What is the best way of breaking a mathematical development into a sequence of articles? I am currently in the process of turning my math doctoral thesis into articles to submit to journals. This is my first time writing anything mathematical for publication.

My thesis was on the long-side, and referenced a lot of background material from areas of math that do not often communicate. (The principle field is topology, but it draws heavily on some specific corners of algebra, number theory and relativity theory that most topologists do not study.) It also has a historical component and the first result is a completion of a somewhat archaic classical idea. I then go on to develop that idea to obtain results pertinent to current active research.

Due to this, as well as the common advice of not making an article too long (especially one's first article), I am breaking my results into two articles. The first one will say something about what I intend to do in the second for motivational purposes, and lay all the groundwork, but is focused on generalizing a classical theorem. Then the second will focus on results more relevant to current topology, referencing results form the first but not weighed down by them.

My question is about what I should include in my setup at the beginning of the second article. I summarize a bunch of standard ideas at the beginning of my first article, which really does need to be there because it is not typical for someone working in any one of the fields to be familiar with the other concepts. I also introduce notation. Then in my second article I use all the same stuff, plus some more.

Is it okay to leave out a repetition of that background info, and refer the reader to my first article? I figure I should re-define any original or unusual notation, but I don't want to have all that repetition in the first section of both articles. On the other hand, I want people to read the second one, and not be off-put by being referred to the first one, or feel the background is not well established.

Is there a standard protocol for writing a series of two or more articles that develop a concept continuously, which draw upon the same set of background definitions and theorems? Would it be better to just write one very long article after all?

Each journal article should "tell a story". Break the thesis up into coherent stories.

It looks like you're already doing that. The first article concentrates on generalizing the classical theorem, and the second gives the results that are relevant to current research.

I would suggest just putting the groundwork you need for the generalization of the classical theorem into the first article (unless you can save a lot of space by developing some of the groundwork for the second article at the same time as the groundwork for the first). And you should definitely mention the second article to provide more motivation for the groundwork. But putting groundwork that's not needed in this first article will detract from the "story".

In the second article, you should include a quick review of the groundwork developed in the first article, and refer the reader to the first article if they want more details. Then add the extra groundwork needed for the second article, and  proceed to the results of the second article.

One comment from experience: if you put a result that does not fit the "story" into a paper, when people read your paper, they are very likely not to even notice this result. So it's much better to put it in a separate paper.

On the other hand, as you can tell from the comments here, many people consider it bad form to spread one story over two papers. So you should split a long result into several papers only if you can formulate it as several related "stories".


Is it okay to digitize/modify figures "reproduced from reference" in a thesis? I am a student starting preparations for a masters thesis in a U.S. research university (on a physics/materials science topic).  I have seen digital versions of past MS theses and PhD dissertations from my university, and many use figures from textbooks and/or journal articles with a line "reproduced from reference[##]" and the reference given in their bibliography.  I believe that they're counting on "fair use" rather than actually contacting the original copyright holders according to the ideas given from this MIT page and this Ac.SE page.  When reproduced this way all the figures I have seen are copied exactly as from the original document (or as close to exactly as a print-screen button will get you), but pixelation issues (from enlarging raster images) as well as inconsistent plot styles can make this appear rather sloppy, hence my more specific question:

Would digitizing a figure rather than photocopying it still constitute "fair use"?

By digitizing I mean converting a raster-image plot to x,y data and then using software to make a vector-image from that data.
Assume the data is being reproduced faithfully (i.e. data points are not being altered to sway the interpretation of the data one way or another.)
Assume the phrase "reproduced from reference[##]" is still used, or even a more descriptive phrase such as "reproduced from reference[##] and digitized for clarity".

I feel like this is still in the spirit of fair use, but still unsure whether the whole digitization process might change the legality beyond the scope of the "four-factor test" from the MIT link.

Probably, but just recall that fair use is a defense in court against being sued not a blanket permission. It's always easier to ask the publisher for permission. I don't think that tracing over a scan of the figure changes the fair use analysis at all, but you should really ask your attorney. You should always reference the source of your images whether you are tracing over it or using the scan.


Biotech: Competing Interest Statement after leaving academia I have recently started working on a Biotech startup in the biomedical field, and some of the academic collaborative work I did before being at the company now being published (several publications). This work is in basic research but sometimes it revolves around diseases and that is clearly stated in the papers. The usual "our work provides new treatment avenues for Disease X". The scope and therapeutic interests of the company are fairly narrow, however broad enough that I am concerned about the impact of not disclosing Competing Interest - I have stock options in the company.
Several hypothetical, but fairly realistic, scenarios:

The company project on Cancer and the paper is in cancer, even though one is a drug and the other is a screening / test
The paper is on immunology and there is no plan whatsoever for the company to be in that space (but who knows in 3 years time)
The paper is about aging in worms.

The question is how to handle this? Disclose that I work for a Biotech company in all of them? In none? And to phrase How to phrase? Would it be enough something like:

Jane Doe is now an employee of Biotech X

This would seem to me to be somewhat in the same class of things as citation. If you fail to cite or fail to disclose when you should, then you have problems. In the current situation, possibly legal problems. If you over cite or over liberally interpret the requirement to disclose possible conflicts, then there is little chance of problems. Consumers of research, whether readers or patients, have a right to know that the best judgement was used in such areas. Failure to disclose is a problem as it calls the honesty and motives of the researcher into question.
As you note in a comment, a conflict in itself doesn't invalidate results, but simply warns others that they need to be certain of results, a bit more than if no conflict exists.
Quite a lot of "research" was published in the climate change (global warming) area where no disclosures were made and the "research" turned out to be propaganda. The tobacco industry was accused of the same thing. But, a lot, likely most, of sponsored research is completely valid. Someone has a "need" to know and is happy to pay for the knowledge.
So, the advice I have, though it isn't my field, is "when in doubt, disclose". I am, of course, someone who could benefit or suffer from research done well or badly, so I have a vested interest in things being done right. In the pandemic situation at the moment, we all seem to be experimental subjects of one sort or another.


Choosing between a masters at a top tier university, and a PhD at a lower tier university I'm in a difficult situation, although I understand that I'm very lucky to be in this position.

I'm a final year UK chemical engineering student expecting a mid-high first class B.Eng degree from a fairly decent Russel Group university.

I'm looking for graduate studies and I have managed to secure 2 places:

The first is a fully funded 4 year PhD as part of a CDT in synthetic biology. My first year would be spent at Oxford and my final 3 years would be spent at Bristol University, which I will graduate from after that.

My second offer is for an MPhil in a similar subject at Cambridge University which they have offered to fully fund also.

I'm very unsure as to what to take. I cannot defer my PhD offer. On the one hand, Cambridge is a very good university but my fear is that if I do the masters there, I may have thrown away my only chance at a PhD, and that I won't be able to get one after that - And ideally I'd like to do a PhD at a top tier institution such as Oxford or Cambridge. On the other hand, the PhD at Bristol as a CDT, so I won't be choosing my supervisor until my second year after I finish my first year at Oxford, and I'm locking myself into a particular discipline, and to a specific list of potential supervisors for 4 years directly after my bachelors.

Again I'm well aware that I'm extremely lucky to be in this position, but any advice on what path might be the best one would be greatly appreciated.

EDIT: The specific PhD that I applied is entirely taught for its first year, which is why I am not worried about the jump from the bachelors straight to PhD.

On balance, I'd say go to Cambridge. If you do good research and write a high quality MPhil thesis, it is very unlikely that you will not get an opportunity to stay on for a PhD.


Is it allowed to re-format a post-print version of a published paper? I am finishing up my thesis which will include, among other things, a published paper. I am allowed by the journal to use a post-print version, which (if I understand correctly) is the accepted version of the paper without the journal's formatting and typesetting.

Am I allowed to redo the typesetting of this version?

The last version submitted to the journal includes line numbers and a different font to the rest of my chapters. I would like things to look consistent throughout the book. These are the instructions from the journal:

Regarding your own version of the refereed post-print only, you are free to:

post it on your personal or institutional web site and load it onto
an institutional or not-for-profit repository once accepted for
publication (access to the full text on a repository will be
embargoed for 12 months from first publication of the published
version);
use it in printed compilations of your work subsequent to
publication; and
expand it into book-length form, and/or otherwise re-use portions in
other works.

Since you obtained the permission for the journal to use a post-print version of the paper, you should be allowed to do that.

Technically, you have two options (depending also on the thesis requirements of your department/university):

add PDF pages to your thesis (which will look inconsistent with the rest of the thesis - and you are not interested in this option)
reprint using the thesis style

In the latter case, you might do the following to the page with your Chapter title (I would also make the chapter title = Paper title, but I don't think it's mandatory):

Chapter N

Chapter Title

@2000 Publisher. Reprinted with permission (Mar 15, 2003), from J. Doe, Paper Title, Journal Title, January 2000. DOI: XX.XXXX.XXX

Page break, followed by the reprint of the journal paper with thesis formatting.

Notice, it is explicitly stated who holds the copyright (Publisher or Journal) and that this chapter is a reprint with a permission obtained at a certain date (you might want to hold either to the email from the publisher or screenshot with the permissions).

That is exactly how I added my already published papers (2 IEEE conferences and 1 IEEE journal) to my thesis according to IEEE permission.


Professor creates assignment making students advocate for a bill being presented to Congress. Is this legal? I attend a public university in Kentucky (USA). My professor has assigned an advocacy assignment that requires students to write three letters of support for a certain House bill that will soon be voted on (H.R. 592 / S. 109).

The professor has given us all a template where we get to "customize" one paragraph with our own supporting statement. The letters must have our name electronically and physically signed. This bill would alter our profession and most of our college is in support of it, including the professors
The letters must be positive and supporting of the bill. The letters must be turned in to the professor for proofreading, then will be sent by the professor to our home county/area representatives.
The template letter repetitively thanks the representative for sponsoring the bill and provides background info as to why the representative should vote in favor of it.

I have emailed the professor, the dean of academic affairs and the dean of the college. The dean of academic affairs responded with basically "not her issue". (Although our student handbook specifically states she's next in line after a professor with any concern.) The dean of the college has not responded. And the professor announced to our class that the assignment is still due tomorrow at noon. Later, I requested to meet with him but his requested meeting time is not until after the assignment is due.

I actually have a neutral stance on this bill. My concern is that a professor is using his position and course to force students to take his personal stance on a bill that will have a major change in healthcare, specifically pharmacy practice. My main concern is that even if the professor doesn't send my letters, he will all of my classmates that may not have expressed their concern. (That's 140 students with 3 letters each = 420 letters sent)

Can a professor do this? Is this legal? Or a violation of students' First amendment?

I turned in my assignment with the preamble edit as recommended by some and met with the professor at his request. His response was that I would receive full credit for my assignment, he was unaware of this issue previously, the other course director and himself have not looked into this issue, he is retiring in March, and he has no regard to continue the discussion besides our conversation in his office. He then proceeded to tell me his personal life stories and asked questions about my history (i.e. where are you from? What do your parents do? What do you want to do in life? etc.)
There is no resolution at this point and he does not seem concerned. He has not edited the assignment (as my initial request to him was to make the assignment not part of his final course grade due to the circumstances of the assignment) and all other students were still required to do the assignment (3 endorsed letters, addressed, and stamped, in support of the particular bill) and turn them in to class teaching assistants to review and mail.
I have also researched university policies on such matters and he is in violation of University policy as well as violating students' academic freedoms. I notified him of this during the meeting and he had no response other than "well you've done your research, I have not."

This professor is in his mid-70s, very traditional, and is retiring in March (2 months) as I stated previously. I believe he doesn't want to deal with this issue and has no desire to take the time to resolve it. Do I contact him again? The assignment still stands and has not been altered. Students were forced to endorse political activity of a Professor or be reprimanded by a failing grade.

What do I do now?

Can a professor do this? Is this legal? Or a violation of students' First amendment?

You are 100% correct to be concerned. No, the professor most certainly cannot do such a thing; his behavior is deeply unethical and a blatant abuse of his authority. I am not a lawyer and can't comment about legality, but for a professor to coerce students to express political opinions they may not hold would certainly violate longstanding traditions of academic freedom and freedom of speech. Honestly, while the behavior may well be illegal, it is in any case bad enough that in my opinion you have more than enough ammunition to fight it even without resorting to legal arguments, so I don't think legality even necessarily matters that much.

As for how to respond, I think the emails you sent to the deans are a good start. Basically you need to alert some sensible people at your school (I am sure there are some) to what's going on and get their help with stopping the professor from sending out the fraudulent letters -- these could be student union representatives, the department chair, an ombudsperson, or all of the above. You can even consider contacting some local journalists and/or state legislators, although I would advise keeping things within the campus for starters.

In the meantime, while you are waiting for help to arrive, I would advise you to do the letter-writing assignment as you were asked and submit it by the deadline, but following the guidelines in my answer to this question regarding how to prevent the opinions you are being forced to express from being attributed to you against your will - that is, do not sign the letter, and preface it with a disclaimer in big bold letters and a verbatim quote of the assignment. The point of this is that the professor can reasonably ask you to write a letter where you advocate beliefs you may disagree with if he sincerely believes that that promotes the learning objectives of the course he is teaching, so it would be prudent of you to complete that part of the assignment in order to not get a failing grade and maintain the high moral ground in any battles that lie ahead; however, I do not believe that he has the authority to force you to pretend to endorse the letter's content. It would also be a good idea to seek legal advice, for example on law.se and/or by talking to an actual lawyer. Good luck!

————

Edit, added a bit later: It’s fascinating to me that this is taking place in the context of a course called Leadership in Pharmacy. It seems to me that by fighting this injustice you are showing a much greater understanding of what leadership is (and will likely learn much more valuable lessons about leadership) than either the professor or those among your fellow classmates who will follow the professor’s instructions without questioning them. Please allow me to congratulate you on your good sense and initiative. In my book you have already earned an A+.

————-

Also, as others have said in the comments, do come back and add an update to your question later to report on how the situation resolved itself. Further edit, added in response to OP’s update of the question: Since it looks like you won’t be getting the cooperation of the professor, I suggest continuing to send emails to draw attention to the situation. The key is to recruit allies who will be in a position to get the professor to see how unacceptable his behavior is. Some specific ideas I can think of are:

Write an email to the department chair, dean and the university general counsel in which you describe the behavior, explain why you believe it violates university policy (and why it’s illegal if you think you can substantiate such a claim). Describe your conversation with the professor and its unsatisfactory outcome, and ask for their intervention. Consider adding a threat, either explicit or veiled, that you will contact the media if no action is taken.
Alternatively and/or at the same time, try to find some classmates who are upset about what’s happening. If a good number of students band together and begin to voice loud dissatisfaction in emails to the department and university administration and/or social media, the university will be compelled to act. That will also reduce the risk that you will be singled out for retaliation.
Use social media. A single tweet or short blog post may be all it takes to attract some serious public and media attention to the story.
Get a lawyer. Official-looking letters bearing a signature ending with “Esq.” are a hell of a lot more scary to university officials than an email from an undergraduate and will command immediate respect.

As before, I think it’s advisable to try resolving the situation quietly without attracting attention from outside the campus if possible, since that carries the least risk to you of retaliation or somehow being dragged into a serious public scandal that you have no wish to be a part of. However, it seems that you are fast approaching a point where you have exhausted your options within the campus and it may well be beneficial to seek more public attention, so going public should be an option to consider seriously, while keeping in mind that that means a higher level of commitment and risk of disruption to your life.

One final piece of advice: in all your communications with university officials and/or the media, keep your tone neutral and factual. Describe facts (“this is a violation of university policy XYZ”), not opinions (“this is an outrage”, “I am deeply offended”, “the professor is behaving unethically”, etc), and let people draw their own conclusions. The facts are (very, very) strongly on your side here, and are your greatest weapon.


Should I email old supervisor about my progress? I might collaborate with an old supervisor in the future and would like to keep in touch. Is it a good idea to send an email to him about the progress I've made in my career?  Also, what's the best way to approach this? I feel like emailing just to talk about myself is a bit narcissistic -- is it?

I just did that, and I often do. If I'm honest, I don't do that as much as I should. Anyway, unless told otherwise, which, imho, would be rare, that should be acceptable/desirable.

Of course, you won't just talk about your stuff, but ask about his/hers. You do have common interests after all.

Professors are people too! There is no secret in talking to a fellow professional that you know. And, of course, never send a professor a lengthy message.

Be polite, be direct, and informative...


Pros and cons of teaching as a PhD student for non-academic future I started teaching this year. Since at the beginning the idea was just to do exercise sessions and now it starts becoming very (maybe too) time consuming with slide preparation, correction of homeworks and exams, I'm considering the idea to quit teaching.

My impression is that the time spent teaching/correcting/preparing is affecting very negatively the amount of time I spend in the research and the quality of my work.

Since from an economic point of view there are not a lot of advantages (roughly +10%), in the principle my idea was to earn teaching hours for a possible future in the academia, even without being sure about my future.

Since I have no idea about what to do after the phd and one of the possibilities is industy I was wondering whether ≈ 200 hours of teaching are seen positively from an industry perspective or if they are totally unnecessary from who is planning a future in the industry.

I think the comments on your question already give a quite clear answer: Yes! Most industries really like someone that can communicate complex concepts clearly, either to management or to their team. Teaching a course is one of the best ways to learn this.

Personal note: I once had an interview for a relevant, part-time job, next to my Master's. The job I had at the time was as a rowing instructor, with poeple having very different skill levels and ranging in age from 20 to 80. Throughout the interview, we kept coming back to things I learned there, regarding communication, conflict solving, keeping a team together, that kind of stuff. Teaching a class will give you a similar experience in my opinion and will be a very valuable skill for any employer.


Tools to assist with upper-division grading? Are there any commercial or free products that assist professors with grading students? I've seen many K-12 solutions, but these are generally without robust curve options. I've seen a lot of professors that have created their own Excel spreadsheets, but I'd like to offer something a little more standardized.

Easy Grade Pro and Gradekeeper are time-tested K-12 tools, but lack extensive curve-based grading options, like weighting, adjustments for curve compliance (ability to bump grades up but only if you're still within the curve), midterm grades only counting if they help the student, and the ability to switch to P/NP if the student is in a program that isn't included on a curve.

Some of these may be very specific to my institution, but I'm looking for a starting point at least.

It seems like Gradekeeper remains the go-to program. So if you want to do something more sophisticated you probably want to think about working up some macros in Excel. For example, this post has some good example macros. There were three extensive discussions of gradekeeping software on Profhacker that you might want to skim. One on gradekeeping programs in general, one on a neat iPad app called GradeBook Pro and one that focused on a few cloud based apps for grade keeping. None of these seem to really do what you want, and with any of these you probably want to talk to someone at your institution about any policies they might have, particularly for something like a cloud app or an iPhone app regarding where student grades are kept and FERPA.


What to do about repeated PhD rejections? I'm a prospective graduate student in political science with a strong GPA and research interest in climate change and environmental conflict. My challenge is that I have been finding it difficult to get into a PhD programme. I have been applying since 2018. This year I hoped I would get into my desired choice but I was rejected due to my low GRE score. I don't want to take the exam again but political science departments seem to strongly value high GRE scores.  What can I do to improve my chances of acceptance?

I know that you want us to say "It will all be ok", but it may just be true that either (i) you have to take the GRE test again and get a better score, or (ii) change your approach to applying. The fact is that apparently things haven't worked out with your current approach, and so to keep trying isn't likely going to yield different results.

So take the test again, with more studying, and get a better grade. And/or, broaden your scope. Of course everyone wants to get into their favorite graduate program, but not everyone can. So apply to other programs at other universities and see how that goes. You don't have to go to Harvard to get a good education, nor do you have to go to Harvard to have a productive career and a job you're happy in. There are plenty of places that will give you a shot at all of these, and that are less selective.


What is the ideal age to get a PhD? There have been a few "how old is too old to get a PhD" questions, and I don't intend this to be a duplicate--they were more focused on age from an actual admissions standpoint.

While I'm interested in general to hear people's thoughts on the question I posed, I'll also give my own current situation, in case anyone has thoughts here:

I'm currently 25, 2.5 years out of undergrad. I got my MS degree directly after undergrad, which took 1 calendar year/3 semesters. So I've been at my current job at a research org for 1.5 years now. My current plan is to apply for my PhD at 27, so I'd be starting at 28. I think this is the ideal amount of time to improve both my skills and my CV, but isn't too long that I will be middle-aged when I finish and have a more difficult life adjustment as a PhD student, and have less time in my post-PhD career. If it makes a difference, I'm in the social sciences/public policy field.

Thoughts? Am I dumb to wait until my late 20s? Should people all be waiting until they're 30 because they're too young and unexperienced out of undergrad? Is it undergrad-PhD straight through or bust?

There is, frankly, no "ideal" age for starting a Ph.D. There's not even a "better" time. All that is really important is demonstrating that you have an aptitude for doing research in the proposed field of study. If you can demonstrate that at age 20, great; if you've had a change of heart at 30 or even 40, and decide you want to go back to school, that's cool, too.

However, there is an advantage in doing it sooner rather than later—adjusting back to "student" habits is easier when you're closer to finishing your undergraduate than when you're older. It's also usually easier to move around when you're younger than when you're older and might have a (larger) family to worry about.

But from the perspective of someone who reviews admissions applications, I'd say the single most important factor is demonstrating your potential to be a PhD level researcher. If you can do that, I'm not nearly as concerned about someone having a 3.4 versus a 3.6 or a 3.8 GPA, or a 155 or a 165 on the GRE.


Recommended citation for own photograph In my thesis I have several photographs, which have captions in the form of

Photograph of building X, taken on date by the author of this thesis

Citations to referenced papers follow the [1] (BibTeX plain) format. My supervisor suggested to cite my own photos by using the following caption format:

Building X (my name, year)

This however follows a different reference style (APA style) and may be confused with a reference to a paper. What are the recommended styles to follow for own made photographs while making sure that I am the actual producer of the photos (as I've seen theses that commonly take photographs from other sources without actually referencing the source)?

At least in the social sciences and sciences, a photograph by itself would not warrant its own citation. You would refer to them the same as other diagrams, figures, and photographs:

Figure 1.1, 2.9, 3.7
Photograph 3.0, etc.
Diagram 4.5

Most people use some form Chapter.Number series enumerating, which makes it simpler when you add additional material in an earlier chapter. Most document editors will renumber your figures for you appropriately.

Then when the photograph comes up, you would caption it appropriately.

Photograph 5.1: Crazy house on Hayarkon Street, Tel Aviv. Photograph taken by Sambach on xxxx.xx.xx. Released to Wikimedia Commons.

(If you are the photographer/author, you could simply state Photograph by Author, taken on xxxx.xx.xx).

In text, you would refer to Photograph 5.1 in the text, just like that. If you needed to, you could add an explanatory note for example to:

  Photograph 5.1 ("Crazy House / Tel Aviv") is a prime  example of what architects would call a maison folle. .... .... I would like to direct your attention to faux turret on the top  corner of Photograph 5.1 ... blah blah blah...

tl;dr: As with all things, do what your advisor suggests. However, the style I give here is more appropriate in the journals and publications that I'm familiar with.

Fine Print: If you are a fine artist and you list each piece of work (or series) in your cv as part of your intellectual/artistic output, then you could refer to your works using author (date) or other similar styles. But doing so in the sciences and social sciences (and most humanities) will just earn you a bit of scorn. I would only do so if you had solo shows, gallery representation, or some other form of appropriate peer-review recognition of your work within the artistic community. I'm guessing that is not the case since we get so few fine artists in a.se but I'm happy to expand on this if you were.
Fine Print 2: If you are an architect and you designed the building, then you are also free to cite your buildings as separate works.


Getting a 2nd bachelors or go for a masters? I majored in information systems and I deeply regret it.. I had an internship where I ended up doing some programming assignments, and I really enjoyed them. But it was also my senior year so I didn't want to switch to CS and spend another 2-3 years..

So I have been trying to take the gre to get into a software engineering program (UC Irvine and San Jose State University). But it's hard studying for it now that I'm out of school. I'm constantly trying to apply for jobs and trying to study for it. I did pretty bad the first time (148 on both quant and verbal and a 4 on the writing).

I've always been bad at these standardized tests. So not sure if I can get better scores the next time (still in the same process of trying to apply for jobs and study).

I've gotten A's in the programming classes that I've taken. It's just hard to get a junior level software engineering job because companies favor CS majors. As for internships, companies only want currently enrolled students.

Any advice? Also consider financial situations etc when giving your input.

I've done a bit of googling and found that UC Irvine offers 2nd bachelors degree in CS or CSE. Anyone know of other schools?

As for masters programs that don't require the gre, I've only found National University here in San Diego. Not sure what those type of schools are like and if they're worth it..

Sorry for writing so much, just having a hard time deciding right now.

I'd go for the masters degree. I went from a bachelors in music, to a masters in CS. The rewards of having a masters degree I feel is greater than a bachelors. And you have the ability to do that with the bachelors completed, so take advantage of it. You may have to take a few core CS courses which will extend your schooling a semester. Check the program you are interested in for deficiencies you will need to make up.

One suggestion. If it is possible for you to get a job at a university with a program you like, they may pay for your classwork to obtain a masters degree. Then you can take your time to complete the degree while working full time.
It will take you longer to complete the degree, maybe 4 years. But you'll be working, gain experience, maybe get your tuition covered, classes could potentially be in a nearby building, and have flexibilty to take a semester off if needed as a result.


What is an effective note taking procedure? I've recently started to use the onenote software to keep track of valuable concepts in different fields of interest. I have constantly found myself dubious during the note taking process. I never know whether I should copy large book paragraphs into my notes or whether I should summarize them. I have little knowledge about how to make the most value out of my note taking process. Is there any good book recommendation or resource to help me answer these kind of questions ?

You can keep 2 sub notes per topic, one of them can be composed of excerpts lifted from books/internet, the other can be on your thoughts/summary of the material.
You can use a standard numbering scheme for both notes to keep track of content; e.g. in notebook 1, 1.2.4 can be Geography>Rivers>Nile in both sub notes.
Take care to paste searchable text and not images of text, for ease of later access.


Pseudocode in Scientific Article In mathematical scientific papers, which section would I detail pseudo code or sample source code? Would that be included in an Appendices section or above under Methods?

How long is it?

If short put it in the paper
If long put it in the appendix

Can your paper stand with-out it?

If so, then it is supplementary, so goes with the supplementary materials, i.e. in the appendix
If not, then it needs to be in the paper.

If it is both Long and Required, then perhaps you are writing overly detailed pseudocode. I know the formal pseudocode I learnt in high school was detailed to the point of being executable -- which defeats the purpose of pseudo-code -- if it can be written clearly in a language that is in common use in your area (E.g. R for statisticians, Matlab for signals engineers) you can just write it in that language and avoid any ambiguity.

If on the other hand it is short and not required, it can go anywhere (Possibly even in a footnote). Though its still not required.

A common pattern, I've seen a few times is to have pseudocode, or just textual descriptions of the algorithm in the main text. Then an implementation in a real programming language in an appendix; And/Or a footnote linking to the authors website/github where it can be downloaded


What is the best methodology to select a major? (Diploma and academic courses) Alright this question needs a little more context. This is not about me but I will define the situation as if it were for myself, so feel free to ask me directly for clarifications.

I'm a German student currently in my second year of a university course that combines both teaching (to children) and art. The problem is with the actual practice during internships: I quickly realized that teaching is not for me; plus, art doesn't guarantee me stable outcomes at all, the jobs are very rare and underpaid.
So now I'm fully decided to change my course,I've already started searching by:

Looking up the available diplomas in different universities in my country, and the contents of the classes they are made of. This didn't give me the inspiration I expected, and didn't give me a relevant sense of what was really taught.
Going through various online orientation tests, but their questions are not precise or numerous enough to give me relevant tracks; most of them lead me up to the legal field, which I highly dislike.
Going through various lists of jobs, also to get inspiration and know about stuff I didn't know. But it still does not give me a solid overview of what the  careers actually entail.
Talking with as many people as I can about it, to share experience and knowledge.

But all this brought me no closer to my goal as I'm still stuck at the same point. So my exact question is: what would be the best tools/ways/methods to find and analyze relevant programs that I could enjoy, as well as their outcomes ?

P.S.: I didn't find any other relevant SE community in which I could ask this; if there are, I would be happy to move my post.

You first must determine your values, as ultimately any answer you'd find convincing must satisfy your values. Then, the problem becomes more a question of how to best satisfy these values.

Decision making skills can be useful in choosing a major, and will be useful for almost any choice you make. I'd recommend taking a decision analysis class, as I did during my PhD. The principles involved with making good decisions will be valuable in almost any endeavor.

If you want to improve the world in a very utilitarian way, the website 80,000 Hours should prove useful. The organization is affiliated with the University of Oxford and focuses on helping young people make valuable and satisfying career choices. Of course, education is a major part of this. They have a career guide that I've read a large fraction of, along with a decision tool.


What can be an exceptional record of teaching? When an academic apply for a faculty position, the main criteria of selection are usually his record of research and teaching (and other academic affairs).

For the case of research, it is straightforward: research publications, other research outputs, funding, etc.

But how one can have an exceptional record of teaching and academic affairs?

When someone has many high impact papers, he can be confident about his research records. With what records, one can be confident about his teaching/academic records?

The following points would contribute to a good teaching record:

List of courses that someone has given. Note that this shows the quantity of teaching, but not the quality. Still, I would consider it the key part of someone's teaching record, and to some extent quality might improve with quantity in this case.
Undergraduate and graduate student theses that one has supervised. Some measure of teaching quality might be how well the theses were done (e.g. prizes/publications), even though this says more about the student than about the teacher.
Teaching evaluations from students. That's probably the best way to really assess the quality of teaching.
A formal teaching qualification and any teaching prizes will be a nice bonus, of course.


My paper has been sitting with the editor without peer review, and the journal is not responding. What should I do? I'm about to graduate college and this is my first time submitting a manuscript and I need some guidance because my PI has been busy with his grant. I submitted my manuscript to Behavioral sleep medicine since January and it has been sitting with the editor and did not enter the peer review process.
I thought this was a great journal because of their metrics.
I found out it was a lie. When I looked them up on PubMed I noticed only 40 papers got published in the last year which is really small compared to other journals even during COVID-19.
I emailed the journal multiple times about a time frame and they copied and pasted this same message twice "I do apologize, but I have no further information at this time. The editor is working diligently to get decisions out as soon as possible."
I'm about to graduate and I feel like I won’t have time to work in this journal and neither would my coauthors and I was wondering what I should do. I worked on this project for 6 years straight from undergrad to grad. Should I withdraw and submit it to sleep health?

The average length of time that it takes for a manuscript to work its way through the submission/review process can vary from one discipline to the next, and I'm not really sure what that would be for yours. Coming from my own experience in the humanities, I would normally expect an editor to take no longer than a month to get a manuscript out to reviewers. Of course, there are a number of legitimate reasons for delays, such as an editor having a hard time securing reviewers (or getting reviewers who end up backing out or are unresponsive to an editor's request for evaluations).
That said, I do think that a case such as yours seems unprofessional. You've reached out and haven't received any specific explanation for the delay and the response doesn't even seem to align with your situation (you mention that your manuscript hasn't been sent out for peer review, yet they mention that they're working on sending decisions out...) I would probably send another email indicating that I'd like to withdraw my submission. However, if you have co-authors on this paper, do not do so without consulting them first. I would also copy them in this email if they are also OK with withdrawing.


Criteria for a Pure Math teaching job at a university I'm assuming that all good universities in Europe/North America have PhD as the minimum requirement for a teaching job. What I want to know is:

How much experience (research and teaching both) is generally
required? And how to get this experience during your studies?
How important are grades/gpas for such positions?

In the US it is possible to get a tenure track position in math fresh out of a PhD program. Having the doctorate implies that you have done some significant research and have at least one publishable work. But most doctoral students in math here also work as TAs along the way, so they have at least some experience working with students. Some are permitted to teach low level courses with only minimal supervision. So, that is the minimum. Your grades were pretty good also, if you complete a doctorate.

But in most cases a job being offered will have many applicants, meaning that the competition can be quite strong. Thus, if you are better on any or all of the scales you suggest then you have a better chance to actually get the job.

But personality also matters, which is why applicants are interviewed before hiring. It isn't considered to be just a paperwork process or a spreadsheet algorithm.

If you are a student in a doctoral program and want a teaching position in the future, find a way to TA, and, if possible, teach one or two courses in the department.

But it will still be the letters of recommendation you get, about both teaching and research, that will make or break your chances. Do a good job and get recognized for it.


I did everything on my own regarding my B.Sc. thesis. My supervisor did nothing. I want to publish it without his name My B.Sc. thesis advisor did nothing regarding my B.Sc. thesis. I chose the topic, I have done everything on my own. He didn't even read the work or provided me with any guidance or any advice. Just passive aggression is all I gained from him.
However. I want to try to publish it. But since he didn't contribute even the slightest I don't want to put his name upon it. Also, the work I submitted at the university has some minor mistakes. So if I considered publishing it, I will change some minor details. So is it ethical or it will get me into troubles?

The basic rule is that you can publish your own work without limitation. You can also correct previous versions, such as drafts, or even work submitted for class or a degree.

However, there are two considerations.

The first, is that in some fields, questions can be raised about "contributions". In a chemistry lab, that is grant funded and has a lot of participants and a PI who wrote and manages the grant, it is considered proper to include many (all) of those participants, often as co-author. If you are in such a field, and depended on such things, then you need to consider the contributions that made your work possible, even if the contributions were indirect.

The second consideration is purely political, but not ethical or legal. An advisor who likes you and your work can do you a lot of good in the future, especially if you want to aim for an academic career. In such cases either an acknowledgement (even if unearned) of an advisor, or even including him/her as a co-author, might just do yourself some good in the future. An adversarial relationship with an advisor, especially when you need them for letters and such is a career killer. Having a faculty member, advisor or not, who dislikes you, whether validly or not, won't help you and could hurt.

But the advisor needs to weigh in on whether s/he wants to be a co-author. It is improper to include someone who hasn't agreed. You don't need permission for an acknowledgement, however.

My approach would be to tell the advisor that you want to publish an updated version of the work. Ask for advice in doing this. You don't need to offer co-authorship, but if it is requested, my advice would be to submit. If nothing more, the name, assuming the person has a good reputation generally, will add a bit of weight to the paper, since you are a novice at this. It can be an introduction to the bigger world.

If the advisor agrees that it can/should be published, you can ask if s/he wants to participate in improving it or if you should just go on your own. The answer you get should be instructive.

One danger here is that some people will try to take it over. Before you start on improvements, make sure that you know how authorship will work. Do this at the beginning, and keep a record of the interchange so that misunderstandings don't occur later. This is one sort of transaction where (saved) emails can be a good thing.

If you get advice not to publish it you will need to explore the reasons. It may be that the work isn't "ripe" enough for publication, even if it was fine for the degree.


Is it normal for an academic conference to ask for a revised abstract before paper acceptance? I applied for an academic conference and inquired about international travel stipends.  I later received an email stating that they were interested in accepting my paper but wanted an elaborated abstract.  I later sent a revised abstract but was told it was too long, I was sent a personal email asking for a concise summary of my research and was asked if I was a Ph.D student and in what discipline?  Is this normal for conference organizers, With so much effort do they really want to accept my paper?  Is this normal for conference organizers, I don't have any experience with this and conferences?  Does it mean they want to accept my paper?  I have never been asked to revise and resubmit an abstract and was wondering if this is normal conference behavior?

Having been on the other side of similar transactions, what I suspect is going on is that they think your submission is not up to their standards (of quality / focus / formatting / whatever), but that they think it is salvageable and are trying to work with you to help make it acceptable.


Is it a good idea to go for multiple bachelor's or master's degree? I have a bachelor's degree in Physics. I am currently doing my master's in Physics with a focus on machine learning. I want two thing for future:

I want to gain coursework experience from different country - I am fascinated how coursework, be it undergraduate or graduate level, is done in different countries and I want to experience that.
I want to be a veterinary professional. (I wanted to teach at one point and do research. Therefore, had a plan for PhD but I no longer want to be in academia). That could be a veterinary nurse or a doctor.

I didn't share this with anyone as I was afraid of being judged as immature or naive. I would really appreciate any advice on what I can do to achieve my goals. Are my goals justified?

You need to identify what specific courses are needed to enter into the fields you are interested in. Then determine what you are missing and what your options are for completion.  For example, for many health professions in the US there are post-baccalaureate programs specifically for career changers to finish their prerequisites.


Is it self-plagiarism to summarise a topic in the introduction of two of your papers using similar references and examples? I have written two papers, let's say X and Y, about a concept, let's say A.

X is about other overview of concept A and how it can be improved in general.
Then I have another paper i.e. Y discusses about relationship of A with reference to one particular topic.

As both papers are literature driven papers (can be called as literature reviews) and the focuses are different. However there are some sections which are overlapping with each other. Therefore I have given similar examples and used many common references.

My question is, is it a case of plagiarism ? I have written both papers separately and not copied text of one into other, rather sometimes the sense is same. I would appreciate your thinking and advices in this regards whether it can be counted as a case of plagiarism ?

Thanks in advance.

As you have stated, your papers have similarities and that the text is written separately and not copied, then no, this is not plagiarism (and is unlikely to be seen as such).  Using the same references is fine and necessary for similar concepts.

It also sounds like the context between the two papers are distinct, this should ensure that the two papers are written differently.

Make sure you re-read and compare them to ensure that they are sufficiently different, which you sound like you have already done (and possibly ask a colleague to compare them). If possible and relevant, you could have one of your papers cite the other.

There are many guides about plagiarism and what to check for online, for example, this one from the University of Western Australia.


What are interests of a country to fund international PhD students? I would like to understand positive and negative effects for a host country and for a home country of a student.

To the host country:

Positive:  A host country that is able to import top talent from other countries has a greater chance of keeping them in the country after graduation.  This, undoubtedly, is an effort to promote national interests in a specific field (typically, scientific).  Often, importing students to to do research is low cost (in comparison to hiring full time scientists or professors) and typically yields lots of deliverables (e.g. research papers) in a short time.

Negative:  A host country takes a lot of risks when it invests in a foreign student.  There no guarantee that student even graduates, much less that he/she remains in the country after graduation, or in any way promotes the host country's national interests.

To the home country:

Positive:  A home country that can produce top talent gains a reputation international level for its education system (for better or worse, regardless of whether this is actually true or not).

Negative: A home country has the potential to lose its top talent to other countries, which is often counterproductive to its national interests (especially scientific interests).

In addition to the countries, i feel it is important to discuss the benefits and risks that this presents to the student as well:

To the student:

Positive:  The student can gain a high quality education, typically with no strings attached.  When they graduate, they are free to choose their destiny (assuming that they even have the option of staying in their host country).

Negative:  The student effectively becomes low-wage, indentured migrant labor to the host institution.  Students are often not promised jobs or citizenship in their host country, but are often led to believe that "it is possible if you work hard enough".  This will often lead to foreign students out performing their domestic counterparts, but sadly offers little pay, benefits, or guarantees to the foreign student.  As J.J. points out, if a foreign student screws up in some way, they lose (potentially) their only chance of a better life outside of their home country.


Can I ask a professor (via e-mail) for a citation for a result presented in lecture notes? A mathematical result is presented in a set of lecture notes by a professor, and I have not been able to locate any journal papers which include the result. Would it be appropriate to ask the professor, via e-mail, for a citation to a journal paper?

Note: I am not a student of the lecturer.

Sure, it can't hurt to send a brief, polite email. Just make sure that the reference isn't already given somewhere in the notes, or the professor's course website, or his/her list of suggested reading.

Of course, you should prepare for the possibility that your email will go unanswered. Professors tend to be busy. There is little-to-no benefit to them (other than the pleasure of helping out another human being, that is) in tracking down a reference for someone who isn't a colleague, student, or potential collaborator. There's also the possibility that this professor didn't prepare his/her own lecture notes, and the grad student who did is long gone, etc.


What do recruiters think of candidates who left their PhD midway? Let us assume person X and person Y. Both entered grad school in the same year, X as a PhD student (without a prior masters degree) and Y as a masters student in the same field. Towards, the end of second year, X realized that a PhD was too much for him and decided to quit but was eligible for a masters degree ( he had enough credits to do so). Both X and Y graduate with a masters degree with good grades. Let's assume both of them were nearly equally matched in their profile ( w.r.t. projects, internships e.t.c). Who would a recruiter prefer for a technical position at their company : X or Y ?

I assume the job does not require a PhD.

The recruiter will usually not know the difference between X and Y unless X tells them.

If X tells the recruiter that they quit their PhD and got a master's, the recruiter's main question would be: why is X telling me this unnecessary information?


Am I responsible for not reproducibility of collaborators’ result? Recently, I have ran into some issues about reproducibility of some of my research results which are obtained by our collaborators from different university. In fact, in our current repository there are some saved figures and plots which are significantly different from the results of current scripts written by our collaborators. I knew this issue from the beginning but our collaborators explicitly mentioned in their emails that those results are not relevant and the current results which could be obtained from current codes are credible to use, so I didn’t care too much and just used the current results which seem more relevant to me for my presentations, proposal, etc. Recently, my PhD advisor tried to prepare a presentation based on those results and I don’t know why he insists to reproduce those old results which are not matched with current results obtainable by current codes. He sent me an email and its language was like it’s my fault that we could not reproduce those results from collaborators. As a result, I’m thinking am I the one that should be blamed here really? BTW I sent an email to our collaborators and asked for clarification which I didn’t get any response yet. Any ideas or suggestions are appreciated about how to deal with this problem.

It sounds like you are in a difficult position, but, yes, if your name is on a publication or report, people will assume that you are responsible for everything in it.

It may be that you have been caught by your own carelessness, of course, accepting something you weren't sure about because they "seem more relevant to me". It is hard to be definite here with so little information, but perhaps you need to be more careful.

But the situation now needs some resolution. This is something you need to work out with your advisor and perhaps your collaborators. I think the only way to really solve it is to have a general meeting where you discuss the situation. Someone, somewhere, seems to have been making improper assumptions. Perhaps there is shared blame here. But if all fingers are now pointing at you, then you have to work to find a general resolution as the situation isn't likely to change without your action.

Your attitude in such a meeting should be "this is what happened... this is what I assumed... this is why I acted as I did", being entirely truthful. Some of the blame may fall to you, but better that it be worked out than that it not be.


Is writing to prospective PIs during admissions season a good idea? I have already submitted all my PhD applications (to US universities) and I did not write to professors before applying. Turns out this was not a good idea as in case of a couple of schools, I found out later that one of the professors I mentioned in my SoP have left the school. (I understand this makes me look careless and out of touch but their webpages were still up on the older schools' website and updated to list very recent publications)

Firstly,  I was thinking of writing to the other professors in the schools who's work I am interested in but didn't mention in the statement in order to avoid crowding it with names. Will this help mitigate the damage caused?

Secondly, I was also thinking of writing to professors at other universities I applied to to ask whether they are accepting any students? I did not do this previously because some schools discourage writing to professors directly and the professors, who are very busy don't always reply (understandably)

Thirdly, since I'm thinking of doing this in mid-january, the professors will possibly be even busier with admissions work in addition to their research and teaching duties. Would writing this late be annoying? I don't want this to have any negative effect on my application.

It's usually better to contact a potential PI than to not contact them... but you're timing is a little awkward.  The thing about contacting them is that you want to be pointed in what you're communicating.  Although asking if they are accepting students is relevant, it seems a little late for that because you've already applied.

In other words, you can't just send the typical email because it doesn't seem as relevant, even so here a couple of ways of reworking the typical approach:

Briefly discuss your interests and why you're a good fit for the lab. Then simply state that you want to alert them to your application. ...If they are interested, they will look up your application.
The other thing that comes to mind is for if you are offered an interview, which should be happening around now. You can email the professors you are interested in at that point in time and briefly discuss your interests and why you're a good fit for the lab, then say that you're excited about interviews and you hope you have a chance to meet with them at that time.

Yes, professors are busy, and you may not get a response, but I don't think writing an email could lead someone to throw out your application which they otherwise would have considered. In other words, if your email is polite and nothing weird, then I don't see how it could have a negative impact.

Hope this helps and best of luck.


Should I write something to the reviewer who rejected my manuscript? I have just received a decision letter for my submitted manuscript to an Elsevier journal. It was a revise and resubmit. One of the reviewers recommended rejection and his comment was just "the contribution isn't strong enough". I don't really know how to respond to his comment. Should I write something to convince him that my contribution is relevant or only respond the other reviewers comments?
What do you recommend me to do?

You really should respond to all reviewers in your response.  If the only comment was "the contribution isn't strong enough", then you need to reply showing why it is, in fact, strong enough.  You can say something like "We feel that this topic is relevant because x, y, and z, and this manuscript contributes a, b, and c to the field. We have reorganized the introduction to more clearly outline the need for this contribution, and have added a paragraph to the discussion demonstrating the importance of this work."

The second part is important because it shows that you're actually improving the manuscript in response to the reviewer's comments, not just blowing them off.


Tradeoff between Consistency and Uniqueness in choosing publication Last Name I am at the beginning of my career, but I already participated in several conferences and published 1 paper (and a reply) as the main author, and co-authored a revision with many other authors.
In total, I currently have 11 citations.
In my first publication, I used the last name (A) that is very common and which I don't identify with.
In the review, I started using another last name (B) which is less common but still not very unique.
I came now to the realization that I can use my mother's surname (C), which is very unique, pronounceable, and have other nice interesting features as beginning with the letter 'a'.
Currently, I am about to finish and defend my MSc dissertation and there are probably more publications coming along the way. Is it too late for me?
For reference, A yields > 4million results in google Scholar, B yields ~ 1million, and C have less than 100 entries.

If your full name, or initials with last name is common in your field, there might be some inconvenience. But otherwise I doubt that uniqueness has much value. I share a full name with another prominent researcher but in an entirely different field. It is sort of funny when the search turns up both of us, but it is obvious that we are different people.
Consistency, on the other hand is very important, though at the very beginning, the earliest papers may not be so important to the overall career trajectory. But, by the time you finish a doctorate you should establish a name that you can live with throughout your career. Hopefully your earliest work won't be your best work over a long career and a few exceptions won't be an issue.
A personal web site (or one hosted by a university) can be useful in pointing to your work, even if done under different names initially.

For the record, it should be noted that some people publish under a pseudonym to maintain both uniqueness and consistency.


Connotations regarding F grade How is the grade F viewed in US academic system, is it abhorred or people see that grade as any other grade. If a student gets an A retaking that particular course, the previous F grade he got would be overwritten, even though there will be a mark on the transcript.Is there any sort of negative stigma because of that?

As F stands for failing, of course there's a stigma associated with it. How much depends on the course in which it's received. For example, failing freshman biology matters much less if you're in art than if you're planning on applying for medical school.

Also note that different schools handle repeated courses differently. Some schools count only the last grade, while some count both equally in the final average (a zero plus whatever an "A" grade counts as).


Math PhD application process I expect to be graduating with a maths BSc (with an honours year, in Australia) in the not-too-distant future. I’d like to pursue a PhD in pure maths, with the view of becoming a research mathematician. I’ve found it quite difficult to find information on what exactly the application process entails, and when I need to start worrying about it. I have some specific questions, but what I’m really interested in is if there’s a compiled source of advice and information for math PhD applicants internationally.

It seems that many universities have a specific (December in the USA) deadline, does this mean PhDs have to start at a particular time of year?
I see that occasionally people advertise a particular PhD position they’d like to fill, on some particular research topic. Is this kind of PhD different from the “generic” kind and have a different application process?

There are two main models of organizing doctoral programs:

The American system: graduate students proceed through a combined master's and doctoral program, usually starting with coursework, then taking some sort of "qualifying exam" to become doctoral candidates within the department. Admissions are handled at the department level.
The "German" system: doctoral candidates are employees rather than students. Candidates for a position must apply directly to the group of the professor who is sponsoring the project. There is no coursework phase, as applicants are expected to have already completed their master's degree. (However, they can "audit" courses if needed.)

I would suspect that these represent the "poles" of the spectrum; most other systems I'm aware of fall somewhere in between. [Note that even the German system is adopting some features of the American system, and is thus starting to become a hybrid.]


Writing a "recommendation letter" for a supervisor from a student? As a thank you to my thesis supervisor, I would like to write some sort of letter expressing my gratitude for the work he has done for me.

I was wondering if students ever write letters in such a way that they can be used by professors as a sort of "reference" letter when applying for jobs or teaching grants. For reference, my supervisor is a Senior Lecturer at a university in the Australian system. Would a letter like this be appreciated? What should it look like?

I don't know about the Australian system; in the US, it's quite normal for applications for promotion and teaching awards to require letters from students (though I think usually students from classes, rather than doctoral students).  However, I wouldn't pre-emptively write one; my recommendation is that you write a letter or email, in which you could offer if they ever need such a letter.  The other thing you could reasonably do is write a short email to their head of department, just saying in a few sentences wy you felt that they were successful as a supervisor.  That's probably the best way to help their career.


Who to ask for letters of recommendations? I am an undergrad from a pretty unknown Asian university and I would be applying to PhD programs (mostly US) in pure mathematics this application cycle. However, my major is physics and my intention to switch fields came relatively late, and therefore very few math professors know me very well. I have taken as much upper division pure math courses as my schedule allowed, with courses in analysis, algebra and geometry/topology. I will hopefully have taken 11 one-semester upper division and graduate courses by graduation, but 6 of them will be taken this year.
I am now trying to gather the three recommenders needed for application. My thesis advisor is a math professor and I have been doing some independent study under him for quite some time, but I was struggling in choosing the remaining recommenders. I have a few candidates:

A physics professor from an Ivy League university supervising a summer research project on supersymmetry, though this particular project is not very mathematically intensive,
A math professor from my home uni teaching me a graduate topology course this semester (this is the first graduate course that I have formally taken due to curriculum constraints); I don't have much interactions with him though,
A math professor from my home university who taught me an undergrad algebra course on representation theory last semester: we had a bit more interactions but I haven't worked closely with him,
A math professor from my home university that I have been doing some small group study under, but he is not very closely involved (our small group does meet weekly but he only occasionally comes in and discusses) and we started fairly recently; since I also hope to do an MPhil under him if I don't get an offer, I'm a bit worried whether asking him for a letter at this stage will make him feel negatively about taking me in as a master student.

Any advice would be helpful. Thank you!

You want the letters that can say the most about you beyond how you did in a class (that's in your record) even if their expertise is not the closest to the mathematics you want to do in grad school.
That suggests your thesis advisor, and #1.
I would hope that your ambition to go for the math PhD would appeal to #4 even though acceptance would mean they wouldn't have you for a master's student.
Related: Postdoc Letter of recommendation same school or different school


Deceased author and conflict of interest statement I am submitting an article with heavy heart. The main author of article passed away just a week ago. This work was suppose to be submitted by him. Now this responsibility came to me.

I am not sure how I can sign the conflict of interest statement on the behalf of deceased author?

There won't be any standard way for this to be handled, and it's not really up to you, directly. You'll need to discuss this with the editor; I'm sure they will work with you to make this not an issue, perhaps either by having the other coauthors speak for the deceased or simply waiving the requirement.
How to acknowledge a deceased advisor’s contributions to a paper? and Dead author ethical guidelines may also have some relevant content for you as far as authorship for deceased contributors - since the paper was so near to submission I think it's straightforward to argue that your colleague would have approved submission and that they should be an author, but more generally the journal should be made aware that one of the authors is deceased, since they may have relevant policies.


Put a forward reference in the introduction I'm currently writing a paper and in the introduction I have something in this vein :

  [...] Algorithms of this type have the following characteristics (we
  discuss this in Section 6). [...] The paper is structured as follows
  [...] In Section 6, we [...]

I was wondering, is it okay to put a forward reference like this, even before describing what Section 6 is about in the outline at the end of the introduction (In Section 6, we [...])? Or is it considered bad practice?

While these forward references are not "sexy", they help to understand the structure of our argumentation that follows. As usual, it depends on the reader if he likes it.
Be sure that your flow is a a logical sequence of (short) arguments even in this abstraction.


Does the length of an IPCC Scientific report imply anything about credibility or thoroughness? Background

In a question about the Green New Deal, I posted a comment to an answer that asserted the Green New Deal was not based in any science:

  It's not a surprise that such a report [sic: read resolution] is lacking in science.

In context, his statement is referring to the Green New Deal itself, not the IPCC Special Report. In my comment, I mention that the resolution cites the IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 ºC. The fact that that the Green New Deal does cite the IPCC report means that it is not utterly lacking in science (i.e. as opposed to citing nothing).  While United States legislation does not have requirements for rigor, my question is about traits pertaining specifically to the special report.

With regard to the IPCC Special Report, I mention its page length:

  It does include science. The whole resolution is premised on the Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5C which is over 600 pages in full length. I was just curious about an omission of a detail.

My implicit assumption was that the longer the length of a peer reviewed IPCC report the higher its credibility. I am not referring to the Green New Deal; I know united states resolutions do not have any research standard.

That said, given the following comment, I am now questioning the assumption of length in relation to credibility:

  Why is the length of that report relevant?

This comment is what lead me to ask...

Question

Does the length of a peer reviewed scientific report, in this case the IPCC Special Report, imply in any way that it is more credible or thorough in its results?

Very hard to say in general.   A 600-page report could be 600 pages of garbage.  Obviously a super-short report couldn't be very thorough, or contain very much detail/depth.

If someone said "I have here a 600-page scientific report: is it any good?"  I would have no way to know.

If you want to make a claim for the credibility of IPCC reports specifically, I would quote the Union of Concerned Scientists:

  The IPCC’s technical reports derive their credibility principally from an extensive, transparent, and iterative peer review process that, as mentioned above, is considered far more exhaustive than that associated with a single peer-reviewed publication in a scientific journal. This is due to the number of reviewers, the breadth of their disciplinary backgrounds and scientific perspectives, and the inclusion of independent “review editors” who certify that all comments have been fairly considered and appropriately resolved by the authors.

Recursively, you would then have to support the credibility of UCS, which Wikipedia (which attempts to be neutral) calls a "nonprofit science advocacy organization".


What's a good way to prevent students from saying I lost their paper? As a teacher, I've often had students say that they turned in an assignment, but that because I don't see it, grade it, and return it back to them, that I must have lost their papers/assignments. I tend to be disorganized at times, so it's hard for me to confidently say that I really haven't lost their papers. To make matters worse, I have lost a student paper or two over the years only to find it weeks later.

How should I respond?

Notes:

Many have noted electronic submission. I'm assuming for this question that students turn in something physical that I could theoretically lose. ;-) This also allows this question to be applicable to schools that may not use electronic submission.

First, get organized.

You need a good defence. Make sure that you are not at fault.

What I've done is to put student assignments in a folder and keep it entirely separate from any other papers I have. When I bring their assignments home, I transport them in a plastic bag to further distinguish them and prevent papers from falling out somehow. For situations where the class turns in lots of assignments and students don't always pick up their graded assignments, papers can get out of order, so I make sure to keep each assignment in a separate folder, or I put all graded assignments in a single stack alphabetized by last name. I know with full certainty that students' assignments are in my "to-grade" folder, or my "to-return" folder, and nowhere else.

Second, respond to the student

If they say you've lost their paper, give them the benefit of the doubt by looking through your stack. If it's not there, you know it won't be anywhere else, short of a devious third-party intervention, and you can tell them so. :-)

Alternatives

Use an electronic submission dropbox (e.g. Blackboard, D2L, etc.).

You could have students email their assignments to you, but there's always the possibility that it gets caught in your spam filter. If you did this, you should send them an email ASAP to confirm that you received their submission.

Keep all papers in a single room: never take them home to grade, etc.
Keep a list of students who submitted their work as they turn it in.
Scan in assignments, keep an electronic copy and send the copy to students (idea from @MadMyche, in the comments below).


About writing to editor of a journal to identify serious mistake in a published article I am reading a paper published in a SCI-core journal.
After a very careful and tedious evaluation, I have come to the conclusion that the authors have made serious mistakes.
Should I write to the editor of the journal about it so that other people do not waste their time on this paper and may learn a thing or two about it? How can we do that?

Assuming you are have carefully checked that there really are serious errors, the best course of action would be to contact the authors of the paper first. Maybe they can explain subtle details, not clearly described in the paper, that explain everything. Of course it is important to be nice: It is very well possible that everything appeared to be correct with the knowledge at the time the paper was published. Or that it is you who misinterpreted the methods (possibly because the paper was a little vague). And even if there are errors: nobody is perfect. So please be nice.
It is possible that the authors wish to collaborate with you to correct the errors, leading to a shared publication: a win-win situation. I have seen this happen more than once.
If this does not work for some reason you can consider contacting the editor, who may or may not be interested in correcting the errors. That will be up to the editor.
Depending on your specific case, it may also be possible to do some experiments yourself and publish your findings, referencing the paper with the errors and correcting them.
However, if the errors are minor, the result is "unimportant", or you are not too sure that there really is a mistake that needs correcting, you could also decide to simply ignore the paper. There are plenty of bad and/or unimportant papers out there and frankly, they do not deserve the attention even if it is to correct mistakes.
Note: I have partly copied from my own answer to a different, related question.


Ask about my undergraduate research internship I’m planning to apply for an internship. There is a professor who represents the school who asked me to submit some necessary documents. He wanted me write a detailed paper about the project I am interested in, and then he will choose the host supervisor for me.

Before that, I checked the list of professors for this school, and I noticed a professor whose main project is about antimicrobial biochemistry. I want to work with this group, but I am worried about whether or not he will accept any students this year.

At any rate: this “antimicrobial” topic is my favorite, but I do not know any details about what the project entails. How do I write this type of paper? Does he want expect a full proposal? What should I do?

You should ask the professor you want to work with for instructions.  If he is open to supervising your work, then in addition to helping you apply for the internship, he can also contact the coordinator.  This will increase your chance of success.  If he says he does not want to supervise you, then you will save a lot of time applying for something that cannot work.


Can I copy text from an article to complete my review article? I'm currently writing an article and wonder if I could copy text from various articles. Is this appropriate?

I checked similar review articles and found they copied the abstracts for similar works, but can I copy the an introduction from another article to complete my introduction?

You can quote verbatim, iff

the passage quoted is reasonably short (about one sentence, but not a whole paragraph);
and you put the quoted passage in quotation marks and/or italic;
and you give the reference immediately before or afterwards.

For example:

  As John & Ali (2012) have phrased it "this is a verbatim quote from
  their publiation".

However, having said that, you should avoid excessive verbatim quotations. Quoting verbatim is frowned upon and reflects poorly on your ability to express yourself. As stated in point 1 above, quoting a whole paragraph or even more is inappropriate in any case, because it implies that your text lacks originality. The same holds for near-verbatim quotes.


How Can I Get a full scholarship to a University by my Skills | as an International Student? I'm a student in my last year of high school, I'm from Europe but I'm looking for studying Computer Science in USA for the next year. My grades aren't great (around B/B+) and my family can't afford paying the tuition fees (neither it seems they are going help to find a solution) so I need to find a way of getting a full scolarship.
Parallel to my studies, I have been doing my own research on the area of AI for the last two years and I think I have reached a level in which I feel comfortable reading papers and coding by my own. I thought maybe I can use this to get the attention of some professors that can recommend me for the admision process.
I don't know anyone in this situation or that has done something similar so I'm kind of lost (I don't even know about anyone who has studied in USA). I think I could email some to some professors with doubts and questions about their work and start a conversation from there. But I can't think of a way of asking them for their help without looking like a beggar. How would you do this?
I know that maybe the proffesor not even has the chance to admite me nor doing anything about, this is just an idea I had and I don't know if there are other things I can do in this situation.
Any suggestions will be much appreciated, I'm decided to find a way of making this work and study in the USA.

You seem to have some misunderstandings about undergraduate education in the US. A bachelors here provides a general education along with a specialization. The general courses are about 40% or more of the total.
For example the CS program at UIUC seems pretty typical to me. Note the wide variety of courses, including the humanities. UIUC is a highly ranked research university.
Also, undergraduate admission is generally not controlled by individuals, but by committees who may only get involved in non-obvious cases.
The situation of scholarships, especially for people who don't stand out academically, is probably even harder. And especially for an international student who can't claim historical discrimination by race or ethnicity as can some citizens here. But in particular, contacting an individual professor for this is probably going to be fruitless.
To get accepted you need letters of recommendation from your current teachers, as well as an "acceptable" academic profile. The letters need to be from people who know you well and can speak highly of you.
Some people can arrange funding from their home country or some institution there.
My guess is that you can probably get admitted to a good US program, but funding will be much harder - especially "full ride" funding. Some discounts might be available to you, as they are to many. But much of Europe has much better funding for higher education.


Is there a single academic database for Management Information System /Decision Support System area? Until now, I have been gathering literature rather primitively (I think) by regularly searching with related keywords in Google, Google Scholar, and also some of the university resources like -

Emerald Insight
Ebsco
Jstor
IEEE
ScienceDirect

And I'm not sure whether I find all the relevant literature and what else I need to be looking at.

Recently, I came to know that for certain fields there are dedicated databases that provide a unified source of research - which can be quite useful to perform a literature survey. Like SciFinder for Chemistry, NCBI for Biotech etc.

So, I'm wondering whether there is any such database in the field of  -Management Information System / Decision Support Systems.

The short answer is: No, there isn't.

This is simply because MIS/DSS research is often published in outlets which are more closer to the discipline of the context. For instance, many health informatics studies could also be found in the health outlets i.e., atypical MIS venues; or, a DSS study done in the context of nursing is most likely to be found in a nursing outlet, so on and so forth.


How to efficiently progress on a complex problem in research? I am writing my master thesis in game theory and realized one type of situation where I am often stuck for a long time and feel frustration creeping in. It is, to no surprise, when facing a complex situation: one with too many variables or different cases to look at.

Example setting: I build a model and look at some equilibrium points as results. The different equilibria are conditioned on many parameters such as the income of people, their social ties, their level of empathy etc. My task is to understand these conditions in order to be able to generalize some of the results.

Example being stuck: I a-priori think that the plan to crack this issue is to look at each equilibrium individually and understand the conditions for that case and then move on and in the end put everything together, I know it is going to be annoying but at some point it will just work. Unfortunately, I often fail to stick to the plan when the conditions for a certain equilibrium point are hard to understand, my mind starts to go back and forth, loosing focus and in the end failing to understand the situation at hand. I usually succeed by repeatedly going the same way again and again, but it is very costly.

I know this isn't something specific to me, this happens to many/most people when the problem contains too many cases, variables or causal links.

Do you have tips or resources on how to best handle problems like these?

Write notes as you work. Brainstorm a list of questions, then try to write down answers to them as you investigate. Bonus points if some of them are questions that you would have asked before knowing the term game theory, or if some are ones a six-year-old would ask. It sounds like one of the questions on your list already is, "What conditions produce each equilibrium?"

You've already found the equilibria (do you know if you found all the equilibria?), but why is that interesting? How can you interpret that for someone? So what? (The questions that end up being most interesting or giving you the most to say should be your research questions, with their answers being your thesis statement(s).)

Below, I'm taking a lot of liberties guessing about what you're doing and what might be productive. Wherever I assume something wrong, try to use that as a jumping off point. ("That's completely silly! This wouldn't be a complex system because X!" or "Using an agent-based model wouldn't capture Y." or "Existing small world models don't account for Z.")

Depending on exactly what model you're using (e.g. an agent-based model for a repeated game) you may be creating and analyzing a complex system. There might be emergent properties you're trying to capture, and you may want to tune the model to better illustrates that emergence. If you just altered one variable at a time you might get a tipping point model ("Huh, turns out the dividing line for getting cooperative behavior is if everyone starts with an endowment of X.") but just cataloging those univariate effects doesn't necessarily capture emergent behaviors that involves interacting traits or evolving patterns of behavior. (E.g., an interesting emergent result might be: "Generally, increasing equality of endowments or increasing N leads to an equilibrium of cooperation. But when you have perfect equality of endowments and increase N, you paradoxically have higher rates of defection." Then you could illustrate how that typically plays out, turn by turn.)

Maybe mathematicians or others who work with complex systems could tell you about classes of functions or models that are thoroughly understood, and you could compare your system to that. My guess is that systematically recording the results of your playing around with the model (potentially trying to answer 6-year-old-style questions) will lead to better work.


Applying for a PhD after taking a year off I completed my Master's in biotechnology exactly a year ago, and after failing to find a job in science took an office job to pay the bills. Now I'm thinking of applying to a bio PhD, but I'm worried my year away from science will be a disadvantage to me on an application.

How much will this affect my chances, and is there anything I can do to counteract it?

I am in an academic field -- mathematics -- which must have one of the highest rates of "going straight through" of any academic field.  E.g. in mathematics it is quite common to get your PhD before the age of 30, which makes it almost impossible to spend significant time off.

The most important word in the above paragraph is significant.  Taking one year off between degree programs does not -- even in mathematics -- generate a blip on most admissions people's radar.  What that means is that you waited to finish the program you were in before applying to the next one: that's really quite reasonable.

I would mention how you spent your year off in your application materials precisely if it paints the rest of your application in a positive light.  E.g. if the job you took is relevant to the program you're applying for, go ahead and mention it.  If you just took that small amount of time to find yourself and generate sufficient resolve to attend a graduate program: no problem, but unless that fits perfectly into some narrative you'd like to spin I wouldn't dwell on it much in your application.

TL;DR: This is really not a problem.


How long to wait before sending a follow-up email asking for a letter of recommendation? I am currently applying to graduate school and trying to gather some solid letters of recommendation.

During my undergraduate studies, I worked in a research lab and while I didn't get that close with the professor, I decided to take a shot and ask her for a letter of recommendation. I sent an email two weeks ago and she has not responded. How long should I wait before emailing again? How do I ask again without being pushy? My fear is that she barely remembers me and this is her way of saying no. Should I just ask someone else?

Professors receive many requests for recommendations.  Speaking for myself, I appreciate reminders because it lessens the organizational burden of keeping track of everything.

As a rough guideline I would wait 2 weeks between requests (so, go ahead and try again now).  Just be polite and re-send the request with a note to the effect that you know she is busy, so you are re-sending your request.

I would also add that if you aren't close with this professor it may be hard for her to remember enough about you to write a strong letter in support of your application.  To remedy this, it would be helpful if you also reminded the professor about what you did for her/in her lab when you contact her again.


Why are there regional differences in research interests in mathematics and similar areas? It's not very uncommon that only people in some particular part of the world are working on a specific area of research.  For instance, there's a considerable difference between the styles of philosophy studied in English-speaking countries and the continental Europe; the difference can be explained by that in the languages the researchers use.  It is also conceivable that, in experimental sciences, doing research on some field is impossible without using special apparatuses or organisms that exist only in some specific part of the world.

However, I also observe such regional differences in research interests in mathematics (, theoretical computer science, and possibly more).  In these fields the explanations I gave for the example above are not really applicable: they effectively use the same language, and you don't need anything except commodity items to do research on these fields.

I vaguely see the influences of socio-political factors, of course, but I cannot tell what exactly they are.  What are they?  (I would like to know how this works to make a best choice, as a graduate student, in regard to the field I work on.)

It is also conceivable that, in experimental sciences, doing research on some field is impossible without using special apparatuses or organisms that exist only in some specific part of the world.

This is the part where you are mistaken. Access to apparatus is not the only reason nor the main reason researchers like to be in proximity. The reason is that physically talking in person is often much more effective than every other remote communication method for discussing ongoing research. It is a lot easier to work on a field if you can frequently meet with other people from that field, have lunch with them, go to their conferences without it being a huge journey and get their feedback on your work directly. Also, when teaching people tend to focus on their own favorite areas of work, which leads to undergraduates becoming biased towards those areas. Undergrads themselves have a slight tendencies to remain in their own country, in which case they are likely to end up in fields popular there.

So in sum, there is one giant factor which is that in-person communication is very important. There are also many tiny factors that, together, create self-amplifying effect. Being around people with an interest makes you more likely to also develop that interest, and having an interest makes you likely to end up being near other people who share it. Local biases in interest develop as a result.


How to start abstract of previous research activities for a PhD position I know that's a very simple question but I just don't know how to start it? What will be the introductory paragraph? I am applying for a Ph.D. position related to my field and luckily I am fulfilling all the requirements for the program. I have relevant research experience and publication for the position. Long story short, I just don't want to lose this opportunity.

Don't overthink things here. I recommend something like the following:

  I began my research in this field by investigating bla bla bla (refs).  discovered that bla bla bla (refs), leading to our research on bla bla bla (refs). At this point, I was awarded a research grant with Dr. Bob to investigate bla bla bla  (grant ref), and we discovered that bla bla bla (refs).

Concise and full of as many refs as you can cram in. If you won any grant awards, mention it, unless you're out of space, in which case get rid of some of the other text and mention it. Short and sweet is key here.