors?
and what actions would be appropriate for me to take to try and get the paper finally submitted relatively soon?

I think you should talk to the PI about the order of authors.  Don't frame the conversation as a demand/plea/request to change the order: phrase it as a question from a very new researcher who put a lot of work into a project and wants to be shown the ropes about why author order is the way it is.  This is not a cover story: I really think that virtually no high school student could know the conventions of author order in the publications in a specific academic field.  So although it is possible that you deserve to be first author or come in some other place, I don't see how you can reasonably know that without gaining a lot more information about the conventions of the field.

Here is another question to ask your PI: what are the consequences for your career of the author order on the paper?  This is not my neck of the academic woods, but I would guess that a high school student being an author on such a paper is already getting about the maximum amount of credit without being first author.  It may well be the case that the ordering of the other authors has something to do with their academic career...and they may or may not be doing it in what we would agree is a totally ethical way, but unless your contribution was really exceptional, it may in fact turn out to be worse for everyone involved to make a big fuss about it.

I want to end by saying that academic politics really only matters for academics.  I'm not (at all) saying that you don't have the right to engage in the jockeying for authorship position...but you may have the luxury of not needing to worry about it.  That is a luxury, by the way...


Writing a comment, the consequences The background: I work in a quite narrow field in physics. Recently I submitted a comment on a published paper. Before doing this I discussed my remarks with the authors directly and they gave me some interesting suggestions and comments. In the end they suggested to publish as a rapid communications instead of a comment. However, I was more convinced that it was something it should be corrected and replied that I find a comment more suitable (assuring them this is of course nothing personal). However, a bit after this my doctoral advisor said: "feel free to submit but please remove my name (you can acknowledge me for useful discussions and proofreading)". I have a feeling this is related to the fact that he has some limited contact with the authors.

My questions: Did I make the right decision of submitting?  Will there be any consequences in the future (regarding Refereeing). I really have nothing personal against they authors (which are in fact very competent authors who have published many interesting works).

I would like your opinions on this situation.

Yes you made the right decision of submitting a comment to the paper. Publicly commenting papers happens much too rarely, for reasons that may be at least partly technical. (Compare publishing your comment to writing here at StackExchange in terms of time and effort.)

As for future consequences, nobody knows. But if your comment is good, journals editors could get the idea of soliciting you for reviewing papers.


Should I suggest to use version control for writing a paper with new collaborators? I will soon write a new article with new collaborators (my first paper with other people, I'm in math). For some context, I know one of them well, but I've never met the others in person.

I use Git to manage all my papers. I'm wondering if I should suggest the use of Git to them? If so, how much should I press the issue, what should I say when suggesting it?

I can use it alone and apply their changes manually, but it would be infinitely easier if everyone just used a VCS -- and not just for my own personal comfort, because Git (or any VCS) does make writing the paper easier, IMO.

The main issue is Git's learning curve. I can offer to make everything as simple as possible (set up the repository myself, help out with technical issues they might have, direct them to tutorials), but academics are busy people, and they might not want to learn a whole new system for just one paper (even though I believe that were I they, I would then use Git for everything...).

I've gotten a lot of answers that don't apply at all to my situations, so to clarify: I'm in (pure) mathematics, where all manuscripts are written in LaTeX. So

version control using, e.g., Git, is appropriate, since LaTeX is a plain text format (and not some WYSIWYG thing), and
it requires a little bit of technical know-how already, so it's IMO safe to assume that other collaborators are not completely tech-illiterate.

I recently was on the other side of this - I learned git to work with a collaborator on a paper (written in LaTeX). While git is fun, and it's good I learned it, I am not convinced the net time savings were that large, and I found the first steps very frustrating. I would not generally recommend you ask collaborators to learn git - but only ask if they already know it. For papers, maybe things like overleaf/etc might be better?

Giant time losses:

 Trying to figure out how to properly discard changes I made but didn't want to merge, when stash didn't seem to work right...
 Accidentally doing bad commits, etc, and trying to figure out how to move backwards.

This would obviously get easier the more you worked with it, but I found that in the first few months, there was some problem like that, and I ended up deleting everything and re-downloading - this xkcd sounds about right: https://xkcd.com/1597/

Upside:

 Fewer ugly email chains
 Made integrating small edits late in the process a lot easier - I was more willing to make tiny wording changes when it didn't require someone else to integrate it into the final draft, and that I could do it on my time.


Citing works in a list without having read them I know this may seem a duplicate question, but I haven't find an answer to my question and I am scared to ask my supervisor.
I am doing my literature review in sociolinguistics and I have different reputable sources: articles and books.
Most of the authors quote the same famous works while describing that they made a contribution to the discipline.
Many of these works are well known and not easy to find (old).
So, is it ok if I write "[...] These themes were examinated by other scholars (e.g. Smith 1970, Doe 1977)", without having read those two books by Smith and Doe, but having read reviews and studies that explain them?
I have just read a dissertation which was written in less than 1 year after fieldwork and it has hundreds or references: I can't imagine the author actually read it. It seems common to me.
Can somebody clarify?

There are two answers that are not logically exclusive:

When you cite something, you should be reasonably certain that the source pertains to the situation and that you are representing its information accurately.
Many scholars cite materials they have not read closely, have read in parts, or that they have read through another source.

Usually, you need to read or at least consult a source in order to verify that your understanding of the source is correct.

For example, in my field (English), I read most texts I cite, since many texts are primary or archival sources that I interpret closely, or secondary sources that I engage with directly. I need a high level of understanding to respond to other scholars directly. However, there are some secondary sources that provide minor support to what I write. I skim, reading enough to understand the argument or to find the chapter or section I needed. I've never cited a source without at least looking at it.

In many STEM fields, the tendency is to cite more and with infrequent quotation. Especially in introductions or literature reviews, providing a representation of available knowledge is more important than responding to an individual author or argument. For many of these sources, the texts may have been read or skimmed, in whole or in part. For an article, they may only read the abstract and the results. How close they read those sources often depends on the level of specificity in their reference. Is it one of several works on a rat behavior, or are you indicating a specific result? At a minimum, I'd expect such authors to look at the source, even if they don't read in full.

In whatever field you're in, the presumption is that the cited fact or argument is accurate. So you are responsible for certifying that the information is accurate. If you use the source extensively, you should read it. If you use the source quickly, you should at least look at it and double-check its credibility, even if you don't read it in full. Don't rely on secondary summary alone. The Office of Research Integrity (a unit of HHS) has this advice in an article titled "Citing Sources that Were Not Read or Thoroughly Understood":

  The reader should note, however, that there might be instances in which the practice of citing sources that were not read may be acceptable. For example, an author may simply wish to point out a well-known discovery or theory and provide the reader with the original citation. When this is done without misleading the reader into believing that the author read the paper detailing the discovery and is thoroughly acquainted with its contents, then no real harm is done. For example, in a paper on intelligence testing I may want to refer the reader to the psychometric properties of the X test and write: “for a review of validity of reliability of X test see reference Y”. Although I am clearly aware that reference Y reviews validity and reliability for various intelligence tests, including test X, my citation of this work does not imply that I have read and processed its contents. I am merely aware that relevant material may be found in that reference and point the reader to it. However, if in a different paper I were to write that “Smith (1879) studied the effects of X on Y and concluded that X is as important as Z and both are critical causal variables in the incidence of Y” such a statement strongly suggests that my summary of the study is, in fact, based on my reading of that paper.

ORI rightly points out that whether and how closely you need to read it relates directly to whether I'm claiming an author addresses a general topic or whether I am specifying a result. If I'm doing the latter, I had better ensure with my own eyes that I've seen and understood that result. That is why they provide this general guideline:

  GUIDELINE 18: Generally, when describing others’ work, do not cite an original paper if you are only relying on a secondary summary of that paper. Doing so is a deceptive practice, reflects poor scholarly standards, and can lead to a flawed description of the work described.


How to write a technical paper of a not so significant idea? I am a PhD researcher in my first year. For the first 3 months all my supervisor made me do was read related papers on IEEE, so a LOT of literature review.

Recently in trying to recreate the result of another paper I was reading, I wrote some code on segmentation that appears to work really well and has got my supervisor's attention and interest. He thinks this may lead to a publication.

He asked me to write a technical report on it. So I wrote a simple report in MS Word which included a brief explanation of the method with graphs and result images but he said this is not what he wanted. What he expects from me is a IEEE style report/paper, including introduction, algorithm/method explanation, mathematical representation, experiments, future work etc.

The problem is that I believe he thinks too highly of my code, its just a for loop applied at different settings. That is all..

What is the mathematical representation of a for loop? How do I make it look more professional? As I know my reports are those of an undergrad standard.

Quite possibly, your supervisor is encouraging you to write early, to learn how to write, and to get into the habit of writing your results down.

You would gain a lot by watching this youtube video by Haskell inventor Simon Peyton Jones on How to write a great research paper. Part of his message is that you can do the research while you are writing, meaning that many ideas will come to you as you are writing things down.

You ask how to write a paper. Didn't you just read a whole bunch? Pick one that you found easy to follow and inspiring. Model your paper on its structure and style.

Regarding the actual work. A formal model of a for-loop has already been done, so I suspect that this is not the right level of abstraction to consider. What is the data to which your for loop applied? What did it mean? What did the parameters mean? How are the results of your code interpreted? Were some better than others? On what scale?
Part of science is learning to ask and answer the right questions.