Applying for postdocs: mention two-body problem in cover letter? My spouse and I are both finishing Ph.D's in math and applying for math postdocs in the US. We work in different areas of math, but there are many departments in which both are prominently represented. A postdoc position in the same place is not an absolute must but a big plus for us, and would likely be a deciding factor if choosing between offers.

My question: would adding a statement in the cover letter to the effect of
"My spouse xxx is also applying for this position" be helpful, or is it more likely to disqualify both of us in the eyes of departments? We have different last names, so someone who does not know us well personally would probably not know we are together.

The advice for tenure track applicants seems to be not to divulge such personal information until the interview, but there are no interviews for math postdocs so I'm not sure whether the advice would be different.

As someone who actually has experience chairing a postdoctoral hiring committee in math in the US (maybe F'x has? s/he is an international wo/man of mystery...), I think the answer is "it's unclear."

I think there's no question that mentioning your spousal situation in connection with a job will increase the probability of you both getting jobs and decrease probability of either of you getting jobs; it's impossible to be sure how those things will balance.   There's an extremely real danger that if a school knows about your situation, they'll just decide they have no chance of getting you and give up; on the other hand, if a school has a reasonable number of positions (for example, the University of Michigan), and you and your spouse are reasonably hot commodities, there is some chance a school will try to grab you both, but only if they know before whatever crucial meeting they have.  That's not a very likely turn of events, but it has happened (note the importance of at least one, and hopefully both, of you being a hot commodity, and of the school in question having a large number of positions; if they have only one position, this won't work very well).

In part, you have to decide for yourself how scared you are of not getting a job vs. how scared you are having to take a job separating yourself from your spouse.  No one on this site can tell you, but maybe your advisor or another trusted mentor can help you work that out.  If you're planning for a research career in mathematics, you should also give some thought to doing the best postdocs possible (maybe requiring separation) to have better leverage on the TT market (I know that sucks, but the two-body problem generally sucks).

If you decide you would like the committee to know about your spouse, you then have to figure out when and how to tell them.  I wouldn't depend on anything being noticed in your cover letter; there are a lot to read, and such a subtle thing will go unnoticed.  As other answers point out, there is some chance of coming off as presumptuous. It's probably more reliable for one of your letter writers to mention it (bonus: this requires you to have a discussion with the letter writer about your situation).  You can also broach the subject with someone you know at the school via email (or ask your advisor to do this).  Another useful trick is to include a link to your spouse's homepage on your homepage (though that could be easily missed as well; still I'm more likely to read a homepage than a cover letter).


What is the correct etiquette when one would like to include the alternative proofs supplied by the reviewer Sometimes when one receives referee's reports, the referee supplies alternative proofs for the results of the paper. Sometimes the supplied proof is much shorter and more elegant than the original proof.

Is it acceptable to include these proofs in the paper (without formally asking the permission from the reviewer) if the author emphasizes that this proof comes from the anonymous reviewer?

Many times I have done this, and the reviewer has never objected. But I am wondering if one should be more cautious and first formally asks a permission and if the referee permits then includes the referee's proof.

If that matters the subject is Mathematics.

Edit: Side information (following the comment). Assuming that the supplied proofs are for the auxiliary results of the paper, not the main results.

I would think that if the referee shared an alternative proof in their comments to the author, their very reason for doing so was so that you could include it in the paper.  What else would be the point?

I don't think you need to ask for permission.  It would be sort of like asking for permission to take a mint from that little bowl by the door of a restaurant - that's what it's there for.  You can ask if you really feel it's important, but it creates a slight amount of extra work for the referee and the editor who has to relay your communications.

If the alternative proof is such a major contribution that you think the referee ought to become a co-author, then of course that is a separate discussion.


Taking higher level theoretical mathematics vs taking less math and more courses in application areas? I intend to go to graduate school for applied/computational mathematics, specifically a program like this https://icme.stanford.edu/.

At this point, I'm trying to decide whether to take graduate level theoretical math courses in areas like Algebraic Topology, Differential Geometry, etc. (which I don't currently have any experience with, but I could still take), or just take courses in application areas (the ones I'm interested in are statistics, biology, chemistry, computer science).

My math education in the latter case will consist of basic linear algebra+calculus, a course on PDEs, a course on abstract algebra, a complex analysis course with an applied focus, a couple mathematical modeling courses, basic number theory, basic probability theory, a couple numerical analysis courses, and upper-level real analysis. So not a ton, but not negligible either.

There's also a lot of math in the non-math courses I will take (algorithms, theory of computing, quantum mechanics, optimization, stochastic processes, machine learning, etc., some of which are grad-level) However, this schedule is perhaps lighter on mathematical theory, and contains zero grad math classes.

Should I drop some of the courses in application areas (although courses with significant mathematical content that yet focus on applications are perhaps my favorite type of courses) and take graduate-level theory courses to increase my readiness for and chances of getting accepted to graduate school? Or will I have ample time for that in graduate school and should I take courses I enjoy more (and have greater aptitude for) while informally studying theory on my own?

Or do I need to take more theory even as an undergrad, and even though I'm not gunning for pure maths? (I do not plan to go into academia after graduate school, in case that matters.)

I think that at this stage in your career, you should set yourself the goal of reaching some sort of mathematical maturity

  ... fearlessness in the face of symbols: the ability to read and
  understand notation, to introduce clear and useful notation when
  appropriate (and not otherwise!), and a general facility of expression
  in the terse—but crisp and exact—language that mathematicians use to
  communicate ideas.

Courses like abstract algebra, algebraic topology, differential geometry and e.g. combinatorics will give you a combination of breadth and depth that will make it much easier to quickly master any applied field that you will choose in grad school.

In my experience (PhD in string theory, currently applied economist), mastering the really advanced math courses should be done as soon as possible, when you have all the time and energy to immerse yourself. It's also my experience that it is rather straightforward to apply abstract patterns when you already know them, but the reverse (the emergence of abstractions from concrete applications) is much, much harder.

Of course, by all means mix and match your fundamental math courses with a small selection of interesting applied courses. There's no sense in not enjoying yourself.


How insulated is guaranteed funding from an economic slowdown? I received an offer for five years of guaranteed PhD funding. However, various sources have been prognosticating another recession for sometime soon.

Between a science-hostile administration and a recession; I would be worried about funding to NSF and NIH.

Does a (university) department guaranteeing funds to their students mean that those dollars already exist in their bank account? Even five years of a stipend is not much compared to the greater cost of research in my field. Is there any chance a few years of slow awards could affect graduate student funding?

Large universities that are offering guaranteed funds often don't guarantee where those funds will come from, simply because they cannot: the money doesn't exist yet. In my graduate program, this is what guaranteed funding meant:

Your first year was covered on a T32 training grant from NIH. This allowed you to rotate in different laboratories without those labs needing funding for you. The NIH provides these grants specifically for this purpose. If all the training grant slots were filled, some students would be admitted directly to a lab that was able to fund them starting their first year.
After rotating, you would join a lab. This lab would basically need to have funding for you, or else you would have to teach. It is important for students and their PIs to talk about funding, since some labs have new grants or several grants and can pretty much slot out a PhD student's entire time in the lab; others have funding expiring soon and the student and advisor need to have plans if that funding falls through.
At any point, most students would apply for outside funding, and some would get it. Even though funding was guaranteed, applying for and receiving grants looks good for your resume.
Students were required to TA at least one semester; many would TA more if they were interested in teaching or to cover breaks in funding in their labs. Usually these would be negotiated with the students and students could time their TAship to coincide with a low funding period in their lab if necessary.
In rare cases, students in labs that failed to secure funds continued their research with funds from another lab, perhaps changing their research project. The program would consider these hardships when granting the PhD degree, and it might result in a thesis that's less cohesive - that's just part of life.

Note that most of these steps didn't really involve the guarantee, it just involved there already being money around the labs that make up the program to fund students. Guaranteed meant that the program would be your advocate and would find you funding of some sort if other sorts fell through. They would find a way to get you a TAship if you couldn't get an RA. They would ask someone else to give up their TAship for you if they could get funding from their lab. They would find a way to stretch funds from one part of the budget to another to make sure you graduate. They would use training grant money for you to finish your final semester. The money wasn't in a pot set aside for you at the outset, but in the fungible world of money, the university was committing to support you. Guaranteed did not mean you could work in any lab of your choice and work towards any research project of your choosing, but it meant that lack of funding would not be an absolute reason for you to be unable to continue in the program over your first 5 years.

Every program will differ in terms of what types of support are available: TAships, RAships, PAships, fellowships and other funds. Funding guarantees are important, but so are the sources of those funds, and this should be an open conversation throughout the application process.

As raised in the comments, there are situations where even 'guaranteed' funding can be revoked, since the guarantee almost certainly comes with basic strings attached such as continued progress in the program, not violating a code of conduct, etc. That said, this sort of guarantee from a reputable university program is putting their reputation on the line to get you funded. They will only break this promise if necessary or justified. No employer is likely to ever provide you a stronger guarantee.

I started graduate school around the last recession; ultimately, the recession and associated funding cuts meant in some of the years after me the program admitted fewer students than typical over a couple years, but no one went unsupported.


Shoud I accept an offer as editor of a journal as an undergraduate? I’ve recently received an offer from a reputable (but not top-tier) journal in my field asking if I would like to serve on the editorial board. I believe they reached out to me based on my publications in the area.

Although this would be great experience and a way to get more involved in the community, I’m not certain if I’m qualified for the role. What would you consider while making this decision?

No, you should not accept an editorial position as an undergraduate, or as a graduate student.  It probably will not be good for the academic community, and it almost certainly won't be good for you.  There are multiple clear reasons:

Editorial work is service to the professional community.  To be done well, it requires a significant time investment.  Early in your career (meaning: until you get tenure), your time should be focused as much as possible on research.  Senior people in your field usually recognize this and editorial positions are usually offered to people at the associate professor level or higher.
The journal is probably not reputable.  I know I'm contradicting your claim, and I may be wrong in your particular case, but I will be right in saying this at least 99% of the time.  Very few undergrads know what journals are reputable.  I received a few invitations to editorial boards as a student, but not from any reputable journals.  No reputable journal in my field has a student (undergraduate or graduate) on their board.  Even if the student were brilliant (or especially in that case) point #1 above would dictate that they avoid this.
You aren't qualified.  Again, you may be the most brilliant person in your field, but that's not the main requisite for editorial work.  To be a good editor you need extensive experience in reading and writing papers.  You need a network of colleagues you know well whose expertise covers a broad swath of your field, who you can invite to review papers.  I've never met a graduate or undergraduate student who had both of these things already.

For context, I can think of a brilliant friend who published a lot of papers as a student, won prizes for some of them, and even skipped the postdoc phase, going straight into an assistant professorship at a top-notch research university.  He certainly wasn't qualified to be an editor when he was a grad student, and accepting an editorial position before he became an associate professor would have been a mistake, for all the reasons above.

Note also that if the journal invites you to apply for an editorial position (i.e., if you need to send them a CV) then the journal is not reputable and you should stay far away.  Respected journals will know who you are and have already considered carefully before inviting you to the editorial board.

You probably should not accept an editorial position when you are a postdoc, and you should perhaps think twice about it as an assistant professor.


Sharing past exam papers with friends I am a PhD student and we have a whatsapp group with all previous students from over the years.

I was trying to earn some good karma and offered to provide past exams.

I was always frustrated when other students didn't have them so I decided to provide them for free.

I, unfortunately, sent them from my university email account and I now have a potential misconduct charge.

Any advice?

If anyone notices then you may be in trouble. You will have to deal with that if it occurs. Since you are "guessing" then it may not be clear that any actual rule, as opposed to an implicit expectation, was violated.

However, it would be helpful to your university for the future to clarify policies in writing. My suggestion would be that the policy make clear that all old exams are explicitly open for use and study. The opposite policy/assumption seems unrealistic in the extreme. Professors will need to deal with the fact that giving an exam is like "publishing" it and adapt future exams accordingly.

I note that a number of universities do, in fact, treat old exams as if their contents is available and well known. It makes the professor's job just a bit harder, but, again, the opposite assumption assumes they are a bit lazy in coming up with ways to determine the knowledge of their students.

There are also universities that would treat such things as a serious violation. Some of those, and I would hope all, ask the students to formally sign an Honor Code, listing what is allowed and what is not. Violations are serious, but there is clear notice at the beginning of the course of study.

If you want to short circuit any sanction, though what I suggest is a bit risky, I realize, you could bring up your actions to the faculty on your own and suggest that the policy be clarified if necessary. If the policy wasn't clear to you ("I'm guessing...") then it isn't clear to others. This disadvantages some students in a way that can easily be avoided.

But it also sounds like your university has a permissive policy about exams, from your statements about the library. If there were "violations" it would seem to me to be those of students who would remove materials so that they aren't available to others.

But you will need to asses the risk of coming forward unbidden.


Manuscript in pipeline, corresponding author between jobs What happens to manuscripts needing revision while the corresponding author is between academic jobs?

Not every academic will always find a new position seamlessly after the previous one. For example, PhD students may still have papers in the pipeline after finishing their PhD, before finding a post-doc. What do academics do when a manuscript needs revision under such conditions? Note that I'm exclusively thinking of people who do aim to remain in academia; if people leave academia, the situation is different in any case.

Some alternatives I can think of:

Wait until one has a new position. This implies a considerable delay, possibly meaning resubmitting a manuscript needed only minor revisions.
Make another co-author corresponding author.
Finish it in their own time. This might have practical issues; for example, they will have no affiliation and might not even have an academic e-mail address (depending on how quickly the previous institution removes accounts).

There may be other alternatives that I'm not thinking of.

What are peoples' experiences about this?

Finish it in their own time (that is, if they want to) The only downsides you mention are of a practical nature. I'll explain below why they are not actually relevant.

You don't need an academic affiliation in order to publish in journals. But, I believe you might have a misconception of the affiliations listed on paper: affiliations listed are institutions that provided resources for the job. In particular, while your current employer should in most cases be listed as an affiliation, it doesn't mean that stops when you leave. If part of the work was performed with their resources, they should be listed as an affiliation. In particular, if your performed at least part of the work under their employment, you should list them.

As a special case: if an author (not just the corresponding author, but any author) has a new employer, but the work was entirely done without their resources, it is not an affiliation but they can usually be mentioned as a footnote with the text “Current address”.


What are potential PhD funding sources for international students in UK? There are several answers available on Academia but all of them are 4 to 5 years old. That is why I am re-asking this question.

I was looking for a PhD in UK and contacted a professor of my interest. He's agree to take me but he said he doesn't have funding.

I searched over internet for potential funding sources but I could not find the one which is completely covering all of the expenses. There is one studentship available but it will only cover fee at home/EU rates, which are much less than international rates. Moreover, I can't apply for commonwealth scholarship.

What are other potential PhD funding sources?

Edit:

The field of study is physical sciences, physics to be exact.

Most universities in the Russell Group provide a scholarship for PhD students in natural and mathematical sciences. Nevertheless, they tend to be very competitive, and, for obvious reasons, there is preference to UK and EU students. Usually, a professor/lecturer writes a project, and if it is approved by the department, a PhD student can be fully funded. It may be the case that your potential supervisor does not want to do this as it is time demanding or the project is not a priority in his/her agenda.
Another way of finding a fully funded PhD studentship is to look for projects that fund an international PhD student. These tend to be less restrictive in terms of your nationality. You can find hundreds of opportunities at:

https://www.findaphd.com/


Teaching at university (pathway 3 and teaching-oriented positions) In England, in principle, there are three pathways to professorship, or in general to teaching permanent positions at universities. The third one is for academic staff whose responsibilities are primarily to cover essential teaching, educational needs and, for more senior grades, pedagogic research.

But, in practice, scientific faculties do not allow almost anyone to get a professorship that way. In Bristol, in particular, I only know of people in the Graduate School of Education having become professors through pathway 3.

Is there in Europe a real possibility, in disciplines like physics, mathematics, engineering, to work in academia as a university lecturer primarily?

One way of rephrasing this would be:

Are there in any European countries any teaching-oriented positions in scientific disciplines at universities?

Many places in Europe try to follow US examples, and that involves promoting research first, as a way of educating the faculty itself. Of course a acclaimed handbook author like Tom Cormen would almost always get the job anyway.

It is noted that there is many more postdoc positions than professorial positions worldwide.
Even if there are professors that focus mostly on teaching, they would not be advertised by universities trying to attract research funding.


Ph.D. work seems like a drag sometimes, is this normal? I am a math researcher working in number theory. During my college years I heard all the stories of great mathematicians, icons of the subject who dedicated most of their time to mathematics research (think Gauss, Euler etc). And that motivated me. I always seemed to do well in math at college. I secured top ranks at  graduate and undergraduate exams. I cleared the national entrance exam in mathematics (CSIR, India) and got admitted into a Ph.D. programme. Now that I'm pursuing a Ph.D things are not as I had envisioned. There are days where I just don't feel like it. Some parts of math are hard and it seems like a drag. Also I conduct classes thrice a week which I am not enthusiastic about and on some days I just don't wanna do it.

I have this idea of a perfect job where you come in to work everyday and are captivated by what you do and everything just flows. But that's not what I am experiencing. Is this normal? I’m confused. Its not like I have lost interest  rather that I'm not as in to it as I would like to be.

This is quite normal - it is possible to be passionate about the topic, but at times, to be not so enthusiastic about the work involved.  This could be a sign that you are need of a bit of a break, or in the worse case, heading towards a burnout.

A few things to reflect on:

Are you getting enough sleep, exercise and eating well?
Are you making time to visit and go out with family, friends and other like-minded academics?
Are you giving yourself some time out to pursue other interests and hobbies?
There would have been times that the greats of the topic felt the same.

These greats of the field more than likely had days when they also could not be bothered.

Specifically, why not consider the following:

The days when the mathematics is very difficult, take these as challenges (rather than hurdles) to accomplish (rather than just overcome)
Teaching the class could be opportunities to refine your mathematical (and mathematical communication) skills and similar type of skills.
Is there anything you can change to make your situation more enjoyable?

It is very normal.


What "Applicant Confidential Data Form" has to do with tenure-track positions? The data collected using "Applicant Confidential Data Form" will be used by US-based universities to monitor University’s Affirmative Action/Equal Employment Opportunity Programs as required by the US government.

I have seen that in (some) cases, faculty job applicant seeking academic job in US-based universities are asked to submit this form after they successfully submitted their initial application. The point is that, typically there is no instruction in "call for faculty member note" to fill this form and submit along with application. But the faculty search committee asks after while.

So it raises a question:

Do the faculty search committee sends this form to ALL the applicants or particular applicants who are allegedly suitable for the job. Is receiving this notification from the committee can be considered a positive sign in recruitment process?

I've received this form from hundreds of employers that later rejected me. I think schools that use it will send it to every applicant. So it doesn't mean anything except that your application was received.

I believe the reason for it being a separate form, rather than part of the application, is that it's meant to be for statistical purposes only, and should not affect the hiring procedure. The best way to achieve this is to ensure that the hiring committee never sees it. So they send a separate form, to be returned to a separate office within the institution, which holds it confidential.


best words to respond to a request for cv after graduation Last summer I did an internship in an industry for 9 weeks. It was a great experience and my supervisor was a very formal and professional lady. On my last day, she asked about my graduation date and I told her it’s just 6 months away as it was my last semester. She responded: "Send me your CV when you graduate.”

I sent her a mail today and got this reply.

“Good to see your email and glad to know that you have achieved an important milestone.
Congratulations on your graduation.
Your CV has been received and shall be forwarded to HR.

All the best for your future endeavors.”

What should be my response now? I don’t wanna sound immature  or unprofessional.
I was thinking about a thank you or something but I don’t know  if that would be appropriate.

I think it would be appropriate to thank her.  Send a short e-mail:

  Thank you.


What are the necessary and recommended practices to cite a published picture of experimental result? I want to make a direct comparison between my simulation result and a published picture of other people's experimental result.

There are a lot of morphological features of similarity, which are difficult to describe by words only, and it should be better to simultaneously put the two results in my paper instead of suggesting readers to find that cited picture themselves, so I want to make the comparison by putting their picture and my numerical result side-by-side.

Specifically,

The picture of their experimental result was an optical photograph in black and white, while my simulation result was colorized;
My target journal is different from that of the cited paper.

I did find a similar example for my reference and thus I kind of doubt that this is not a usual practice in paper writing. Could anybody suggest me what should do before I prepare such a figure and submit my paper? Thank you!

If the source is an open-access paper under a creative commons license, it's easy - copy the figure and attribute the source and license.

If not... most publishers have a system for this. The STM Association, which covers the majority of mainstream scientific publishers, has a set of guidelines for permission between its members, setting out what is reasonable to reprint, and importantly has a general reciprocal agreement that they will honour each others requests without charge. This covers both books and journals, broadly speaking.

The STM list has the appropriate links per publisher. Some have a blanket permission, others require a bit of paperwork. For example -

a figure copied from a Portland Press-published paper does not require permission to be reused;
a figure copied from a Royal Society of Chemistry published paper does require permission, but this permission will be automatically granted at no cost if you fill in the online form correctly.

You do not need to do this before submission (at least, not in the cases I've dealt with) - it comes after acceptance when you know where it will be published and you're sorting out the details.

In the majority of cases, because copyright is transferred to the publisher (or they are given a very broad license to authorise republication) you do not need to approach the author. However, you might want to anyway.

Firstly, it's polite, and I'm sure they'd be pleased to know you're publishing something building on their work. :-)

Secondly, and potentially more importantly, permission to republish doesn't mean that the publisher will send you the files. You might need to get hold of a copy of the master images rather than the version put out by the first journal, in which case you'll have to speak nicely to the original author and hope they can find them...


Can a company use a method published in an academic paper to make money? Academics do not usually apply for patents for the methods published in academic conferences/journals. Can a company use the ideas/code/results in these publications in a product they make money from? How binding the university or journal licensing is? And is the situation different for the publications that are open-access (eg eLife) vs paid-access (eg Nature)?

Any idea that is in the public domain, is in the public domain and anyone can do what they want with it. The same goes for results.

Code is a little different, and will be covered by the appropriate copywrite laws, and many pieces of code will have a software licence that has to be adheard to. But thats just the code itself, not the algorithmns implemented in the code. Which are public.

There is no difference in this regard between open-access and paid-access journals.


Does a PhD student need a co-supervisor? I am a few months into my PhD and my supervisor and co-supervisor are close friends.

Unfortunately, I find that my co-supervisor is not useful – he doesn’t provide any help or input into my project. Additionally, he has given me a hard time on more than one occasion, e.g. making a derogatory comment about the source of my PhD funding, not including me in discussions with his other PhD candidates (although I was physically present), and asking me to buy items for another PhD candidate using my budget.

I would like to stop being supervised by my co-supervisor, but I have not yet built a relationship with another academic that I could ask to take the role.

Do I need a co-supervisor? Can anyone recommend ways I deal with this situation?

The direct answer is not a PhD students does not need a co-advisor. The problem here is to think about the role of co-advisors. I am sure the view on this varies so my view is coloured by situations with which I am familiar, which is the US and Sweden. Co-advisors may be involved because they have specific expertise that may be relevant to part of the work, for example specific investigations, lab work ec. Co-advisors may also be there to provide overall scientific expertise and provide feedback on written articles or the final thesis or both. Hence a co-advisor may not be very active when you start your PhD. At the same time by signing up as a co-advisor, I would expect the co-advisor to be open for discussion during your time as a student but it may fall on you to initiate such contacts when you need it. The main advisor is, after all, the one responsible for the direction of your work within your thesis topic.

So while one does not need a co-advisor, there are many instances where such support is necessary or at least very useful.


PhD first-year transfer including credits I'm currently in graduate school A as a first-year student. However, due to some personal reasons, I really want to go to another graduate school B, also as a PhD student.
I have been accepted by B now. The application portal I used is not specifically for transfer students though. So, is it possible for me to transfer my credits earned at A to B? And how should I begin this discussion with my current advisor that I'm leaving for non-academic reasons? Thank you in advance.

I can add to this a bit more about credits if needed (as per my comment), but for your advisor, I'd just open with the fact that you need to change programs for non academic reasons and that you would be happy to discuss it with them. If they need more information then they will follow up. Otherwise there isn't really a need.
But it would be good to leave on good terms with them. As a first year student you probably don't have a deep relationship yet, so it may not matter, but anyone and everyone who has a good opinion of you can be an asset going forward in your career.


How to work with teammates who shoot down ideas in order to avoid work? I am working with two fellow graduate students on implementing some algorithm for data extraction. We are in the mid-phase of our project and we still have roughly a month (20 days to be precise) to go before it is due.

However, recently I have been confronted with a pattern of negative, and frankly quite arrogant behavior.

Whenever I suggest something that can help out with the project, they will quickly shoot down the idea. It has became more and more apparent that they do this in order to avoid having to work on, or research the idea.

For example, our algorithm is very slow on a standard CPU, I told them that the algorithm may run hundreds of time faster on a GPU. Obviously we do not have a GPU, so the team will need to contact people to find an efficient GPU, which is something that is available in our school, and also figure out how to run the algorithm on it.

The idea was immediately shot down, at first they told me it was impossible to get speed up (this was at the very early stage of the project and they were not familiar with how a GPU works). Eventually, they realized not only you can get speedup, but also a significant amount. When I made the request again, they told me that it is probably not going to worth it. How can they know if we have not tried?

This came up again just today. I told them that the data extraction model is not very efficiently stored, that is, the data structure storing the model does not have a very desirable insertion and retrieval time. The way of resolving this issue in my opinion is by finding a new data structure. They immediately shot down the idea and said to me that no such thing existed. I looked online and found a blog that, in a very detailed manner, lists more than 5 ways of improving on our method of storing the model. Fine, then I asked them how would they solve the issue. They told me just to deal with it until the end of the project - out of sight, out of mind. I am afraid that when we run our algorithm on the real data set (which is 100x larger than the experimental one we are currently working with), we will again run into this storage issue and we would be out of time then, at which time they will probably say something like, "who knew, too bad!".

At this stage I am beginning to wonder if we can efficiently work together. I get the feeling that they are basically telling me:

go at it alone, if you succeed, then we will free-load on the overall success of the project without having wasted our precious time, and if you fail, then you should have listened to us.

Where should I go from here?

Are you sure you are not prematurely optimizing?

You have stated that your algorithm is "very slow" and your data model is "not very efficient".  However, it is not clear that these inefficiencies will actually prevent you from delivering the main goals of your project.  You have a worry that you will not be able to scale to the necessary data size, which is a legitimate worry, but not proven at this stage.  It may turn out to be no problem.

Your colleagues' excuse-making--incorrectly claiming that solutions won't work or don't exist--is certainly unhelpful.  Nevertheless, they may be correct that these ideas are not worth pursuing.  Working on performance improvements that are not necessary to deliver the project may be a distraction from meeting the important goals.

Step one: determine for sure whether optimization is critical to the project.

Your worry about scaling to the full dataset is legitimate and important. What you should do about that worry is test on a full size dataset, as soon as possible.  If you don't have access to the real dataset yet, then make your own test data, by copying the experimental data 100 times, randomly generating data, or whatever works.

Also consider other ways that the performance may have an impact on meeting project goals, and test where it makes sense.

Step two: if appropriate, make a case for optimization on the basis of it helping deliver the project.

If you can show that improving performance is either necessary to meet your goals, or has a benefit that outweighs the cost, then make this argument.  Back up your argument with evidence (like test results).

Start with your colleagues, and if they are not convinced than discuss it with your supervisor.

However, only do this if truly necessary--and one month from your end date, you should probably only be worrying about things that are absolutely critical to completing the project.


Solution manual and copyright? Recently, I have worked out a solution manual for a book.

I have not found on the Internet any existing complete solution manual for this book.

Since the solution manual of mine contains every exercise given in the book,
my question is: In order to publish or distribute publicly this manual, do I have to first request the consent of the publisher of the book?

[Editors note: A solution manual is an accompaniment to a textbook that provides the answers and/or techniques to solve the exercises given in said textbook. Other names for these include: answers keys and teacher's handbook.]

I am not a lawyer.

You should talk to a copyright lawyer before getting into contact with the publisher, as the lawyer may be able to provide additional insight. Having someone who knows the ins and outs on your side helps in such a case, and will protect you from any issues that may arise.

As it stands, this does seem like a copyright issue, and you definitely need to talk to someone on the publisher's side before you do any publishing or distribution on your own.

The material is originally the publisher's, and there's probably legalese already included in the book that indicates the content may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

I'm sure it'd be less of an issue if the exercises themselves were not included, but even then, there's a lot of red tape you'll have to navigate.


Is it a good idea to include my professor who left academia as a reference in my PhD application? I contacted my professor to ask for a recommendation letter and I knew from him that he left my institution and asked me to use another e-mail address for him in the recommendation which is a Gmail. Will this affect the credibility of his recommendation in my application?

It seems unlikely that it would have any effect. I assume that he knows how to write a letter and explain things appropriately. The fact that he isn't an academic any more is less important than the relationship you once had and what he can still say about your prospects.

Of course, it is best if he has left a trail of accomplishments behind in his own work that will reflect on you. But he will likely know to point to that in his letter.

Don't depend too much on a single letter, however. You will want several if the institution will accept them.

People also retire, of course, and sometimes get asked for letters.


How can I find the first researcher who wrote about a specific subject I am writing my thesis in computer science and I am looking to include some references. I need to include though the researchers who first wrote about a specific subject and not others who expanded the original ideas.

I use Google Scholar for searches but there isn't an option to search for this criteria.

How can I find the first researcher who wrote about a specific subject?

I'm a little unclear about why you might want the very first, but at least in CS you have a limited history to work with.

The most detailed way to find this is to start with current papers (maybe a good review article) on the subject and to track back the references until you find the first one, paper-by-paper. If you already have a few early papers, obviously looking at their references is a better place to start. You haven't given us the topic area, but you might just ask for the earliest papers on the CS Theory Stackexchange. You might also try searching on Google by year if you are certain that you know the right keywords--binary searching the years back to 1900 or so will probably be most efficient.

Finding the right paper might be a little challenging, especially if the topic has changed names a few times since it started.

Edited to add: If you are at a university with a good library system, you might find a research librarian who does this kind of thing for a living and ask them for help.


Is it common for a mathematics Master's student to have no publications? As the title suggests, I am a Master's student with no publications. I will apply for a PhD in the USA next year so I am a bit worried that most applicants with a Master's degree have a publication. Is this (no publications in Master's) common within mathematics?

I cannot speak for the whole world, but for a master student in Europe, it would be exceptional to have a published paper already. A preprint is perhaps not completely unheard of but still extremely uncommon.


What is the consenus of IntechOpen, open access books, are they predatory? I have received an unsolicited request to write a chapter for a book relevant to my research. I have searched the current editors and they are actual people but not very well known in the field. On their website they show various logos, including web of science.

They do not seem to ask any money, but I see that sometimes go Intechopen was listed in the predatory editors. Is it still the case? Or is it because it is an open access editor that big publishers are trying to work against it?

Yes, IntechOpen is a disreputable publisher.  Do not send them your work or pay them money.


Can I share my notes of copyrighted materials on my blog? I make extensive notes on the material I encounter all over the Internet (video courses, textbooks, blogs etc). I want to make my hard earned notes available free over the Internet. But if I do that, then it won't be fair as everybody will want to read the notes and won't buy textbooks.

Is it copyright violation if I share my notes over my blog?

Needless to say, this is not legal advice about your specific situation, and if you're really concerned about this, you should consult a lawyer.

However, here are the general rules.  (Law professor here.)

Copyright protects expression, not content.  So if I read a textbook in order to learn something, and then summarize it in my own words to share that knowledge with the world, I own the copyright to the summary, the textbook author does not.
Not all text is copyrightable.  In particular, text that just represents information that can only be expressed one way isn't copyrightable.  The classic example of this is a telephone book (see Feist v. Rural Telephone Services).  But there are academic examples that would fall in the same category.  Off the top of my head, an obvious example would something like the information in a table of mathematical results (although if the table is in a novel structure, the information as laid out in that structure might be copyrightable).
Not all information that is copyrightable is in copyright.  For example, the formulas in a math textbook for a subject that's been around for a while may not be in copyright because whoever first wrote them in that form did so a very long time ago, and copyright is time-limited.
Finally, there's fair use.  That's a super-complicated subject, but broadly speaking, noncommercial uses of small amounts of copyrighted work tend to be ok for purposes like teaching and critique.  But for that, it's best to do lots more reading and tread carefully.  More information.


PhD to be advised by Mr. Enfant Terrible? I have been admitted to a generally well-regarded Computer Science PhD program.

My potential advisor's research interests match very well with mine. However, he appears to be an extremely controversial figure within the community - someone whose research always evokes strong reactions.

Some people consider him to be an innovative out-of-the-box thinker whose research is always fresh and interesting. Others, perhaps the majority, consider much of his work to be ridiculous, outrageous, and gimmicky. In either case (for both the right and wrong reasons), he appears to enjoy plenty of publicity. He is also a full professor and the chair of his department (which is a well-regarded department).

I really want to accept the offer, but these issues are making me uneasy. Should I be worried at all? What do you think? For obvious reasons, I don't want to name my potential advisor here. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

The best single predictor of your future is how your advisor's students have done in the past.  Of course, this is not entirely reliable, because you could turn out to be your advisor's most or least successful student, the job market changes over time, etc.  However, there's a good chance that you'll fall somewhere in the range of past students.

If the past students have been well accepted by the community and ended up with jobs you would like, then that's a good sign.  If not, then you should certainly be worried.

If you do work with this advisor, I'd recommend keeping this issue in mind and trying not to become too narrow.  Talk frequently with other faculty, do an internship at an industrial lab, try to collaborate with someone other than your advisor, etc.  This is a good approach anyway, even if your advisor isn't controversial, but it's especially important if you are trying to establish greater mainstream credibility than your advisor.  (You may have trouble pulling off the "out of the box thinker" approach to getting a job: even if you are as creative as your advisor, being his student can still make your creativity look derivative of his, so it's important to have another angle.)


What is the most common way to change fields in academia? If you are a young scientist, how can you change fields? Is it better to make one big leap and apply directly to a new job or postdoc or trying to make small consecutive steps during your current job? What should be those small steps?

Just for explanation - in this case it is not like a change from literature to rocket science. The change would be in one broader field and some theoretical and statistical background would remain the same. What would be the best strategy, if you have some good papers in top journals in your field, but you do not have any papers from a field where you would like to move? And there is no such laboratory in your country, so there is no personal contact.

If this is a move within the same broad area (or a closely related field) your best bet is to get or keep a job in your own field, and then begin finding research that transects both of your fields. For example, if you're in political science currently and want to shift to, say, geography, then begin by publishing research on geospatial politics until you have enough publications in geography journals to get a geography job. Often, schools will have interests in more than one field, and so a background in more than one can be a benefit when looking to advance.

What would be best is if you are in a school that has both fields of research - in which case collaborations would be the easiest way to go. I'm currently in the process of doing something similar, but I have the benefit of being in a very broad school that has both people in my own field, and people in the field I am shifting to (slowly, but surely!).


Should I highlight one of my old papers in my last 5 years research achievements, if the old paper got printed recently? It is general that most of the journals now a days publish article in online first and later give the volume and year name when they print it.

I have many papers in such case. However, I am confused to list them in recent publications. For example,

I had published 2 papers in 2012 which were in online until 2014. Then the print version came and I could see the volume name as xyz and year name as 2014.

Now I need to highlight my last five years publication in an academic form and that is also in online. As it is a mandatory case to provide volume name and year name, so my old papers are getting highlighted in my recent achievements.

I am wondering how the selection committee will look into  them?

In general which year should I write while listing those old papers in my CV?

Unless the instructions say otherwise, the "last five years" means the publication date that is written on the published paper is in the past five years.  It does not matter at all how long the paper was under review or in press.

A selection committee may see when the paper is submitted if that information is written on the paper, but they will not need that information.

Submission and revision dates are used when two papers come out from different authors which say the same thing.  Then the dates can indicate who is first.  I wouldn't worry too much about being first, though.


Is it polite to ask for your potential supervisors to help get the scholarship? I am applying for a PhD at a new university. But my grade is a little off to the scholarship line. The student service told me that I may get a scholarship, but not for sure. Now I have found two potential supervisors now. I have been working with one for years but he doesn't have much power in the university. However, another one, who he is working for and will be my main supervisor, weight a lot in the faculty. I am not familiar with the latter. Just met him once through the Skype interview. Is it polite that I ask for their help? How should I ask for the help? I am in Australia, but an international student.

It might be a bit risky and it is impossible to know what the reaction would be. However, if you actually need the scholarship in order to be able to accept any bid, then it would be appropriate for the supervisors to be told that.

If they really, really, want to accept you then it would be to your advantage that they know that you have financial constraints. However, if they are a bit ambivalent toward your acceptance, then it might be easier for them to invite someone else.

But, since you know one of them, and think he would support you, you could ask him to make your needs known to the other, rather than doing it directly yourself.

And it does no-one any good for you to hide the fact of your need.


How much time do professors have to do research on their own? As part of their job, professors have to take care of getting funding, prepare classes, advise students, fulfill administrative tasks and attend to various meetings/conferences.

How much time do professors have to carry out research on their own (i.e. excluding the above-mentioned tasks)?

I am especially interested in the field of computer science > machine learning, in the US, in an averaged-size university.

I am mostly looking for studies that try to quantify how much time professors have to carry out research on their own.

I found this small-scale, not randomly-sampled survey from Boise State University:

Warning:

  All charts below are from TAWKS Phase 1 Stats, initial survey of 30
  higher ed faculty from Boise State University. While findings are
  highly suggestive, they do not represent a random sample.

Answer to question:

  Only 17 percent of the workweek was focused on research and 27 percent
  of weekend time.

Graphs:


My advisor refuses to write me a recommendation for my PhD application unless I apply to his lab I got my master’s degree in China and had worked for two years as a visiting student in the US. Although my master thesis’s supervisor promised to write me a recommendation letter, my visiting student advisor refused. He is the corresponding author of all my publications. What's more, research experience in his lab was included in my personal statement. He said he would offer me a recommendation letter only if I apply for his lab. When I asked whether he could recommend me for other universities, he did not reply to my email. Is there any possibility that I get an offer without his reference letter? How should I explain this to an admission committee?

You will need to find another reference.

I recommend not keeping this supervisor up-to-date on your application status.

When asked why his reference was not included, probably you could just say factually and without sounding judgemental that the student advisor offered a reference only under condition that you would work for them, so you sought another reference [pretend that you do not realise what that means - coming from China, you can probably present it, if asked, as if you assume this may be the norm to only give out references under these conditions; of course, this is not true, but I think your best bet is to take the "naive" route].

You also have publications with this student advisor, so that already proves that your work is good enough to pass peer review - a direct reference from them would be nice, but is not anymore vital at this stage.


What are the things you feel that you should have known before your first postdoc position? I will be graduating by this year end and subsequently I will be doing a one year postdoc with my PhD advisor. This will be both a transition phase and also will allow me to learn a new modeling technique. Apart from the addition to my academic knowledge, publications, what should I strive for during my postdoc? What should my strategy be if my goal is either academia or industry?

Answering the question in the body (about you) rather than the one in the title (about us, it seems?):

Work on developing your own research agenda. Try to move away from the work model where your advisor tells you what to do and you do it, which is often (although not always) the modus operandi during Ph.D.; and towards asking your own questions, developing and honing your own taste of topics/techniques/areas, mapping in your mind the important and promising directions in your field, etc.

Obviously, in doing so, clear communication with the advisor about their expectations and your goals is essential. E.g. some people like to keep their postdocs on a shorter leash than others, or may have specific obligations to the funding body regarding your research.


Is there anything inherently wrong with publishing in a bad journal? There's a journal I read a paper in I wanted to respond to. The journal is open access, has no fee, and I have enough for a short paper (less than like 5 pages, there are no size limits). Writing this would take minimal time away from more important work. The journal is...not great. I don't think it's predatory (it's free to publish and is peer reviewed), though it might be.

I am a grad student. This response has nothing to do with my main research.

Would this come to hurt me later? Would people look down on me for having a short, goofy paper in a poor journal? What could they do that's dishonest? Even if they straight up steal what I write, I don't really care that much (though I would obviously not work with the journal again).

It probably won't hurt, but this is the sort of thing you should discuss with your adviser.  Since the journal doesn't have fees, it is unlikely that it is an outright predatory journal but that doesn't mean it is worth responding to. Is this in a field where responses are a normal thing? Other relevant questions: And what do the other papers in the journal look like? Are they absolutely awful or are they just mediocre? That should tell you something about how worthwhile it would be to respond.


Reputation of Masters thesis supervisor I have two options for my masters thesis  (theoretical physics), Professors A and B. A is senior and globally renowned. B is very junior but appears to be making a strong impact in the field.

When it comes to applying for PhD positions, how important is my supervisor? I'm aware that A giving me a strong letter of recommendation will carry much more weight than B, but I think I'm slightly more interested in B's work. Also, B has told me that if the project is successful it will almost definitely result in a publication. A is not so sure.

A and B are actually part of the same group. Best case scenario would be having the two of them as joint supervisors. Let's assume that isn't an option and I must choose.

In an ideal world, publishing great research with a renowned professor who writes you an excellent letter of recommendation is the best outcome. However, if you are more interested in Professor B's work, and are more likely to get published, then working with Professor B is almost certainly the better option.

There are several factors to consider here (and more of course, this is just a quick list):

Which professor is doing work I am more interested in?
Which professor will have more time to dedicate to helping me with my research?
With which professor will I be most likely to be published? (This is likely the most important point if your goal is to get into a good PhD program, and follows directly from the first two points)
How well known is the professor?

You should realize that the goal of an admissions committee first and foremost is to determine whether or not you are capable of, and interested in, performing high quality research as a PhD student (and after you graduate). That being said, you want to work with whichever professor will be able to best help them determine that. All that a recommendation from a famous professor really does is add a seal of authenticity to his/her recommendation on your abilities, as they have demonstrated that they are fully aware of the requirements of being a good researcher based on their own body of work. However, that seal of authenticity is typically granted to any professor at a respectable institution. If Professor B is performing well-received, high quality research, then their word will still be trusted by an admissions committee.

With that being said, if you think you'd be able to do great research and get published with Professor A (and are interested in his/her work) then that's probably your best bet. If, however, you are more likely to do great research and get published with Professor B, then that is almost certainly the better option. There's really on better indicator to an admissions committee of your abilities as a researcher than being able to point to your own publications. In fact, if you're able to do this, your application would almost certainly dominate other students who had not performed research / been published, but had received letters of recommendation from well known faculty.

Two last points that are worth mentioning:

You should assume that letters of recommendation of the form: "This student did well in my class" are essentially useless in a PhD application. These are often called DWIC (Did Well In Class) letters in admissions committee circles, and from my understanding, they are typically completely ignored (the committee already has your transcript, so these letters don't tell them anything they don't already know). On the other hand, a letter of recommendation saying, "This student demonstrated an ability and interest in performing high quality research, and would almost certainly be successful as a PhD student" are very valuable in a PhD application.
As user2390246 mentioned, famous professors often don't have time to work directly with master's students. If this is the case, then you're probably better off working with Professor B. Working directly with a professor is very valuable, as they can fill in background knowledge needed during your research, point you in the right direction based on your interests, and perhaps most importantly, show you how to perform great research by example. Of course, they'll also be able to write a more detailed letter of recommendation for you, as they'll have witnessed your strengths and talents first hand.


Why do supervisors hide my rights from me? the question title above is deliberately provocative.
I am in the UK. A few days ago I have explained my situation - many problems with a Department that was not able to support me adequately.

Generally, both my supervisor, co-supervisor (the co-supervisor has just become a lecturer, so he is probably just inexperienced) and head of department (who was the arbitrator during my viva, after I raised all my problems) have constantly avoided to discuss with me the reports from my examiners, just recommending (almost demanding) that I do follow those. They have constantly denied that I can appeal to a "revise and resubmit". However I have recently contacted the student service of the University, and there I was told that not only I can appeal for further opportunity to submit, but that I can also submit a complaint to dispute tuition fees liability.

Now, I can understand the latter option was avoided - nobody is happy with money, but why was the former option (appeal) completely denied rather than discussed? Do academics get some reputation issues if students submit an appeal against a "revise and resubmit"?

I don't know your institution, but it's fairly likely that the right of appeal is limited to a subset of things like:

administrative irregularities and errors (e.g. you should have passed, but the examiners ticked the wrong box).
Immediate mitigating circumstances (e.g. your parent died the night before so you couldn't present a coherent defence of your thesis)
Inherent bias (e.g. you turned up in your favourite Everton shirt and know the the examiner failed you because he's a Liverpool fan)

The precise topics should be documented (properly, on paper) in regulations available from your registry (or however your individual institution labels that service).

In particular, it almost never covers academic decisions, or problems arising from previous poor supervision advice, which is typically meant to be dealt with far earlier in the process when it first arose.


PhD selection discrepancy I've got 2 interview offers for a PhD application from 2 different professors (say A and B). Prof.A contacted me regarding the application in mid Sept. and informed me that he'd conduct an interview in mid. Oct while Prof. B contacted me a few days ago and informed that he'd conduct an interview next week.

While talking with Prof. B (via Email) today, I somehow happened to mention about Prof. A and an interview offer from him. So, Prof. B stated that he'd not be able to conduct an interview with me and informed me that I would have to go with either of the professors for an interview.

I don't want to blow my chance for an interview with Prof. B since it'd be extremely risky to just wait for an interview with Prof. A, as the result of an interview with Prof. A is not assured.

I may be chasing two hares at a time here, but I don't want to take any risks here unless they are unavoidable. So, what am I to do now?

P.S.: I've not yet contacted Prof. A regarding my situation yet.

Unless Prof B has made you a firm offer in writing, for a PhD, then he is being unreasonable. This is a terrible situation to put you in: he wants you to commit to him, withdraw all your other applications, whereas he has obviously not decided yet that he is going to take you as a student. If he takes you, then no harm done; but if he takes someone else, you're screwed. Nobody should apply to just one job... or even just two! The risk is too great. Everybody should understand this, and someone who doesn't understand isn't somebody you want to work with.

However as Dawn says in the comments, you should try to clarify the situation. Explain to Prof B that the interview with Prof A is just an interview, not a firm offer; exactly like the one with him. If he still insists that you only go to one interview... I would think very hard about continuing with him.


CS conferences not indexed by Scopus or Web of Science? I have read that there are some good Computer Science conferences that are not indexed by Scimago or Scopus, but instead they appear in sites like ACM DL, IEEE Xplore or DBLP. I have tried to find information about those conferences, but not success at all. For that reason, I was wondering if anybody in the field knows of some good conferences in CS that do not appear in the aforementioned sites?

Thanks

That is correct: most good computer science conferences have not been indexed by the standard journal indexes (maybe this will change someday, but it hadn't last I'd heard).

A good alternative for evaluating the quality of a conference or to search for decent conferences is to use Google Scholar's "venue metrics" function.  For example, searching for "programming" finds top programming-language conferences, such as ASPLOS, PLDI, POPL, and OOPLSA.  It is interesting to note that in these results, if one ignores the non-field "Mathematical Programming", the first journals don't show up until halfway down the list.

Three caveats:

The search isn't currently very smart; it's very literal in its use of words.  Thus, for example, searching "programming languages" doesn't find ICFP.
Only the top 20 venues for a given query are returned, and you can't look for more.
Some decent but highly-specific venues still don't appear.


Which free online academic plagiarism checker is closest to Turnitin? Which free online academic plagiarism checker is closest to Turnitin by quality  standard of rigour?

Turnitin features that even somebody plagiarize the context of a passage by use synonyms or simply rephrase the sentence, it is still able to catch the student cheating...

Please notice that Turnitin is not free and some of free software are not rigorous enough or even people called it a joke!

I have recently (2 year ago) done a fairly thorough search for good, free alternatives to TurnItIn. My motivation was that my school did not use TurnItIn but that does not stop me from caring about my students' work. In the end, I found all of them (and there are many) are simply terrible in comparison to TurnItIn.

I've been using TurnItIn for 2 years now and I find it quite solid (of course there are things I would change but the basic functionality works well). The system has flaws but as I see, they maintain it and when a vulnerability is found (allowing a student to game the system), they generally fix it.

Add to this the fact that most often (my) students copy from previous students, searching freely available online sources will not do a proper job.

TurnItIn has a bit of a natural monopoly so it seems unlikely that any free alternative will ever gain much market share, meaning they will not have the papers to check leading to a vicious circle.

I see you are a high school student which makes me wonder why you want to know. Without knowing your true intention, I'm afraid my answer will be less useful to you.

If your purpose is to recommend a system for your school, they need TurnItIn. If your purpose is to check your own papers, you should use TurnItIn's student version (I know, it's not free).


Why does the APA/MLA format suggest the use of double-spacing? For someone used to reading the typical single-spaced double-column ACM-styled papers, this format seems odd.
At first, I thought it's maybe because some people read better with it. However, I haven't found any evidence that suggests so.

In fact, afaict, the benefits in doing otherwise are;
less paper to print, thus saving trees.
less paper to shuffle around.
less time spent flipping pages to and fro to see math definitions because, for instance, some linear program took half a page.
faster identification of paragraphs (since double-spaces would be used only to demarcate paragraphs).

One might say that it promotes consistency. Even though I would disagree to that notion, I still don't get why they would even choose such an unwieldy format in the first place. Is this just one of those rules people don't question because "it's the way it's always been done" or am I missing something here?

You need to separate authoring the manuscript from the finished type-set layout of the journal. For manuscripts more loosely spaced single column format has been the norm. This is because before the digital age, manuscripts were handed in written on a type writer. There was no means for an author to produce sophisticated layouts. In addition, one would add comments manually in the manuscript which is why some journals also specify fiarly wide margins. The marked-up manuscript would then be sent by regular post to the editor and passed on to the author. The one column loosely spaced format has stayed although it is not necessary. That said, reading a loosely spaced single column manuscript is easier than a densely set double column format. The latter is of course more cost effective to print.

Many journals use (or at least allow) LaTeX templates for their submission. These commonly include settings for a "manuscript mode" which end up as single column, loosely spaced text but also a "layout mode" where the author can try the final format of the journal to assess the length of the finished paper. This also allows the journal to more or less automatically type set the final paper once it is accepted.

So the recommendation for manuscripts to be typed loosely spaced and single column, is partly tradition but also because that format is easier to read for the reviewer.


Consequences of applying to both research and staff positions at the same school simultaneously There are some well-known universities, which I considered applying for several positions at each school (as a recent Ph.D. graduate). The potential problem is that, at each school, some of the positions of my interest are true research positions (either postdoctoral, or research associate), but some are staff positions, despite being closely related to teaching and/or research, i.e., teaching and research assistant (or manager) for education technology platforms (course development), graduate program institutional research (which includes data analysis) and some others.

While I certainly would strongly prefer a true research position, today's tight competitive environment forces me to approach the situation pragmatically, rather than with cautious optimism (my circumstances additionally push me in that direction - I don't have time to apply first to research ones and wait for response, before applying to the staff ones). Therefore, I am thinking about applying to all positions that I see fit, regardless of whether they are true research of staff ones.

Questions:

1) are there any significant reasons against applying to both types of positions simultaneously;

2) will simultaneous applications hurt my chances to be hired on pure research positions?

At the same school, it would depend on how closely related those two positions are and how likely the same person is to see the same positions.

Let's say you are a biomedical scientist. Let's say that Professor Smith is hiring a postdoctoral researcher in your field, but the Center for Awesome Research that he works in is also hiring an administrative research role (let's say a grants coordinator) that you're interested in. The chances that Professor Smith sees both of those applications is significant, although how high it is depends on how involved in the administration of the Center he is. This could be bad. Professor Smith might think that you aren't really serious about research if you are applying for administrative roles. Likewise, the person hiring for that admin role might think you're only applying as a backup and that you really want to be a scientist. Net result is that you get neither interview.

(Now, of course, that might not happen; Professor Smith might not really care because you are excellent or reason that you are simply trying to keep options open; the admin position hiring manager may decide that this job is your true passion. Or neither may see the other's application. But it's a risk.)

Now, let's say that you apply for a biomedical research scientist position at the medical school but you also apply for a position in institutional research at the main campus. The chances that the hiring managers for those two positions will find out that you applied for the other one is probably really close to zero. So that would probably be ok.

In general, you should probably try to apply to those admin/staff positions at different institutions from where you apply for the scientist roles, but applying to admin/staff positions that are pretty separate from the science roles in terms of administrative structure would probably be fine.


How do I set goals as a graduate student? I'm a young graduate student in the physical sciences. As far as I can tell, the purpose of graduate school is to learn to become an independent researcher. This means becoming a good writer, solving novel problems, publishing good papers and becoming an expert in your field.

The trouble is that these goals are horribly vague. I have no clear idea how to get from my current skill level to that of an "independent researcher". There is some mix of learning from a textbook, reading papers, attending classes and coming up with new ideas. But I find it hard to break it down into subtasks and be deliberate with my time. Instead I find myself wandering from textbook to textbook, learning this and that, solving this small problem and that small problem, wondering if I am really spending my time on the right things.

In many other domains, it's easy to tell if you are getting better on a short-term basis. For example, in bowling you can practice and see if your score goes up. In chess, if your rating goes up. In music, if you're hitting the notes. But in research there is no such metric. This leads me to feel discouraged and unsure of my progress and myself.

What are general, realistic research goals that I can set on a daily, weekly and monthly basis?

Some of my ideas are setting a target for: number of papers read, number of practice problems solved from a textbook, number of hours spent writing about a technical topic, number of hours worked in a state of deep concentration.

The most relevant question I could find is here: Is it possible to measure/evaluate one's progress or development in quantitative terms?

Becoming an independent researcher is hard, and is nearly impossible to do on one's own, which is why one has a Ph.D. advisor, to give structure, guidance, and advice (hence the name!). Plus, in the physical sciences, one typically is part of a research group that also serves as an intellectual home. Even if you're a beginning student, taking classes and not yet part of a group, it's very good idea to start to associate with faculty and more senior students; it's (probably) enjoyable as well as useful.


Which topics to include in a teaching presentation? I have been shortlisted for a lectureship position. The committee has asked me to present a 10 minutes (!) lecture on teaching game development topics to undergrads. My teaching experience amounts to TA roles during my post-doc and PhD. I am familiar with the topic however at this career stage I have not yet had the opportunity to manage a university course on my onw.

Given the time constraints, what would you (search committee) want to see in one such presentation? The overall course structure? Assessment/project ideas?

My content area is biology, and our major biology education research journal recently published a nice overview on this (open-source reference at end). Hopefully the results are relevant for your field as well.

Make sure content is correct
Follow instructions (keep to time limit and topic)
Make the topic relevant (bring in a hot topic from research or news)
Involve the audience (have an activity or "clicker question")
Have teaching slides or use the board

I'd recommend trying to find a course (at the interviewing school or at a similar institution) that has an online syllabus so you can see how much is normally covered in a lecture. Then your first slide can be one that shows how you would cover the day's content, but places your 10 min talk in context. This is helpful if the "fun" part you want to do is in the middle of the imaginary lecture.

Then, pick something from the course that you think you can create an activity about. Can the audience develop something? Vote on an aspect of the code? Work in groups to find three common errors in a short piece of code? (I'm flailing around here, as game design is a mystery).

Build your lecture around that activity. Have the activity near the beginning. Plan on everything taking at least twice as long as you think.

Be enthusiastic.

Congratulations on the invite, and good luck!

Smith, M. K., Wenderoth, M. P., & Tyler, M. (2013). The Teaching Demonstration: What Faculty Expect and How to Prepare for This Aspect of the Job Interview. CBE-Life Sciences Education, 12(1), 12-18.


Is there any way to only do research after getting a Ph.D.? I'm currently a Master's student in my final year and I want to start a Ph.D. next year. I really like doing research (one of my papers got published in a fairly reputable journal), but I more or less dislike the teaching aspect that comes with the Ph.D. title. Is there any alternative way to do research, outside of industry, and not be obligated to teach?

Yes. There are national laboratories like the US DOE labs (Sandia, Oak Ridge, Los Alamos, etc), non-profit independent labs, industrial labs, and even university labs like the one I work at. You will find that many of these kinds of labs have some sort of service mission instead of teaching, but others are purely research focused. For example, researchers in my group also support users of our supercomputers when they run into problems. There are lots of these non-academic research opportunities out there in the STEM fields. I think there are probably many less in non-technical areas.


A theorem exists in a book but not in a journal - is this considered as a publication? When I was undergraduate I proved something which was non trivial (but I have to be honest, it was not something very important) in mathematics and i presented it to a professor at the university. He found it correct and he included the theorem in his new book (it was new - this happened in 2008) with my name along the theorem. Now you can find this theorem in another book published from Springer.

I was wondering if this is considered as one of my own publications.
If I submit it to a journal, should I mention the situation with the books?

First, you should take pride in proving a theorem that was significant enough for someone to attach your name to it. Even if it was "not very important", as you say, it was still enough to be worth mentioning. Not many undergraduates achieve that.

When you submit to a journal, you don't submit a theorem, of course -- you submit a complete paper. A typical paper has more than one theorem, unless the one theorem is particularly good. In this case, if you describe your theorem as nontrivial but "not very important", it seems unlikely to make a paper on its own.

If you write a paper, you could certainly include the theorem in question. Because the original book attributes the theorem to you, everyone knows it's your theorem, so there is no issue with 'stealing credit'. In the paper, you could say something like

  The following theorem has appeared in Smith [1, Theorem 4.5].

just before you state and prove the theorem.  This sort of thing is routine, and as long as the theorem fits nicely into the paper it is unlikely that the referee will complain.  To answer part of the question, you should mention that the theorem has appeared in the book already.

At the same time, you will need to make sure that the new content of the paper is enough to merit publication (that is, the previously unpublished results that you put in your paper).   As you read more papers in your area, you will get a better sense of how this works in practice.

I think you have also asked whether you can include the book in your vita. The answer is no. But at various times you are asked to write a research statement or research narrative. Because the book attributes the theorem to you, you can state and take credit for the theorem in your research statement. This is particularly relevant if you are applying to graduate schools.


Is it generally accepted to take months off (unpaid) during a PhD? Currently I am finishing my masters degree program in Life Sciences / Biotechnology by doing an industrial internship. After having obtained my degree, I would definitely like to do a PhD if I can find an interesting project in a location where I would also see myself living for a couple of years.

Another, non-career related ambition of mine is to go travelling for a couple of months. Now most would say that the time in between obtaining your degree and starting a PhD would be perfect for this, however, at the moment I lack the money to be able to make such a travel.

One option that came to mind would be to start a paid PhD program, which would me allow to save up some money to start a travel. Now the question is: would it be possible to take months off from my PhD work in the middle of the program? Note, I am not looking to spare up free days and use them all on this travel period, I would intend to take a real period off (and not be paid as a consequence).

I do realise that if this is possible at all it will be very specific and varying between different programs/supervisors/institutes, but I am looking for the general view in academia on this topic.

Edit: the geographical location where the PhD program would be done, is most probably Europe.

This is almost completely dependent on two things:

Your departmental policies and program structure
Your advisor

In the US, most programs (all of the ones I'm personally aware of) work on a 9-month academic year schedule, so there's generally 2-3 months a year left over. This is a time that is variously spent on research, conferences, teaching appointments, or internships, so you generally want to be on the same page as your advisor (and department) on your plans.

Not all doctoral programs run this way, though, so if this is important to you, you should ask current students, potential advisors, and administrators in prospective programs how this generally goes.

As to affordability, that's really up to you in how cheap you want to (and are able to) live, choosing programs that are in affordable areas, and availability/pay of internships in your field.


Policy regarding grouping of papers in Google Scholar Using Google scholar, a researcher can generate a public webpage where all his papers and citations are presented.
Because Google is far from perfect, it is possible to group some papers. For instance if the same paper is (wrongly) seen as two papers by Google scholar, it is possible to make a fusion : the two papers are now a unique one, and the citation are recomputed accordingly.

My question : when there is a conference version, an extended journal version and possibly a invited conference version of the same work, is it best to merge all the versions or all the papers are to be considered different ?

One rule of thumb would be that any set of related papers that would be considered separate for a paper CV should be considered separate in what amounts to an electronic CV. Especially if one version clearly contains more material/data/argument than another one.


Do measurement protocols belong anywhere in the scientific publications? My research as a starting PhD student currently consists of reproducing and building upon the experiments carried out by other research groups 5--10 years ago. To this end, I have developed a number of measurement protocols, that is, step-by-step instructions how to clean samples, how to carry out microscopy measurements, how to troubleshoot experimental errors.

I haven't seen this kind of information published or linked in scientific publications. Even the supporting information typically has a couple of graphs, a more verbose explanation of the materials and methods part, sometimes, a dataset, but nowhere close to step-by-step instructions. However, I feel that having this kind of information available will be a good help to other researchers, maybe to new researchers, and will serve to the reproducibility of the experiments.

Do these measurement protocols belong anywhere in the realm of academic publications? I have thought of publishing them in the online supporting information for the article, or in my PhD thesis, possibly as an appendix, or in my academic blog; which of those is popular / recommended way of publishing those protocols?

Research field is Physics / Material Science, if it matters.

There are a bunch of journals coming out for methods now, e.g. Methods in ecology and evolution.  Methods work is increasingly seen as a contribution in its own right.

On the other hand, it sounds like you may be writing quite an excellent review paper, and in that case you might include (unusually!) a methods section in your review article, and mention your methodology as one of the contributions in the article's abstract, intro, conclusion etc.

You should regardless of whether you publish the method be sure to include it as an appendix or part of the methods sections on your papers you use it on.  All papers need to be reproducable.  If you haven't published the paper featuring it yet, you will need to describe the full method in the first paper that uses it.  The editor will tell you whether to put this in electronic, appendix, or methods, don't worry too much on submission.  If you have already published it, you can just cite that publication and any differences / improvements since the publication.

Go ahead and blog it too.  Different people read blogs from papers.  Some people prefer to wait until they've got it published and past peer review before you go public on a blog.  But unless I thought the method itself was going to get me into a journal with an embargo (e.g. Nature / Science – unlikely!) I would probably blog it now.  I'd do that with the caveat on the top of the blog post in bold that it hasn't been published yet, and then another caveat at the bottom of the post in italics asking for feedback.  When your papers get published, be sure to go back and edit the blog post, edit out the caveats, and link to the new paper(s) so people who find your blogpost will cite your papers.


Is it ethical to limit marks based upon past performance? A professor has a habit of starting oral examinations by asking for or looking up grade averages and grades from other subjects and then taking them heavily into account when evaluating the student in question. For example, I was allowed to be even considered to get an A in Real Analysis III, because I got an A in Real Analysis II and had a good overall grade average.

Is it ethical or helpful to ever consider student's performance outside the course? If not, what about subjects tightly interconnected? But then, most mathematics is interconnected in one way or another...

What you describe is, in my opinion, horribly unethical!

Yes, past performance is often a predictor of present performance, but there are so many other factors involved as well.  What if a student did poorly before because of any number of reasons, but have since stepped up their work, caught up, and really mastered the material?  Or what if the student has been focusing heavily on this subject and has consequently fared more poorly in another subject?

It is manifestly stupid and counter to the entire notion of education to ignore good work by a student in one location simply because the student did bad work in another course or another time.  Ethical violations are a different matter---it is reasonable to be suspicious of a student with a history of cheating---but grading a student poorly for having the audacity to exceed expectations is a rank betrayal of the most basic responsibilities of an educator.


Is an undergrad travel grant relevant to a CV? Last year, I presented a poster at a major conference.
My lab didn't have the money to send me, so I applied for and received an undergraduate travel grant from my university's office of undergraduate affairs.

Is this a relevant and/or important thing to list on my resume for future scholarships and grad apps?

Giving a poster talk at a major conference is certainly important in your CV. If the travel grant to go to the conference was based on academic excellence, then it should also be included in the CV. If it was a lottery, or based on non-academic merits it might be irrelevant. Nevertheless, even in the latter case, it doesn't harm to put it on your CV as it shows some initiative and dedication.


Legal matters: making non-open access content available publicly (mathematics/software context) I would like to understand if it is legal to make publicly available results/substantial parts of the content of a journal article/book that is not available in the public domain in the context of certain specific use cases that are described via examples below:

I use an algorithm that was recently published in a (non-open access) journal article in my software and provide the description of the algorithm in the documentation (expressed in my own words). The algorithm is not patented in any way and there is no software associated with the publication of the algorithm. I release the software under one of the open-source licenses, thus making the algorithm and its description publicly available, perhaps for the first time. Would I be doing something illegal?
There exists software that can be used to formalize mathematics. Examples include Isabelle, Coq, Agda. In general, such software can be used to translate mathematical argot to a (human readable) formal language. Suppose, I use one of these software packages to formalize a (non-open access) book, almost as it is written. I guess, this process could be seen as a translation of a book from one language to another. However, keep in mind that the original work is not a work of fiction, but mathematics. What would be the legal perspective on the matter of making such "formal proof document" available in the public domain?

I'll answer the first question because that's what I'm familiar with. Copyright attaches to a concrete piece of text (or other ways of dissemination, such as music, but that's not relevant to us here). So, in your context, that would be (i) the paper that describes the software, and (ii) the source code of the software. But it does not apply to the idea that is behind the software, and consequently the copyright in the paper that describes the software does not also cover the software itself (unless, of course, you have put the software into supplemental matter for the paper and signed over copyright for that as well -- but you said that you didn't).

As a consequence, even though you have published the paper about the software, you still have the copyright of the software and can do with it as you please -- including making it open source.


What to do with my ideas as an undergraduate Long time lurker first time poster (to this specific Stack Exchange that is). I think its best to start with some context:
I am currently an undergraduate student at a fairly decent computer science school in the US. Over the past few years, I have been extremely fascinated with certain subfields of CS and have been self-studying on my own as well as reading new research papers (just keeping up with the literature in the field I guess you can say). Over the months, I sometimes get some ideas that I think can offer either a. improvement over some result or b. an entirely new, novel approach (more of the latter). To be more specific, at my level of knowledge in the subject, any idea that I have is usually 'applied' (i.e. using computational techniques to solve a problem in another field). I have a bunch of ideas. I am well aware that most are probably not good at all, but I reckon that some have potential (I would also like to clarify that I am not - not even close - claiming that I've found some magical solution to a well known problem like the P NP problem).
So here is the concern I am addressing:
With the pandemic, it is has been quite difficult to collaborate and form connections (especially at the undergrad level for research). I also don't think I have enough theoretical rigor to formally write about a paper, run the code, and publish by myself. I also dislike the feeling of waiting a few years until I gain some more skills and knowledge for two reasons: a. the longer I am removed from my original thought, the less likely it is that I will recall what exactly I meant at the time and b. the (admittedly probably not that high) risk of someone else publishing something similar before me.
In sum, I have thought of a couple of methods for addressing this concern that include emailing around to get some more senior collaborators (I am assume this is the recommended approach) and also this:
What if I post my initial results and/or raw ideas on something like a blog? More specifically, what sort of intellectual property can I claim? Would such material be citable in actual papers? Or would doing this effectively just give away my thoughts for free and allow someone else to take on the initiative without ackowledging my work? If some writeups are longer, serious, and paper-like, can such things be linked on Google Scholar, DOI, etc.? I have come across several posts of similar nature that include things like Bibtex citations at the end (examples: here, here, and here).
So... what advice would you give? Again, I am very young in terms of the academic world, but I don't want that to be a hindrance—I just feel a little weary not actively pursuing my ideas.

Ask your professors if it would be possible to do an internship over the summer.
If you're an undergraduate student who is really eager to do research, and you've demonstrated your academic talents in your studies, I think that your best course of action would probably be to contact your professors and ask them if it would be possible to do an internship with them over the summer. Many universities have summer internship programs for undergraduates, and your professors might be able to point you in right direction for applying for one.
Then, once you've finished your undergraduate degree, if you've still got a desire for academic research (rather than going into industry to solve problems in "the real world"), you could apply for postgraduate study at your university of choice, and having completed a summer research internship would likely assist you in that.
If you really want to be taken seriously in academia, I would strongly recommend that you do a postgraduate degree; it's very easy for "independent researchers" to wind up getting written off as quacks because they often lack the skills to properly write a high-quality research paper. You're in computer science, however, so if you wind up employed by a company in industry who is performing research in an area, you might be able to use your company as your affiliation to get started in academic publishing rather than that of your university.


What exactly counts as an 'unofficial transcript' for graduate school admissions? At my school, I can request an official transcript to be emailed to me, and it comes addressed to me at the top, with a COPY watermark all over it. Since this doesn't go directly to the graduate school, would this count as an unofficial transcript? It contains the classes taken, my grades and so on.

One thing though, is that at my institution, first year grades don't 'count' per se, so they don't appear on the official transcript. Instead, these are all listed as SC [Satisfactorily Completed]. Would seeing this on the official transcript be odd to a grad school admissions committee?

An "unofficial" transcript is generally considered anything that doesn't bear the "sign and seal" (or equivalent) of the issuing institution, as well as any reproduction of the official transcript (scan, photo, copy, etc.). So your "copy" would be sufficient as an unofficial transcript.

The question about "satisfactory completion" of first-year courses is not really a big deal. Different schools know that different universities have their own systems in deciding what does and does not get graded (some schools are pass/fail for a semester, others for a full year, others allow different courses across the four years to be graded that way). So long as you're not doing that with your major courses, there's probably little harm. Moreover, freshman year is the year where little stigma will be attached if letter grades aren't reported.