Writing a book expanding on a previous review paper? After writing a review paper on a specific topic, is it common to write a book to expand the review paper in a more pedagogical way, and to include more subtopics/content? Also, since published papers cannot be "updated", would it be useful to have a book which takes into account new research directions and new results which have been published after the original review paper? Would be writing such a book being a problem for copyright or other reasons?
I am interested about the situation in the physics literature and hard sciences, but of course any thoughts are welcome.

I published my monograph in the field of chemistry in 2017, after I retired.

After writing a review paper on a specific topic, is it common to write a book to expand the review paper in a more pedagogical way, and to include more subtopics/content?

I have no idea. Others might speak to that.

Also, since published papers cannot be "updated", would it be useful to have a book which takes into account new research directions and new results which have been published after the original review paper?

Other things equal, I would say sure! Anything that helps us assimilate the ever-rising flood of new information is welcome, in my opinion.

Would be writing such a book being a problem for copyright or other reasons?

In my experience, the answer is no. When I wrote my monograph, I requested copyright permission to use two of my papers as book chapters. It was easy, painless and fast: the publisher of the papers gratiously granted permission.
What else? I had always heard that writing a book was a labor of love. Now I really know that labor is the operative term and, regardless of the ultimate fate of my monograph, I know that I had it in me to persevere. So if you write the book, I wish you the best of success, and I truly hope indexing is not the largely unmitigated horror of the old days!


Level of detail when reviewing a PhD thesis - very picky (draft) reviewer I am currently finalizing my written PhD thesis. I think in practice it is often the case, that a PhD student has a formal advisor (often head of the lab, very busy) and then an actual advisor who is much more familiar with the PhD's work and progress. Often this actual advisor is a PostDoc and the student has regular meetings with him. This is also the case for me. With the PostDoc I have weekly meetings. I meet my formal advisor unregularly/randomly, about once a month.

So, I finished a first complete draft of my thesis and handed it in to my formal advisor, because he is my official advisor. As expected my formal advisor sent the draft to my actual advisor. My formal advisor is often traveling and very very busy. So I did never expect him to read the full thesis, let alone providing detailed review of my work.

The thing is, that I know that my actual advisor can be very picky about language stuff and how scientific texts are written. I know this from writing papers together with him which was always somewhat cumbersome due to his over-detailed reviews. His reviews were always very thorough causing some headache and also sometimes a shaking head on my side.

So today I received a first review from him just for the introduction chapter which is about 15% of my thesis. His review is extremely detailed, he picks on each sentence, and often even words. He critisizes the word order of my sentences and questions every argument I make. He tries to be perfectionist. The result is for me, that I feel really bad when discussing the review with him. It is frustrating to get corrected that thoroughly and it makes me think, that I am too dumb for this. Moreover, I am sure that my quality of writing and lines of argumentation have a decent level of quality and I think he is over-interpreting most things. Of course, I try to not take the feedback personally, and see it as an opportunity to improve my work. However, I think his level of detail is a bit too much. It also means a lot of work for me (to correct everything) and I think, it will take at least 2 more months to hand in a final version.

One example of his reviewing, which I know from a colleague of mine: My colleague needed to verbally express that two things are connected. The reviewer suggested to use the word link instead of connect. My colleague followed the advice and replaced all instances of connect with link. At the next reviewing iteration, the same reviewer suggested to replace all instances of link with connect again... So you know what I mean? It's just too much and he even seems to have different opinions when reading the same text a second time.

I also want to make clear, that I am very sure, that my formal professor does not doubt my academic qualities. For instance, he is aware that I received a Best Paper Award for one of my papers and we always have nice discussions about different research topics. Hence, I think he would not deem it necessary to have my thesis reviewed that thoroughly. I think, if I would confront my formal advisor with the review of my actual advisor, he would be stunned.

Finally, my question is: Is it normal that a thesis gets reviewed that thoroughly, even when the advisor knows me (and the quality of my work)?

And more importantly: How should I proceed?
I obviously want to get this done really quick. Of course, I know that reviews are essential to improve the quality of my thesis and I am willing to put in substantial amount of time. But I think it's too much, if I need to change (nearly) each sentence of what I have written...
Should I talk with my formal advisor about that? What should I let him know?

This type of question doesn't have a single correct answer, but many different approaches. To that extent, here's what I would do.

There's two ways to go here: the difficult one, where you try to fight back, and the easy one, where you just make the corrections. Given that (a) this is a thesis, not a publication, making it essentially a single-purpose document unlikely to be referenced again in the future, and (b) the completion of the thesis is entirely dependent on this picky advisor saying that it's complete, I would DEFINITELY recommend just making the corrections.

Stated differently: choosing to fight this will likely cause far more damage than choosing not to fight.

Only caveat to the above is to only let this happen once or maybe twice per section. I.e., if this goes on for two rounds—i.e., if you make all his changes, and then he gives you another redlined document, where he essentially edits most of his own edits—then you're in infinite editing purgatory, and you'll have to work with him to figure out how to break the cycle and agree it's just good enough.


Do you list journals you have reviewed for on your CV? Is it acceptable to list the journals you have reviewed papers for on your CV? Is it common? Do you think it’s recommended?

On the one hand, it shows that you are engaged in this necessary part of scientific research that is peer-review. On the other hand, it sounds a bit useless, because everyone actually reviews papers for journals, and it is actually an unverifiable information (reviewers are confidential).

On the one hand, it shows that you are engaged in this necessary part
  of scientific research that is peer-review.

That's one of the major reasons why people list it. If your CV is being viewed as part of a performance review or hiring decision, or even for awards, this constitutes "service to the community" and indicates that you're a good citizen.

It's a noisy signal for the reasons you indicate, and so it doesn't carry a whole lot of weight compared to things like technical committee memberships and leadership roles, but it's part of the larger picture. Moreover, for more junior researchers who haven't yet had the chance to take on leadership roles, this is a good signal of service.


How can I Get a Job Reviewing Math or Comp Sci Articles and Books in Advance of Publication? I spend a great deal more time than other graduate school students identifying and figuring out how to fix mistakes in published papers and specialized books. Time and time again an author's careless error has sent me down a rabbit hole. In fact, finding the mistake and fixing it is often more interesting to me than the research itself. It dawned on me that I might be able to make a career out of editing working papers and books in advance of publication. However, I am not quite sure how to find such a job.

I am not seeking to publish my own research; I prefer revise and improve others' work. It seems like a useful thing to do: Author's mistakes becomes my personal headache, so that a dozen or more readers down the line do not have to independently run into the same issues (after publication). It is better to fix this sort of problem at compile time rather than run-time.

However, Most peer-reviews are unpaid and done by collegiate professors. I am not seeking a professorship; I don't even have a Ph.D. The highest degree under my belt is a baccalaureate (It is in mathematics at the very least).

When I took the GRE, I was in the 98th percentile for verbal reasoning. This and other indicators seem to show that I might be a good copy editor. However, I really would like to review papers in mathematics and/or computer science. Although editing at The New York Times, or at Tor Books™ might be someone else's dream job, I very much love math. I would like to focus at least as much time on the rigor and correctness of the mathematics done, as time spent on English grammar.

I am very good with logic (the formal kind), comfortable writing proofs, and unperturbed by mathematical symbols equations which make the general populace groan. I am better with graph theory and theory of computation than writing code; my math skills are strong. I have no previous job experience as an editor (other than a pitiful stint at my high school newspaper) and I am not sure where to start looking. I spend a great deal more time than my peers (in graduate school) identifying and figuring out how to fix mistakes in published papers and specialized books. Time and time again an author's careless error has sent me down a rabbit hole. In fact, finding the mistake and fixing it is often more interesting to me, than the research itself. It dawned on me that I might be able to make a career out of editing working papers and books in advance of publication. However, I am not quite sure how to find such a job. A penny for your thoughts?

The kind of thing you're looking to do can be fun, but does not pay. That's because your progress will be painfully slow. For example, say I have a 300-page mathematics monograph. How much do you think is fair to charge for your content editing? Don't forget the total revenue of that book is likely to be less than $10,000 in total. Further, how many more copies of the book is one likely to sell if they engage you? In the best-case scenario, you'll catch every error, and the reviews will be glowing ... but translating that into books-that-are-sold-that-would-not-otherwise-be-sold, I'd estimate that to be ~5-10 books. From there, we could say that the publisher might be willing to pay you $100. For a 300-page monograph, it's just really hard to see it as worth it.

You could make more money by handling the entirety of the publication process. You'd need to do copyediting (i.e. English editing, not just content editing), send proofs to authors, liaise with the typesetters & printers, and so on. Publishers have people whose job scope is to do this ("editors"). Unfortunately, you still won't be able to do the kind of content editing you want to do. I used to work in academic publishing, and when I did this, I handled 8-9 projects at the same time. There's just no way you can treat each manuscript in the detail you want to.

Having said that, one part of the job scope of editors is to acquire more projects. If you do a good job with editing, you can impress authors who might in turn either write more books or refer their friends & colleagues to you. This will be good for your career. If the project you're handling is aimed at the general public, or at undergraduate level, you have more of a chance to offer content critiques, but you won't have time to understand deep mathematics.

If you still want to do this, then you can find such jobs the same way you find other such jobs: by reading job advertisements and writing to employers (in this case academic publishers). You can also put up your own advertisements to do this kind of checking, in which case you'd use message boards that mathematicians or computer scientists look at.


Any way to get credit for publications that I drafted as a fellow for a law professor? Since I graduated from law school almost ten years ago, I have been working as a fellow for a law professor at a US law school. In that time, I have drafted over 25 articles and book chapters, but only been listed as a co-author on 8. I don't begrudge this split: The Prof has the established name and, in every instance, she has sat me down, outlined what she wants to cover, and then made comments and requested revisions on every draft I produce, but I have always done 90% or more of the actual writing. I greatly appreciate the confidence she has shown in my writing abilities and am just not sure how to convey this on my CV/job applications. My position is ending and I'm applying for new jobs that, in many cases, are looking for expertise in areas on which I've researched and written extensively, just not under my name. Is there any accepted way/format to mention publications one has drafted/contributed to without receiving formal authorship credit?

What you are describing is actually ethical misconduct. If you were the primary drafter of an article, then you should have been listed as an author on those papers; the fact that you have not is inexcusable on the part of the professor. In the scientific world, such a revelation coming to light would be sufficient grounds for retraction of the articles in question.

So right now, the problem is that if you try to claim ownership, you may be creating a lot of problems. I don't know what the right solution is, but you should definitely talk with someone at your law school such as an ombudsperson before talking to your advisor. The last thing you need right now is having a former advisor who can "spike" letters of recommendation.


Difference between Statistics and Machine Learning? What would I learn as a Ph.D Student in Statistics that I wouldn't learn and vise-versa in Machine Learning Ph.D program?

Machine learning is a quickly developing branch of technology, based on some basic statistics but also including elements of computer science, high performance computing, etc.

Unfortunately, ML/AI is currently a buzzword and many departments want to have a course on it assuming it will attract students and bring money. This means that when it comes to taught courses, there is no consensus yet what should definitely be included and how the course can be structured. There are examples of ML courses drawing significantly from the classical foundations of Statistics, courses more focused on use of software, more vocal courses with significant discussion of ethics / legal issues around artificial intelligence. Similarly, a PhD project in ML can be either highly theoretical (e.g. proving a convergence or stability of training), or highly practical (e.g. building 100s of NNs until one of them does better than others for some reason), or whatever else.

Statistics is a more established science, which has many applications. Depending on the area of applications, there may be some variations (e.g. Medical Stats may be slightly different from Statistical Physics), but the core methods are still the same, largely based on probability theory, calculus and linear algebra. I would not expect a PhD thesis in Stats to avoid maths completely  (something which I can not say about ML).


How do I address false propositions defended by the lecturer? Since I began my master studies (graduate school) in economics I have encountered too many false mathematical propositions. When I encounter a mathematical proposition which I think is false, I write down an argument (usually a counterexample or a refutation of a premise) explaining why the proposition is indeed false. Since I hold an MSc in mathematics, I am almost always able to do this.

Afterward, I present my argument to the lecturer (who may be a professor) who presented, defended and/or used the proposition. If it is my first time talking with him or her (sometimes I send an email), he or she will usually assume that I am wrong even though he or she did not understand my argument. The teacher will defend the proposition again and I will again explain why I think it is false. After a while, he or she will either ignore me, reject that I have something valuable to say, accept my argument, or tell me that I should read a certain book or certain research articles. If I am a bit unsure after I have talked with the lecturer, I almost always read the book (the relevant chapters) or the research articles. As of now, my readings have just cemented my beliefs in my original arguments.

So, during the course of my studies, I have encountered false propositions and my lecturers do not seem to respond to critique. In fact, I question their competency when it comes to discussing mathematics. In addition to this, they seldom trust my knowledge. Thus, I have the following questions.

How am I to pursue my mission to convince the teacher that what he or she is defending is false?
How can I approach the teacher with respect (I am more like an activist than a politician) and send a message that my knowledge is important and that I am of the opinion that I know something to be false which the teacher think is true?

After reading Paul Romer's article on "mathiness" among economic theorists, I feel that this problem may be larger than I thought.

EDIT: Since this is not a forum about mathematics, I thought I would not comment on the false propositions made. But for those who understand mathematics and mathematical statistics, this is not about propositions which are invalid only if a certain variable is negative or different from zero; because the chain rule was falsely applied; because the hazard function was wrongly characterized; because a limit computation was false; because the conditions for when a matrix is invertible is not satisfied; because the lecturer did not check the second order conditions in an optimization problem; because economists considers infinitesimals etc. These cases have all occurred. But other and more significant false propositions have occurred in my program, which has to do with e.g. the difference between applying ordinary least squares (OLS) and applying generalized least squares (GLS) when estimating certain parameters; the consequences of omitted variables in econometrics and under which conditions we can get unbiased estimates by controlling for the correct control variables; the properties of the Nash product; how different assumptions of an error term affects macroeconomic conclusions; the difference between homogeneity and homotheticity of a production function and the consequences this has for certain relevant propositions in mathematical economics etc.

Disclaimer: I am primarily a student of physics so I'm not sure if the same issues arise in studying economics as well. Since your main question is broad -- it would be applicable for any discipline with complex mathematics -- I am writing an answer, albeit from a physics perspective.
First let me summarize some of the points made in the comments and add a few of my experiences.

It is plausible that an economist or an engineer would use a heuristic argument to "prove" an statement, even though this is not proved in a mathematically precise way. For instance, the "proof" may not work everytime, but it may work often enough. Cases where it fails may not be of interest or not easily characterizable, which is pretty much the opposite to what we do as mathematicians. I've seen some fields that work like that. So the issue may be a lack of common language between the OP and the lecturer. - Shake-baby

Have you looked into this? One of the most common cases of derivations being unsatisfactory in physics (in my undergrad) is that a LOT of context is often implicit (as opposed to being explicit in math). Frequently, one needs to be aware of several small points (mentioned somewhere way back in the text) while understanding new concepts. Even more frequently, one proceeds to do calculations without explicitly stating important conditions.
Examples of what I think would be at least slightly alarming to mathematicians:

Functionals will be considered without specifying which function space is the domain. Also, we often ignore measure theory entirely (in formal training) even though we see integrals over function spaces.
The level of differentiability will almost never be specified. The implicit assumption often is: take as many well-defined continuous derivatives as needed.
Naked "delta functions" are welcome. The more, the merrier.
Physical intuition is often more valuable than a solid definition. In a recent graduate class, we were discussing the fundamental group for special cases like a torus and a projective plane by cutting up paper and playing with rubber bands. However, topology was not a prerequisite for this course (!) and several of my peers had not studied it formally (neither did we define "topology" in that class).

If experiment matches theory, all's well and fine. Is there a mismatch directly because of wrong assumptions? Cool! We've got new physics to play with now. Does this hand-wavy approach mean that physics is "wrong"? It simply means that the level of rigor in physics in insufficient for a mathematician but is (often) perfectly fine for model-building or experiments.

Suppose you are at a stage where the former point (of common context) is not an issue and still you are facing major difficulties in communicating.

How am I to pursue my mission to convince the teacher that what he or she is defending is false?

First, I would like to point out that "to convince the teacher that what he or she is defending is false" is your mission, should you choose to accept it. No external agency has thrust this responsibility on you. That said, there might be many good reasons why you might feel that you should do so such as:

You want to help correct a misunderstanding of the professor for his/her benefit and the benefit of other students.

You consider that stating and believing false statements to be true is a bad thing by itself and so you want to correct that. This is different from the first point in that this point would apply even if you were the only student in the class.

Fortunately or unfortunately, convincing people is hard. Convincing people that they are wrong is much harder. Convincing people that they are wrong and that you are right is much, much harder [1]. Sometimes it's easier when the opposite person is a scientist. Sometimes it's harder. You try your best and reason with the person in good faith; it will work sometimes and sometimes you just move on after being unsuccessful.

How can I approach the teacher with respect (I am more like an activist than a politician) and send a message that my knowledge is important and that I am of the opinion that I know something to be false which the teacher think is true?

Permit me to break me down the question bit by bit:

How can I approach the teacher with respect

Be polite in words and manners and act in good faith. Some professors might get annoyed if sigh loudly. Others might not even notice or care if you yawn while they are making a key point. There isn't a silver bullet. The teacher is also a person, just like you. Is the teacher is trying to impeded your learning? No. Remember: the fallacy is the key issue, not the teacher.

(I am more like an activist than a politician)

If I understand correctly, you mean that you take speak in an argumentative manner as opposed to a soft tone. I have sometimes been guilty of this myself, especially when I felt what the opposite person is saying is very wrong and very stupid.
One possible solution is: write, instead of speaking in person. I understand this may not be the most practical in a lecture setting but courses often have online forums which make this more convenient. An email (or forum post) allows you to (i) collect your thoughts, (ii) frame your arguments fully and (iii) most importantly, gives you time between framing your points and actually clicking send -- in this time you can go over the language and double-check it (or have a close friend look over the email) and alter it if needed so that your tone does not come off as hostile.
Consider the following two emails:

(1) On Tuesday, you said that the isomorphism that takes the fundamental group with one base point to the fundamental group with another base point is path-independent. That statement is incorrect. It is true if and only if the fundamental group is abelian.
(2) On Tuesday, you said that the isomorphism that takes the fundamental group with one base point to the fundamental group with another base point is path-independent. Isn't it true only when the fundamental group is abelian? At the time, had we already assumed that the surfaces under consideration had abelian fundamental groups?

Perhaps you think that these two are roughly the same/interchangeable. Perhaps not. I would consider the second one more polite and preferable compared to the first one. Moreover, the second version expresses two things which are missing from the first -- (i) a possibility that you misunderstood something (humility) and (ii) a desire to arrive at the right answer together (cooperation). In contrast, the first version just says, "Here is the right answer. You are wrong." (superiority).

and send a message that my knowledge is important

It is the truth which is important. In this special case, your knowledge coincides with the truth ... but are you always correct? Probably not. If a teacher is dismissing your claim as false, don't take it personally (trust me, it never helps). This can get really hard, especially if it happens publicly, but you must keep your cool.

After a while, he or she will either ignore me, reject that I have something valuable to say, accept my argument, or tell me that I should read a certain book or certain research articles.

There you have it: there are all different kinds of professors. Is that a surprised? Some accept your arguments, some don't ... surely, a reasonable academic would accept an argument if it was true? Unfortunately, life isn't so simple...
Footnote:
[1] Based on the author's interactions (mostly with Indians).


How to ask for an extension on a manuscript review? I accepted a request to peer review a manuscript from a journal, but was not able to view the attached files correctly and reached out to the journal three times about this problem. They finally responded and addressed the issue, but now I am less than 3 days away from their original deadline for submitting the review and I know I need at least 1-2 weeks to do an adequate job. How should I ask or state my request for more time? Is it necessary to provide the reason or justify my request for the extension in my email?
For added context, this is a journal that I'm likely to submit to in the future, so I would like to maintain an amicable relationship with the current editor.

Just tell the editor how much time you need to do a good job. You don't need to give reasons, and certainly not to apologize. They will accept it or not. I suspect they will, since sending it to another reviewer will take even more time.
There is no problem mentioning that there was a delay in getting necessary files, of course, but these delays happen to everyone eventually if you review a lot.

In this particular case, I'm assuming that the editor already knows why the delay has occurred. In the general case delay is common enough that it is planned for by editors and doesn't disrupt unless it is excessive.


How Does Funding for Graduate Students in U.S. differ from Undergraduate Scholarships? I am interested in furthering my understanding of the process of applying for grants (funding) for graduate students and pursuing Engineering (STEM) Career. I am located in the United States and I am a U.S. Citizen.

My understanding of the process: funding opportunities for graduate students are more 'project' based (to pursue a certain line of thought or experiment) while undergraduate scholarships are more based on student achievement and designated major.

I received a few scholarships while an undergraduate, and my question is, what are the significant differences between funding for graduates and scholarships for undergraduates?

Eligibility: some scholarships are awardable only to undergraduates and never to graduates, or vice versa.

As a graduate you'll have access to more scholarships and awards, and lose access to others.

Also note that most graduate funding is merit-based rather than identity-based. Thus, it will focus more on academic achievements (published papers, presentations, GPA) etc. rather than being a Welsh American or something like that. (There are some external scholarships for minorities but far more of the funding is not based on this).

Specificity: at the undergraduate level, many scholarships are particular to a programme or degree, but can be awarded to anybody studying that programme or degree.

For example, a science scholarship could be awarded in chemistry, physics, biology, maths, geology, astronomy, and so on. An arts scholarship could be for literature, sculpture, photography, art history, or other areas.

Graduate scholarships are often more focused, not just on a programme or degree, but a particular field. This gets more particular at higher levels where scholarships almost morph into small grants.

For example, instead of being for sciences, it may be for science research related to a specific industry. Instead of being for art, it may be for work done in or about a particular style and technique.

This answer is a community wiki. Please add additional points of difference and a succinct description of them, as above.


How to overcome fear of answering/asking questions in big class Maybe it's because I'm a very shy person, but whenever I am in a big classroom setting (lecture), I am too afraid to raise my hand and ask questions or answer questions in class. It's really odd to me how some people can just do it so naturally. Recently, I've been trying to participate more in class, but after I say what I want to say, I completely zone out due to the pressure. So when my professor asks me something again, I tend to almost freeze. There's also the knowledge that there's a lot of smart students in the room, which adds to the fear of getting humiliated. Is there a way to overcome this?

There are several difficulties you're dealing with:

It is genuinely not easy to formulate and ask a good question. You know how they say that a good question is more than a half of the answer. That's why it is so important to learn how to ask a question and how to split a question in several smaller questions.
You usually do not have a lot of time in class as the lecturer tends to move on quickly. It is harder to come up with a good question in limited time.
Other students are also present and you may feel that they are "smarter" and they are "judging" you. Whether this is true or not, is another question (spoiler: it's probably not true), but the perception makes it harder to act.

Now, what can we do about it? My suggestion is to decouple the problems. First, start by learning to ask a question outside of the classroom setting.

As soon as you have a question in a class, write it down on paper. After the class, re-read it, and try to find the answer yourself. Try also to re-formulate the question in a more clear, concise and answerable way.
If your professor offers office hours, attend them and ask your question in person. Talking to your professor one-to-one will help you both to learn the subject and to learn how to communicate more efficiently. It will also improve your confidence and build a good relationship with your professor.
When you are ready, ask more questions in class. Write down professors' answers and (if you have time) note your own reaction. Hopefully you will find it easier to ask questions as you do it more often. If not, meet your professor and discuss your questions again.


How to parse the question "How many hours did you take at the institution?" I am filling in a form for graduate research at a US university. They have this question in the previous college attended part of the application form: How many hours did you take at the institution?

What does this question mean? How many hours I have spent in college, or how many hours I have been in college classes to earn a bachelor's degree?

In the US, university education is quantified as "credits" typically expressed as "credit hours" referring to 1 hour per week of instruction for a semester (so about 15-16 hours of face time). A course meeting 3X weekly would be worth 3 credit hours and is usually expected to involve an additional 6 hours weekly of work outside class. A 4 year bachelor's degree is about 120 credit hours.

I'd interpret this the same as asking for how many credits you took with that institution, expressed in an appropriate conversion to credit hours.


accepted, rejected, or requests for changes in special issue Recently, I have gone through a special issue of a journal and in the special issue, in notification to the author section, it's mentioned that

  Reviews returned to authors. Papers will be either accepted, rejected,
  or returned to the authors with requests for changes

There is only mentioned about the revised manuscript due date and special issue published date. Does that mean "returned to the authors with requests for changes" is another form of acceptance? or after submitting the revised document there may become a chance of the rejection?

Thanks in advance.

"Returned to authors with requests for changes" is a "revise" decision. That means the journal wants the authors to make certain changes (e.g., gather more data) before making a decision.

After a revise decision, my experience is that acceptance is the most likely final result. Certainly a paper that's returned to the authors for revision is not going to be desk rejected anymore. However, it's not a guarantee - you still have to convince the editors & reviewers to accept your paper.


Is it ok to cite my own paper, currently in review, in my own thesis? My PhD thesis is due around October, 2015 (~6 months ahead of the time of writing this).

I would like to submit a journal paper which contains substantial results from my research, mainly the reasons for this are:

It will be peer reviewed.
It will be useful to others in the same area
I can cite it in my thesis
I can use parts of it that have already been written in my thesis

I have found two appropriate journals, one more prestigious than the other. One of them says it will be reviewed in 6 week (the less prestigious of the two), and the other says it is likely to not be reviewed by October.

It's now difficult to decide which to submit to, and this depends on if it's 'ok' to cite a paper which is currently in review, in my own thesis. Ultimately, I will have done the work and just want to be able to metaphorically point at it and say, "look, this is substantial and good enough to be published, this is why I have submitted separately". I believe that the viva, and writing the thesis will be easier with a number of accepted papers (I feel this is a sad truth, but true nonetheless).

I have viewed a similar question here:
How to cite my own submitted but not yet published work?

However this is regarding citing published work in other papers, whereas the difference here is that I am only citing it in my own thesis (hopefully others will cite it if it's accepted and useful, which I believe there is a good chance it is).

Any advice would be great and really appreciated.

In most fields, a thesis is not counted as publication for purposes of avoiding duplication.  Thus, it is acceptable for the same material to appear in both a peer-reviewed article and your thesis, in either order: it is both acceptable to "staple" published material together to form a thesis and to "extract" thesis materials for publication afterward.

This means that you have two different options for your case here, depending on the particulars of your circumstance:

If the work you want to publish is something your thesis depends on, then submit the article and also include the work in the thesis (adapted appropriately for context in both circumstances, of course).  You can the put a citation in your thesis noting that this work is submitted.
If the work you want to publish is largely independent of your thesis, but just useful for you to note exists in your discussions, then don't include it in your thesis, and again, cite it as a submitted work.

In either case, for purpose of your advisor and committee's evaluation of your work, you can give them a copy of the article that is under review.  Thus, even though your article may not yet be published, its content can be easily made available to everybody who matters for acceptance of your thesis.

Finally: your advisor will likely have opinions and should probably be involved in the decision in any case.


German postdoc salaries (TV-L E14) What does "TV-L (E14, 100% position)" mean in terms of gross and net pay? What lifestyle does this buy you in Berlin?

This is in the context of a postdoc at a research institute.

You are right that TV-L is a civil servant payscale. Postdocs commonly are placed in the E-13 or E-14 scale, where the latter is higher (but usually comes with more responsibilities). The gross pay starts at just under 3579.34 EUR per month for Berlin. Very recently the pay scales have been renegotiated, so I believe it might have gone up a bit. This amount is the first step in the scale, depending on your experience you might start at a higher step.

The net amount depends on your specific circumstances, for example if you are married and if you are a member of a church. For single persons that are not registered with a church the net amount is around 2100 EUR a month. This includes health insurance. You should be able to live decently in Berlin for this money.

The details can be found on the Öffentlicher Dienst website  (in German, but you would want the table at the bottom).


Funding for Belgian student to do a PhD in UK? I am currently applying for PhD fundings in UK, but as the competition is rude, I am not sure to be accepted, even if I have very good grades and qualifications.

So, I want to look at other PhD fundings opportunities, that may be less obvious. For instance, I know that the European Commission proposed some PhD fundings (Marie Curie scheme or something like that), but I think it is no longer active.

If you could give me some advice, I would greatly appreciate.

Field of study : Theoretical Physics
Country of origin : Belgium, EU.

I'm not wealthy enough to fund myself for my PhD, even for one year.

The top universities often have a lot of reasonably obscure funding options.

For example with the University of Cambridge - if you go through the steps at this website they list all their funding options, you'll see for Physics there are fully-funded scholarships such as these that might be of interest to you:

Leslie Wilson Research Scholarship (£17,427 per year)
Winton Scholarship(s) in the Physics of Sustainability
Thalmann Bequest (covers EU fees only)
Schiff Fund (upto £20,000 per year)
Gulbenkian Studentship (specifically for non-UK nationals)
Gates Cambridge Scholarships

The equivalent website for the University of Oxford is here

and it reckons

  35 Scholarships were found for a new student from Belgium studying
  Theoretical Physics (DPhil)

so I'm not going to list them all here!!!

Best of luck!


Working on the arXiv version of a published paper, how should I cite? As part of a research project, I use results from this paper. It seems to have been published at least 3 times:

as an arXiv preprint from January 2012
in a Springer book from 2012
in another Springer book from 2014

Google also found a version hosted on PSU's website, which I guess is a copy of one of the published versions.

For each of these versions, there is a different .bib file containing the "right" way to cite the paper.
I don't know which one I should use.
Since I don't have either of the Springer books, I work with the arXiv version, but it seems weird to me to cite the arXiv preprint (I assume it's a preprint) if there are versions already published elsewhere.

I am relatively new to research (not a PhD student) and have encountered this situation several times.
I usually don't have access to the peer-reviewed version, and work on preprints published by the authors.

How do I choose which version to cite? Should I always cite the exact one I have been reading, even if it is not the final peer-reviewed publication?

If at all possible you should cite the most recent official (published, peer reviewed) version.

You could consider contacting the author to ask if the arXiv  version differs in any way that might matter in your context. A librarian might be able to help with that too.

You can note in your bibliography that a version of article is also available on arXiv.


Has the proportions of articles to citations changed? In 2014 Nature looked at the top 10 and top 100 papers with most citations.
Has similar research been done more recently?
I am particularly interested in whether the relative numbers have changed: In the image above 1000 citations would put a paper in the top 14499 of 57798126 papers = 0.025%. Since 2014 a lot of papers have been published (thus growing the pile), but more papers have also been cited (thus growing the part with 1000 citations). Do they grow equally? In other words: Would 1000 citations today still mean it is cited more than 99.975% of other papers? And if not: What are the numbers today?
Ideally the answer would include a percentile function that given a year and a percentage returns the number of citations to be in that percentile that year: percentile(year,pct) = number of citations.

That's a really fascinating question. I looked at the original Nature article (https://www.nature.com/news/the-top-100-papers-1.16224) - my initial intuition would be that the proportion shouldn't differ to significantly from the earlier one (it will most likely differ to some extent as there is no reason to expect the proportional growth of citations and the growth of papers to correlate), but we would of course need to calculate it.
Wouldn't the best course of action be to use a research database where you can filter by number of accrued citations, set that to display papers with > 1000 citations and then divide the retrieved number with the total number of papers in that database? If you you wish to be consistent with the Nature article, I believe they did their analysis solely on Web of Science. Having that said, I'm not sure they provide these figures out of the box, it looks like Nature got special access to these figures for their article.


Submitting a previously rejected paper to a different journal I have submitted a mathematical paper for publication several months ago. A couple months after submission, I noticed some mistakes and things that can be improved, but while I sent the unsolicited revision, I received no confirmation on that.

Anyway, six months passed with no contact, so I emailed the editor. The editor came back after a few days and said that there was a referee assigned shortly after the original submission, and that they will see that shortly I will receive the report.

And indeed, a couple weeks later I received what is obviously the work of someone that entirely forgot about this task, and did a lousy job. It was very clear from the first paragraph that the paper wasn't seriously read into, several odd comments were made which I can only conclude were the result of skipping a line in the statement of a theorem...

In any case, almost all of the complaints of the referee are such that I considered invalid (either by the revision made, which was ignored, or by the obvious lack of attention put into the reading).

Nevertheless, a handful of suggestions were helpful, and I did make those revisions. But now it is time to submit elsewhere.

  Should I reveal that the paper had been rejected before? Should I explain why that rejection was ridiculous? Or should I just submit the paper as though it was never submitted before?

One reason to reveal the history of the paper is that it might be that the same referee will get to handle the paper again. And then there is a good chance of getting a second rejection. By doing this, I can at least make sure that the editors are aware of the situation.

One reason not to reveal this is that the original journal is not considered "top tier" (and in fact many people raised eyebrows when they heard about the rejection). So by stating that I got rejected from a B-tier journal, I might be shooting myself in the leg.

I'd be happy to hear any advice as to how to proceed, and if I should be revealing some of the history, then how much details should be enough?

I have never known anyone to submit a mathematics paper and identify it as having been previously rejected by a journal.  (In particular, I have never done this myself, though I have resubmitted over a dozen papers.)  If a journal specifically asks for this information, then ethically speaking you should give it or resubmit elsewhere -- I would recommend the latter, since requiring this kind of authorial disclosure is exceedingly rare in mathematics (if indeed it is done at all).

I don't see any benefit to the authors in disclosing a previous rejection.  You write

  One reason to reveal the history of the paper is that it might be that the same referee will get to handle the paper again. And then there is a good chance of getting a second rejection. By doing this, I can at least make sure that the editors are aware of the situation.

I don't follow why you think that making the editors aware that the same referee previously rejected the paper will help: if the paper and status of the journal are not much different the second time around, then giving the same verdict seems to be appropriately consistent.

Also, in my opinion, that the referee did not seem to understand the paper very well makes it more likely that they were chosen by the first editor somewhat capriciously / randomly / badly, and thus the chance that they will be called upon again is small.  Getting a repeat referee is only likely when the referee is one of a very small number of experts in your subfield....but such an expert had better be able to understand your paper, or you have problems well beyond the scope of your question.

For completeness, let me say that I didn't find the argument against disclosure so convincing either:

  One reason not to reveal this is that the original journal is not considered "top tier" (and in fact many people raised eyebrows when they heard about the rejection). So by stating that I got rejected from a B-tier journal, I might be shooting myself in the leg.

In my experience, any journal can reject any paper, and the necessary meaning in any one instance of this is infinitesimal.  I know many mathematicians who like to tell stories about getting rejected from journal A and then getting accepted by better journal B.  Moreover, as I understand the editorial process [I am not a journal editor, but I know some and have discussed the edit flow with them] it is not even really clear where the piece of information that the paper had been previously rejected would be taken into account.  If the paper looks decent then it goes out to at least one referee.  Certainly the referees are not being informed that the paper has been rejected elsewhere before (unless they were themselves previous referees, but again, this has nothing to do with the disclosure).  In most cases the decision to accept or reject is made entirely based on the referee reports.  In some cases the editors exercise some additional scrutiny, but it doesn't sound plausible that at the end of this long process they would take the prior rejection into account.

The one case I can think of where this disclosure might matter is if the paper has the superficial look of being really faulty (this includes the case in which it is really faulty!).  If I were a journal editor, then upon hearing from an author "The Annals rejected my paper on the proof of the Goldbach Conjecture, so I'm submitting it to you" then I would think: well, if it was correct, the Annals would have published it.

Finally, I think you should pay more attention to the fact that you chose to pass along a second draft after "a couple of months."  Not getting a confirmation of that resubmission was a mistake -- it puts you in the position of having to accept a referee report on the old version no matter how much time has passed, and that sounds like it might have been what happened.  When it comes to submitting an "improved draft" before receiving a report, I advise doing one of the following:

1) Resubmit within a couple of weeks of the original submission, ideally before the referee has started reading the paper.

2) Refrain from resubmitting until after you receive the referee report, with the understanding that you may get dinged for problems that you already found and corrected.

3) Withdraw the paper.  Then submit the new version as a new submission -- either to the same journal or to a different journal.


Are lay articles good enough to be the main source of information for PhD research? Doing PhD in new field that does not have enough resources in it. Most of the information I find are articles written in websites such as medium.com.
I really feel awkward citing a website article, as I feel it is not good enough. It is not from university, it has just the author name, not much info about him/her, and the way it is written is for non-academic purpose.

Is it ok to have many of these articles as the source of my information in my PhD? If it is not ok, then what can I do? there is no reliable resources! The field is Artificial Intelligence.

To be more specific: It is not about AI in general, it is about a topic in AI that has not been explored thoroughly, the only place that has done that is Google and they keep the research they have done private and not accessible for public, i have contacted them but they rejected to help with their research

Edit : I know that there are millions of AI researches in the internet. but there isn't anything I was able to find on the area i am studying. google has a product and they are selling as a service and they are not publishing the research they have done on that area, i have contacted google and they did not allow me to look at their research.. there are other researches on other areas may touch that field but none i found on that field specifically.

I find the entire premise of the question quite odd. First of all, to answer your question: I’d say that in most cases I’ve encountered the answer would be no, you can’t use popular science articles as a primary source.

That said, I seriously doubt that they’re all that’s out there. Google works on this problem: they came up with it and no one else ever heard of it or studied it? How did the popular media hear about this amazing idea that has somehow eluded the entire AI research community except Google and your advisor? I feel like you’re either looking at the wrong sources, your advisor is not pointing you in the right direction, or something else is off.


The person who created the application I used for a study wants to help analyze the data I used a commercial tool created by a small company to perform quantitative analysis of medical images for a study that I did.  I was very conservative in my statistical analysis and consulted with a university-employed biostatistician throughout the process.  The results were negative.  I presented the results at a conference and have submitted the paper to a journal where it is currently under review.

The problem is that the founder of the company whose tool I used came up to me after the presentation and started to interpret my results differently, putting them in a more positive and hopeful light.  He is an engineer and is, of course, highly knowledgeable about the tool we used since he developed it.  However, he wants to help us re-analyze the data since he 'saw some interesting results' in my presentation.  I feel uncomfortable about this since I believe there is a conflict of interest at play if we were to work directly with him.  I think he has a clear economic incentive to promote his analysis tool, and I can see how the results of our study might influence the perception of his product.

Am I overthinking this situation?  What level of cooperation with this person would be acceptable from a COI perspective?

I don't see a problem. Many people create a tool, use it to analyze something, then publish the results. Many companies that produce products publish papers that try to put their products in a good light. It is the job of both the authors and the reviewers to do all this in a rigorous fashion, but it doesn't mean such papers are disallowed.


Is there evidence of effects of votes of no confidence on enrollment? Is there any evidence that a successful vote of no confidence on the president of a small college will have a negative impact on enrollment?  This warning is being used by the administration of my college to encourage faculty not to vote no confidence.

My answer is opinion unsupported by evidence, but I think it's right. {grin}

If your student population is drawn primarily from the local area, then the publicity might dissuade a few potential students from applying.  If the student population is drawn from a wide area (nationally or international) then most potential students will never know about the vote of no confidence, no matter how it turns out.


Contact programs about wrong dates for part-time research assistantship in college? So I am submitting applications for this cycle (Fall 2021). I graduated from school a few years ago and did occasional part-time work as a research assistant in college. In my application, I recorded September 2014 to September 2017 as a research assistant. Though I just realized, I was a research assistant from January 2015 to September 2017. So I was one semester off. This was an honest mistake, and since this was 5 years ago and part-time, I was a little fuzzy on the dates to be honest.
Should I reach out to programs pre-emptively? I don't want them to think this was intentional.
EDIT: Fwiw, the application was submitted about a month ago.
EDIT2: I ended up writing a brief email like the one in the comments section. Will update on outcome

While it is unlikely to be a big deal for most purposes, it is best to be honest and clear. Send a note and update the CV.
Mistakes happen. We are human and are generally recognized as such. There might be a rare exception in which a correction is necessary, but not for most. Still, it is courteous, clean, and neat.


How should work experience affect decision to get an MLIS (or another similar specialized Master's)? The Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) degree is widely discussed as a potentially bad investment as a graduate level degree at this time because few programs are funded, it is rather specific, and it is notoriously difficult to actually get a job in the field of librarianship with an MLIS. One of the major reasons I've seen cited for this is the number of graduates versus available positions, and lack of practical work experience among new MLIS graduates.

However, I may have the opportunity to work in a library for over a year during my undergraduate degree. If lack of practical work experience is indeed (?) a major factor in the difficulty of the library job market post-graduation, would an MLIS be a more practical investment for me considering I could gain this experience before beginning the graduate program, thus leaving with both a degree and experience? In general, when deciding whether to apply to or enter an unfunded Master's program in a given field directly out of undergrad, should presence or lack of existing work experience in the field (or a related one) during undergrad be a major consideration?

I am curious to hear others' answers, especially those specifically about library work.

I highly recommend working in a field before spending your time (and money) training for it. I am extremely glad that I worked straight out of college instead of trying to go directly to law school. Working in a law-adjacent area, I realized that I did not want to be a lawyer, but I enjoyed working with colleagues with Ph.D.s and chose a different path.

If you are going to work while studying anyway, working in the library sounds like a great choice for you. If you were not planning on working, I am not sure whether it would be worthwhile to seek out that opportunity. (For U.S. students who are going to work anyway, working on campus through Federal Work Study is associated with a higher GPA versus working otherwise. However, for the students who were not otherwise going to work while studying, on average working is associated with worse academic performance. (Scott-Clayton and Minaya, 2016) (Working while studying seems to be worse academically for full-time students but not part-time students (Darolia, 2014), and the effect of working may depend on what activities the work time is substituting for (Scott-Clayton, 2011).)

(Pedantic note: Scott-Clayton 2011 is a quasi-experimental study based on the variation in the amount of Federal Work Study funding institutions have available, which means I feel free to use the word "effect" in a causal sense. The other two references address causal concerns through modeling endogeneity and matching, which make their analyses useful but not definitive evidence about a cause-and-effect relationship.)


Writing a Master's thesis for 2 years ... is that appropriate? I am currently three months into writing a Master's thesis for a Master's degree in Mathematics, and the school I am currently attending is a California state university. I was asking my thesis advisor if I can expand the scope of the topic of my thesis, which means I would have to anticipate 2 years of working on the thesis (instead of 1 year).

However, as I am also applying to various math Ph.D programs after completing my Master's thesis and degree, my thesis advisor is not keen to the idea of working on a larger scope of my thesis for 2 years. My advisor says that this would be "inappropriate", that he thinks the faculty on admissions committees would be confused and that my advisor would "not be doing his job" (in having me finish in 1 year, or "soon enough").

I for one disagree with my advisor personally, because I thought that expanding the scope of my thesis, even if it would take longer for me to complete and defend, would look even better on my Ph.D applications. I thought this would actually impress the committee rather than confusing them. I wanted to demonstrate that my finished thesis would reflect my having looked into more mathematical papers in research literature, as opposed to only two papers, which were chosen by my advisor, that I'm reading currently for my thesis topic.

So I'm asking here simply for more thoughts on this matter. I do hope my point is valid, but if it seems most of the people here are agreeing with my thesis advisor, then I'll understand either way.

tl;dr: I want to write more to my Master's thesis and plan to take 2 years instead of 1 year. My advisor disagrees and thinks the Ph.D admissions committees won't like this. Is this true?

Of course it's hard to say without knowing a lot about your specific situation, but I doubt spending an extra year on your master's thesis would be worthwhile.  In particular, if your advisor doesn't think another year is a good use of time, then I'd bet he is right.

Completing a master's degree is not necessary before applying to Ph.D. programs in mathematics in the U.S., and the primary purpose is to make up for a weak background or to shift fields.  From this perspective, the main goal is to do good work and move on, not to spend extra time trying to accomplish even more.  That comes across as eccentric, like you are wasting time on a side track rather than moving on with your academic career.

Two years in a master's program is the upper limit for what's normal in mathematics in the U.S., and this includes coursework.  Spending two full years working on a master's thesis would be unusual.  If you spend an unusually long time on your master's thesis, it may look like you just weren't able to write one more quickly, either because you weren't adequately prepared or you aren't good at getting things done.

  I thought that expanding the scope of my thesis, even if it would take longer for me to complete and defend, would look even better on my Ph.D applications.

If you write a much better thesis, it could be worthwhile, but it needs to be dramatically better even after normalizing for the time spent.  Linear scaling can't help you: if you spend twice as long writing a thesis that looks like it involves twice as much work, then it won't end up being a significantly better demonstration of your abilities.  The only real benefit is if your thesis is much better than twice as good.  (For example, if you have almost proved a significant new theorem, you might be better off taking longer and actually proving it.)


What does it mean to have vacation time in European academia? I am a US-based researcher who recently accepted a postdoc in Sweden. My offer letter states that I will be entitled to a 6-week annual vacation during my appointment. Being from the US where I have been in charge of structuring my own schedule (except for teaching), this obviously confuses me for several reasons.

First, I am not sure if we are legally entitled to vacation days in the US, but even if we were, I have never seen people officially take "vacations" in the US. This is, in my mind what school administrative staff or office workers do, not academics. Over the past years, I have structured my work and vacation time around my teaching schedule and figured out when to rest and when to work on my own without having to count days or ask my department's permission. Of course nobody cares when I take vacations as long as my vacation time does not overlap with my teaching schedule.
So the fact that my new department is emphasizing "legal vacation hours" is a little strange. What does vacations mean when I will likely be spending whatever free time, rushing to finish my manuscript, grant proposals, or course prep anyways?
Also, does the fact that the school is counting vacation days mean that I have to be in my office during "normal work hours"? I've never heard anything sillier, because for academics, number of hours in office does not equate productivity, and I actually like switching up my work location time to time rather than being stuck in an office! (In the US, I only show up to school about 3 days a week-- mostly when I have to teach and want to be in office. Other days, I just go to a local cafe to write. If possible, I'd like to keep things this way...)

I'm wondering if anyone can clarify what academic vacation means in Europe and if it really differs from the US?

Welcome to European vacation regulations :-).

You are entitled to X days of vacations per year. Literally. There's no hook to it. You simply ask the employer, basically your direct supervisor (head of the group, department, dean?), and if there's no reason to say "no", they will approve it. Of course taking time off during days when you are teaching needs to be explained very very well, but if your vacation days do not interfere with teaching obligations, or similar duties, you will be given the time off. That's it.

Normally at universities, unless you have a very fussy boss, nobody cares when you take vacations time (still recall non-interference with teaching), but most people take several weeks off in the summer and people with a family also during school vacation periods (country dependent). In companies, the system tends to be stricter, you should plan any longer breaks several months ahead and coordinate with your colleagues so that it does not happen that everybody leaves for two weeks and a company stops. At universities that is a non-issue, though.

Legal vacation time means you are entitled to that time. The employer is obliged to give you that time off. Suppose they will refuse to approve your vacations when you wish to take them (e.g., when you work in agricultural sector you shouldn't leave at the harvest time). In that (rare!) case, they will have to select and offer you another period of (usually at least two weeks of uninterrupted) vacations period some other time in the year.

But there is another potential surprise for you. If you won't take all your vacations in a year, since you are entitled to that time, it will be (in all countries and places I worked, but there might be local differences) shifted into the next year when you will be entitled to the standard X days per year according to the union negotiations PLUS whatever carry-over from the last year. The regulations regarding how far into the future that contingent of vacation days can be pushed differ, but normally the carry-over is useful in the very next year in full. Sometimes you might even be obliged to take it. Because if not, the employer might have a problem - again, you are entitled to vacations. And the employer can even force you take time off in order to use that vacations budget. The reason is that they don't like the idea of accumulating and then even making use of several months of vacations in a row.

As for being in the workplace during working hours, again, regulations differ but most of the time there is at least a certain period (10oo-15oo?) when you are obliged to be there. But in reality at universities I never heard of anybody making any fuss about this (except for Eastern European universities, where it can be a matter of local department politics - but that is of no concern to your case). Think about it as a legal issue. If something happens to you at office hours (a car accident), it might be considered a work-related accident, so the employers try to counter-act that by requiring you to be in the office unless allowed not to.

Later edit:

  What does vacations mean when I will likely be spending whatever free time, rushing to finish my manuscript, grant proposals, or course prep anyways?

You structure your time. It doesn't have to be the way you describe. What use does an employer have of burned out and stressed out employees?

Even later edit:
Just for completeness, being entitled to take vacations also means that often you will be able to trade days off for salary. Usually the union contracts regulate, or prevent this, but for example when you are leaving, the employer will either compensate the unused fraction of the annual vacations budget by money, or will force you to take it right before leaving the position - during that time you will receive the regular salary up to the date of leave.


Swap Postdoc position I was offered a post doc position in a top level university about 2 months ago, which I have already accepted.

However, I was recently called for an interview in another equally prestigious university for another postdoc position which I applied to before getting the previous position offered.

The second position is, in my view, much better than the first one in many senses (I like the country more, a substantially higher salary, closer to my home town), however I am worried that if I decline the first offer (which I already accepted) now, the supervisor from the first university will get annoyed and that will carry repercussions in my future career and my image to the scientific community.

I have heard that many people do these things (declining offers already accepted) for academic positions, but that this is seen as much worse for postdocs positions. However, I think that everyone would agree that the second offer is a substantially better option, even the supervisor from the first university.

Should I give up the position I already accepted in order to pursue the better option?

To come right to the point: after accepting the first offer, you should have withdrawn all your other applications.  When you were contacted for the second interview, it was not enough to inform them that you had already accepted an offer -- you should have informed them of this and therefore declined the interview.  (I find it strange though that this second institution was happy to interview someone who told them they had already accepted another offer.  I wonder if there was some kind of miscommunication / misunderstanding here.)  In academia, accepting an offer means committing to show up to that job for at least one semester (which is the atomic unit of most academic jobs).  In my circles at least, the minimum length of time to spend in an accepted academic position and "leave honorably" is one academic year.

  I have heard that many people do these things (declining offers already accepted) for academic positions, but that this is seen much worse for postdocs positions.

Yes, it happens somewhat frequently.  Like a lot of negative human behavior, that it happens frequently does not excuse it.  I don't necessarily agree that it is seen as worse for postdocs; it really depends on the situation.  I would argue that all other things being equal, getting reneged on by a temporary employee is not as bad as getting reneged on by a (relatively) permanent employee.

  However, I think that everyone would agree that the second offer is substantially a better option, even the supervisor from the first university.

Better for you.  But would the supervisor from the first university think it is better for her?  What happens to her if you renege -- will she have the time and opportunity to hire someone else?  If she can't hire anyone, will that have negative repercussions on her work and the work of her affiliates and students?

The way to find out the answers to these questions is to ask.  I strongly suggest contacting your supervisor as soon as possible.  Explain your situation and perspective, including why the second position would be substantially more desirable to you for personal reasons.  Then ask what repercussions there would be if you weren't able to show up for the first position.  If there would be severely negative consequences for your supervisor, I think you should stick with the job you committed to.  Otherwise you may suggest to the supervisor, with maximum politeness, that you would like to take the second job instead of the first, and see if she will give you her blessing.

Good luck.


Cite articles "in preparation" or conference presentations in post-doc/junior positions grant application There are already questions on how to handle unpublished material in CVs. But here I am wondering if would be reasonable to cite an article in preparation in the application of a grant for a PhD or a postdoc position right after a PhD. So basically only for Junior scientists  who are still  in the process of finishing their PhD or their Masters and have one or two papers in the pipeline which are very relevant to the application in question.

I have seen published papers citing  other manuscripts in preparation, usually from the same author or a co-author. So how is this handled/seen in a grant application, provided that the manuscript in preparation exist and can be  provided if requested? Would it be better to reference a presentation at an international well-known conference?

As noted by @aeismail, there are many grant mechanisms that expressly prohibit listing anything that's not "in press" or published, so the first stop would be checking the rules for the grant application itself.

If it is allowed, it's understandable to a junior scientist to do this (and indeed, I did this on several job applications). A few general notes:

Don't list a journal. No one cares that something is "in submission" to Nature or Science or Cell or what have you, and it erodes your credibility.
Do be sparing in what you list. These should be papers you're actively working to prep for submission, are being circulated to co-authors, etc. Things where in another few months your CV might look markedly different. "I've written the title and maybe half the intro" doesn't count. Every idea and musing you've had doesn't count. There shouldn't be a wall of these, or way more in prep entries than actual published work.
Do be prepared to talk about each and every one of them (this follows from the previous point). I have been asked about papers I had in prep in a fair amount of detail (they were interested in the topic).


References for PhD Application: Is reputation or personal relationship more important? I am a Master's student who is currently applying for PhD programs. When it comes to the letter of recommendation, I need to choose one out of the following three professors.

Details are deleted due to personal matters. However the answers should still be helpful to a certain extent.

Remember, the main issue in the letters of recommendation is testifying to your aptitude as a researcher. Being well-known gives the letter somewhat more weight, but being able to comment in depth on your abilities can counter or outweigh the "big name" factor.

However, enthusiasm in writing the letter is also an important factor. Someone who doesn't immediately agree to writing a letter of recommendation for you is probably someone you do not want writing a letter at all. So, I would consider asking both A and B if they would be willing to write a letter. If both agree to write them, then I would use your long-term goal as an additional "screen." If you're primarily interested in a teaching career, I might lean towards using B a bit more than A, and vice versa for a research career.


Should I explain my "NP" grade in my statement of purpose? Here's my situation. I am struggling with it for weeks. I am a math major applying to Ph.D. programs (pure math). I have a 3.94 major GPA, but in my sophomore year, I got an NP (no pass) in a math course of differential geometry. This is because I didn't make the final for personal reasons. I retook the course (in my junior year, because there is only one such course a year) and got an A, and actually I got full marks in all quizzes and exams.
Here is the thing. Do I need to explain in my "NP" grade in my statement of purpose? Since I am applying to good Ph.D. programs, my statement of purpose is like a research statement, and it shows my math background, research experience, and dedication - all good things. I feel it is very weird to write anything about my "NP" in such a statement. I also feel like professors don't like such things showing up in a statement of purpose.
If I don't write any explanation, I believe that professors will know the "NP" cannot reflect my academic ability. After all, I retook it and nearly all my math courses are "A". However, I am worried that they make some guesses about the "NP" like academic dishonesty (definitely not true), or I don't have the ability to handle the crisis (which is true). Besides, I think (only my guess) professors will be curious about it, so maybe they are expecting an explanation?
All in all, should I explain my "NP" grade in my statement of purpose?

This sort of thing is always a strategic decision. While some readers will appreciate the clarification, for others it may serve to highlight something that would otherwise not have attracted attention. I suggest seeking advice from professors at your current institution, who can comment on how your overall application looks.
If you do decide to address it, some options include:

Ask one of your letter-writers if they can deal with it in their letter;
Add a standalone note at the end of your Statement of Purpose. Don't work it into the prose of your SoP, just put something at the end such as

N.B. The 'NP' grade shown on my transcript for ... arose because I was unable to attend the final exam for personal reasons. I retook this course in .... and received an 'A'.

Include a cover note with the transcript.

Good luck!


How should someone choose a PhD topic so that she doesn't fail? One of my close relatives went to Australia to get a Ph.D. in computer science. PhDs in Australia are 3 years long. She couldn't complete her Ph.D. in 3 years. Then she applied for an extension and got 1 year more. However, ultimately she failed. I asked her about the issue and she preferred to stay silent.
As far as I guess, she chose a topic that was destined for failure. I.e. her hypothesis was incorrect.
How should someone choose a Ph.D. topic so that she doesn't fail?

Make sure your advisor has a good track record of graduating students in time.
Anyone just entering or outside the field won't be able to assess PhD topics with good judgement, so it's unfair when advisors fail their students by giving them bad projects. Your best bet at avoiding this is finding an advisor who is unlikely to fail students in this way.
If you find yourself in this position, a good bet is to reach out to other professors and tell them what's going on. It can feel shameful, but I've seen many success stories of people getting a new project and spinning it into enough for a PhD when things aren't working out with their initial advisor.


In citations, how to find out if it's a compound name? I have a paper that I want to cite in my own work, in the form
"J. Wayne" (for John Wayne) in the bibliography part of the paper and Wayne in the body of the paper.

The full name of the author appears on the paper as Aaaa Bbbb Cccc, and is typically a non-western name.
Say, consider something like John Fitzgerald Kennedy, but let's assume you never heard of them, and they obviously are from a different culture, and you don't know if their last-name is Kennedy or Fitzgerald Kennedy.

Should I note it in my Bibtex file as Kennedy, John Fitzgerald or
Fitzgerald Kennedy, John ? This will change things when printed with last-name only, it will appear either as Kennedy or Fitzgerald Kennedy.

So, more generally, is there an academic naming convention for this kind of situation ?
Edit: To be more precise, what I want to know is if there is a standardized way for an author with such a name to sign his paper, for example Aaaa Bbbb-Cccc, so no ambiguity is left for the reader. Or for the reader, if one has a guaranteed way to know this (seems not).

I must add that I have seen the considered author cited as Bbbb or as Cccc, one of these being obviously incorrect (even both could be).

The convention, inasmuch as one exists, is:

  Write the name the way the individual wants it to be written.

For example, one of my co-authors has four names:

  (First Name) (Middle Name) (Adopted Married Name) (Given Last Name)

but chooses to use

  (First Initial). (Middle Name) (Adopted Initial). (Last Name)

as his "formal" academic name.

As a more concrete example of this phenomenon, this is a significant issue with a lot of British folks, who eschew the hyphen in a "double-barreled" last name. For instance, you'd cite:

  Vaughan Williams, Ralph. The Lark Ascending. London: Oxford University Press (2005).

and not

  Williams, Ralph V. The Lark Ascending. London: Oxford University Press (2005).

In such cases, you just need to look up exactly how the author writes his or her name, and follow that trend. Google Scholar can be a good source of such information; Web of Science and other citation-tracking sites are often better.

The most useful method of all would be to find "self-citations": works where the author cites his or her own work. How the name is written under those circumstances should be the most unambiguous statement.


ResearchFish: Which publications count? In the UK, for grant-holders there is an annual need to report all publications via ResearchFish to the UK government. In mathematics, it is confusing which papers should be included. Do I include arxiv postings? Papers that have been published since the onset of the grant? Both? I want to do the most ethical thing, but these lines seem much more blurred in mathematics--there's times where papers will take >2 years to get published so the "products" from a grant would be shunted to the next grant, etc.

Do I put in work that was started before the grant and then was finished during the grant?
Do I include arxiv postings?
Do I include published work that was on the arxiv before the grant started?

Thank you for your time.

I work at Researchfish now but prior to that I was at one of the research councils (MRC). I have had an ongoing involvement in the system, and particularly in defining the question set/information collected. The main aim is to collect outputs against the relevant funding i.e. a paper should be associated with the award if that funding has in any way contributed to or supported the research or other activities to produce the paper.

So, with regard to your questions:
Do I put in work that was started before the grant and then was finished during the grant?
- yes, if the grant has supported some of the latter parts of the work whether in resource, salary etc.

Do I include arxiv postings?
- my understanding is that arxiv is for preprints, funders tend not to need to know about a paper until it is published, although there are some exceptions so you should check with your specific funder. If your funder does want to now about papers before they are published this will be done through the additional sections of questions, rather than the main publications section.

Do I include published work that was on the arxiv before the grant started?
- this is less likely, unless there is significant change in the paper between the preprint on arXiv and the published version. Again, please think about the funding.

I hope this helps, but your funder should be able to clarify this further.

Bev Sherbon

Impact & Evaluation Adviser, Researchfish


Do large number of attended conferences favour application to postdoctoral or tenured positions? Situation: I started my PhD (Pure Maths) in January 2018. My research interest lies on functional analysis but not on applied side.
  If possible, I would like to stay at academia as a Maths researcher or lecturer (or even better, professor).

Recently I came across a few conferences that I would like to attend. However, due to my scholarship terms and conditions, I am able to obtain financial assistance from the school only once per year.
However, some of my peers attended more than one conference per year due to their prestigious scholarship.

  Question: Would a Phd student with few conference attendances be at a disadvantage when applying for postdoctoral / tenured track position?

By conference attendance, I mean attend AND give a talk at conference.

The purpose of attending conferences when you are at the PhD level and post-doc level is not for padding your CV, although people still want to see you have presented at some international recognized conferences. The main purpose is to advertise yourself and your research and to network for what could be your next position. In fact it is possible to walk out of a conference with some kind of contact or verbal agreement that sets you up for your future job.

For professorship application I don't think just attending conferences will help you, rather they will want to see that you have been keynote or plenary.


Is it advisable to cite a lot of commecial product web references in a survey paper? I'm currently writing a survey on a specific topic in biomechanics. In one of the sections, a tabulation of tools with columns name, type, description, and study is included.

The plan was to cite the home page of the commercial product next to the tool name and cite the relevant literature that use them in the study section. This would mean 20+ product home pages in the in the reference section out of around 200 references. My intention was to allow the reader to refer the product page for more detail regarding the tool concerned.

From a reviewer's standpoint, is it a good idea to cite so many commercial product links in an academic article?

After a deeper thought, I've come to a conclusion not to cite commercial product pages as it would turn part of my academic paper into an online shopping catalogue.

The following are the alternatives adopted:

Include the name of the company along with product name
Cite patents of the products
Cite product-specific publications


How should one describe a future academic appointment I am currently a grad student, and will have an appointment as an assistant professor in a few months.  For various conferences I am attending, I am to provide my title.  I would prefer to mention my future position, if for no other reason so that people I meet will know where to find me in the future.  Is there a term for a future appointment like "President-elect" or "Chairperson-elect" that can be used?  "Assistant professor-elect" seems strange and "Assistant professor (effective August)" seems clunky.

I would not worry about the title as much as the new location. Assuming a name badge that looks something like

Strongbad
PhD Student
Crazy Go Nuts University

I would add a hand written line to make it

Strongbad
PhD Student
Crazy Go Nuts University
Krusty's Clown College (starting August)

I would only do this if the contract has been signed and there is no contingency on you finishing your PhD. If you have to finish your PhD to start the assistant professor position, then there is no guarantee you will be starting in August.


Sending pre-application e-mail to two professors who are close friends but at different universities I am planning to apply to PhD courses at 2 different universities.
Professor A is at the first school, and professor B is at the second school.

I already communicated with the professor A. I am also thinking of writing a contact e-mail to professor B.

Professor A and Professor B are quite close (academically), as they are working on the upcoming project as co-authors.

Would it be inappropriate if I contact professor B to show my academic interest?

I'm just worried that they might find it unethical to talk about my interest to them simultaneously.

There is no issue here. You're not going to burning any bridges or make anyone upset if you talk to other professors. Your job right now is to find the best university that will take you. The professors at these universities understand that. If they don't, you don't want to work with them.

Personal story time: When I was applying to grad school, I ended up chatting with a husband and wife who were professors at different universities. They had different last names and didn't let on they were married so I didn't find out until another professor told me. I thought it was hilarious and they didn't care that their spouse was also trying to recruit me.


What are your policies regarding ownership of computer code in your lab? I work in a large US-based university, in biomedical sciences and am PI of my own research lab. One of my current interests is to develop a research line that uses machine/deep learning (ML) to solve certain challenges in my field.

Because of the ongoing enthusiasm regarding ML, junior trainees and younger colleagues with background in computer science have approached me to collaborate. I certainly welcome this, because I am not a specialist in ML. They would bring to the table coding experience, energy and fresh approaches. Their status at my institution is of employees of the institution (not directly my employees).

I have the (possibly wrong) impression that many people in their 20s-30s today grew up with heroes such as Zuckerberg, Jobs, and Larry Page, and want to succeed by inventing the next big thing and "selling it to Google". I very often catch some of these prospects inadvertently expressing a commercial motivation for endeavors like writing up code/software to solve some of the challenges in my field. I don't think this is necessarily wrong, but believe it is a somewhat misguided motivation, and should not be the primary driving force (IMHO, above all it should an unexplainable curiosity, urge for innovation and problem-solving).

My questions are:

how do you handle intellectual property / copyright in collaborations that involve developing code? Do you have different ways of dealing with this if it is with junior staff versus post-docs, grads, undergrads?
Do you discuss code ownership issues before starting a project? Do you have recommendations on how this should be approached so as not to hamper enthusiasm?
have you had a situation in which your collaborator (regardless of rank) changed their mind from open-source to commercial (or patenting)? Do you obtain formal/written agreements at the outset to avoid problems down the road? (my concern again is how doing this could seem like discussing divorce before getting married)

My inclination is towards openness and sharing, and any subsequent benefit (even if commercial) is likely to derive from that. I have no problem in explicitly stating that to collaborators, but wanted to know what the community has experienced in this regard. In my current biomedical research, which has no realistic commercial application, I am very clear at the outset with collaborators (regardless of rank) regarding my standards for integrity and authorship roles.

I can only comment on your first question. Since you work for a large US-based institution I would be surprised if they do not have policies regarding IP generated by using university resources. That is, it may not be up to you to decide how ownership is handled. Many big universities have their own office to deal with technology licensing, patentable inventions, and so on. Since (in my limited understanding), this is a huge legal minefield, I would recommend contacting them first before you set any policies that you cannot keep. This is even more so if any external funding is involved, since funding agencies might also want a piece of the pie.


Conference proceeding after journal article Is it possible to write a conference proceeding about topics already published (by the same author, of course) in a journal article? It is understood that all the sentences will be rephrased and all the figures changed not to fall into self-plagiarism. In a conference, in fact, one often wants to summarize and gather together the results he has obtained in the last months of research.

Depending on the particulars of your situation, there are three paths I am aware of for presentation at a conference:

Some conferences have begun to offer "journal first" submission options that explicitly welcome the presentation of an article that has already been presented in a journal.  For these, one prepares a short precis of the article for review and it is explicitly understood that this has already been published.
If you have some new results, you can certainly write a conference paper on these new results as an incremental advance over the prior work. Here, you simply focus on the new results just as you would for any publication building on prior work.  The only question is whether the new results will be considered significant enough for separate publication by your reviewers.
Finally, some conferences don't involve peer-reviewed articles at all, but just have one-paragraph abstracts submitted as "applications to speak", in which case figures and self-plagiarism don't enter into the question at all, since the abstract is not a publication in any meaningful sense.

From what you have written, it sounds like the first or second path would apply for your needs.


Re-did my experiment, how to properly mention it? After doing and evaluating my experiment/model, I decided to redo it (changed some small things based on the results of that experiment), because I believe that this new way would give me even more insight into what I am studying.
How do I properly report this in a thesis? Specifically, where do I mention the description of the second experiment that was done?
The structure of my master thesis is this:
...
4. Experimental procedure
5. Results
6. Discussion
7. Conclusion
Currently I have the original experiment/method in the 'Experiment' section, but I am struggling to find a good place to mention the second/improved experiment/method.
Any suggestions are much appreciated

This is something to discuss with your advisor, but I can make a suggestion.
Some research that is based on constructed models turns out to be questionable if the model lacks stability and resiliency (robustness). There is a branch of science/math called catastrophe theory in which small changes to a system can produce dramatic, non-continuous, results. One way to guarantee that this is not the case is to tweak the model in small ways and determine if the outputs are also similarly small. If not, the model is too sensitive and may not give usable results.
So, what you have done, can be considered a validity check on your model and can be presented as such in a separate section. You have gained some evidence that the model is stable in some dimension. This could come after section 4 and before section 7, depending on how you want to write it up.
But your advisor's advice would be valuable.


Changing advisors during coursework Can an advisor suddenly say one day - "I have decided not to advise you anymore"?

Thanks!

Advisors can do this. (So can students.)  I would ask for some reason (money, competence, personality, etc.)  Not an interrogation or a debate (for now).  Just listen, don't argue and take notes on what he says.  Heck for all you know, his concern may be valid and may change your behavior with a subsequent advisor.

You should also go to the department chairman to discuss your options.

The situation becomes more serious the more time that you have spent with the professor.  If there has been a fair amount of time and you are at least semi-competent, his colleagues may pressure him to just work with you and get you past the goal line.  Every situation depends on the particulars (or even how the department behaves).  But alternately, if you are a "problem child", the professors may back up their colleague.

I would not expect some Roman judge standard of fairness, but I would certainly look at your options and talk to department chair, alternate advisors, and maybe even the grad school.  If you are a decent candidate and things are early, it may be simple to just move to an alternate advisor.


Is it beneficial for the applicant to mention other universities she is applying to? Going through the application process for several Master's Degrees, I have come across universities that ask what other programmes I am applying to on their application forms. It has been already discussed that there is no obligation on the applicant's part to answer them, but what is the best thing to do from a strategic standpoint?

Do universities frown upon applications to a lot of other places because of the risk that a candidate they admit will accept another offer? Do they gauge the level of confidence/ambition based on how selective other programmes are? How does it affect one's chances? Are there any other considerations?

From a strategic viewpoint it's best not to reveal this information. Revealing this information would not benefit an applicant in any way.

For example, if you tell a second-tier school that you're applying to lots of first-tier schools, it becomes a bigger risk for them to give you an offer.

I would suggest omitting this information from your application if possible.


Qualifications for textbook authorship Are there any requirements for writing a textbook that is accepted by (reputable) colleges?

Today, I got the odd idea in my head that it would be fun to write a compilation of the techniques and theorems I had learned relating to discrete mathematics.  As I find it fun to let my imagination run wild with these sorts of ideas, this compilation transformed into a tutorial, and from there transformed into a textbook.  I quickly decided I wasn't anywhere near qualified to write a textbook.

Fun daydreams aside, that made me wonder: What are the qualifications typically found in textbook authors?  Is a Ph.D. in the field a "must," or do some people write textbooks who hold Masters degrees (yet not a Ph.D.)?

What are the qualifications typically found in textbook authors? Is a Ph.D. in the field a "must," or do some people write textbooks who hold Masters degrees (yet not a Ph.D.)?

There are no rules for this in terms of minimal qualification. Why would there be? Readers want good books. Publishers want to sell books. Who cares if the author has a PhD or not?

In fact, trying to get deeper, it's often difficult to define precisely even what is meant by a "textbook" in the intuitive sense you probably mean.

For example, would books in the O'Reilly Media series be considered textbooks? Would instructional e-books? Etc.

As such the answer depends widely on the publisher or the book series (if any) you wish to contribute to.

For book series, there is typically an editor in charge who will make a judgement call on whether or not you are qualified and whether or not you can contribute something good to the series.

If dealing directly with a traditional academic publisher (I'm thinking of the likes of Springer), you (and your book proposal) will again be evaluated by their editorial staff before they agree to a contract. Likewise, they will only publish the book pending review by a number of experts that you propose.

But again, it varies widely.

In summary: I think if you have enough genuine material for a textbook -- material that people want to read -- you could find a reasonable publisher even without a Masters/PhD.